While working on my 5.7 install in my 97 Blazer in the basement I noticed that the sun was shining and it was warming up (in the 50’s) a bit outside so I decided to go out to the back yard to get some more measurements on the Vega and the C4. While getting the measurements I started to remove some things from the engine compartment so I could get more of an idea on the engine placement in the Vegavette.
I pulled the Holley carb. to get ready to pull the engine and one of the valve covers just to see what the top side of the head looked like. The engine is being pulled to go through it completely and possibly to put a different cam in (I forget what cam I used for the build back then).
The inside of the engine is still as clean as when I built it and the outside is still as dirty as when we removed it from the mud truck. We had planned on pulling the engine back out to clean it up and go through the engine to make sure everything was still in good shape after running it for the last two racing seasons without a teardown. We changed the oil and filter after each weekend of racing and pulled the sparkplugs to look at them but that is all we did to the engine for two years.
The above photo show that I have room to move the engine back at least 4 inches if I use a smaller distributer and do a little modification to the stock firewall. If I use the center section of the C4 firewall in the Vega body I can get all the room needed to set the engine back as much as needed to use the C4 frame (engine placement in relation to the centerline of the front wheels).
The Accel Super Coil and HEI distributor will have to go to allow the engine to move back as much as needed for the C4 frame install.
More to come in the next episode of the Vegavette build………………….