[Jack Gifford]

Plenty of old Pontiac aluminum rods laying around... Oh- you probably want them to be still in one piece?

[marks73ta]

Actually a well bent but intact rod would be even better. That's where one of the old rubber rods would work. I could clamp it in the vice and twist it with pliers, LOL. I have a good friend down here that has an old unusable set of Howards aluminum rods that he has offered one up from. Probably will need polishing so I have to look up someone local that can do a nice polish job on it. If it's not too bad I might be able to do it by hand myself. Mark L

[BruceWilkie]

Mark, I have a few(5?) early "rubber" rods in my scrap bucket. If you want them they're yours.

[marks73ta]

A good friend down here just offered me a rod from a unusable set of Howards rods he has. So I'm going to try to polish them up and see how it turns out. Thank you for the offer though Bruce. If I had accepted you could have given them a toss and bounce over to me, LOL. (Air mail) Mark L

[marks73ta]

Yesterday I decided to retain the chromed cast pot metal section of the dash. This would normally hold the speedometer and center gauges or air vent as was in my car. Then the Passenger side has a identical opening as the speedometer on the driver side.





So you can see that Im still using the extended top section that closes the top all in and the mid to leading edge will get padding and uphostered. The the mid section will stay the chrome casting and get the two outside holes closed. The openings are curved so I may just make a sheet aluminum filler and paint it black OR, if I can find some flexable plastic glass I will put some kind of design on the backside and paint black over the that and install to fill the holes. I want to build a "deck" out on top of the steering wheel support behind the connecting rod top/pin with twin pods on either side of the center. Maybe a fuel gauge between the pods and a 5 inch speedometer in the inside pod and a 5 inch Tach in the outside pod. I'll build a small center console coming down form the center of the cast dash and install important guages up in the center of the chromed dash and secondary gauges and radio in the part from the chrome dash to the floor. Going to try to draw a concept of what I'm talking about if I can.
With the center built I'll build the drivers side "pods" etc and tie that into the center and then build the bottom of the passenger side and tie that in. We'll see how well I do. Mark L

[marks73ta]

I got that Howards aluminum rod from my friend this morning and set it up for my steering drop. The little shift light I have is laying next to it and is just a hair too big to set in the pin end but that won't take much to fit. Getting there slowly. Time to get serious about finding a speedometer, tach and gauges.



Mark L

[mechanickeith]

Mark,,What Dia. is the shift light?? I have adjustable reams. May have the one you need. Think I have seen that rod before!

[marks73ta]

Ya YU Betcha!!! It measures out at 1.006. But I'm not sure if I will use that light or another, if I get one along with a tach?? But I'll certainly talk at ya when I know for sure. Thanks Keith for making the rod available. I saw that on a hot rod somewhere sometime and it always stuck in my mind for use some day. Mark L

[mechanickeith]

I have a 1" spiral taper ream!!!! We can make it fit!!!

[marks73ta]

I've been accumulating parts here and there as I wait for the heat to go away, 113 yesterday, 113 today and possibly 115 tomorrow. For me I hit the jackpot today. I'm using a Hilborn can driven fuel pump off an old local dragster for my fuel pump. But I didn't want to pull the fuel all the way from the rear tank with it. I wanted to find a Moon tank to mount in the front and feed it with a small electric pump. This would feed the Hilborn pump really nice. But I also wanted to have a fuel level control of some sort in the tank so I was thinking to modify whatever tank I got with a flat flange to accept a Holley fuel bowl. Bodda Bing, Bodda Boom, I look on Performance Years classified pages and what do I find??? Just exactly what I needed. To a tee. Thanks to Chris (Torment) I've got my front Moon tank.


As you can see in the second pic it even has the Holley float bowl mounting flange on it. I could not have custom ordered it any better.
Plus I got a good clutch from Hooter that probably won't be the clutch I will ultimately need but it will get me by on start up and break in etc. Until I know what I need, or change over to an automatic if it becomes necessary. It's just a good old Centerforce 10.5 clutch but in great shape.

I also got my shifters. One Hurst v-gate and one Mr. Gasket v-gate to try out to see which one works the best. I have to have time in the garage to a make shifter mount and the rods. Again just too hot.

The motor is all balanced and with just one more machining item left it will be ready to assemble. Things are rolling along nicely.

Mark L

[Engine-Ear]

Jeez...Janet is a saint. Buy her something(s) nice.

[marks73ta]

WHAT??? She has me,LOL. But I did see a mastercard receipt for a hand gun. I'll just watch her a little closer now. LOL. Markus O'Targetous

[marks73ta]

I just got a call from Paul down in Tucson. He's doing the heads right now. He added 1.77s in the exhaust and all new seats and valves. The KREs are cnc'd supposedly to an advertised 325 cfm but I don't know what valve lift that was counted at. Paul flowed an intake and it came out to 316 cfm at my cams .650 lift in the intakes. I think he said they maxed out around 319 at a higher lift before falling off. Not far off from the advertised number. The addition of the 1.77 valve over the 1.66 pretty much added an average of 21 -25 cfm for all lifts. So these heads will really flow a lot more than the 230 cfm 6Xs I used on the 455. Mark L

[aronhk_md]

Nice Mark! With that tough shortblock he's built for you, the head flow you have and the turbos you picked up this is going to be one of the baddest smaller cube pontiacs on the block. Its built far better than mine. Any clue when he'll be finished with everything?

[marks73ta]

He's assembling the short block and installing the heads so push rod length etc can all be determined. I'll be doing the finishing assembly. Crank scraper, oil pan, oil pump, front cover with the cam driven hilborn pump etc. All th estuff that I can do that does not require precision assembly. But no I'm not sure on actual pick it up day. But like I've said all along. Still not a hurry up thing. If it was here now, I'd still have to wait until the heat goes away some before I can get into any heavy work on the car. I'm waiting for the guy that widened the axle. He called and has the axles all ready, just have to take the rear housing and center section over for final fitting and fitting the disc brake assembly. MArk L

[gtofreek]

Mark, would you like me to post the flow charts? The exhaust picked up 25-30 cfm at all lifts above .350. Peaked at 227 compared to 201 before. The intake peaked at 322 @ .750. At cam lift they flowed 316/219 or 69% E to I flow. Before it was a dismal 62% going as low as 60. 69% was the lowest it went after bigger valves and averaged 76.2%.

[marks73ta]

Go ahead Paul. That would be great to see myself. Thanks for doing that. Mark L

[gtofreek]

Ok, here we go with some flow numbers. First off, I flowed this head[#1 cyl] before I valve jobbed it and after. These are Kauffman D-port CNC ported heads. They had installed in them 2.11"/1.66" Ferrea valves. I left the intake valves alone[except for re-facing them and cutting the 30° backcut a little wider. I opened the exhaust up to the 1.77" Ferrea valve and backcut the valve to 30° also. I installed larger O.D. seats in the exhaust, interlocking them into the intake seat. I will try to post pics tomorrow. Since I am cutting the exhaust to a larger valve, it allows me to cut a real nice radius entry into the exhaust port. Keep in mind that the valve seat I installed had the same size I.D. as the seat it replaced so the port below the seat insert is exactly the same size as it was before. The only thing that changed was the entry from the seat angle itself. The cutter I use has a real nice radius to give a nice venturi. This will pick the flow up considerably from a 3 angle valve job. You'll be amazed at the difference.

I flowed this head on a Superflow 600 bench. Pretty much the standard of the industry. Flowed them at 28" of water. I will list the flow as Intake before/after followed by the Exhaust before/after followed by the CFM improvement and then followed by the E-I flow percentage before/after. Then I averaged the flow at all 15 flow points[from .100" lift to .800" lift in .050" increments]. Keep in mind that an average of 4 CFM better is huge. It doesn't sound like much but sometimes you need 10 cfm better at several points and the same at others just to get 3-4 cfm average better. So, I consider 5 CFM or more average better to be huge. Here we go.

Heads as I received them with 3 angle valve job.
Lift___Intake B/A____Improvement_Exhaust B/A___Improvement_______E-I ratio%____
.100_____68/71________+3cfm_____54.2/64.6_____+10.4cfm__________80/91______
.150___103.6/105.1____+1.5cfm____78.7/92.2_____+13.5cfm__________76/88______
.200___136.9/136.6____-.3cfm____103.4/119.6____+16.2cfm__________76/88______
.250___166.3/169.9____+3.6cfm___122.1/140_____+17.9cfm___________73/82______
.300___193/200.5______+7.5cfm___135.8/160_____+24.2cfm__________70/80_______
.350___219.8/228.7____+8.9cfm____146/175______+29cfm____________66/77______
.400___243/251.3______+8.3cfm___156.8/187.2___+30.4cfm___________65/75______
.450___264.3/273.2____+8.9cfm___164.8/198.4____+33.6cfm__________62/73______
.500___282.2/291.2____+9cfm_____171.2/204.8___+33.6cfm___________61/70______
.550___297/303.3______+6.3cfm___179.2/211.2___+32cfm____________60/70______
.600___304.6/310.9____+6.3cfm___185.6/215.7____+30.1cfm__________61/69______
.650___309.1/315.8____+6.7cfm___190.4/219.2____+28.8cfm__________62/69______
.700___313.6/319______+5.4cfm___194.6/222.1____+27.5cfm__________62/70______
.750___315.4/321.7____+6.3cfm___198.4/224______+25.6cfm__________63/70______
.800___317.2/320.3____+3.1cfm___201.6/226.6____+25cfm____________64/71______


The intake average before was 235.6, and now is 241.23. That's 5.63 CFM average better. The exhaust was 152.18 before and now is 177.37. That's a 25.19 cfm better average! That's huge! That oughta help spool up that turbo.

This was done with no porting at all, just simply cutting it for a bigger valve, and better angles on the intake.

[60man]

Now I'm confused....
FWIW: Flow sheet from KRE when I bought them.
Jack flowed these heads locally and they were close..
Mark..did I give you a copy of these papers ?
There is a LOT of differences in these figures ??? Note KRE's sheet listed exh.flow @ .700 to be 246 cfm ..!!! with 1.66 valve.
I'm no "builder" but don't understand. Can there be that much difference in flow benches ??????
BTW: Not trying to start any fued..LOL
Jefff's (KRE) flow sheets for my old 310 heads were not that far off from Jack's figures either.????

[gtofreek]

KRE's flow bench is not a Superflow and so it reads differently. I have flowed several heads and compared to their numbers and they are usually a fair amount off. One set was 45 cfm difference at .300 lift.

I'm not trying to start a feud either as I deal with them and I like those guys. We all just accept the fact that their flow bench reads different than the Superflow. There can also be lower readings when flowed in a hot room compared to a cold room. Here in Tucson, it was hot and humid when I flowed this. I just have always got much better flow with the 1.77" valve compared to the 1.66".

Plus, these are a straight comparison from one valve to another on the same bench so the actual flow, whether accurate or not, does not really matter here. All that matters is that the flow was increased considerably. He is going to need that with the turbo cam we got for him, being 10° smaller on the exhaust than on the intake.