We Haven't Had A Good Car Thread In A While...........My '67 Chevelle

Our 63 at Lake Tahoe

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This was many.many moons ago.

Al- I know there are ups and downs but you have the right attitude.....perseverance.

It wasn't the ski season yet but we got a little snow the night before.



Mort
 
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Those were the Days

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You could special order the 426/425hp Hemi.




Glenn
 
PlQKqre.jpg




You could special order the 426/425hp Hemi.




Glenn

Seems like an incredible bargain today, but then I remember that in 1969 I was making $535 a month as a project engineer for a major oil company. Shows how much the politicians have devalued our Dollar.
 
Apart and making plans for the new season. Disassembly showed it was starting to hurt several lobes on the cam. This is an area we always keep an eye on as the square nose cam lobe profile, combined with the stout valve spring pressures, take their toll on the leading/trailing edges of the lobes.

Good shootin'. :) -Al

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AA/gas dragster

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Two brother's from the Bay Area ran this car. We knew them so my son had a photo op. At the time he would back off when I fired up the Gasser ,so we moved him when they fired up the rail. He was fascinated by these cars and would slowly approach after they were running.

Mort
 
Yesterday's project on a pals supercharged Cobra Jet drag car:

Out with the Roush engine:
k7gbWyul.jpg


In with the B.E.S. engine:
xnKFbCJl.jpg


Full disclosure...it wasn't exactly 'out and in'. These car are extremely complex and downright hard-azz difficult to work on. The good thing about them is once their up and running, you don't really do any work on 'em except with the laptop.
 
Laptop Tuning

Al
The laptop thing is really cool, but if you need a backup system I can send you one of my files for dressing points.....I'm always here to help.

Mort
 
Yesterday's project on a pals supercharged Cobra Jet drag car:

Out with the Roush engine:
k7gbWyul.jpg


In with the B.E.S. engine:
xnKFbCJl.jpg


Full disclosure...it wasn't exactly 'out and in'. These car are extremely complex and downright hard-azz difficult to work on. The good thing about them is once their up and running, you don't really do any work on 'em except with the laptop.

Al, I have been toying with the idea of the new LT-5. They are available now with supporting hardware.

The problem I am finding out is just getting the darn thing in a car. It seems everything on one interferes with something in a GM A Body.

I have Nickens looking into what it would take. The engine in the crate is $17000, probably another $15,000 to get it in and actually crank.

The idea of a supercharged 750 Hp 720 lbft of torque is rather appealing.
 
Al, I have been toying with the idea of the new LT-5. They are available now with supporting hardware.

The problem I am finding out is just getting the darn thing in a car. It seems everything on one interferes with something in a GM A Body.

I have Nickens looking into what it would take. The engine in the crate is $17000, probably another $15,000 to get it in and actually crank.

The idea of a supercharged 750 Hp 720 lbft of torque is rather appealing.
if them front wheels don't come up........ you need more torque ;)
 
Al, I have been toying with the idea of the new LT-5. They are available now with supporting hardware. The problem I am finding out is just getting the darn thing in a car. It seems everything on one interferes with something in a GM A Body. I have Nickens looking into what it would take. The engine in the crate is $17000, probably another $15,000 to get it in and actually crank. The idea of a supercharged 750 Hp 720 lbft of torque is rather appealing.

Jackie, the LT5 in your Chevelle is a ambitious project, but one that deserves to be done. You may want to look into the aftermarket frames that give you some more room up there.

On this Cobra Jet, the chassis work was done by East Texas Race Cars (Vic Custer) in Nacogdoches, Texas. The engine was mounted to the front subframe, the headers built and then the entire subframe and engine was raised up from below. Coming out from above with the kicked out oil pan, around the steering shaft, etc. is a real challenge.

We got the new piece in yesterday but not without some hiccups. I made some new dowel pins on the lathe from .625 o.d., .083 wall chrome moly tubing to extend through the mid plate that sandwiches between the block and the trans, while car owner Bob reworked the front of the left side of the block to accept the drivers side motor plate. There are some subtle differences between engines but all in all, the new piece will be a cleaner deal....plus it makes 200 h.p. more than the Roush engine. :cool: In the bottom photo, you can see that the new engine has the Holley individual coil-on-plug deal. A wiring harness needs to be done to trigger the coils from the existing E.C.U.

You can get a good idea of the physical size of the engine from these pics. 10 lbs. of $h!t in a 5 lbs sack, as my Dad used to say!

AOf3D7Ch.jpg


Ecto05ph.jpg
 
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Jackie, the LT5 in your Chevelle is a ambitious project, but one that deserves to be done. You may want to look into the aftermarket frames that give you some more room up there.

On this Cobra Jet, the chassis work was done by East Texas Race Cars (Vic Custer) in Nacogdoches, Texas. The engine was mounted to the front subframe, the headers built and then the entire subframe and engine was raised up from below. Coming out from above with the kicked out oil pan, around the steering shaft, etc. is a real challenge.

We got the new piece in yesterday but not without some hiccups. I made some new dowel pins on the lathe from .625 o.d., .083 wall chrome moly tubing to extend through the mid plate that sandwiches between the block and the trans, while car owner Bob reworked the front of the left side of the block to accept the drivers side motor plate. There are some subtle differences between engines but all in all, the new piece will be a cleaner deal....plus it makes 200 h.p. more than the Roush engine. :cool: In the bottom photo, you can see that the new engine has the Holley individual coil-on-plug deal. A wiring harness needs to be done to trigger the coils from the existing E.C.U.

You can get a good idea of the physical size of the engine from these pics. 10 lbs. of $h!t in a 5 lbs sack, as my Dad used to say!

AOf3D7Ch.jpg


Ecto05ph.jpg

Al, there are a multitude of custom frames out now, some feature a 9 inch Ford on a 4 link similar to a A body, others a more conventional 4 link with a padard bar. They use rack and pinion steering.

Here is one by Art Morrison

https://www.artmorrison.com/chevelle.php

I think I would be looking at a $60;000 project.
 
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Al, there are a multitude of custom frames out now, some feature a 9 inch Ford on a 4 link similar to a A body, others a more conventional 4 link with a padard bar. They use rack and pinion steering. Here is one by Art Morrison

https://www.artmorrison.com/chevelle.php

I think I would be looking at a $60;000 project.

One thing about the new breed of engines...given the efficiency of their heads, they can use quite a bit milder cams with some big departures on lobe separation angles, etc. Bottom line...they just don't have that sound that the early engines have.
 
Al, Was that pan done inhouse or farmed out?....Looks pretty neat. Mort

It works well, to. It's an 'undocumented' pan that came from the Ford Motorsports backdoor program where there might be some connections. ;) The one issue is that it requires the trans to come out before the engine is removed.

The pan on the new engine is a Stef's. It fits the chassis better.
 
Looking at all these pictures, the first thing that comes to mind is: $peed cost$ money, how fa$t do you want to go?:cool:
But then again, sure beats sitting in a bar with nothing to show for your efforts but a hurt head.;):D
 
Going back together:

CfApTBel.jpg


Checking valve-to-piston clearance the old school way. Actually, we have more exotic tools to check this with the heads on. But since we've 'manipulated' the valve angle by how we cut the deck of the heads, the clay method gives a better idea of the radial clearance.

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Because of the rules, there's no real 'eye candy' in these N.H.R.A Stock Eliminator engines. Little details and picking away at this and that is where the gains come from. For example, we were able to reduce the rolling resistance of the rotating assembly even more this time around by futzing with various oil ring expanders and oil ring rails. Since there's nothing really available off-the-shelf for this...the ring mfgs get the heebie jeebies when we tell them how light we run the oil rings :eek:...you have to make these packages up yourself. The end result was 1.5 lbs. less torque required to rotate the assembly. It will likely relax another .5 lb. or so once we get some dyno pulls on it.
 
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