1975 Vega GT

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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby BadBowtie » Fri May 15, 2015 7:43 pm

Decided not to use the threaded inserts, driver side front corner sits a bit high/far from the corner so I will need to tweak it. Hinges are welded together and half-welded to the hood for testing. I had some free time so I started to trim out the hood bracing, I'd like to have the hood roughly done by next friday so I can focus on the intake again.
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1975 Vega GT sbc, Microsquirt w/Edelbrock MPFI, M21 4-speed and Ford 9"
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby BadBowtie » Sat May 16, 2015 4:53 pm

I'm excited now, I spent the morning tweaking the hood and hinge to get a decent panel gap, its close enough but definitely not perfect. Test fit the crossram for hood clearance, with a 2.5" filter it just fits under the hood. I need to see what I can do for filters to make sure I dont choke out the carbs, but its possible I might not have to put a scoop on the car.
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby BadBowtie » Mon May 25, 2015 5:29 pm

Spent a few days verifying and setting 90% of the intake up, this morning I had everything laid out on the workbench ready to put it on. Took the intake gaskets out of the packaging, Felpro-1206 which are matched to my heads (ported) and it turns out the intake doesn't have enough meat around the runners to seal (the edge is past the intake flange). I took a lot of things into consideration but this hasn't been as issue with any of the intakes I've previously run so I wasn't expecting it and I'm pretty dissapointed. Short of using different heads or adding material to the intake (not happening) there is no feasible way for me to seal it.

So for now I've decided to put the old intake/carb back on and run the car until I get a better set of heads or something else comes to light, it would be nice but I cant justify getting new heads just for the intake when these are top notch. Its not a complete waste since my rear intake seal was leaking and my distributor broke, not to mention having the modified hood I could probably run the full size air cleaner again. At least now I have the full crossram system ready to go down the road, air cleaners to fasteners. Its one of those things that I just never really considered because I simply didn't know, live and learn!

2015-05-25 12.02.26.jpg
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Last edited by BadBowtie on Tue May 26, 2015 1:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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1975 Chevrolet Vega GT

Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby Kenova » Mon May 25, 2015 9:27 pm

Elongate the bolt holes and shift the gasket into a better position. Use some sort
of tacky gasket spray to hold the gasket in place while assembling.

Ken
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby BadBowtie » Mon May 25, 2015 9:47 pm

Kenova wrote:Elongate the bolt holes and shift the gasket into a better position. Use some sort
of tacky gasket spray to hold the gasket in place while assembling.

Ken


I was attempting to do that however because of how little material there is on the head it wont seal, the heads are ported spot on to the 1206 gasket. Also on the other side of the gasket (that seals to the intake) there is a small blue bead that creates the seal, I could get rid of the gasket altogether and use silicone but it's difficult to explain without manipulating the two parts side by side, in short the edge of the intake would always lay on the inside of the runner of the cylinder head and have nothing to press against to create a seal. The previous picture is somewhat misleading.
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby BadBowtie » Mon May 25, 2015 11:43 pm

To avoid more confusion I'm posting the pictures I used to explain to a friend my issue. It will probably be a day or so before I put the old intake on if you have comments.

*edit x2
so now i have to consider that i found someone else verifying my issue online "To make it fit a 1206 your going to have to add weld to the top edge for a seal. The runner has a pretty good size cross section up top enough meat to open the exit end up to match a 1206. I have a new one with the two four top i bought about 12yrs ago. Already matched a 1206 up to it for a looksee was going to use it for a light street rod that never happened."
I might have some thinking to do before I re-consider putting on the old intake. Do i modify an old, fairly rare intake to fit my setup or do I "save it for another time" where i need to get different non-ported heads?

Here you can see an exaggeration of what is happening
1186272_10151586290036524_1264348278_n.jpg


Here you can see with me lifting the intake a hair so the camera can focus on the slight gap that went un-noticed. The outside of the intake manifold sits on the edge/inside of the head runner.
2015-05-25 23.26.19.jpg
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby Smiley » Tue May 26, 2015 6:23 am

Look at gaskets that match the intake ports there may be some that are taller at the top.
There are companies out there now that can laser cut custom gaskets from aluminum or copper.
they also use intake spacers on big block Chevy tall deck engines to run standard intakes so you could make your own spacers to adapt the 2 ports.
if you run a spacer and double gaskets use a distributor with an adjustable shoulder stop for the proper cam gear and oil pump engagement.

Summit list 3 Felpro SBC intake gaskets as cut to fit maybe they might bridge the gap.
#1245 is .120" thick
#1244 is .060" thick
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby BadBowtie » Tue May 26, 2015 9:19 am

The issue isn't that the gasket isn't tall enough, the issue is that the way the intake sits on a ported head there is nothing for the top edge of the intake to seal against as its floating in the runner. Running a spacer, double gaskets and a distributor with an adjustable shoulder stop is probably not my preferred choice as its a bit excessive just to get an old 60's intake to work, back when the intake ports in stock heads were very small by todays standards. I did a lot more research last night and it seems like its a common practice on these intakes, tunnel rams and older casting intakes to add material to the outside of the intake and then port match the opening, "raising the roof" as its called. In my mind I'm starting to see that I have two choices, leave the intake stock and have it sit on a shelf until I swap back small non-ported heads or modify the intake permanently to make it usable on most current and aftermarket heads.

To top it off I'm not swapping this intake as jewellery so I'm strongly considering adding that material, I wanted to swap it in because its an intake thats proven to work, most people know the stories that all crossram cars had no bottom end and only woke up at 5000-6000 rpm but in fact they made more torque low down and midrange than a ported z28 intake and kinsler 8 tube fuel injection, on the top end only to be peaked by the fuel injection by a hair after 7400rpm. Aside from people who over carb them on the street, these intakes were made to work. The intakes are tricky but if you can keep the air speed up with smaller carbs like I have it should be very streetable and still pull in the top end to my lower redline. Obviously its difficult to compare it directly to todays intakes as the tech industry have taken design to a new level, but there is something to be said about nostalgia.

So after all that rambling it seems that I'd rather have an intake that works than an intake that looks cool on the shelf until I find something more-stock to work with... :lol: I may have made my own decision
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby Vegabee » Tue May 26, 2015 1:02 pm

What a bummer.Here's some heads to try when on a budget
http://www.skipwhiteperformance.com/lis ... ct=D&Sub=A
At bottom of this description page are some gasket #s that work for these.For 615 bucks that might get that intake on.That Howards roller looks sweet too!
http://www.skipwhiteperformance.com/det ... NKS200272A
I would make an exact matching intake gasket for that cross ram and mail it over to them because those ports look quite high also.They would tell ya if it's workable.
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby zeke » Tue May 26, 2015 1:37 pm

:idea: Make an adapter "gasket" out of some thin aluminum sheet and use quality silicone on each side.
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby BadBowtie » Wed May 27, 2015 1:37 pm

Dropped the intake off today to get modified, asked a friend who's shop welds aluminum for a living about it and immediately he said had done quite a few before and gave me an excellent price. Looks like the crossram is back in play, hopefully it turns out alright :mrgreen:
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby BadBowtie » Thu Jun 11, 2015 12:45 am

While the intake was getting welded I stripped the outside of the spare hood and trimmed the inside a bit more, paint removal was tough because there was several layers of pain up to 1/8" thick in some places. The marks you can see are from where there used to be hood pins.

22801_10152812244751524_5537241704595072409_n.jpg


11406802_10152834367061524_5801889998114749036_n.jpg


Also got the intake back, hopefully going on the car soon. Hopefully everything fits well around it, it looks like a lot of material but in comparison to modern intakes its about the same. The intake gasket fits now and everything seems to line up on the head. Hopefully it wont be long now.

11427167_10152834367141524_3396492092194185675_n.jpg

11402953_10152834367066524_537060314668580610_n.jpg

11401350_10152834367056524_2717162130609048724_n.jpg
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby zeke » Thu Jun 11, 2015 8:54 am

Building an h-body is all about overcoming issues, one at a time

What will you do to support the hood skin now?
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby BadBowtie » Thu Jun 11, 2015 9:59 am

zeke wrote:Building an h-body is all about overcoming issues, one at a time

What will you do to support the hood skin now?


I was planning on capping the open ends and then welding/bonding the perimeter seam, that should stiffen it up significantly. The hood bulge actually maintains rigidity but the flat section between the bulge and body line does have some give to it, I was thinking about running one support on each side and welding/bonding it to the skin for rigidity. Having had the hood on and off a few times the stiffness of the hood hasn't seemed to be a problem so I'm not to sure yet.

When we talking about working/building cars my father likes to say that "If it were easy, everyone would do it " .
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Re: 1975 Vega GT

Postby zeke » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:36 am

BadBowtie wrote:
When we talking about working/building cars my father likes to say that "If it were easy, everyone would do it " .


Yep, one of mine also. :th:

:idea: You could add significant strength where needed using 3/8" square steel tubing tacked to the skin to remove the flimsiness.
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