Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

Does anyone have any suggestions for sizing scavenge pumps vs. pressure pumps? Most of the dry sump systems I've seen have a single pressure stage and three, four, or five scavenge stages, often the same size as the pressure stage. So the scavenge pumps are mostly churning air. Is this contributing ...

Some distributors have what look like ordinary hardware-store roll pins. Others come with a "spirol" (brand name) pin that's a coiled-up piece of spring steel instead of a split tube. The spirol pins are the ones Ford recommended back in the Muscle Parts era.

A cheap Harbor Freight pressure washer does wonders for removing general crud. For $79, it doesn't take long before it pays for itself.

"Don't worry, be happy." The balance machine can pick up 17g, but it won't make any difference when running.

If you're concerned about the pins call the manufacturer and ask their tech guys.

I made a fixture that kinda-sorta-maybe looks like that; I use it on the mill to narrow connecting rod big ends. But I don't think that's what the tool in the picture is for. Looks like someone spent some time making it, though.

There is such a thing as a special crank straightening rig, that may have hydraulics....so, "it's a press", but, made for the job, made to not get in your way, I wound up with a forged steel 231 Buick crank that had about a .005" runout on the crank snout. I determined this was due t...

If all intake and exhaust flow could be handled by a single poppet valve Well, the Gnome Monosoupape was rather successful in its day. Packard spent a bunch of money working on a single-valve design that never made it far, though. No scavenging, no intake tuning, and you can't have an exhaust syste...

Back in the '80s a local shop class instructor turned a 455 Olds into a V4 for some oddball racing class. He removed every other piston and machined some two-piece steel bobweights to bolt to the rod journals to maintain balance. I know he had it running, but I never heard how it did at the track.

4vpc wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 6:55 pmYet factory engines have blue ended rods in them...

Goodson used to sell some stuff you could dip the small ends into, that was supposed to remove the blue...

Using the above methods I don't have any do overs with the exception of having brain fade and installing a piston on backwards. arrgh Un-possible! I thought I was the only one who did that... I now use a large laundry marker color the correct sides of the rods and pistons in their matched pairs, ma...

Around here the scam is, if your bill is $23 and you hand the server two twenties, you get to go looking for them, at which point they act surprised that you didn't intend to give them a $17 tip on a $23 check. The other, usually done at the register, is "round change down to the nearest dollar...

Interesting. The quoted text includes an ad for "mobile casino" that's not in the original.

Ford's factory manuals wanted the pins pressed in while cold. There were a number of different piston holding fixtures to keep from crushing the skirts while doing so. For OEM Ford pistons only, of course. I was taught "bright red with the shop door closed", and never had any trouble. Thou...

That's where 50oz 5.0s like to break. For the record, I've never seen a 28oz 302 break there.

I've never seen *any* 351W crank break there, though. What balancer were you running?

Dove still makes repro Tunnel Port 427 heads.