Pics and a short idle video of 'The Biscuit' after waking from her coma
6 Months ago I dropped a big fat very hard steel washer down Seabiscuit's throat and killed her. You may remember the thread I posted in confession as a way to quench my deep depression from committing such a heinous act. In my quest to make things right with 'The Biscuit' I spent the entire fall and most of the winter rebuilding her to hopefully better than new. This was the first time I had done anything of this magnatude with a car. I'm a software engineer. Sure when I was fresh out of high school I wrenched on my old 327 in my 55 Chevy, but I never replaced an engine. With the biscuit I swapped heads and cam, installed headers, intake, tuned it with EFILive, etc., but I never performed a complete transplant.
I got some pics together to show some of the final assembly. This is after the first 3 'heat cycles', i.e. drive it like you stole it to seat the rings asap and then retorque the head studs. Thanks to Roberta, my wife for coming out into the cold garage and snapping a few.
So I'd like to thank, first of all, Tony Mamo. His port work is fantastic But much more than that was his advice, and there was a lot because I had questions and asked them, he didn't have to answer them, but he did. After an initial conversation to nail down a goal he spec'd the cam. Then we figured out the quench, came to a final decision on compression ratio, I had a knee jerk reaction to go higher, but he pulled me back a little because I want to run pump gas and use the Torco sparingly. We talked about how the valvetrain would be set up, what springs, etc. He installed new guides and we redid the valve seats. I called him with a few panic things, but he always assured me I was going in the right direction. Tony, I owe you big props and if I can ever help you out in some way please call.
I'd also like to thank Tim Dyer at Lingenfelter for working with me every step of they way and building me a great bottom end just the way I wanted it and delivering a quality build.
I'd like to thank Bruce Melton for sending me a good 'get it going' tune, most of which is in the idle video I included. Thanks to joecar for answering a few questions about the CASE relearn, which I didn't have to do. I thought for sure the pcm was gonna hiccup on that. No codes, it fired right up with 52psi of oil pressure.
I am waiting for a slot to get to my friends garage to get an inspection to get legal. After that I will be taking a trip to ECS and have them tune the biscuit on the new dyno they just installed if I can get a slot. It's a DynoPak with the load cells. We will be doing all the tuning with EFILive, of course.
I also want to thank the forum members that helped out by answering my posts concerning certain aspects of the rebuild. For the support when I ruined my old motor, and for giving me the inspiration to 'make it better!' You know who you are!
So following are some pics of some of the work I did this weekend and a short idle vid I did today before I backed 'The Biscuit' out for a spanking.
The rear of the intake manifold. Notice how there is no room between the firewall, the brake booster hose, and the oil pressure sender. I will be moving that shortly.
Torqueing the exhaust manifold bolts
Getting ready to install the intake manifold
Intake manifold installed, routing some wires
All done, back together
Short vid of the effort.
Idle Video
I love the way this thing idles and sounds. You should see how it feels to drive it. I will take some 'in car' vids soon.
Guess I'd better edit my sig.
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