Hello all, A few months back I purchased a 455 olds from a 69 toronado to put in the project 74 cutlass supreme. talking to the guy he said the car the motor was pulled from had only 64000 miles on it.

I drove down to ohio to pick the motor up and after inspection everything seemed to be in decent condition. it was complete as it came out of the car.
Unfortanatly it was pooring rain and i took the guys word for it which was my mistake

Long story short after getting it back home and on the stand I set out to do a full gasket replacement only to find rust inside the intake,heads,and cylinders.

$1842.00 later I got the engine and heads back from the machine shop, the block was bored 30 over,block magnafluxed,baked and cleaned, heads were milled,new exhaust valves 3 angle valve job,crank was polished aswell.

The price also included new silvolite pistons,hastings rings,clevite bearings comp cams xe268H camshaft k kit which includes double roller timing chain and gears,lifters,valve springs, and camshaft.

I will ad pictures of the rebuild when my email account comes back online, I got the engine back on friday and started putting it back together today and made some pretty good progress untill i ran into a few snags, #1 being the machine shop installed both springs on the valves which cannot be on there for break in purposes so i need a valve compressor, #2 the harmonic balancer bolt hole has a few messed up threads only info i can find for tap size is a 3/4-16 can anyone verify for me? Btw this is my first engine rebuild so i may or may not have questions.

 

I'd take the crank straight back to the machine shop as they should have caught the issue, or they caused it and tried to hide it. Either way he should take care of the problem.

My $.02

 

Nice choice. I would definitely have the machine shop tap that for you. After $1800 spent, its the least they could do. I have a 68 Toro Motor as my core. Had to go .030 over on block and .004 on deck. I'm using the XE262 cam though, chain, lifters, valve springs. I have the Comps 1442 Roller tip rockers and push rods as well. Let me know how your build turns out.

 

The center balancer bolt to crank is a fine thread bolt and is rather large. I dont see how threads could be damaged internally. More likely the bolt threads got damaged? That tap would be a specialty item and a good machine shop may have one. As far as valve springs??? Never heard that dual springs cannot be used for breakin?? Is this what you are saying?

 

yes valve springs according to the info comp cams sent with it, it says during break in remove the inner springs. turns out the tap is definatly 3/4-16 and my local napa had one on the shelf for 10 buck's. The threads got damaged when i pulled the harmonic balancer and the cone end slipped inside under the pressure of the puller.

 

Wow, I guess they are fearing wearing out a cam lobe during break-in. As long as break-in oil is used and cam lube was used I myself would not go thru all the trouble of putting those springs in and out, but that is only my opinion...

 

here's the before pictures atleast some of them.

 

here's some after pics of progress so far.

 

I know right. oh well after all the money ive spent on this thing i'd rather be safe than sorry. I picked up the spring compressor tonight for 10 bucks also.

 

Glad you found a solution without the hassle of going back to the machine shop. Build is looking good. I'm repainting mine the Toro blue, dropped the paint off at the machine shop this morning

 

Good news, the tap did its job now i can move on with the task. ive been debating which color to paint it. I should go with the blue. where is a good place to buy the paint?

 

Got any pics of your car? I love me a 74 Supreme!!

 

Fusick or Eastwood.

 

Funny thing, I went to the machine shop today and it seems my crank also needs to be tapped again for the balancer bolt...LOL He took care of it for me though.

 

not the best but this is its current state, i hope to have the engine complete this weekend after breaking it in then the fun begins, lots and lots of prep work for paint.

 

very nice! Thanks for posting.

 

almost finished, waiting on a new dipstick tube then it will be ready. woohoo

 

Wow...that looks purdy.....nice work!!!

 

Nice job hope you dont scratch it getting back in .

 

It is best to use only outer springs, and break in for 1/2 hour holding rpm between 2000-2500. Don't let it idle, and set the distributor carefully. I like the rotor about .4" past #1 on the cap when at #1 firing TDC. That gives enough timing for it to start quickly; I check it while the engine is breaking in just to be sure the advance is reasonable--say 20 to 30 degrees of centrifugal advance. I have had no problem usiing outer and inner springs so long as good moly cam lube (like Crane) was on the lobes and lifter feet and it started quickly. Also, if the outer plus inner springs were not too stiff, of course. Mine were around 120 closed, 320 open. Ideal is 80-100 closed, 180-220 open valve for break in.

 

Too bad it didn't work out like expected, but you'll probably be much happier with the motor freshened up anyway. I did the same thing, picking up an unknown motor. Thankfully, when I did gaskets like you did, my news was good.

 

Very nice looking finished product! You should be having fun this summer...

 

Got the new engine installed and hooked up, We got it running after figuring out it was 180 off ran it for 10 minutes and it over heated and boiled over. I called it a night to let it cool down, After reading on here I should have had my shroud on and had a fan blowing into the radiator so I will do that tomorrow when i attempt it again. also i'm not sure if the new tstat was opening so i'm going to remove it and test it. any more suggestions?

 

the boil over sucks but 10 minutes is a good run. when ya fire it again double check you timing & maybe hook the vacuum advance to the manifold to make sure its getting a strong signal. it may help with the temp...

 

Well ive come to the conclution that my current radiator and clutch fan isn't enough to keep this beast cool, so I will be purchasing a 4 core and dual electric fans. I did get a total of 35 minutes of run time on the new cam it was just 6 different runs, Can I be safe to say the cam should be broken in now?

The xe268h camshaft I picked sounds nice. i will upload a clip of it running open headers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiO2J...feature=colike

 

Looks like a nice little project you got going there. Feel free to tell us more about it. And posting pics is always welcome.

 

Basically if your cam survives the first 15-20 it will be fine. As Run to Rund said engine speed is more important than the inner spring being out. I have also heard this but have never had a problem with single or dual springs as long as the rpm was in that 2000 - 2500 range for roughly half an hour to begin with. Also vary the rpm for the whole half hour between those two numbers.

I wouldn't say your car is broken in yet. Maybe the cam is but the rings may still need more time. I don't think you're going to hurt anything however.

 

When i have the rest of the drivetrain put together and get the new radiator and electric fans setup, I will be taking the car out on the country roads so i can finish the break in to set the rings.

My parents purchased the car for me in 91 from a local dealership they bought the car from south dakota where it was owned by a lady that purchased the car new. It had 29,111 miles on it when i got it with a new lacquer paint job. The car was basicly brand new condition inside and out.

The car has 84,000 miles on it, the lacquer paint job peeled off the hard body lines on the lower half and I didn't have the money to fix it.

I parked the car fall of 96 to save the body which actually is in rust free condition. Ive done some work obviously its about 3/4 of the way prepped for paint. The car will be a dupont copper metallic which I purchase 6 years ago. Wife/Kids took priority over the years and the car has sat in waiting for me to get working on it. In that time the decision was made to pull the lazy 180 hp 350 rocket to make room for the beast ive built for it.

I will continue to update progress as it happens, I'm very excited to get it finished finally. It's been a long 16 years in waiting and planning. so stay tuned.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kUjwjYKdTA

I took another clip of the motor idling, I think i'm going to see if i can rebuild the stock q jet, the edelbrock is only a 600cfm the stock q jet is a 700 or 750 cfm? Is there a electric choke conversion available for these?