[71SportRagtop]

I got my new 428 fired up today!

The motor went in last weekend and I spent every night this week after work buttoning things up. 2 of my buddies came over this morning and we double and triple checked everything. Last night I put my battery charger on the battery to make sure it was fully charged.

Once we felt everything was kosher for start up, I filled the radiator with a mixture of coolant and distilled water. I already had the distributor set with the #1 piston at TDC. I pulled the distributor, and used my buddy's engine priming tool to prime the motor. I ran the engine primer for about 15-20 minutes with both valve covers off. My gauge read good oil pressure and when I saw oil flow in the valvetrain, I dropped the distributor back in and put the valve covers back on.

My buddy poured a little fresh gas into the carb and he grabbed the distributor to play with the timing and I turned the key. Nothing. It cranked for a second or two but didn't even stumble. I was so paranoid about cranking the motor on the new cam that for a split second I wasn't sure what to do but my buddy rotated the distributor slightly and poured a little more gas in and she started right up!

I ran the motor up to 2000 RPM and held it there for a while. Then I gradually took it up to 2200 then 2400 RPM and held it there for a while. I had my eyes glued to my oil pressure and water temp and everything held at good levels. I ran the motor at alternating RPM's above 2000 for about a half hour and other than my valve cover slightly leaking oil which dripped onto my headers and creating light smoke everything went flawlessly. We set the timing as best as we could not really knowing what it should be set at for a new motor with a hotter cam.

I shut the motor down and looked for leaks. Everything seemed OK but the temp crawled a little high due to the fan not running anymore so I allowed the motor to cool down for about 2 hours. Then I got a fan from my attic and plugged it in right in front of the car and pointed it at the radiator. I fired the motor up again and ran it for another half hour.

After another half hour, I shut the motor down again and cleaned everything up. I'm hoping that was enough to break in the cam properly.

I have a few minor bugs to work out. My Doug's headers sit a little differently than my Hooker headers and while I jury rigged up my exhaust to fire the motor up, I'm probably going to have to take the car to a muffler shop to be set up properly. Also my pulleys didn't line up correctly. My previous motor was a 68 400 and my 428 is a 69. My water pump pulley lines up perfectly with the PS pump but the alternator isn't even close. Again, I jury rigged it but I think I need a 69 or later water pump pulley.

Once I get everything fixed to the point where I am comfortable driving the car, I am going to take it to a friend who does performance work on the side and have him tune this motor properly to get max performance, then it will be cruising time!