[gata79]

Who’d you get to build your engine 64speed? Lynch’s machine shop in Greenville builds a lot of Pontiacs.

[64speed]

Originally Posted by gata79

Who’d you get to build your engine 64speed? Lynch’s machine shop in Greenville builds a lot of Pontiacs.

To be honest I called Lynches and I know they race Pontiacs but I didn’t get a warm fuzzy. Wayne Sless in Greenwood builds all the engines for the Southeast Gassers Association and his attention to detail is bar none. He built two 421s for a friend of mine and I knew he was my man. Look up Caster1 build thread on here and you can see Wayne’s work

[Va68goat]

Formulajones,

I don't have a dyno sheet that indicates the 870 Street Avenger that I originally had. I was told that the dyno guy puts nicknames for Jeff's carburetors (850 Brawler). The first dyno had a Koerner carburetor ("Jeffy") on it but it was one that was for another car. The 2nd dyno is the "850 Brawler". The carburetor that was used on the first dyno is posted on this thread earlier.

[Formulajones]

So in a nutshell, from what I understand, in the last dyno session, they were able to use the carb that Jeff built specifically for your combo.

["QUICK-SILVER"]

Originally Posted by Formulajones

So in a nutshell, from what I understand, in the last dyno session, they were able to use the carb that Jeff built specifically for your combo.

In a nutshell the OP doesn't know how much torque or HP the engine originally made "as delivered". Paul never shared that info. He did post that it made 517 HP, with the 870, "BEFORE" it got jetted up. Can't read numbers in the you tube vid after jetting. Only dyno printout the OP got was what the engine was "capable of" with a Jeff carb.

What it can do VS. what you've got didn't make any sense back then and still doesn't to me. You'ld think what the customer paid for would be more important.

Sheets posted now show power is down (way down in some areas) with the new Jeff carb compared to the first Jeff carb. That tells me the new "specifically for your combo" carb isn't doing what it was suppose to do.

Clay

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by gtofreek

Since the engine was full of oil, the guy setting up the engine didn't install the oil temp probe. It has to go into the drain plug hole.

First dyno pull was with one of Jeffs carbs built for another guys engine. This second dyno sheet was with the carb Jeff built specifically for this engine. First dyno was in the fall when temps were cool. Last pulls were done in the heat of summer.

^^^^^^^^

Originally Posted by "QUICK-SILVER"

In a nutshell the OP doesn't know how much torque or HP the engine originally made "as delivered". Paul never shared that info. He did post that it made 517 HP, with the 870, "BEFORE" it got jetted up. Can't read numbers in the you tube vid after jetting. Only dyno printout the OP got was what the engine was "capable of" with a Jeff carb.

What it can do VS. what you've got didn't make any sense back then and still doesn't to me. You'ld think what the customer paid for would be more important.

Sheets posted now show power is down (way down in some areas) with the new Jeff carb compared to the first Jeff carb. That tells me the new "specifically for your combo" carb isn't doing what it was suppose to do.

Clay

I think you're looking at it backwards Clay or there is a misprint. Either way, As you can see Paul confirmed exactly what I remembered Paul told me. The carb specifically built for the combo is doing better than anything tested to this point. It's pretty common for Paul and Jeff to swap some carbs around for customers to show the differences and show what Jeff can do. Usually that means they use one that is available at that particular time that is tailored to another engine to give the customer an idea. Even with that said, many times they still produce better results than anything you pull out of a box.

Paul is a modest guy and won't brag, but I'll say it. Jeff is likely one of the best Holley carb guys in the country and I've been lucky enough to meet him. Super nice guy. He built Holley's for a few of the Nascar Cup teams before they went fuel injection and also ran his own Holley business throughout the 70's if I remember correctly. I wouldn't hesitate to run Jeff's carbs on my stuff..

[Va68goat]

proximity_alrt,

Thank you for taking the time to do that spreadsheet. It certainly makes is easier to read. Any idea what caused the drop in power from 1,600 to 3,000? As I said before, this is just a fun street car. Actually, I've never owned a car with this amount of power. I'm pretty sure this is more than enough for me to have fun! Just wondering about the lower rpm power range loss.

[Formulajones]

Paul could explain it to you better than anyone, he built it and knows more about the details and differences between the two dyno sessions.

[proximity_alrt]

Originally Posted by Formulajones

Paul could explain it to you better than anyone, he built it and knows more about the details and differences between the two dyno sessions.

Yes, pretty much this. Do you have a stall in the car? That would be part of the consideration in tuning it I would think.

[Va68goat]

I also forgot to mention that the last time we pulled the motor (Right before it went back to Arizona), we noticed damage to the oil pump shaft (Witness marks- I posted the pictures earlier). We switched the oil pump and the oil pump shaft, installed the motor again and it made the same noise.

Since the problem was discovered, all the diagnosis that we did, all the parts switched out were run by Paul first. My fear is that there is something majorly wrong with the motor. I know I'm very inexperienced with cars but I just feel that something is really wrong with this motor. I just think something was missed after it blew up on the dyno. When I sent the motor back and Paul found the bad distributor bushing he said and posted that the motor looked "great" after he disassembled it. He posted pictures of the bearings as well. Next thing I know, I'm told that Paul missed all the damage to the piston rings, bearings, crankshaft and the block needed a light honing. I think as easily as he missed "The recent damage", he could have missed the real problem. The oil pickup tube was not welded. That's something else that was "missed". From I'm told, that's a pretty standard thing to do and most guys do that because of the potential of that happening to these Pontiac motors.

I think it's the same noise. It may sound a little different because one video was in a garage and the other one was outside but in person...it's the same. My buddy who has been building Pontiac motors for over 37 years agrees. He's the guy that's been working on my car!

August 5th 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeOqYtY0Dng

July 14th 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To57VTU11xM

Originally I was told that it would be too difficult to hear that noise in the dyno room but now....I'm told the motor was not making any noise on the dyno. This last time on the dyno was allegedly the 4th time it was run on the dyno!

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by Va68goat

I also forgot to mention that the last time we pulled the motor (Right before it went back to Arizona), we noticed damage to the oil pump shaft (Witness marks- I posted the pictures earlier). We switched the oil pump and the oil pump shaft, installed the motor again and it made the same noise.

Since the problem was discovered, all the diagnosis that we did, all the parts switched out were run by Paul first. My fear is that there is something majorly wrong with the motor. I know I'm very inexperienced with cars but I just feel that something is really wrong with this motor. I just think something was missed after it blew up on the dyno. When I sent the motor back and Paul found the bad distributor bushing he said and posted that the motor looked "great" after he disassembled it. He posted pictures of the bearings as well. Next thing I know, I'm told that Paul missed all the damage to the piston rings, bearings, crankshaft and the block needed a light honing. I think as easily as he missed "The recent damage", he could have missed the real problem. The oil pickup tube was not welded. That's something else that was "missed". From I'm told, that's a pretty standard thing to do and most guys do that because of the potential of that happening to these Pontiac motors.

I think it's the same noise. It may sound a little different because one video was in a garage and the other one was outside but in person...it's the same. My buddy who has been building Pontiac motors for over 37 years agrees. He's the guy that's been working on my car!

August 5th 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeOqYtY0Dng

July 14th 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To57VTU11xM

Originally I was told that it would be too difficult to hear that noise in the dyno room but now....I'm told the motor was not making any noise on the dyno. This last time on the dyno was allegedly the 4th time it was run on the dyno!

You're leaving out some key details. The way that discussion went....

Paul only said that on initial tear down the bearings and rings looked okay because they still obviously had a light oil film on them. It wasn't until after he ran the parts through the washer where they could be inspected closer did he see the small particles imbedded in the bearings. The moly was flaked off the rings from detonation because the fact that the bushing was shot in the distributor jacked the timing all over the place, something that should have been easily found as I mentioned very early on in this thread.

So this wasn't something that Paul missed, it was something discovered upon cleaning and further inspection.

Jeff did not want to let this engine back out the door with bearings and rings like that, because that's not what you paid for, and I commend Jeff for that, stand up guy. However, the damage that occurred I think we can all agree did not start with Paul or Jeff. So you can't expect them to eat the bill on parts. They did however cover all labor and paid for most of your $1500 carb as well. More than fair.

[Va68goat]

Well...Here's the real deal. I never mentioned this before for several reasons. 1) I didn't want to embarrass Paul because I know how well respected he is in here but I also noticed he never mentioned this either on the thread. 2) Another reason I never mentioned this is because I wanted to keep an open line of communication with him and I didn't want to do anything to make him mad while I needed to make this motor right. At this point. I just need this motor right. It has cost me a fortune. I just paid basically 1/3 of what I originally paid for the motor just to get it back.

When Paul had the motor completed the first time, it went on the dyno for the FIRST time. While on the dyno, the motor blew up. Paul said the pickup tube fell into the pan which caused a "Vortex" and the motor blew up. Paul said he did not weld the pickup tube. Paul did weld the pickup when he rebuilt the motor (after it blew up). When it blew up on the dyno, Paul said he had to replace the crankshaft, bearings and had to replace 2 connecting rods. He said he had a hard time finding a company to sell him 2 connecting rods but eventually found a company to sell him just 2.

After the blown motor was rebuilt, Paul sent it to the dyno again. Paul wasn't present for the dyno but a rear main seal was discovered. Paul fixed the rear main seal leak and the motor was sent to my house. I wish Paul would have been present at the dyno considering it just went through a catastrophic failure. When we started it and posted the video here that is when the knocking noise was discovered.

I went through almost two years of diagnosis on the motor and $1,900 in parts, fluids, tools and having the heads inspected. Just to recap here is what we did.

- Switched the rockers out (Went with Crowers)
- Pulled the motor, discovered the witness marks on the windage tray and only one washer as spacers when I was told that he usually uses two washers.
- Changed out the pushrods
- Changed out the lifters
- Had the cylinder heads inspected (Checked out good)
- Went to a thicker oil (Didn't make a difference)
- Pulled the converter back on several different occasions (Still heard the noise)
- Realized the flex plate was the only thing that wasn't new or rebuilt. Switched the flex plate...noise is still present.
- Motor was sent to Arizona. Paul discovered the bad distributor bushing and said when he broke the motor down, everything looked great and even posted pictures of clean bearings. Jeff looked at the motor after Paul and said the bearings were bad, piston rings were bad, crankshaft needed to be polished the the block needed a light honing. Paul sent the distributor to MSD and they rebuilt it. I sent Paul a new polymer gear for the rebuilt distributor. It was sent to the dyno where I received the weird dyno sheet with a date of Oct of 2018 (the motor was at my house in Oct of 2018). Paul posted a new video on his Youtube page of the dyno run. The video was taken from inside the booth.

This has gone on long enough. I actually spoke to Jeff last night and he was cool with me. He told me to concentrate on what is on the car NOW but was not used on the dyno. He suggested that we take a closer look at the fuel pump. I know the car was idling pretty rough in the newest video. We didn't play with the timing and and the carb wasn't touched at that time. After taking the video, we started it up again and played with the idle a little bit. It didn't make a difference...the noise was still there. Jeff was very adamant that the "Knocking or ticking" noise is not the same. Me and and buddy are just as certain that it sounds the same. Believe me, at this point of the game..I hear that "Knocking / ticking" noise in my sleep. It sounds identical to what was going on before.

I don't want to spend the next 2 years diagnosing this car. I can't afford to again pay for the motor to be shipped to Arizona, pay Koerner Racing Engine a 3rd time to look at this motor. If anyone has any ideas...feel free to share it. I think we can all learn a little something from sharing some knowledge

[Va68goat]

promptcritical,

The heads checked out good. At that point, I was still communicating with Paul and asked him if it would be worth it to have the heads inspected and he agreed. Paul spoke with the guy from the machine shop and Paul explained where it needed to be. The guys gave the heads a clean bill of health and even commented on Pauls work once they understood from Paul what spring pressure needed to be.

[Va68goat]

promptcritical,
Yeah, this is a bummer. No clue how or if I should even proceed any further.

Squidward,
We've been down the road of assuring it's not an exhaust leak. That was checked again yesterday and my buddy is very confident that it's not. He's been working on Pontiacs for 37 years.

Mister Pontiac,
Thats great advice and I appreciate that. I've thought about just driving it and see what happens. It just makes me nervous to do that because what this motor has not only cost me originally, but what I just paid to get it back.

glhs#116,
Sorry to hear you're experiencing similar issues. I hope this thread helps!

STEELCITYFIREBIRD,
No damn clue. I know my buddy and I that helped me yesterday feel it sounds like the exact same sound.

krisr,
Prior to us starting the car yesterday, we've pulled the converter back on 3 diferent occasions and that wasn't the problem. We didn't do that yesterday because of time.

** At this point, I have no choice. Read my next post and maybe this will make more sense to everyone!**