Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

One other thing that helps the GM cam work with the 10:1, is the longer seat duration. The seat duration on your Comp Cam is 260/268. The seat duration on the GM 602 Crate cam is 270/280. That means, even if both cams were on the same ICL, the intake on the GM cam would be closing 5 degrees later t...

I am avoiding most of the dished pistons due to their reduced compression height at 1.540 The H815's are 1.550 By the way the stock 1999 vortec engine is listed as 9.4 to 1 I did a re-ring on a stock Vortec engine and the cr measured 9.1:1. Deck clearances, piston volumes, chamber volumes, and gask...

It just occurred to me that I have a very similar engine on my test stand. I stumbled into a set of Speed Pro 2256 forged flat tops for $50. With the .028" Vortec head gasket, and Vortec heads, compression came out to 9.63:1 and it ran fine on regular if i was careful with the timing curve. I want t...

I have had nuisance pinging issues over 9.25:1 with small cams. The Vortec heads help because they don't require as much timing. I got real tired of being price gouged by the difference between regular and premium. That being said, I have been told by a serious engine builder that retarding ignition...

In my area, Crankshaft City and Portland Engine Rebuilders. Price quotes were around $135. The reason we looked into it was because the crank had a very nice fresh regrind. Apparently it suffered from someone riding the clutch. You cannot buy an aftermarket 400 crank to use stock 400 rods. The count...

I recently made a search for 400 sbc. I found the part number, but no longer available. I suspect disappearance of these engines from rebuild shops has reduced the demand to nil. Machine shops want well over $100 to repair a thrust face.

I pulled the intake yesterday, and cleaned all of the lifters.The engine was cold. I did it one at a time and adjusted them as I went, 1/2 turn. One of them was missing the metering disc. None had any significant amount of debris. My solvent container was white, and after 16 lifters I could see a sl...

This isn't a high performance engine, and after building more sbc engines than I can remember I am still stumped. The springs are only about 120 lbs seat . Am the only one that 120lb seat for that cam https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-1787/make/chevrolet seems a bit much??? Granted I don't kno...

I have sets of Sealed power and Speed Pro on hand.

I have no idea what brand the lifters were, but they were new.I don't believe thy were very old. I have had problems with new old stock, but that is not the case here. The springs were essentially the Z28 variety. Unfortunately, This is one of the very few engine builds where I didn't install a 3 pi...

This isn't a high performance engine, and after building more sbc engines than I can remember I am still stumped. The springs are only about 120 lbs seat .

Walter R. Malik wrote: ↑Sun Dec 27, 2020 11:42 am

Ladderbar wrote: ↑Thu Dec 24, 2020 6:17 pm Don't they have an ls type cly head for a gen1

"All Pro" has several SBC heads which are better power makers than LS factory heads and a lot of aftermarket offerings;
inline and 15 degree or 13 degree or 11 degree.

434 cid small blocks are just easier. Big inch LS is expensive.

I rebuilt the 305 from my El Camino. Flat top pistons with 64 cc 194 valve heads, 8.8: compression ratio, 195 lb. cranking compression. The cam is a summit copy of one of the old Crane Energizer series, https://www.summitracing.com/search/department/engines-components/make/chevrolet/engine-size/5-7l...

The OP didn't exactly say what the state of the engine was, or if it was a hypothetical question, "rotate the crank". I have never been able to rotate an engine in the car by the crank bolt, even the anemic 8:1 CR SBC engines all of my cars came with. That is what the home built tools are for. On an...