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New Motor in the Works

M

mr_blasto

1/2 ton status
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Nov 8, 2004
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Location
Irvine, CA
I finally made a decision on what I'm going to do. I'm having a very reputable shop in the area build a 406 for me. They have a good block sitting in the shop that has never been rebuilt that we are going to use.

Here is the short list of parts that has been decided on already
-180cc dart pro 1 aluminum heads with 72cc combustion chambers
-rotating assembly from eagle with a cast crank, 6.0 rods, and -16cc dished SRP pistons
-edelbrock performer rpm intake
-edelbrock q-jet I have sitting around (1904) 795 cfm

I am ordering the heads and rotating assembly tomorrow. I will figure out exactly what cam shaft and other stuff I need after talking to the shop a bit more. For a cam I am thinking about the comp cams 12-231-2 or 12-235-2. Compression should end up being 9.7:1 or so. If you guys recall my previous questions about which tranny to go with, I am thinking I will stick with the 350 trans i have now, the shop thinks the tranny should hold up fine, but who knows.

I am open to any input or comments. This is the first motor I have had to purchase, so hopefully everything will go smoothly. Would have been fun to do it myself, but I am living in an apartment and there is a deadline for the project, so a shop seems like the best route.
 
Who's machining and building the motor?

Is the rotating assembly a matched kit? Balancing a pieced together bottom end is expensive if not impossible.

Why 6 inch rods? you'll likely have longer piston life with 5.7 rods due to the longer skirts and lower pin (compression) height. I don't see any real advantage to having a longer rod with your combination.

The head/ intake and carb combination will work well together.

I would step up to a 12-239-3 cam, the additional duration will help bring out most of the potential of the cylinder heads without hurting the idle quality to much. It will idle a little rough when cold but will settle down once warm as long as the carb and timing are adjusted properly.

What kind of exhaust are you planning on using? Hopefully some full length headers with at least 1 5/8" tubes and dual 2 1/2" exhaust.

I don't mean to sound to critical of your combination I'm just concerned and want you to be happy with the end product. You're spending a lot of money and you deserve a good solid set up that will last a long time.
 
I would listen to bigblock72.....

Every time I see his posts, it's obvious that he is "in the know" about this stuff, especially when I've asked about fuel injection related stuff. :waytogo:


:usaflag:
 
The shop is C&T in orem. I was thinking about Strasburg in lindon. I went and talked to each shop, and both seemed they would work out fine.

I am not exactly sure what you mean by a "matched" kit. It is a kit that eagle specialty product has created, and C&T recommended it.

6 inch rods because this creates less pressure on the cylinder walls. I asked the builder and he said that's what he would do too.

I have some 1 5/8" headers from my last motor that I could use, or I could get some new headers, but they should work fine. I forget what size my exhaust is on the rest of my system, I had a shop do that a couple years ago.

Interesting thoughts about the cam. I spend a lot of time working at a ski resort town in CO each year, so cold starts and idle is definitely an issue. I figure I want a cam that gives me the most average torque between idle and 4k, so i took my best guess as to which that would be (I haven't talked to the builder about it yet). Also with a more aggressive cam, isn't that going to be quite a bit harder on my valve-train?

Am I on the wrong track?
 
Oh good, you're working with Bart and Rod. I've known those guys for almost 20 years and think they are the best around.

If Bart recommends that kit and it's in your budget than go with it.

As far as cam I would suggest a Crane 113941, it will be a perfect balance of power, idle quality and power and it's easy on parts. If your budget will allow a hydraulic roller would be even better but that's a lot of money.

You're definitely on the right track and you have the right people doing the work.

Good luck,
Chad
 
bigblock72 said:
Oh good, you're working with Bart and Rod. I've known those guys for almost 20 years and think they are the best around.

If Bart recommends that kit and it's in your budget than go with it.

As far as cam I would suggest a Crane 113941, it will be a perfect balance of power, idle quality and power and it's easy on parts. If your budget will allow a hydraulic roller would be even better but that's a lot of money.

You're definitely on the right track and you have the right people doing the work.

Good luck,
Chad
Click to expand...
Spoke with Rod initially but when i visited i spoke more at length with bart. Yeah i think a roller is probably out of my budget at this point. I will post up what they recommend as a cam and see how close it comes to some of the ones mentioned in this thread.

BTW, how do you like your TBI setup on your 406? I think i would prefer to go with some sort of FI, I just don't know if it is going to be much more expensive and how well it would work with my setup. Bart was saying the chips never work right, they are either programmed great for the bottom end or top end, but they never seem to work right everywhere.

I happen to be named chad too, kinda threw me off there.
 
My 406 has the Crane cam I just mentioned in my last post and works good with the throttle body, the motor has excellent throttle response and pulls strong to 5,500 RPM. I would highly recommend going with a TBI setup especially with the way you drive your rig. With my 700r4 I can pull down 15-16 mpg with no problem, starts on the coldest mornings and is flawless off-road.

Make sure you get a cam with at least 112 degree lobe centers if you want to go with fuel injection though, anything narrower will have too low of idle vacuum and it will be extremely difficult to get a chip burned that will get it to idle decent. Neither of the comp cams grinds would be very FI friendly. I can get you the exact right cam and burn a chip that will work very well with a TBI.

You're more than welcome to come by and I can show you how it all works and runs if it will help you with your decision.

Tell Rod and Bart hi for me next time you see them.

Chad Carter
(801) 319-9329
 
I might just take you up on that. I'll likely give you a call tomorrow just to see what your schedule is over the next little while.
 
Well the 400 is finished and in the car. I went way over budget, but once it is built it is kinda hard to change your mind. Decided to go with a TBI from AFI instead of the qjet. Finally went to fire it up, and it didn't start (kind of expected, but a big let down). I had to take off within 10 minutes of trying to fire it up yesterday, but a buddy and I are going to attempt to trouble shoot it tomorrow. Here are a few pics, if I have done this right.

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old motor rebuilt about 60,000 miles ago before I owned it. Had very little compression in a few cylinders.

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New motor. 400 .030 over, 180cc dart pro1 heads (which were a mess by the way), 6 inch rods (which is why I had to get an aftermarket oil pan). Compression should be about 9.6-9.8.

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img1095dv8.jpg

Dropping it in. I'm the silly guy in the red trying to hide behind the hoist.
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Got the motor going yesterday, thanks to some over the phone help from bigblock72. Turns out my swapped two wires to the coil, once we put them on the right terminal, it fired right up. It idles really really high though, so it is going to take some more fine tuning. But I drove it about 45 miles last night.

Yukon--I ordered the dart heads assembled from a machine shop I found that was selling them for pretty cheap. The shop I used to build the motor said the springs were to soft and they wanted to use better rocker studs, but that could all be blamed on the shop I ordered them from.

There were two real problem with the heads. The first was that it was like the casting had been twisted or something. The shop had to mill the heads to get everything right cause they were way way way out of wack. Also, once the guide plates and push-rods were put in, they were at such a funny angle that the rocker arms were totally off the valves. To get them right the shop had to take out quite a bit of material between the intake port/runner and the push rod hole area (really technical sounding eh?). And it was a big PITA. When I asked how the heads were coming, the machinist was just fuming about Dart.

The guy at the shop told me he hated dart heads before I bought them because of the push rod hole design thingy, but I didn't realize it was as bad as it was so I ordered them anyways.

As for power... the shop building the motor hates to give hp estimates cause they feel it is kinda irrelevant (once it is built, it is going to be strong and you are going to run it anyways). They once told a guy that a motor should put out 600hp, and the guy tried to sue them cause it only made 594. So when I would ask he would give me a general number, and say if you are looking for a certain number I can tell you it will make that if it makes you feel better. The goal from the start was to make a really road friendly motor (cause it frequently is my DD) with gobs of torque, and kinda whatever for HP. The estimate based on the machine shop and comp cams little cam selector program is 350-390hp and 430-480 ft/lbs of torque. I know that is a huge range, but that is about all I can come up with. I don't have access to desktop dyno, or I might be able to give you a better estimate.
 
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