EFI & Supercharger Project (Phase III)

Engine and Fuel System Rebuild: Summer/Fall/Winter 2003

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I sure am getting tire of rebuilding engines for this car, but here we go again. The car is at a shop called Automekanika located in Spring Grove IL and is run by Ed Kowbel. The dyno, SpeedLab, is also located in this shop. Because the car was already there for dyno tuning when the engine got hurt I decided to just have the engine rebuilt there. I have the worse luck... the last pic on the right is of my quarter panel that somehow got banged up and will need repainted... sheesh.

Below are pics of the engine being prepped. Had it bored another .030 so now the bore is 4.380 inches, which increase the cubic inches from 493 to 500 even and cleaned up the cylinder wall damage. I also bought a set of solid billet steel main caps and had the block align bored for them. The new Ross pistons have a slightly shallower dish (24cc) than the ones I had before and will give the new engine exactly 9.2 compression ratio.

Below are pics of the Eagle H-Beam rods and Eagle stroker crank, which were not hurt when the engine melted down so they will be reused in the fresh build. The engine block is all prepped and gets a fresh coat of Race Hemi orange.

My Edelbrock aluminum heads were still ok so we reused them but had the exhaust ports opened up even more than they already were (WHICH WOULD COME BACK TO HAUNT ME LATER!!!!). The new fuel system we built for this car is humongous. I decided to go with AN-10 main fuel line which goes into a Y-block and feeds two AN-8 lines (one for each fuel rail) and then an AN-8 return line. I wanted to use my stock fuel tank but the fuel pickup had the AN-6 hard line that extends down into the tank. So I had the guys at Automekanika fabricate a new fuel pickup so that it has AN-10 tube all the way down into the tank as well as the AN-8 return line.

The bottom end as assembled with the new billet main caps and ARP studs. Notice the new fuel pickup going into the tank with AN-10 lines. Ok.... ANOTHER BLOW UP!!! After getting the engine all reassembled and running again I discovered that the oil was getting contaminated with coolant. Terrific. That usually means a blown head gasket. So.... tear the top of the engine down... again! Notice pic on right... pea soup oil in the lifter valley.

After tearing the top of the engine down a couple different times (put new head gaskets on the first time) I had the cylinder heads sent out to be pressure tested. Found out there was a small crack in the number one cylinder's exhaust port that would open up when the head heated up and then would let coolant leak through from the water passage. So I had to have the head welded to fix that. What a pain in the butt.

One of these pics shows the inside of the number one exhaust header tube and you can see where coolant had been flowing through there.

<-- Back Next -->

I sure am getting tire of rebuilding engines for this car, but here we go again. The car is at a shop called Automekanika located in Spring Grove IL and is run by Ed Kowbel. The dyno, SpeedLab, is also located in this shop. Because the car was already there for dyno tuning when the engine got hurt I decided to just have the engine rebuilt there. I have the worse luck... the last pic on the right is of my quarter panel that somehow got banged up and will need repainted... sheesh.

Below are pics of the engine being prepped. Had it bored another .030 so now the bore is 4.380 inches, which increase the cubic inches from 493 to 500 even and cleaned up the cylinder wall damage. I also bought a set of solid billet steel main caps and had the block align bored for them. The new Ross pistons have a slightly shallower dish (24cc) than the ones I had before and will give the new engine exactly 9.2 compression ratio.

Below are pics of the Eagle H-Beam rods and Eagle stroker crank, which were not hurt when the engine melted down so they will be reused in the fresh build. The engine block is all prepped and gets a fresh coat of Race Hemi orange.

My Edelbrock aluminum heads were still ok so we reused them but had the exhaust ports opened up even more than they already were (WHICH WOULD COME BACK TO HAUNT ME LATER!!!!). The new fuel system we built for this car is humongous. I decided to go with AN-10 main fuel line which goes into a Y-block and feeds two AN-8 lines (one for each fuel rail) and then an AN-8 return line. I wanted to use my stock fuel tank but the fuel pickup had the AN-6 hard line that extends down into the tank. So I had the guys at Automekanika fabricate a new fuel pickup so that it has AN-10 tube all the way down into the tank as well as the AN-8 return line.

The bottom end as assembled with the new billet main caps and ARP studs. Notice the new fuel pickup going into the tank with AN-10 lines. Ok.... ANOTHER BLOW UP!!! After getting the engine all reassembled and running again I discovered that the oil was getting contaminated with coolant. Terrific. That usually means a blown head gasket. So.... tear the top of the engine down... again! Notice pic on right... pea soup oil in the lifter valley.

After tearing the top of the engine down a couple different times (put new head gaskets on the first time) I had the cylinder heads sent out to be pressure tested. Found out there was a small crack in the number one cylinder's exhaust port that would open up when the head heated up and then would let coolant leak through from the water passage. So I had to have the head welded to fix that. What a pain in the butt.

One of these pics shows the inside of the number one exhaust header tube and you can see where coolant had been flowing through there.