Re-Rebuilding the 440-493 in a 1970 Charger

[Kern Dog]

Parts cleaning day.
Yay!

Actually, I sort of like that stuff. Lots of bolts with dried Locktite to clean off, oily bolts, dirty bolts....
I took the rockers and spacers off of the shafts....

I need to call Mancini racing....A few of these spacers were scratched up a bit. They measure .040 thick.

FBBO member CKessel made me a deal on some NEW Schumacher motor mounts with the bolt-through left side.

These will get painted the factory semi gloss black.

It is probably a good time to drain and refill the transmission. I suspect that I was probably supposed to change the trans fluid after the 500 mile break in. That passed awhile back.

 

[Lefty71]

Actually, I sort of like that stuff.

Me too....it's truly the beginning of the inspection process (check everything, check everything lol) where you discover what went wrong, and what went well.

 

[ckessel]

Wash down with some sort of solvent then whip out the soap and water. Get some engine cleaning brushes or rifle brushes to use on the galley's. If you have an old dishwasher, that works great too. The soap and water routine cuts the static electricity charge that gets created sometimes by the machining processes which can hold the grit to the ferrous metals. Chase out your threaded holes before the cleaning routine so that debri gets flushed out too.

 

[Outsider]

Just for curiosity, I'm interested about the appearance of your old pistons; how many miles on them? Can you post a couple pics of them, one not cleaned on the top to show combustion effect, and the worst looking skirt to show wear?
thanks, John

 

[Kern Dog]

Here is how they looked in the block. I had the engine out in 2011 to hone and rering. Total miles on this 440/493 is less than 10,000.

The pistons and rods are at the machine shop so the machinist can swap the new pistons on. The skirts looked clean upon initial inspection though.

 

[Outsider]

Thanks, that looks like pretty complete combustion.

 

[Kern Dog]

This is not intended to be one of those "price is no object" type of builds but there are some things I wanted to do differently this time.
One of those things is engine paint.
Every engine that I have painted has been with spray cans. Some of the time I first sprayed the bare block with metal etch primer.
No matter what though, I'll see some paint flaking eventually.
Am I spraying it on too thick? Is it a matter of surface contamination or poor adhesion?
I may never know.
For this rebuild, I first sprayed a timing cover with some Duplicolor.

The color is a bit darker than the Hemi orange that I recall. I wanted something a bit more vibrant so I went to the paint store I frequent and had them mix up some color you might be familiar with....

Yeah! Go Mango !
Look at the contrast compared to the Chrysler orange from the spray can....

This is in no way a factory correct rebuild here but I do like these engines painted orange. The Go Mango will only be on the block, timing cover and oil pan since I have aluminum heads.

The engine bay doesn't look too terrible but there are a few areas to refinish.

Mostly on the arch of the shock and UCA support section and from the frame rails and down.

The dreaded brake fluid wreaks havoc on paint. It may be time to switch to synthetic, right?

 

[Kern Dog]

My first inclination was to jump right into a roller cam swap for this rebuild. After thinking about it all and talking with a few guys, I stepped back from that and considered going back to the Lunati Solid Flat Tappet cam that I had in the car some time back. It ran great, made great power but did have a bit of a rough idle that produced low vacuum when sitting at stop lights. In fact, I had a vacuum pump in the car (Power brakes) to make up for that and while it worked fine, the rough idle seemed to wear on me a little. I was also dealing with a loose converter built by a local company that worked great at WOT but was loose and lazy at any other time. I was on a mission then to make the car more civilized so I went with a tighter converter and the smaller '528 cam.
Since then, I've switched to a manual transmission so the in gear idle vacuum issue isn't quite the same. Suddenly, the Lunati seemed viable. Going with a cam that is already broken in solves a few issues and gives some peace of mind. The money savings helps too.


Here is where I am with that now.
I figured that the Lunati is still in great condition and ready to install and run. After measuring the lobes on the failed '528, it got me to thinking about the lobes on the Lunati. The cam looks fine and all the lifters do too but here are the numbers that I measured today using a cheap set of calipers.

The numbers at the left margin are the lobes as numbered from the front of the engine.
My question....Is the slight variance on lobes 1, 11, 12, 13 and 14 anything to worry about? # 14 had a smaller base circle to match the smaller lobe. Is the 1.54 vs 1.55 and 1.56 any indication of the start of wear?
I measured a new Comp Cams LA cam and every lobe was the same...I mean every one.

Is a slight variance in size normal?

 

[furious70]

In this sort of thing you have to understand your measurement system and it's capabilities. Are you and the calipers you're using capable of being accurate to .01? If not, there's no use sweating it.

 

[moparedtn]

I run 10w-30 in all my motors and have plenty of oil pressure. I would think 20w-50 would raise them considerably?

Yeah, I actually dropped in viscosity also after seeing some spooky high cold start pressures also.
Fred has an unknown 440 of dubious "rebuild", but the hot pressure indicated as around 20-25 will
have to suffice as a result.

 

[moparedtn]

My first inclination was to jump right into a roller cam swap for this rebuild. After thinking about it all and talking with a few guys, I stepped back from that and considered going back to the Lunati Solid Flat Tappet cam that I had in the car some time back. It ran great, made great power but did have a bit of a rough idle that produced low vacuum when sitting at stop lights. In fact, I had a vacuum pump in the car (Power brakes) to make up for that and while it worked fine, the rough idle seemed to wear on me a little. I was also dealing with a loose converter built by a local company that worked great at WOT but was loose and lazy at any other time. I was on a mission then to make the car more civilized so I went with a tighter converter and the smaller '528 cam.
Since then, I've switched to a manual transmission so the in gear idle vacuum issue isn't quite the same. Suddenly, the Lunati seemed viable. Going with a cam that is already broken in solves a few issues and gives some peace of mind. The money savings helps too.


Here is where I am with that now.
I figured that the Lunati is still in great condition and ready to install and run. After measuring the lobes on the failed '528, it got me to thinking about the lobes on the Lunati. The cam looks fine and all the lifters do too but here are the numbers that I measured today using a cheap set of calipers.

View attachment 1296742

The numbers at the left margin are the lobes as numbered from the front of the engine.
My question....Is the slight variance on lobes 1, 11, 12, 13 and 14 anything to worry about? # 14 had a smaller base circle to match the smaller lobe. Is the 1.54 vs 1.55 and 1.56 any indication of the start of wear?
I measured a new Comp Cams LA cam and every lobe was the same...I mean every one.

Is a slight variance in size normal?

Please forgive the stupid question here, but I'm trying to learn...
The numbers indicated on your chart are what exactly? Do they show the difference between
the "base" circle of each lobe vs. the highest point (lift) of each?

 

[Kern Dog]

The first column is the base circles and the second column is the entire lobe at full lift.
I wrote "Base" above the first column and "Lobe" above the second one.
I was curious if it is normal to find some slight variances in lobes like I found. My concern is that IF there is a difference, does that mean that the cam is already starting to fail? I do not want to do all of this work and have another cam go bad....especially if I have information right in front of me that indicates a problem is about to occur.

 

[moparedtn]

The first column is the base circles and the second column is the entire lobe at full lift.
I wrote "Base" above the first column and "Lobe" above the second one.
I was curious if it is normal to find some slight variances in lobes like I found. My concern is that IF there is a difference, does that mean that the cam is already starting to fail? I do not want to do all of this work and have another cam go bad....especially if I have information right in front of me that indicates a problem is about to occur.

So, this particular cam has identical lift numbers for both intake and exhaust then?

 

[Outsider]

If you've kept your lifters in order, and they all still have convex crown point, (you put two of them face to face and you can rock them showing they are not flat or concave), then I would run it. As for your measured numbers, I would offer since lobes are sloped to promote lifter rotation, it can be somewhat difficult to get consistent measures with a hand held caliper and if the lifters are still good, the lobes are happy.

I would still use break-in paste on the lifter faces, pre-oil, run the 20 mins well above idle and then dump the start-up oil. I have been running the VR1 oil with good success.

 

[Kern Dog]

So, this particular cam has identical lift numbers for both intake and exhaust then?

No, this is a split pattern design. I forgot about that....

 

[RemCharger]

No, this is a split pattern design. I forgot about that....View attachment 1296943

That's a pretty heavy duty cam!
You're probably missing out on a 1000 rpm of fun if you're only shifting at 6.

On the measurement, it would be good to have more exact #s. Down to the thousandths. Micrometer.

 

[Kern Dog]

The specs on this cam for a 383-440 state the rpm range to be some crazy number like 3700-7400 rpms. The consensus that I have read and heard is that a cam acts "smaller" with more cubic inches. At 493, that is a full 100 cubes bigger than a 383. That is almost a 29% increase. Using that logic, the rpm range would certainly be lower with more cubic inches.
Oddly, I didn't notice a lack of low end when I had it in the car. Back then I had a 3000 rpm sloppy converter and 3.91 gears. I switched to a tighter 11" converter and it was much more responsive. When I stepped down to this 3.55, it lost a bit of punch but still ran great. Maybe I just don't know what "fast" is. It ran strong though. It didn't stumble or bog from a start. The midrange and top end came on like a hurricane. It was the fastest the car ever was with the Lunati. It revved so fast, I first started thinking that I needed a rev limiter because I get so caught up in the excitement, I didn't want to blow up the dang thing.
This 5 speed has a little deeper first gear compared to the 727. 2.87 compared to 2.45. The gearing makes up for the taller 3.55s so first gear acceleration is geared similar to a 727 with 3.91s.
It should be pretty peppy with this cam.

 

[furious70]

No wonder the 528 feels like an RV cam

 

[moparedtn]

No, this is a split pattern design. I forgot about that....View attachment 1296943

Then I'm confused as to what exactly you measured on the thing?

 

[Kern Dog]

To be filed in the “While I am here” file.....
I decided to pull the power booster and master cylinder and switch to an aluminum manual master cylinder.
This setup is OEM for a 73-76 A body.

Back when I first swapped front discs on the car in 2000, I didn’t know what parts interchanged. I took this booster from a wrecked Dart and dove in to see if it would fit. To my surprise, it bolted up as if were supposed to be factory equipment.

I did replace the master cylinder some time ago.
While a bit bulky and heavy, it is a reliable setup. All together, it weighs...