Cylinder head and cam question

[qkcuda]

The hood is fine, there is more clearance than it appears. I put the ball on the rod just in case I close it too far when raising the lift.

 

[qkcuda]

For those who didn't think they put nylon timing gears in 1966, mine had one. Fortunately it hasn't shed any teeth yet. It did have over an inch of slack.

 

[qkcuda]

Got the oil pan off today. Cleaned the pickup and scraped the old pan gasket off. There wasn't much left of the cork gasket. It looked like hardened varnish and about as thin as paper.

 

[qkcuda]

Surprised to find the oil pan is baffled.

 

[qkcuda]

Cam is in. Got the condenser back in place and all of the supports and the grill reinstalled. Now I can lean over the front again.

 

[qkcuda]

Just stopped in at the machine shop. My spare set of 516 heads checked out well, no cracks or casting flaws, so they are finishing the valve job now. The heads came in at 77cc's, which is good news, since with my pistons .065 in the hole I should end up right at 8.5:1 compression. That should work well with my cam choice. I am also having them mill the heads .020 just to make up the difference between the stock steel shim gaskets and the composition gaskets I will be using. I am sticking with the stock 1.60 exhaust valves since they were in excellent shape. I decided not to do any throat cut (risk of hitting water). They are doing a 3 angle seat on the intakes, and a radiused seat on the exhaust, back cutting the valves, and touching up the short side radius on the exhaust (not much to work with).

 

[Don Frelier]

I got a slightly higher compression number, depends how much volume .020 off the head turns into I don't have a good reference for 516s.
Using my calculator if you put in a steel shim and still cut the head .020 I get just over 9.0:1.
But then you really should cut the side of the head as well which adds to the cost.
Hopefully your ring seal can hold the extra squeeze...

 

[qkcuda]

The machine shop just called back. After cutting the heads .020, they now measure 75cc's. Here is the calculation I ran, which shows just shy of 8.5:1 compression. The theory behind cutting the heads .020 was to make up for the fact that I will be using a .040 composite head gasket instead of the factory .020 steel shim. That being the case, it puts everything in the same relative position, and doesn't require any intake face cutting. Also the distance between the lifters and the rockers remains the same. The compression was pretty even across the cylinders except for the one with the bad valve, and the cylinder walls are clean, so I think the rings will be fine.

 

[PRHeads]

I would have done it the same way with the gasket/milling thing.
But when using closed chamber heads, going one for one with the gasket thickness vs the head milling...... you end up with a slight reduction in CR, since the gasket is the full diameter and the chamber is not.

 

[qkcuda]

Picked up the heads today. More details tomorrow. I had them paint some of my parts at the same time since my garage is not heated. The second picture is the actual colour.

 

[qkcuda]

Got the oil pan and timing cover on. Spent the rest of the time cleaning parts and getting them ready for paint. Yuk!

 

[qkcuda]

After cleaning it up it answered my question about the A/C bracket. Both sides were painted engine colour, so obviously the bracket was installed on the engine before it was painted and the compressor was attached later.

 

[qkcuda]

More parts painted and ready to install on the weekend.

 

[qkcuda]

Finally installed the painted parts today. Crank was set at TDC and I tried not to move it while I put the balancer on. Looks like I am off a degree or two. The difference in colour is flash and no flash.

 

[qkcuda]

Had to scrape at least a half inch of crud off the front of the engine. Also spent way too much time cleaning and painting pulleys and brackets. When you work by yourself you have to be resourceful. Like my redneck piston stop, so I could torque the crank bolt,?

 

[Don Frelier]

Full marks on the piston stop. But I don't think I would put a 55 year old damper back on.

 

[qkcuda]

The damper actually looked really good, no sign of any deterioration of the rubber.

 

[Charles Cook]

Where did you find your paint ? Thanks

 

[qkcuda]

Managed to buy it from the dealer last year.

 

[Charles Cook]

Sheeeeet , everyone I’ve called are out of stock and don’t know when they will have any.