Cascade Crew

rjmcgee · The Hammer Joined: 08 Jan 2004 Posts: 2320

Going on the 327 Brandon?

I just found out an hour ago, after a spirited drive, that I'm also going to be dabbling in some engine work! Old 350 finally gave up the ghost and sounds like there's a hammer in the pan.

chevymad · Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 4:26 pm Post subject:

Yup, on the 327. Whats your plan Rod?

Got the heads off finally today. Man this motor is clean inside. Looks like it was just bolted together. Not in the combustion chambers, but i'm talking there's no oil sludge deposits at all.

I can definitely see which 2 cylinders were burning oil. Heavy carbon deposits on the pistons/chambers. No sign that it's rings though. Appears to all be valve guides/seals. Need to take the springs loose and check the guides. Maybe I just cut the seals installing last time or something. But seems like an awful lot of oil for just cut seals. Was allready fouling the 2 plugs. Got maybe 200 miles on them.

Measured piston depth so I can get some gaskets. Look like I need a thin set, which I expected. The ole motor's not too square either. #1 cylinder is just under 0.040 in the hole. But #7 is 0.025.

Anybody with experience using a shim gasket and aluminum heads? Other options?

chevymad · Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 4:56 pm Post subject:

Found a thread where Wolfplace answered that the 1094's work fine with aluminum. Looks like that's my answer.

rjmcgee · The Hammer Joined: 08 Jan 2004 Posts: 2320

I'm not real sure what I want to do yet, was a surprise to me. Not a big surprise I guess, this thing has been together almost 15 years, most miles were hard miles! I have a 96 chevy pickup with a bad transmission that I'm thinking about going thru and putting my heads on if their in good shape. I had these heads rebuilt a few years ago because the guides were shot, but I believe that was due to the shitty comp roller tip rockers I had. Thinking better bottom end, bigger cam, and maybe freshen up the T5 while it's out.

Not up on any of this anymore, is Comp cams still good? The XE274 was actually pretty tame and power peaked at about 5500. Thinking one size bigger roller cam.

chevymad · Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 6:08 pm Post subject:

Everybody's gone roller, so I think most of the flat tappet stuff hasn't changed. Comp, lunati... whatever. I'd pick a cam then google it to see how it turned out.

chevymad · Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2015 7:16 pm Post subject:

Almost have everything bolted together. Funny, I was worried about how dirty my intake was and whether I should have powdercoated it before install. Now that its together you can't even see it. Sad

And you'd have no idea there were aluminum heads under there either.

ARP hardware was nice. New spark plug placement leaves lots of room to the headers. I could barely get the plug wires on the delco plugs before. Now there's a minimum 1/2" clearance.

Not the best weekend for wrenching. Every morning the sun would hit the roof of the barn and it would start raining inside. Frost melt time. Then I'd crank up my heater and the start in with the motor still covered in frost.

Surprisingly the hedman headers I bought from Barnes 15 years ago are still solid. This Y pipe I just bought a few years ago however is holed again. So I still have that to rework yet. Also on hold for a new fan switch. Frigging broke the connector off this one cleaning up the intake.

Anybody ever use a rocker type tool for checking pushrod length? I have one. I think I had trouble using it last time too. According to it, my pushrods are almost 1/8" too long. According to the witness mark they're a hair too short. According to Edelbrock I should have bought longer ones. Thinking I either have the wrong rocker tool or its a pos. I had a brand new set of comp pushrods that I got in error. They're now in the 327. I think its close enough with stock type rockers.

Interesting thing though, looking for advice on this tool, I found a post from Joe Sherman. A trick he uses when limited to a certain cam is to cheat on the pushrod length. Set the length not by the width of the witness mark, but instead on the max lift of the valve opening. I believe he said that if the valve stem and pushrod form an acute angle, a shorter pushrod will result in more lift. If they form an obtuse angle use a longer rod. Not really what I'm trying for, but found it interesting that someone would set up a race motor with improper geometry as a trick, and yet it works. Maybe its not near so critical.

chevymad · Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 8:18 pm Post subject:

Finis. Fired right up, had the timing within 2*, Think i'm getting good at that lol Interestingly, It seems a bit louder now. Has a bit sharper tone/more cackle. Deb even remarked about it after hearing it from the house. I've only ran it down to the Y and back, so haven't really gotten on it yet. Not too safe with wet road and there are some deer running around out there somewhere. I'll give it a better try tomorrow. I was worried about losing too much torque with the bigger heads, since the 327 is allready low on it. But I think I gained. It easily barked the tires on the 2nd shift at half throttle.

chevymad · Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 7:46 pm Post subject:

Torque is definitely up. Hp I can tell some.. but I bet its not a huge jump. Haven't played much in the upper rpms yet though. Exhaust is totally different sounding. One other reason I thought of, these heads don't have the exhaust crossover, so that might change the tone.

aaron_sK · Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2015 11:11 am Post subject:

Glad to hear it made an improvement, man. Thumbs up

Do you think your rocker geometry may be contributing to the change in exhaust tone as well?

Dewey316 · Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2015 11:33 am Post subject:

You also have a completely new chamber shape, I would guess that would effect exhaust tone a fair amount.

chevymad · Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2015 6:48 pm Post subject:

Fast burn chambers I'm sure contribute. It's fun. drove it again today. The first shift instead of a chirp is a full on tire burning slide.

chevymad · Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 6:24 pm Post subject:

Well I seem to have a vacuum leak, or maybe something else as well. Fighting inconsistant idle. Looking close my intake may not be compatible with these heads. Thinking I'll have to take it off. Edelbrock says the heads use their 7201 gasket, and their current performer intake says the same. I used the felpro 1205 which is supposed to be the same size. But I see that the blue printo-seal line is sticking out from under the intake by quite a bit in a few places. Looking at pics of the gasket there doesn't seem to be much gasket inside that line. So either the edelbrock gasket is different, or they've changed their performer intake's since I bought mine back in the 90s.

Something else weird happening. Sometimes it starts making a huge sucking noise. But by the time you get pulled over to check it the noise goes away. I'm thinking it may be the AC, but need to catch it sometime.

I'm half tempted to finally dispose of the carb and build some type of megasquirt setup.

Alphius · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 5:10 am Post subject:

I'm down with FI conversions. Very Happy

Even a super cheap TBI with MegaSquirt would probably be nice for consistency and easier starting on that engine and still keep the classic carb look.

aaron_sK · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 11:34 am Post subject:

A junkyard TBI unit and wiring harness, junkyard tank and lines, a cheap low-profile single-plane intake, and an MS2. Whole mess should come in around $600. Cool

Dewey316 · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 11:41 am Post subject:

I'll make you a deal on a TBI system with single plane, the whole deal ready to roll.

chevymad · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 4:56 pm Post subject:

No... it won't be a stock tbi.. I've got one if I actually had to do that. My tank actually allready has an electric pump. It would just need a higher pressure one put in, instead of the carb version.

If I did TBI it would be a Fitech 4 barrel self contained unit and a walbro in the tank. Fitechs 400hp unit is only $795 currently and coming down. They have a fairly inexpensive multiport unit now too. Nice thing, no wire harness to mess with.

chevymad · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 9:18 pm Post subject:

Think I found my problem. I think my intake was bought to fit my original 87 305. Which means it was made for the smaller ports. That intake even says it won't fit chevy's own performance heads of the time(vette l98s) Looking like I'll be needing a modern intake.

chevymad · Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 7:01 pm Post subject:

And of course, as long as the intake has to come back off, I think maybe I need to upgrade the camshaft.... Shocked

QwkTrip · Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 7:43 pm Post subject:

Makes sense to me. Shrug

chevymad · Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 6:50 pm Post subject:

Interesting. I have a Performer 3701. In it's instructions it says it takes a fel-pro 1205 size gasket. However, it also says it has the smaller 1.14x1.88 port. Their gasket on that port means there's about 1/16th of an inch of coverage. If that. Hard to tell but I think I can see light in the corners. So it won't work.

Reminds me of trying to fit and Edelbrock carb on a Performer intake without a leak.

In fact, all performer intakes except the vortec's are saying they're 1.14x1.88. Where I need 1.28x2.09. Talk about a choke point. I see intake flow theory says the port should taper smaller as it gets towards the valve to increase velocity. So small ports on big heads isn't so good.

Was thinking of a Weiand.. but looking like it may have the same issues.. time for research.