[spink7124]

Alright guys, here's my car.





Its an '80 T/A with a D1sc procharger on it. This is how it looked around the summer of 2005ish. I built all the brackets myself; they are dual 3/4" aluminum plate with five bolts holding it to the head.





The motor was a pretty much stock '76 400 with 4x heads (around 8:1 compression) a performer intake, cheap dynomax headers, a comp cams XE262, and the procharger huffing in 8lbs of boost. It ran great for what it was and I really enjoyed the car but then the motor started knocking. Upon disassembly I found this:





I had just become a victim of the dreaded thin main web 400 blocks! At this point in time I still had lots of interest in the car, and not only did I decide to make it faster but at the same time I decided to move the motor back six inches, seem weld the subframe, replace the bolt in subframe connectors with custom weld-ins, better brakes, better suspension geometry, custom front and rear motor plates, and the list goes on and on.









It seemed as if the project would never come to an end; I had bitten off more than I could chew, I ended up concentrating more on college, got a serious girlfriend and got into off roading and four wheel drive trucks:





If you're still with me, here comes the questions. My car has been sitting for so long and I desperately want to get it running again. The problem is I don't have much time or money. I have a 71 400 block and N crank that I was planning on an all out effort on: 260cfm d ports, aluminum rods, splayed mains, filled block, and around 15lbs of boost to try and make as close to 750hp on pump gas as I can. Trouble is I just don't have the money right now.

So the new plan is to get the car running as cheap as possible so that I can at least drive it. I picked up a 76 455 with 70,000 original miles on it out of a grandville station wagon (dude bought it for demo-derby, I know...sad!) locally for a very reasonable price.

This 455 is complete from top to bottom, including the factory 6h-6 heads which are said to amount to around 7.5:1 compression. I want to continue to run the blower on this motor with around 8lbs of boost and I was thinking a better option would be to run the heads off my previous 400 motor.

These heads are 4x 4h's, they have 2.11/1.66 valves, screw in studs, and come in right around 98cc's. From my calculations this should give me right around a 9:1 compression ratio- a lot for a blower motor I know, but also remember I'm not looking for max performance out of this thing, I just want to be able to drive it around again. My distributor is set up for about 36 degrees of total timing, with 12 degrees initial all in by around 2400. I am also running a MSD 6btm, so I can always dial it back a bit if need be.

Pertinent to this post is also my aquisition of an intercooler which I bought from Brad Spidel on this very board. It has 3.5" ins and outs, is 4" thick, 17" tall and around 34" wide.

I am also in need of a cam for this swap, and the same time I purchased the intercooler from Spidel I also purchased a cam it is a monster and probably way too much for my combo- its got 251/263 duration at .050, .530/.556 lift, and has a 114 lobe separation.

So to recap here are my plans: stock '76 455 bottom end, I plan of checking the bearing clearances and replacing the oil pump. Changing valve springs and swapping on my previous motor's 4x heads, Spidel's nasty camshaft, an old torker intake, and my procharger setup running 8lbs of intercooled boost.

So how does this sound to everyone? Will it run without being gutless down low? I know this is far from an ideal setup, but remember, I'm trying to use what I have as I really don't have a lot of time or especially money.

The car also has a richmond five speed and 3.08 rear and will probably come in at aroun9 3600-3700lbs.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions!
Later,
James