NEW MOTOR FOR IMSA- HIGH RPM 345 SBC

[T-FATTY]

That is sharp looking! What are the braided lines coming out of the intake? [both sides of thermostat]

[mldeolde]

additional coolent lines to the rear cylinders. helps equalize the rear to front cylinder temps as the rears always run much hotter than the fronts when useing the factory system of cooling which in turn leads to difference in combustion in the rear cylinders vs the fronts ie the rears run leaner than the fronts. engines run much smother and produce more hp when everything is perfectly ballenced and all the cylinders are produceing the same amount of hp.

[T-FATTY]

What intake is that? It seems it already has bosses for those added cooling lines. Where do the lines hook up to at the back of the engine? I wonder if there is enough area on a RPM intake to do this? I'll have to go out to the garage to check this out. Nice looking motor, i like following everones build ups as i seem to learn alot.

[mldeolde]

the manifold is an Edelbrock VICTOR and at the time of this picture i had not cut the braided lines to fit yet but if you look closely at one of the side shots you will see the fitting that goes into the rear of the manifold '' looks just like the front ones" and is about in line with the distributor . THE SAME SETUP IS ALSO ON THE OPISET SIDE OF THE ENGINE.

[NixVegaGT]

Gettin' there Bruce. I'm having my heads reworked this holiday season for my cam upgrade. It took me so long to assemble the engine that I switch plans in the middle. LOL! Little here little there. YOu feel me? Have you had any time to work on the body?

[mldeolde]

no time to work on the body yet. still working on adapters for the new rear WILWOOD 4 piston brakes and trying to figure out how to dissasemble the hub asembliesto repace a wheel stud that has been missing since i got the car. also i can relate to your changing engine parameters in mid stream. i started with a factory block 4 bolt main 406 sbc then went to a 2 bolt block with a set of high end spayed 4 bolt main caps to be installed. next came the killer deal on the 3.18 stroke knifed crank and billet 6.29 inch aluminum rods to make the 345 cu in sbc and last but certainly not least the super deal on the bowtie spayed main chevy race block purchased from a real '' BLOCK HEAD" FLAKE in Las Vegas. transitioned from a double roller timing set to looking for a belt drive set up. no luck there so last week this new MILODON race gear drive showed up on E-BAY for $ 275.00 and seeing SUMMIT is selling it for over $500.00 and my engine builder brother has been on my case about the long term reliability of belt drives "anything with a rubber belt" , i chose to end the aurgument and get it and save a lot of money over the belt drive purchase to boot. Milodon insists that the single ideler of this system has no losses of hp to run this sytem compares favorably with belt drives in all areas and stronger in the area of absolute timing accuracy and longevity ,they say is better than the belt drives. we shall see.

[grenade]

who was this FLAKE you speak of in Las Vegas? Good luck with the project.

[mldeolde]

sorry for the delay in answering your question. the guys name is Dale Openshaw,e-bay ID was Carboncounty sales. he got booted off e-bay a while back after my complaints to e-bay and another poor soul who was more trusting than me and got ripped for about $1300.00 in one of this guys scams. this guy was a real druggie con artist who seemed to make residense between Utah and Las Vegas , going back and forth between the two and never holding any job in either place. the guy was a real piece of work. the whole story of what went on between he and i and the engine shop in Las Vegas that was unlucky enough to have befriended him and put up with all his shenanigans would take pages to document. lets just say i really had to jump thru hoops to get the new Bowtie block i purchased from him. it was only thru the help of the engine shop owner where the block was being stored that i was able to safely get it paid for and picked up in Vegas. if you ever need some trick head work done this guy,the owner of HBR ENGINES , on the race way complex grounds, is extreemly good at what he does. he does work for the likes of Carrol Shelby who also has a shop there and other biggies from Washington to Florida. i was impressed enough with how he handled my block situation and the machine work i needed done that i gave him my set of heads for the 345 sbc that i wanted a new spring/ valve combination installed. several other shops didn't want to touch the job as it was to out on the edge of what they thought possable but this guy went at it with gusto as he talked turkey with the techs at both Brodix and Comp Cams to get thier personel blessings that this procedure could be made to work, just barely, but definately doable tho pushing the envelope. my brothers and i push the envelope all the time doing what they say can't be done or won't work or nobody does that so nothing new there. the heads turned out fantastic and now the next challenge is cutting the shaft rockersystems bolts ,which protrude into the exhaust ports, cut down and angled so as to not intrude into the flow of the ports. i suppose i could go to ARP and get some new shorter bolts but a custom order would be costly so why not cut the existing ones to match the port walls conture when they are properly torqued. i know nobody does that but we do !!!!!!!!!!! JUST LIKE NOBODY SEEMS TO PUT A GOOD WINDAGE TRY ON THESE ENGINES. SO WE JUST MODIFIED AN EXISTING ONE FOR A 350 SBC, A DIAMOND STRIPPER FROM MILODON,AND MODIFIED SOME EXISTING ARP STUDS TO WORK IN THIS APPLICATION.

[mldeolde]

new pics of gear drive and windage tray mods to make fitment possable.

[mldeolde]

ANOTHER PIC OF WINDAGE TRAY MODS....

[grenade]

Rick at HBR. I know of him. Good luck with the build, and keep it rockin

[mldeolde]

well i thought the day would never come. Monday morning i finally got the crank,rods, and pistons out to the shop to have everything ballenced and the crank polished one more time. i think i've had this thing in various states of assembly and then dissassembly to check compatability of parts and tolerences about five times. things like modifying the windage tray to the Bowtie block,decieding to go from double roller timing set to the Moroso single idler gear drive to name a couple. shortening some of the ARP head studs ever so slightly to clear the shaft system valvetrain and cylinder head gasket issues encountered due to useing the billet Aluminum rods that led to the use of thick metal head gaskets. also the pushrods haveing to be two different lengths due to the differing ratios of intake and exhaust rockers took a while to get scienced out. still have to install things like the oil restrictors and screens in the block and complete the external cooling equalization hoses and fittings to the intake but then we will be pretty much ready to assemble the long block. i still have to decied if i am going to drill the block for a dip stick as the block has blanks on both sides for that if you want but you have to drill and finnish that your self. seeing i am running a vaccume pump i am thinking that another hole that could allow a vaccume leak might not be the best idea. still undecided.

[Ishiftem]

I like the car and the build. I do think you should reconsider the aluminum rods. It's not a matter of horsepower, but a matter of rpm and fatigue strength. The forces of the piston changing direction 300 times a second will fatigue the rods. It is not a matter of if, but how long it will take. I realize the budget constraints, and light,strong, steel rods aren't cheap. Figure though how much you will spend replacing those rods or worse yet, you keep them in a little too long and they part company with the crank. That would be real expensive. I dig the short stoke large bore. Should sound neat at 9 grand. Good Luck

[mldeolde]

all i can say about the GRP rods is that they will be more than adequite for my application. i had a long converstion with one of thier techs and he informed me that these rods had been endurance tested on a 1200 hp twin turbo v-6 with absolutly no failures. that was good enough for me as my engine with only 550-600 hp in a v-8 is really only stressing the rods half as much as the engine they tested them on.

[mldeolde]

PS: this car will not have that many hours put on the engine and most of its time will probably be spent on the street so it won't be seeing 9,000 rpm very frequently or for that long. " OVERKILL" my 75 Monza IMSA project car, is ment to be something to give those Roush,Saleen,500 GT,and Shelby Mustangs nightmares about . also the '' RESTO MOD" of a rare classic build"not to be confused with hacking up a factory made classic like A 69 z-28 Camero" i find to be and interesting and also rare oppertunity not to be missed.