[marks73ta]

Hey guys. Haven't added much lately slow so I thought I'd update a little. Got my car to Pontiac Heaven show over the previous weekend. Lots of great comments, a few head shakes (both up and down and a few back and forth, heh), won a plaque for favorite project of the show. Saturday was 91 and hot, Sunday was 75 but the sun was intense and there was 40 MPH gust that upset the racing every now and again. But over all a great weekend. Monday morning I woke up not feeling well. (Sorry for the graphics but) I started having things coming out of parts of my body that I didn't even know were there. You know in "Alien" when the thing rips out of the guys chest. It woud have felt better if it had riped out of my chest. At one point I passed out, dumped over into the bath tub smacking the tub spout on a 45 degree angle, with my face, and ending up butt up and face down in the tub. On a sidenote, if you're gunna hurt yourself, passing out first is the way to go man, you don't feel a thing and I'll never fear a tub spout in the future, heh. My wife heard the crash and found me face down and out. Took her 45 seconds before I responded. So after that every episode she was with me in the bathroom. A second time she said after wretching I just sat stright up staring at the wall, she said I was totally unresponsive for another 45 seconds before I blinked. That did it, I was going to the hospital. Went at 8:00 pm and left for home at 2:30 am. A bunch of tests, blood samples and a bag of fluid. That was Monday the 2nd and I'm still battling it. Whatever it was it was nasty. OK enough about me.
I got a call from Paul Carter down in Tucson and they are about ready to final assemble the motor. I had asked him to look into seeing if the piston dish would accomodate CV-1 valve locations or if they had to be cut while it was still apart. The pistons now will accomodate any head except them, and I thought if I should ever want to change heads, the added valve notches would at least give me the option. I may never use them but at least they would then be a bolt on option should I want to. He thinks the dish would cover the valve notch area and notching would then not be neccessary. He's still checking but I felt good about that. So I may have the motor done and home soon.
I also made my decision on a transmission. It's not optimum for a turbo motor but it is a hell of a lot more fun. With Aron's help (he bought and is building my old Trans Am) he located an early Dearborn 3 speed toploader transmission. He hepled me get it and it is resting comfortably in my garage. Found a BOP lakewood blow proof bellhousing at the Pontiac Heaven swap meet with the block plate. I feel that the original Pontiac trans being a 3 speed, will work the motor better than a 4 speed. One less shift to do (and or miss, LOL), wider gear ratios, and these things are indestructable. Now I just need a strong clutch and to build a shifter mount and add a shifter. I'm excited about the trans. I think I'm going to use/find an old V-gate type shifter (either Mr Gasket or Hurst) and adapt it to 3 speed use. I know some of the critics of the shifter used on the street was the added complexity of down shifting with the pull up etc to get it down into the 1st/2nd range, but with using the 3 speed I will only need to drop one time, I'll build a solid gate lock out so I don't mistakenly push it up into reverse (the 1st gear on a 4 speed shifter). I think it will work fine.
Now the bad news. When I bought the heads the seller said that he thought they'd be Ok to use as is but could use a rebuild. So I planned to do that. Bolt them on and rebuild them the next off season. But we found that who ever machined/assembled them used too narrow of a valve seat insert which allowed a little too much aluminum between the valve seats instead of butting the inserts together more and the heat of the motor and possibly using nitrous, created a hot spot and probably low grade detonation and degraded the aluminum. So to correct that I will have to go ahead and do the rebuild first. I'll go to 1.77 valves from the 1.66 and the wider seats will correct that problem. And the guides and everything will be all solid and blueprinted to spec. It's a good thing to do, just had not expected it right away.
I still have to get to the guy that built the rearend for the car and get the axles ordered and in. Then I can permanently install the rearend and ladder bars.
So that's kind of it in a nut shell. More odds and ends to do also but my fingers are wore out. MArk L