Street strip use with an SB2.2?

[69434]

Sean,
This is great info, as I may do a SB2.2 head on a Dart IE block some year.
I really like your posts, they are very detailed & explains a lot.
Great read, take care.

Thanks again,
Greg

[68rs406]

Sean,
This is great info, as I may do a SB2.2 head on a Dart IE block some year.
I really like your posts, they are very detailed & explains a lot.
Great read, take care.

Thanks again,
Greg

Glad it's helpful Greg! I got a really good deal on the motor, so I started out in pretty good shape because it had pretty solid parts. I tore it down and rebuilt it to verify and make it fit my combo so I have money in that, new pushrods, some cylinder head work and set up and cam etc. But it has not killed me cost wise. If you buy one get everything you can (valvetrain, manifold etc.) that's the expensive stuff I think. My single biggest expense was SB2.2 specific headers for a 68 Camaro.
Budget? definitely not, but not ridiculously expensive either. Probably pushed my paint job back a year or so but so what, it looks good from 20'...haha.

Glad my posts are helpful, I try. I have been messing with cars a long time and have worked on some pretty fast cars too, but I'm just a garage hobbyist, certainly no expert. I try to post my experiences and repost on the results, these forums can be a great resource. Speed Talk has been a huge resource during this build for me, hopefully I can give back a little (and maybe even some useful stuff... ).

[69434]

Sean,
Have a few more questions, what dia. are your lifters?
What is the crank stroke, mains & rod journal size?

[ItalianJohnny]

this is So Awesome!!!!
Well now I am so excited by this, I am Dying to see it and the Car.... Can you post a bunch of Pics of engine in car, outside of car, interior, etc... And if you have any videos, that would be the Bees Knees....

[68rs406]

Sean,
Have a few more questions, what dia. are your lifters?
What is the crank stroke, mains & rod journal size?

Greg,
The lifters are standard .842 diameter. If the motor ever needs to be machined for some reason again I would probably go with larger diameter just for reliability sake, but the general consensus was the .842 in a decent lifter would be ok. The block was in perfect shape when I tore it down and there was no machine work needed, so I left it be. I'm using Crower HIPPO solids.

The Crank is a 3.25" stroke (3.25" X 4.155 so it's a 354", I call it a 327 bored .155" ) 2.10/ 2.65 rods/mains (factory 400). Using 6.00" Oliver Billet rods.
It's a Dart Little M 400 mains, 4.155" bore and the pistons are CP 30cc dish, that's what gets me my pump gas friendly compression with a 48cc chamber. They are pistons spec'd by CP for the Turbo the motor had, but when I called them they said they would work great for the centr. blower as well.

It's funny, with the little stroke, large port heads, 9:1 compression and currently running NA, I figured it would be a dog. While I'm sure there is more to be had if I kept it NA, the thing really impresses me. It's truly a testament to the cylinder heads I think.
It would be nuts on the street with the blower. I built it with the intention of going with something like an F1, the smaller F series probably or a similar Vortech, and keeping it at or less than 10# of boost and pump gas friendly. The way it rpms now it would have to stay an automatic...ha.

[68rs406]

this is So Awesome!!!!
Well now I am so excited by this, I am Dying to see it and the Car.... Can you post a bunch of Pics of engine in car, outside of car, interior, etc... And if you have any videos, that would be the Bees Knees....

I have TONS of pictures of the build actually, and some of the car too. The car looks pretty stock, it's kind of the old street racer in me I guess, ha. I'll post some up here in a day or so when I get some time. I have a video or two of it too when I first fired it up, open headers in my driveway. Glad my neighbors like me...

[68rs406]

this is So Awesome!!!!
Well now I am so excited by this, I am Dying to see it and the Car.... Can you post a bunch of Pics of engine in car, outside of car, interior, etc... And if you have any videos, that would be the Bees Knees....

Ok, here are a few, I have tons of pictures from throughout assembly etc., but here are a just a few....

The car, this is kind of an older shot, but other than a glass cowl hood it's the same.



Interior. It's very stock inside, it was really worn out inside when I bought it. I found a stock original console and door panels etc. but this is how it looks inside. I would like to ditch the "neck snapper" factory low back seats, but I like the look. It's supposed to be medium blue interior and Island teal exterior, which is a really light silver blue. That's the color it will be again eventually, the pictures don't show it but it's an old paint job, probably from the 80's, but it's a decent 20'er.



This is with the old 406, but exactly how it looks now. In it's natural environment...lol





Here's a few shots of the motor. I took tons of random build pictures.


This shows the angle of the pushrods with the straight/straight lifters. It's not great I suppose, but certainly not bad.



All mocked up and just before I put it between the fenders.



Some random progress shots. I put it in and had to change some stuff. Old power booster was a no go but I installed a manual Wilwood brake kit. I also bought a factory fit harness to change to a CS130 alternator and move it to the pass side, for future blower clearance. The harness is from American auto wire, looks totally stock and fits awesome. several other things as well, but nothing huge, the motor fits really well actually.







Pretty much all done, the air cleaner I changed, I didn't like the 3" element Moroso supplies so I used a L88 drop base, and a R2C 3 1/2" filter with a Moroso top. Also I swapped to a larger aluminum radiator, you can see the previous pictures I used a 3 core factory style and it had a hard time on hot days if I 'used' it a bit.





Here's the finished product, air cleaner etc. Crappy picture unfortunately. Believe it or not, it has a 3 1/2" element filter and a GM L88 drop base and fits under a factory height glass cowl hood. Baaaaarely. It took some playing with it.



Let me know if there is anything you would specifically like to see, I probably have a picture, or can snap one.

[68rs406]

I have 2-3 videos I took right after I got it in and running. The first one is still open headers... I had taken it around the block and driven it a bit like this, fortunately I live just outside the city so I got away with it. It was really loud, I must be getting old...
What's funny is the video kind of cuts off quickly, I started getting some Washington "liquid sunshine" all of a sudden.

The second one is right after the exhaust went on. It's kind of embarrassing because it's running really fat and smoky... It was actually running good though. It's Lemon's 1 7/8" stepped to 2" with 3 1/2" collectors headers, into a Dr. gas 3 1/2" to 3" X pipe, to magnaflows and dumped righ behind the axle. It's not terribly loud until you mash the throttle. WOT it screams, sounds pretty wicked I think.

I need to get a go pro or something and hit the track, it would be cool to see on camera.

Anyway, not great videos, but not bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR6V23EE2ek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z61h1NnTGqQ

[ItalianJohnny]

Dang that thing is cool!!!!!!

It sounds so Mild... how big of cam did you end up getting from Mike? Also is that the same Pro systems HP 950 that was on the 406? and if so, have you had to mess with the jetting much ?

Dang that thing is Cool !!!!!!

[69434]

Sean,
Have a few more questions, what dia. are your lifters?
What is the crank stroke, mains & rod journal size?

Greg,
The lifters are standard .842 diameter. If the motor ever needs to be machined for some reason again I would probably go with larger diameter just for reliability sake, but the general consensus was the .842 in a decent lifter would be ok. The block was in perfect shape when I tore it down and there was no machine work needed, so I left it be. I'm using Crower HIPPO solids.

The Crank is a 3.25" stroke (3.25" X 4.155 so it's a 354", I call it a 327 bored .155" ) 2.10/ 2.65 rods/mains (factory 400). Using 6.00" Oliver Billet rods.
It's a Dart Little M 400 mains, 4.155" bore and the pistons are CP 30cc dish, that's what gets me my pump gas friendly compression with a 48cc chamber. They are pistons spec'd by CP for the Turbo the motor had, but when I called them they said they would work great for the centr. blower as well.

It's funny, with the little stroke, large port heads, 9:1 compression and currently running NA, I figured it would be a dog. While I'm sure there is more to be had if I kept it NA, the thing really impresses me. It's truly a testament to the cylinder heads I think.
It would be nuts on the street with the blower. I built it with the intention of going with something like an F1, the smaller F series probably or a similar Vortech, and keeping it at or less than 10# of boost and pump gas friendly. The way it rpms now it would have to stay an automatic...ha.

Sean,
With that much of an angle on the pushrod the side load on those lifter would bother me, especially at high rpm & a .842 dia. lifter. It's a good thing you are using 7/16" pushrods, anything less I would worry about the flex if their not already. I think I would have used double offsets with a .904 lifter bore min. & find a lifter to give me as straight of an angle as possible, even if I had to go to 3/8" pushrods. By the way what tip is on your pushrod toward the rocker end? Is that a std. 5/16" ball & cup? Also love those headers from Lemon's & what valve covers are those?

[68rs406]

Dang that thing is cool!!!!!!

It sounds so Mild... how big of cam did you end up getting from Mike? Also is that the same Pro systems HP 950 that was on the 406? and if so, have you had to mess with the jetting much ?

Dang that thing is Cool !!!!!!

Thanks! It's been a lot of fun so far.

It's funny how mellow it sounds cruising around actually. It's wicked WOT throttle.
The cam is 304/308 seat, 255/258 @ .050, 112 LC installed currently at 106 (NA spec Mike gave me). .412/.424 lobe, .680/.680 at the valve. It pulls hard from off idle until I shift around 7800. Pulls like crazy up above 4k (stall is 4500 so it works well).

If I was leaving it as is it could use more gear, I'm only running 4.11 gears and a 28" tire.

It is the same carb. It was set up so perfectly on my 406 I just bolted it on and tried it out. It actually ran fine but the 4 corner screws needed to be turned in quite a ways to get right at idle when I put it in gear, so at Patrick's recommendation I just increased the IAB and tried it out. It fixed the in gear at idle issue with the screws out 1.25 turns. It's snappy, no bog no stumble and seems to be almost perfect, but it still is a little fat at idle. Jets are unchanged.
I think there is something to be had still in carb tuning, but it's pretty good. I ran out of summer before I really got it nailed down, plus I have yet to get to the track.

[68rs406]

Sean,
With that much of an angle on the pushrod the side load on those lifter would bother me, especially at high rpm & a .842 dia. lifter. It's a good thing you are using 7/16" pushrods, anything less I would worry about the flex if their not already. I think I would have used double offsets with a .904 lifter bore min. & find a lifter to give me as straight of an angle as possible, even if I had to go to 3/8" pushrods. By the way what tip is on your pushrod toward the rocker end? Is that a std. 5/16" ball & cup? Also love those headers from Lemon's & what valve covers are those?

I hear you Greg, I wish I had the geometry of an SB2.2 block but I feel like it's a fair compromise for my use. And when the block is freshened next time I will go with larger body lifters more likely than not.

Now, I really can't say I know personally until I get some miles on the motor and keep an eye on things (which I have been doing), but believe it or not the one thing I was told by several people (specifically by Bill Hendren) was absolutely avoid double offset lifters at all cost when going SB2 heads, standard block. Reason being the odd loading angle on the outside of both lifters puts so much stress on the tie bar they will distort and break. I was told the sacrifice at the pushrod is well worth the saving at the lifter. It makes sense to me too, if my logic is correct the angularity of the pushrod is a small impact vs the pushrod load being placed .180" off center in the lifter.

Typically guys seem to use center/.180 lifters, some have had luck with .180/.180 also, but I was told to go with center/ center or center/ .180 if the heads will allow clearance. Using offsets actually helps clearance issues, but these heads have a ton of CNC work in the pushrod slot area.

So I'll pull some lifters next summer and check them out, but I think it will be ok based on what I was told. Crossing my fingers at least....haha.

The Pushrods are an area I spent some money, knowing the motor would see rpm and eventually a blower, and figuring it would help with the fairly long pushrod and less than ideal angle.
What I ended up with are Manton, and they are what they call the "series 5", which is what they call "high performance to extreme performance pushrods". The pivot ball is 5/16" I believe at the ball, and they are upgraded to tool steel. The pushrods are a pretty impressive piece.

I asked Manton about a heavy wall 3/8" pushrod and they told me the gain in strength is through diameter, there is very little gain in wall thickness relatively. They were pretty adamant about using a 7/16 if at all possible, and then go with a thicker wall for good measure. The pushrods are about $20 each, but well worth every penny if it keeps my valvetrain stable and alive.

Also, relative to an SB2 I'm not going nuts on RPM, the cam is designed for 8k or so, and I shoot for just under that. It certainly feels like it wants to go more, in fact it almost feels like short shifting it revs so quick, but I figure Mike gave me an RPM range so I stick with that. So far so good.

Again, I have worked on many a motor but never an SB2 like this, so it's all new to me, I just asked a lot of questions and went with folks I trusted. I could be completely wrong and I guess only time will tell. I keep a pretty close eye on stuff so hopefully I catch any issues should one arise.

As for the valve covers, I really don't know? They are nice, but to be honest if I could find a set of valve covers from Gibbs or Hendrick or even ECR or Childress I would like to use them just for the look. They are either not around or are way overpriced. Wish I could find a set actually.

[69434]

I hear you Greg, I wish I had the geometry of an SB2.2 block but I feel like it's a fair compromise for my use. And when the block is freshened next time I will go with larger body lifters more likely than not.

Now, I really can't say I know personally until I get some miles on the motor and keep an eye on things (which I have been doing), but believe it or not the one thing I was told by several people (specifically by Bill Hendren) was absolutely avoid double offset lifters at all cost when going SB2 heads, standard block. Reason being the odd loading angle on the outside of both lifters puts so much stress on the tie bar they will distort and break. I was told the sacrifice at the pushrod is well worth the saving at the lifter. It makes sense to me too, if my logic is correct the angularity of the pushrod is a small impact vs the pushrod load being placed .180" off center in the lifter.

Typically guys seem to use center/.180 lifters, some have had luck with .180/.180 also, but I was told to go with center/ center or center/ .180 if the heads will allow clearance. Using offsets actually helps clearance issues, but these heads have a ton of CNC work in the pushrod slot area.

So I'll pull some lifters next summer and check them out, but I think it will be ok based on what I was told. Crossing my fingers at least....haha.

The Pushrods are an area I spent some money, knowing the motor would see rpm and eventually a blower, and figuring it would help with the fairly long pushrod and less than ideal angle.
What I ended up with are Manton, and they are what they call the "series 5", which is what they call "high performance to extreme performance pushrods". The pivot ball is 5/16" I believe at the ball, and they are upgraded to tool steel. The pushrods are a pretty impressive piece.

I asked Manton about a heavy wall 3/8" pushrod and they told me the gain in strength is through diameter, there is very little gain in wall thickness relatively. They were pretty adamant about using a 7/16 if at all possible, and then go with a thicker wall for good measure. The pushrods are about $20 each, but well worth every penny if it keeps my valvetrain stable and alive.

If & when I get started on mine I am going to use keyway lifters, no tie bar to break... & going with a .937" bronze bushings for the keyways. Hopefully my machine shop can machine some offset on the lifter bores as close to a SB2 block as possible, I'd like to get 1/2" dia. Manton pushrods in there but I'll wait & see after the mock-up. Will have the cam tunnel machined for 55mm roller bearings.

Unlike yours mine is a drag race only engine & my '69 Camaro isn't even close to being street legal...

[CamKing]

Hopefully my machine shop can machine some offset on the lifter bores as close to a SB2 block as possible

If you move the lifter bores too far, the rollers will be riding off the side of the lobe, and could contact the adjacent lobe.

[69434]

Hopefully my machine shop can machine some offset on the lifter bores as close to a SB2 block as possible

If you move the lifter bores too far, the rollers will be riding off the side of the lobe, and could contact the adjacent lobe.

Good point Mike,
After thinking about it I might just try to get the pushrod as straight as possible with the keyway lifter offsets.
If I ever go back to a wedge head then I would want the lifters bores straight.