CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.
A low slung old chevy on rockwells... it can be done
- Thread starter jtk26
- Start date
Ten_Bucks
1/2 ton status
I am a very big fan of yours and your brothers rigs. If you and your brother ever want to come down to northern California and run the Rubicon, let me know. It would be fun to wheel with you guys.
Scott
Scott
Sorry for the late reply. Thanks man, I will keep that in mind. The rubicon and fordyce are on my bucket list for sure. That and TTC... oh wait... no more TTC. That one was also on my bucket list but I guess that will have to remain on there forever. TTC was going to be my reason to head to northern cali but I guess it won't happen.
I have been working on my semi to make my long trips more of a breeze. Soon the Jimmy will get some love with a rebuild of the motor. I was going to go big for contests, but I have come to realize that this is a trail rig and only for local, redneck events, if any. So it will forever remain on leafs, and I will be building stroking the tbi350 to a tbi383 with a moderate cam. Only looking for mid 300's on hp and mid 400's on torque with a smooth idle. Should be easily doable, and I won't have to re-engineer anything. There are some things that need improving like my exhaust, tool/part storage, and gas tank, front driveshaft. So I am hoping that by this time next year all of that is ironed out and the truck will be pretty much done. Just wheel the crap out of it, and spend less time building it... of course there will always be things to fix when they break.
Ten_Bucks
1/2 ton status
Yeah, I am severely disappointed about TTC as well. My wife and I were planning on entering my rig to hopefully get voted in for next year's event but its not gonna happen which sucks. But then again, there is always those Mountain Havoc type events that the TTC type rigs do well in.
Scott
Scott
The rules for Havoc are rediculous. Must have a double halo b piller, must have a certain style roof. Cage must be made of certain metal requirements, battery cut offs, certain fuel cells etc etc. My rig need a lot of rehash to comply. I have not decided whether trying to get ready for that event would be worth it for me.
I have neglected this rig for the past 3 months because of getting my Intl more setup, but no more. I am going to stroke the motor. Ever since going to the rockwells, doubler, 44's the truck feels like it's towing something all the time. Part of that I believe to be due to my aging torque converter, but also my maybe 200hp motor really could use a step up in the power department.
Even though LS motors are all the craze (rightfully so), I am going to build a 383 stroker. There are a few reasons for this. #1 - I already have 80% of the parts to do it from a motor I was going to build for a drag car. That drag car hasn't panned out, so I feel the need to use the parts. #2 - I don't feel like redesigning anything. Call it lazyness but I don't want to have to adapt powersteering lines, or change up motor mounts, or exhaust etc etc. Pretty much all I am doing is tearing down my current motor, and then reusing the block and building it back up. That should have about a 1 month turn around with my current schedule. #4 - I still have an affinity for a good working small block. Call me old school, but I do.
Specs of the new motor:
Eagle forged stroker crank and rods.
Speed pro flat top pistons.
Powerhouse aluminum sbc heads.
Edelbrock performer intake.
Summit racing mild/mod cam.
Summit racing roller rockers. etc etc.
Basically it will have 10:1 compression, and I picked a cam and intake that shouldn't take out the bottom end. I would be happy with somewhere in the mid 300's hp and mid 400's torque. The injection is going to take a mild tweak, so more to come. I don't care to do a high hp setup because I want a smooth-ish idle, and want to keep a 700r4. If the tranny goes, I will do a simple rebuild to strengthen it when that comes. Plus my heavy leaf sprung rig with pinion brakes can only go so fast.
Enough with the babbling....
Pulled it out with the 2 point crane on my semi, and a little help from my little ones.
This will be a good time to get my harness cleaned up and more organized.
Starting the teardown.
So now it is all tore down (sorry no pic), and the block looks to be in good shape, according to measurements it looks like this is a rebuilt motor, already bored out to 0.030 which is what my pistons are. You can still see good crosshatching with no scarring in the cylinders. The cylinder head deck doesn't look like it was machined and is still strait, so I lucked out.
More to come next monday.
Even though LS motors are all the craze (rightfully so), I am going to build a 383 stroker. There are a few reasons for this. #1 - I already have 80% of the parts to do it from a motor I was going to build for a drag car. That drag car hasn't panned out, so I feel the need to use the parts. #2 - I don't feel like redesigning anything. Call it lazyness but I don't want to have to adapt powersteering lines, or change up motor mounts, or exhaust etc etc. Pretty much all I am doing is tearing down my current motor, and then reusing the block and building it back up. That should have about a 1 month turn around with my current schedule. #4 - I still have an affinity for a good working small block. Call me old school, but I do.
Specs of the new motor:
Eagle forged stroker crank and rods.
Speed pro flat top pistons.
Powerhouse aluminum sbc heads.
Edelbrock performer intake.
Summit racing mild/mod cam.
Summit racing roller rockers. etc etc.
Basically it will have 10:1 compression, and I picked a cam and intake that shouldn't take out the bottom end. I would be happy with somewhere in the mid 300's hp and mid 400's torque. The injection is going to take a mild tweak, so more to come. I don't care to do a high hp setup because I want a smooth-ish idle, and want to keep a 700r4. If the tranny goes, I will do a simple rebuild to strengthen it when that comes. Plus my heavy leaf sprung rig with pinion brakes can only go so fast.
Enough with the babbling....
Pulled it out with the 2 point crane on my semi, and a little help from my little ones.
This will be a good time to get my harness cleaned up and more organized.
Starting the teardown.
So now it is all tore down (sorry no pic), and the block looks to be in good shape, according to measurements it looks like this is a rebuilt motor, already bored out to 0.030 which is what my pistons are. You can still see good crosshatching with no scarring in the cylinders. The cylinder head deck doesn't look like it was machined and is still strait, so I lucked out.
More to come next monday.
I'm with you on the old small blocks.
Should run a lot better with a stroker
I would run a roller cam in that roller block.
Martin
Martin
I am not breaking any ground here, but I figured someone would care about some details of a stroker build. The longer stroke crank causes clearance issues between connecting rod bolts and the block. If you reuse the stock rods then you are in for a lot of clearancing, but this eagle kit is nice because they use lower profile bolts and rod caps with slightly offset bolt location. The only place I needed to clearance is shown below next to an existing notch at the bottom of the cylinder. The right is clearanced and the left is stock. According to most sources a little more than 0.050" is adequate so I didn't want to go crazy. It was still labor intensive because I took the crank in and out so many times and did it a little bit at a time and also had to make sure the rods won't hit the cam.
Also my crank is for a 2 piece rear main seal, however the tbi block is obviously a one piece, so I had to pick up an adapter from summit. To get it located correctly you have to also buy one of these indexing tools that slides into the rear main.
So you then just slide the adapter over the indexing tool and bolt it to the block. It now comes apart to accept the 2 piece seal.
If I would have known that this rotating assembly would have ended up in a one piece block, I obviously would have gone with a matching crank... but whatever.
Here are a few shots of the new pistons and rods. Flat-top, with floating pins.
Also my crank is for a 2 piece rear main seal, however the tbi block is obviously a one piece, so I had to pick up an adapter from summit. To get it located correctly you have to also buy one of these indexing tools that slides into the rear main.
So you then just slide the adapter over the indexing tool and bolt it to the block. It now comes apart to accept the 2 piece seal.
If I would have known that this rotating assembly would have ended up in a one piece block, I obviously would have gone with a matching crank... but whatever.
Here are a few shots of the new pistons and rods. Flat-top, with floating pins.
I like all updates.
In my old carb'd 383 that use to be in my rig, when we tore it down, it had just about the same clearances on the block for the bolts too. At first I thought they looked really close until I looked up the "standard" that most people did for this clearance.
Is that your old piston on the left in that pic?
Is that your old piston on the left in that pic?
So are you going roller cam?
Martin
Martin
Interesting I didn't know they made an adapter for the rear main.
LIVEAnimals
1/2 ton status
I agree. Roller cam is the way to go nowadays
No, I am running a hydraulic flat tappet cam. I am pretty much piggy backing on this stroker build, just with slightly less cam.
http://www.superchevy.com/how-to/sucp-0708-chevy-small-block-383-stroker-kit/
http://www.superchevy.com/how-to/sucp-0708-chevy-small-block-383-stroker-kit/
Hydraulic flat tappet. My motor will be similar to this build, just with less cam, and obviously injected.
http://www.superchevy.com/how-to/sucp-0708-chevy-small-block-383-stroker-kit/
http://www.superchevy.com/how-to/sucp-0708-chevy-small-block-383-stroker-kit/
So been pluggin away...
Rotating assembly in, cam in, timing cover on. New melling high volume oil pump and a rubber gasket. The rubber gasket beats the hell out of the 4 piece ones.
Shot of pistons
heads on
You'll notice that these heads fit normal sbc and vortec intake patterns, as well as perimeter and center bolt valve covers. The rocker arms are summit brand aluminum full rollers. They have a very large body and required some long bolt aluminum covers, that I picked up at a surprisingly low price.
Block got some paint too.
So when it came to an intake, I waffled a bit. I picked up the edelbrock tbi performer (below on the left) mostly because it flowed a little better than stock, and was pretty much the only true bolt on intake out there, but I ran into some issues. Number one being the 454 throttle body. Big block tbi's have a 2" bore. Some CFM calculators tell me that I will need at least 600cfm for this stroker, so obviously the 350 throttle body was out of the question. Even a bored unit can't flow that, however the stock 454 unit is supposedly rated for 650cfm. Unfortunately the bores on the edelbrock are 1 11/16" so they have to be bored. After what seemed like 10 machine shops turned me down saying they couldn't bore something that small, I got frustrated and started looking at other options. I have always had this torker 2 single plane manifold and decided I was going to make it work. So now I will give some info about fitting tbi onto a carb intake, it's actually pretty easy. Being able to return that tbi performer intake saved me $350 on the build, so that's a plus I guess.
If you look close you can see some differences, mostly lack of egr and the vacuum port on cylinder 3 runner for vacuum brakes. The water ports are also a little different, the coil mounts are a tad different spacing, and there aren't any mounts for the sensor brackets.
So drilling a new hole into the brackets on the coil fixed that problem.
I manipulated the sensor bracket a little (chopped off one mounting hole, and bent it). Should work just fine, it's actually pretty solid. I am not worried about it only being held on by 1 bolt.
Rotating assembly in, cam in, timing cover on. New melling high volume oil pump and a rubber gasket. The rubber gasket beats the hell out of the 4 piece ones.
Shot of pistons
heads on
You'll notice that these heads fit normal sbc and vortec intake patterns, as well as perimeter and center bolt valve covers. The rocker arms are summit brand aluminum full rollers. They have a very large body and required some long bolt aluminum covers, that I picked up at a surprisingly low price.
Block got some paint too.
So when it came to an intake, I waffled a bit. I picked up the edelbrock tbi performer (below on the left) mostly because it flowed a little better than stock, and was pretty much the only true bolt on intake out there, but I ran into some issues. Number one being the 454 throttle body. Big block tbi's have a 2" bore. Some CFM calculators tell me that I will need at least 600cfm for this stroker, so obviously the 350 throttle body was out of the question. Even a bored unit can't flow that, however the stock 454 unit is supposedly rated for 650cfm. Unfortunately the bores on the edelbrock are 1 11/16" so they have to be bored. After what seemed like 10 machine shops turned me down saying they couldn't bore something that small, I got frustrated and started looking at other options. I have always had this torker 2 single plane manifold and decided I was going to make it work. So now I will give some info about fitting tbi onto a carb intake, it's actually pretty easy. Being able to return that tbi performer intake saved me $350 on the build, so that's a plus I guess.
If you look close you can see some differences, mostly lack of egr and the vacuum port on cylinder 3 runner for vacuum brakes. The water ports are also a little different, the coil mounts are a tad different spacing, and there aren't any mounts for the sensor brackets.
So drilling a new hole into the brackets on the coil fixed that problem.
I manipulated the sensor bracket a little (chopped off one mounting hole, and bent it). Should work just fine, it's actually pretty solid. I am not worried about it only being held on by 1 bolt.
So one thing to note if you ever want to tbi adapt onto a carb intake is if it's spread or square bore. Spread bore is wider and fits it on easy with some simple plate adapters, but since I am using a square bore intake I had to get this adapter from tbichips.com's ebay page. Designed to put up to a 454 throttle body, onto a square bore intake.
Yes it does choke down the air a bit, but is open in the center so I don't think it will restrict air flow much at all. Plus this centers the throttle body on the intake which is important for my open single plane manifold.
So onto the throttle body. I was given this 91-95 454 throttle body for free. There were some things I had to do to it to get it to work (too many 'to's in that sentence). First is it has a different tps and iac plug than the 87-90 units. They still use 3 and 4 wire connectors with the same wires so it's just a splice job to fit new connectors into my harness (sorry no pics of the connectors). Also the throttle cable plate is a different configuration, so all i had to do was grind down the pressed pin end and pry the plate off of my 350 unit and spot weld it onto my 454 unit.
Pic of it spot welded on.
I did a rebuild job and decided to go with an adjustable fuel pressure regulator to help get this thing eventually dialed in.
supper crappy, blurry pic
a little better pic of installed. By the way this unit has the standard 80lb injectors.
I did drill a hole on the bottom side of that regulator to provide access for an allen wrench to make quicker adjustments.
All done and mounted on the adapter.
bottom side
Yes it does choke down the air a bit, but is open in the center so I don't think it will restrict air flow much at all. Plus this centers the throttle body on the intake which is important for my open single plane manifold.
So onto the throttle body. I was given this 91-95 454 throttle body for free. There were some things I had to do to it to get it to work (too many 'to's in that sentence). First is it has a different tps and iac plug than the 87-90 units. They still use 3 and 4 wire connectors with the same wires so it's just a splice job to fit new connectors into my harness (sorry no pics of the connectors). Also the throttle cable plate is a different configuration, so all i had to do was grind down the pressed pin end and pry the plate off of my 350 unit and spot weld it onto my 454 unit.
Pic of it spot welded on.
I did a rebuild job and decided to go with an adjustable fuel pressure regulator to help get this thing eventually dialed in.
supper crappy, blurry pic
a little better pic of installed. By the way this unit has the standard 80lb injectors.
I did drill a hole on the bottom side of that regulator to provide access for an allen wrench to make quicker adjustments.
All done and mounted on the adapter.
bottom side
Latest Posts
-
-
-
'99 4 Door Tahoe SAS Build, Taking it back a few years- Latest: Babaganoosh
-
