Stack-O-Carbs

There's been a short break in blog land because of trying to get ready for The Chihuahua Express. It's been some hectic days getting things together for the race. Just finishing whats half done and trying to find the right jetting combination for the carburetor has been challenging.
So what do jets do? They give the carburetor the right air/fuel mixture, not too lean, not too rich, so it runs at its best. This is kind of old school because nowadays cars use fuel injection and it's all computerized.
We started with a Holley, an old respected name in carburetors, that Rick had, that he modified by chopping off the air horn and choke assembly. Well that didn't work, and we blamed it on it being an old carburetor and a funky hack job. So, we get another Holley, the same one, but brand new and try modifying that one. The thing about Holley's is, they don't modify real good, they're made to to do what they do, and that's it, you try to reinvent it, forget it.
Finally we got smart and bought a Demon carburetor and a box of jets. Demon's are made by a guy who worked for Holley, and improved their design.
At first the car still ran lean, just not right, but a phone call to Demon's tech line, who told us to reset it like it came out of the box, a new set of plugs, and a little more fiddling around, the thing's running pretty good. Now if we can get the jetting right so it runs good at sea level, it should be easy to get it to run at 6000 feet.......yea sure, easy.

Next Time: We gotta go!
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Old Dog, New Tricks

We're getting there, only 13 days till we leave for Chihuahua, and we still have lists of stuff to do. And, as with all newborn, there are some growing pains involved.

The car is complete, well, except for a little more wiring and a few incidentals. The front and rear windows are in, the hood's on, the front end's aligned, forget that, another thing for the list!

What's needed is the car to be driven, and driven hard! A shake-down cruse, so to speak. We're having fuel problems and that's not good. I gave it a go last weekend, but something wasn't right, maybe a piece of crud in there, or a slightly kinked gas line, or just not enough carburetor, definitely not on it's best behavior. In fact, she was buckin' like a bronco. The brakes seem to work, but are they ready for the Copper Canyon? The transmission seems alright, but where's that engine oil leak coming from??

Unfortunately these things don't repair themselves, these have to get fixed, and soon, I'm running out of fingernails!

Next Time: Stack-O-Carbs

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It starts, It runs!!

The news from the pits is good, the car starts and drives, hallelujah!! It didn't go far, mind you, just around the block, but it works!
There's something satisfying and very exhilarating about starting a big performance motor for the first time. Putting in that first can of gas, switch on the electric fuel pump, ignition switch on, and push the starter button. Oh yea! A little POP, maybe a touch of flame coming out the carburetor, a turn on the distributor to get the timing close, and OH BABY, what a sound!
This puppy doesn't have mufflers yet and only has the exhaust to just past the Dr. Gas X pipe, so things were quite loud, make that invigorating to hear. I'm sure the neighbors were thrilled.
The check list is getting smaller and in a few days this critter should be out for some serious road testing. We've got to be in Chihuahua in less than 30 days.

Next Time: Old dog, new tricks

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Nice Brakes!

Alright, the engine is in the car and all the main parts are in place. The alternator, distributor, the belts, the hoses, fuel lines. We've got tires and rims, it's ready to roll, we've got a fuel cell, it's ready to suck gas like a Hoover. It just needs oil, a lot of wiring and it's ready to start.
So, are we ready to stop this brute, yes we are, and that's what I'll tell you about this time.

First, let's go back and again check the rules. Originally, the cars had to have the stock brakes, but because the Porsche's, Ferrari's and Mercedes used disc brakes, it gave the Euros a big advantage over a 52 Caddie. In the early renewed version of the race, disc brakes were allowed to be fitted on the front, and nowadays you can upgrade both the front and rears. The dimensions of the brakes are restricted by the wheel size and the drawback for us is the wheel height we're allowed to use, in our case a 15".

Let me tell you, there's not a lot of high performance brake kits for 64 Chevelles out there. In fact there's maybe two, the one we were looking at is made by a company called Wilwood. These folks make brakes for everyone from NASCAR to NHRA drag racers. In talking to their tech guys, the kit they recommended for our size wheel uses a 10 3/4" rotor, and with a little more talk, they decided it would be "inadequate" for what we're doing. Great... now what? We decided just to use that kit for the front and come up with something patched together for the rear.
Wandering around the Internet, looking for a price for the "inadequite" Wilwood kit, I happened on a company called "Hot Rods USA" and spoke with Dean O , the owner. He's pretty busy, anyone who's on a speaker phone must be, but I won't hold that against him as he had the good price which included a proportioning valve and steel brake lines. As we got to talking about the race, he became more interested, and suddenly said, "how about I build you a great set of brakes and help out on the cost". If you've been reading this, you know we're looking for sponsors, so I bite hard on this carrot, "great idea, whatd'ya'got"? He said he'd get back to us with a brake that would work for our wheel size. Now as I said, Dean runs a busy Internet company, so when I talked to him again, he needed to be reminded a couple of times who we were, and what was what, "remember... La Carrera... 64 Chevy"! Well, Dean did remember who we were, and has put together a set of brakes that just fit, by a whisker, inside our wheels. They are beautiful!We both hope to be the ambassadors for better brakes for everyone at the La Carrera.

Next Time: It Starts, It Runs!

Long Block 101

That's a class I should probably take to get through this next part of the engine building story.

It's kind of laughable that I'm writing these bits about assembling an engine, when it's something I've never done before. Of course, I did watch it all go together, so I figure that essentially makes me an engine guru, so let's proceed. As with the short block, this will be a pruned down version of the ol' how-to.

Once again, our expert Joe was there to help with the first part, which was to check the valve to piston clearance. This is called "claying the head", a small piece of clay is put on the top of the piston to see how close the valve comes to it. The simple equation being: valve + hitting piston = bad. Here's a picture of Joe, making sure things fit.

We're using Chevrolet Vortec iron heads, which are called that because they super swirl the air/fuel mixture in the combustion chamber. An improved mix gives you better efficiency and more power. These heads were first used on some of GM's trucks, and then the Chevy performance guys found them be great for motors wanting lots of torque and horsepower. That's us!

After that the heads are assembled with the valves and springs, the push rods are put in and the rocker arms are installed.

Before going any farther, we need to make this thing looks like a Chevrolet motor, and that's done by painting it, what else but, "Chevy Orange", just like the 60's!

At this point, what's left to do is bolt on the last pile of parts that's scattered about. That would be the timing cover, the harmonic balancer, the Edelbrock intake manifold, our deluxe Moroso road racing oil pan, and our spiffy polished aluminum valve covers.

Toss on a fuel pump and some motor mounts and this thing's ready to go into the car. With the help of Matt, Rick's son and one of our main worker bees, that's done.

We're at a point where everything is nearly finished, but not quite. It's time to get something wrapped up.

NEXT TIME: Nice Brakes!

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Ay Chihuahua!

Or it's more like, what the hell did we do now!! We were cruising along, getting things done at a nice pace, about 8 months out till the Panamericana race, plenty of time to get the car done and road tested. So, all of a sudden we're entered in another race in Mexico!
We've signed up for "The Chihuahua Express", a three day race in and out of the city of Chihuahua in Northern Mexico. This event is associated with one of the last open road speed runs in the United States; "The Silver State Classic Challenge", in Nevada.

It's the maiden voyage running of this competition, and definitely will be a excellent tune-up for us and the car. We'll be running against Corvette's, no problem, Viper's, they're nothin, Porsche's and Ferrari's, whatever, and some of the Pan Am cars, oh yea!

All we have to do, is get the Chevy finished.

If you want to see what the other events are about, check these......
http://chihuahuaexpress.com/index.asp
http://www.silverstateclassic.com/

NEXT TIME: Long Block 101

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That's a V8, A'merican style!

That's right race fans, this is the real deal, lots of good old A'merican horsepower! All the final little bits of grinding and smoothing are done, now it's time to put this baby together.

Now building an engine is kind of like putting together a puzzle, one piece missing or one out of place and it doesn't work. It always seemed to me that an internal combustion engine was a very complicated piece of machinery, and they are, but really there's not that many parts that go inside one. When you see one going together, starting with the block they become much simpler. It's something like "the foot bone's connected to the leg bone and the leg bone's connected to the knee bone" kind of thing. Also what's being built is pretty simple and straightforward, with the car being as old as it is, there is no pollution controls to deal with, no fuel injection, no turbos, no double overhead cams, nothing too fancy, just a good ol' V8.

Now our team of experts were, myself, of course, my racing pard, Rick, who's been building engines since High School, Everett Selby, machinist extraordinaire, and Joe. Ahh Joe, I'm sorry I didn't get your last name, being our utmost expert consultant, but maybe that makes for a better story.

What I know of Joe, is he's a young fellow of about 26, who's put together umpteen motors for himself and others while working at the local hot rod shop. He's a Chevy man at heart and he has been a big help to us prescribing what brands of parts to secure. He likes to make sure the Ford guys know that we're building a "real motor". Being a hot rodder, he looks at engines in terms of drag racing, so we had to make sure to kept him on the right page for road racing. He donated our 350 block, and he also tells funny stories.

What you'll see in these pictures is building what's called "the short block". The actual steps in putting a motor together, you can read in an engine building manual, what I'll give you is the highly abbreviated version

First the block is cleaned, dirt being the villain, can't have it clogging an oil passage. The crankshaft, main caps and bearings come next, with measurements always taking place to make sure it's straight and fits as it should. Like cooking or carpentry, engine building is a matter of having the right tool, so it's good to know that if the hammer to smack the crank place isn't big enough, there's always a BIGGER one around. But hey, like Joe sez, "It's only a gas motor"! Meaning, it's not some alcohol fueled, fire breathing, 1200 HP monster, just a little gas engine!

Next, comes the rods and pistons, which have been prepared with the rings, and are fitted into the block and attached to the crankshaft. More measurements take place to make sure the piston heights are right.

Following that, the camshaft is is installed, which slid right into place for us, they sometimes can be a problem if things aren't lined up right.

A quick side note about our cam. One of the top cam grinders in the business just happened to move in across the street from the shop. Dimitri Elgin of Elgin Cams did the work for us, and if you have any notion to learn more about camshafts, go to this link and read up on it.....

http://www.elgincams.com/campaper.html

He told me it was written for a tenth grade education, if that's so, I'll see you in kindergarten!

Next, you throw on a timing chain. And finally, the camshafts position is checked so it matches with that of the crankshaft, so their rotation is synchronized, that's called "degreeing the cam". As it sounds, it's rather complicated, with lots more calibrating and measuring to get it right. With that, you have yourself a finished short block.

Whew, I'm all worn out doing all that wrenchin', so next time we'll do the top half, or "the

long block". But first we'll talk about "The Chihuahua Express"!

NEXT TIME: Ay Chihuahua!

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