Timing Chain Inspection and Replacement

[Tynan918]

Is the fan, water pump, and harmonic balancer the only things I remove to get to the timing chain cover ?

 

[565bbchevy]

Pretty sure my decision to swap carbs and intakes is a smart decision for a stock/street engine, given the numbers and math

IMO those CFM calculators are really just to get you in the ballpark and will always err on the side of caution.
There is not enough input to get a true CFM rating without head flow and cam specs etc.
That being said what you have should work fine with proper tuning which is always required with the universal application carbs since they are designed to cover a range of applications.
A wideband AFR gauge is a great tuning tool and just needs a bung welded to the header or you can use a clamp on style that only requires you drill the hole. As stated a vacuum gauge comes in handy also.
Besides tuning the carb you can play with timing and advance springs to gain some performance.
Also if you have the hood clearance, I would add a 1/2" phenolic spacer under the carb it will make a big difference keeping the fuel cooler over just having the thin gasket there.

 

[SSMonteMan]

The thing about carburetors that you seem to be misunderstanding is that the CFM rating on a carb is the amount of air flow that passes through the carb at a certain amount of vacuum under the throttle blades. The jet, booster, squirter nozzles and air bleeds are what control the fuel flow on a carb. Changing to a smaller CFM carburetor helps with throttle response, drivability and lower rpm fuel distribution because it brings up the air speed lending to better fuel distribution. No carburetor is going to be perfectly tuned for your engine out of the box. If you're too lazy to bother tuning it, the 500cfm will be a closer match to your needs than the 650cfm but when properly tuned you should see little to no difference between the two.

As previously stated, GM used 700-850cfm carbs on stock motors in these cars, hell ford put 1000cfm worth of carbs on a 289, Chrysler put 1400cfm worth of carbs on their stock engines. Carburetors are all about tuning the fuel flow to match the incoming air.

This explains it far better than I ever could.

An engine is an air pump. It's only going to move as much air as it can. Your carburetor just meters it and adds fuel depending on air flow and jet sizes. Nothing more.

 

[Tynan918]

Looks like I did a better job installing the timing cover than the last guy did...

Looks like it wasn't even in all the way compared to my job...

 

[g0thiac]

Looks like I did a better job installing the timing cover than the last guy did...

Looks like it wasn't even in all the way compared to my job...View attachment 193710View attachment 193711

And it only took over 50 pages 🤦‍♀️🤣🤣🤣

(Just kidding, congrats man lol)