I've got to tell you backordered parts suck but it's good to have the friends I have at the building I rent. With all the valve train problems I've endured with this car I've decided to start fresh. My brother gave me a new old stock cam from one of the guys in the Oldsmobile club. It's a 69 400 4 speed cam so probably a little more mild than the one that's in it and better for a teenager. I bought another fellpro gasket kit and and an intake gasket. The problem was no one seemed to have lifters! At least not good ones. But Eric at the building had brand new in box set of Crain's from his Pontiac days and yes there the correct ones with proper oil restriction. Of course life is still getting in the way and my shop is full with customers cars this weekend that can't go out in the rain. Not to mention I told Eric that I'd help him move this weekend. Oh and my company employee appreciation party is tonight. Maybe I can squeeze it in on a weeknight but idk
78 cutlass W-31 build
- Thread starter Clutch
- Start date
Yeah, parts are brutal right now. I am waiting on a good Melling High Volume oil pump, Mark had two fail on the dyno. Also waiting on a new balancer and hoping Edelbrock will have the new SB heads available by spring. I broke the bank and went with a roller cam. That 400 cam, I assume will be the 217 duration which should be perfect for a the 350. Glad see some progress.
Still didn't get it in the shop my buddy Eric ended up in the hospital with congestive heart failure and his lungs filled up so he wasn't going to be degreeing in my cam in the last month. But he's good now in fact today I'm going to go help him he's moving to a 55 and over community he bought a house in. The neighbors are going to love him LoL 46 ford BBC tunnel ram and SS454 Silverado back halved 8:50 street cars lmfao there goes the neighborhood.
I was helping my buddy Eric move again today and we made plans for next Friday night. Hopefully after work Friday I'm going to get this thing in my shop and finally figure out why it doesn't run right. This is long overdue! Once it runs right I'm going to make it a point to get this thing road ready.
I got her inside before the snow after work.
She smoked a little much on fire up but I did wet her whistle with 50:1 2stroke true fuel and she's been sitting sense July. The motor got filthy with all the sitting around too
Anyway I had to fly home and take care of the smoke detectors in the house for the wifey and grab a quick burrito. Eric is meeting me back there tonight for some diagnostics. Then tomorrow morning when he's working I'll take it apart and fix whatever is wrong.
She smoked a little much on fire up but I did wet her whistle with 50:1 2stroke true fuel and she's been sitting sense July. The motor got filthy with all the sitting around too
Anyway I had to fly home and take care of the smoke detectors in the house for the wifey and grab a quick burrito. Eric is meeting me back there tonight for some diagnostics. Then tomorrow morning when he's working I'll take it apart and fix whatever is wrong.
That went well I think? While I was waiting for Eric to get there I decided being a body guy and all I would find out what was under all that gray primer and spray paint and the driver's side of the car. It's been bothering me sense the day I first got the car so I grabbed some paper towels and lacquer thinner and went to town on the door.
What I found was there was no point in most of it being there and a couple of small dents someone tried to fill with old school nitrostain. (I absolutely hate that stuff) and the door had been repainted from the pinstripe down at one time ( old school body butcher). I then moved on to the quarter. That told a few stories.
yes as I was told that quarter was replaced at some point but had been repainted and stripped when done. Then it looks like the spray bomb and nitrostain brigade struck there too it looks like maybe it was denied below the quarter window and they just did stupid unnecessary stuff to try repairing it then rattle caned it blue then put more dime store primer and red death prince and repeat. I'll be correcting it soon as she runs right.
So that's when Eric showed up and I realized I had been bathing in thinner and talking to myself...to much thinner. And we got under the hood. So far we don't think it lost a lobe we do think there's an ignition problem and a timing problem also we decided to go with all new rockers and stands. Tomorrow we are going to test compression in all 8 and check cam timing. Starting from step 1 ground 0 and going through it until we find the problem.
Oh and charge the battery! Dead batteries drive me nuts! Hopefully I'll be driving this thing soon it's long overdue.
What I found was there was no point in most of it being there and a couple of small dents someone tried to fill with old school nitrostain. (I absolutely hate that stuff) and the door had been repainted from the pinstripe down at one time ( old school body butcher). I then moved on to the quarter. That told a few stories.
So that's when Eric showed up and I realized I had been bathing in thinner and talking to myself...to much thinner. And we got under the hood. So far we don't think it lost a lobe we do think there's an ignition problem and a timing problem also we decided to go with all new rockers and stands. Tomorrow we are going to test compression in all 8 and check cam timing. Starting from step 1 ground 0 and going through it until we find the problem.
Oh and charge the battery! Dead batteries drive me nuts! Hopefully I'll be driving this thing soon it's long overdue.
It's 12:00 and I'm not back at the shop yet but I'm very proud of myself. There's about a foot of snow outside and it's still snowing . For the first time sense 92 I slept through a snowstorm and it feels good! But now it's time to go get back at it
Wow today was a long day! With way to much snow shoveling. But for once I think I finally have some good news. I got to the shop around 10:30 after digging out my wife's car. My friend Eric wasn't there yet so I masked up the door and quarter so I could blow a little etch primer over the exposed metal so it's ready to go outside.
I think it still looks better than all that lacquer spray paint. He still wasn't there so I went ahead and started swapping out the rockers and stands for the new ones I bought back in 2017. I lubed them up with some 20-50 and I was a little more than 1/2 done when he showed up. He like most didn't believe me that it only runs with the disy 180° out so we started back at ground 0 again and did a compression test. 175 give or take 2 across the board! He was shocked. So we bared it over on the crankshaft bolt at the balancer plugs out valve covers off
Sure as God made green apples 180 out and ran! No popping no banging just had no power. Check it again same. Now this guy has been building motors his hole life and he's completely baffled! And on the phone calling people he knows and they all think he's crazy!
I'm googling he's making phone calls we even tried the old olds firing order and it ran but only 180 out and not well.
One guy said to try putting points in it lol not going to happen. So we went to this build thread over lunch because I can't even remember all I've done to make it run. So he asked me do I have another distributor? I'm like yeah the msd one in my 72 W-30 455 that came out of my 87 with that Wego to the building and I look threw the oldsmocorner because I thought I had a unlight and I find the points distributor that came with this motor and a rusty cut out hei I don't trust either one so I pull the msd hei out of the big block on the stand and we go. We get back and I pull the 260 hei out to find the gear doesn't look good but it has the same number of teeth as the other ones. First we look at the cut out one and the weights are stuck. So msd it is. This is a pick I took of 2of the drives
Right back to basics bump it around, check tdc and drop in msd hei guess on cap angle and hit key. BAM! Fires and runs and it's not 180 out wtf! I will never understand what the ---- was going on but it runs way better. Drop it in gear foot on the break hit the gas and the tires spin on the shop floor. It's not really right it needs some tuning and a timing light but it runs with the distributor in the right way now. I may never understand what the problem was but now I'm where I should have been 5 or 6 years ago. So it was getting late and we put all the brackets back on so it can go outside tomorrow after the lot is plowed.my boss literally told me to leave it inside until after the plow trucks have gone so I will. I put enough work in the shop to keep my guys busy for a few hours before I move it anyway.
Now that it runs a little better I'm going to use my shop privileges whenever I can and get something accomplished.
I think it still looks better than all that lacquer spray paint. He still wasn't there so I went ahead and started swapping out the rockers and stands for the new ones I bought back in 2017. I lubed them up with some 20-50 and I was a little more than 1/2 done when he showed up. He like most didn't believe me that it only runs with the disy 180° out so we started back at ground 0 again and did a compression test. 175 give or take 2 across the board! He was shocked. So we bared it over on the crankshaft bolt at the balancer plugs out valve covers off
Sure as God made green apples 180 out and ran! No popping no banging just had no power. Check it again same. Now this guy has been building motors his hole life and he's completely baffled! And on the phone calling people he knows and they all think he's crazy!
I'm googling he's making phone calls we even tried the old olds firing order and it ran but only 180 out and not well.
One guy said to try putting points in it lol not going to happen. So we went to this build thread over lunch because I can't even remember all I've done to make it run. So he asked me do I have another distributor? I'm like yeah the msd one in my 72 W-30 455 that came out of my 87 with that Wego to the building and I look threw the oldsmocorner because I thought I had a unlight and I find the points distributor that came with this motor and a rusty cut out hei I don't trust either one so I pull the msd hei out of the big block on the stand and we go. We get back and I pull the 260 hei out to find the gear doesn't look good but it has the same number of teeth as the other ones. First we look at the cut out one and the weights are stuck. So msd it is. This is a pick I took of 2of the drives
Right back to basics bump it around, check tdc and drop in msd hei guess on cap angle and hit key. BAM! Fires and runs and it's not 180 out wtf! I will never understand what the ---- was going on but it runs way better. Drop it in gear foot on the break hit the gas and the tires spin on the shop floor. It's not really right it needs some tuning and a timing light but it runs with the distributor in the right way now. I may never understand what the problem was but now I'm where I should have been 5 or 6 years ago. So it was getting late and we put all the brackets back on so it can go outside tomorrow after the lot is plowed.my boss literally told me to leave it inside until after the plow trucks have gone so I will. I put enough work in the shop to keep my guys busy for a few hours before I move it anyway.
Now that it runs a little better I'm going to use my shop privileges whenever I can and get something accomplished.
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