Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

A dished piston in a bbc, will have very low compression, with that kind of damage, surely it has a supercharger or other power adder.

That’s purdy!

Sweet car!

I’d build the 496 with budget aluminum oval port heads and focus on a sub 5000 rpm build that will be hard on tires and a blast from stoplight to stoplight. Although the exhaust manifolds would be a restriction, I don’t think they would be a major power killer. I wonder if a set of shortie’s would f...

I did the splayed cap deal on a factory block for myself, was less than pleased when a stain appeared about a half inch below the deck during the first season. The point being, no amount of magnafluxing and upgrading will substitute a quality block. SHP is a great option, may as well consider the 3....

Much appreciated

The finger method won’t work with the oil package, but certainly works for the compression rings.

I would pull any pistons that didn’t slide in nicely and have a look at the second ring, knocked a chunk of one off with that same installation issue. :oops: Them’s the breaks of working with a 4.155 bore SBC, can’t put the chamfers you want lest you give up clamping area for the head gasket. A litt...

I saw on one of the posts what I assume to be dyno results up to 8000, any idea where he shifts and traps at? I have a theory and am curious how close to truth it actually is.

We have a dyno 950 uxp that ends up on 95% of the engines we run for a reference. It’s typically a few numbers better but not always. I would be surprised if the 950 was much if any better than your 850.

We’re talking 3 or 4 PSI boost, not 10.

Thanks everyone. Decided to reseal the intake, and not pull the heads for obvious reasons (e.g. cost of gaskets, resetting valve train, etc.). But before that, cleaned the top of the head gaskets by the intake manifold with lacquer thinner, including the heads and block, and applied a schmear of RT...

Nothing wrong with your choice of head gaskets. Before you go any further take an air nozzle and blow along the gasket seam on the fronts and backs of the heads with a clean rag to catch the spray, that’ll give you a better idea of where the oil is coming from.

Considering that every time we have an engine on the dyno with a supercharger at some point we are bolting on more drive ratio, I’m quite sure you’ll be fine with the stock setup. Just go easy on the timing and jet up, so much easier to tune from the safe side.

Had some heads done by a new-to-me shop and one side leaked in the rear corner(tip) of the headgasket. As others said I'll use some RTV on the tips from now on when installing the heads to save me trouble of pulling one But I've never had that problem before. Also think I read it's a common problem...