Signet-ficant Other

[Dr.Jass]

As evidence of my theory of Agnes' heads being part of early, if not one of the first, implementations of 48° lifter bores, have a look. This is the intake-manifold surface of an untouched factory NOS head for a 48° R-block. Check out the pushrod clearancing:






As a side note, these heads "require" custom rocker gear that is only available from T&D or Jesel. It starts at around $1,700. The special rockers are required for two reasons: First, there is no provision for shaft oiling and second, it moves the rockers' pushrod location--to the exact location where my cylinder heads put them.

Ain't that some shit? :wtf:

 

[Dr.Jass]

By now it was painfully evident that I was going to have to figure out a way to move the centerline of the rocker shaft back toward the valves. The question was, "How much do I really need them to move?" Looking through various catalogs and old manuals, I found there were myriad valvetrain variations on the W2 over the years, but the most common seemed to varying shaft offsets. I reasoned, correctly as it would ultimately be revealed, that if I reversed the shaft offset--essentially installed the parts backward--I could move the rocker shafts back to their original location.

The major stumbling block at this point was purely financial: Only Harland Sharp still makes any of those parts, and they're not cheap. As an added kick to the head, I found along the way that Harland Sharp's W2 shafts are only designed to work with their rockers--they're a slightly larger diameter. I had already determined I couldn't use the 1.6 HS rockers I had due to valve-piston clearance with the roller cam, and no way in hell was I dropping $1,300 on yet another set of rockers for this ol' girl. So, what's a fella to do?

I decided to order a set of standard LA rocker shafts through work, bore the holes out to 3/8", then offset-grind the holes the desired amount. I then took the HS "reversible" stands I already had, and handed them off to machinist friend Joe. $20 and a few weeks later, Joe'd redrilled 'em (through the solid sides) with the holes offset .100" from the centerline of the rocker shaft bore. Although I knew the heads were drilled further offset than that, I was pretty sure .100" would be enough and I was really concerned about shaft strength. These aren't W2 shafts, which means they're probably not hardened. They're quite thick, but I was also grinding out a considerable amount of material to make them fit the stands. I should probably mention again that "over the nose" (at peak cam lift) my valvesprings are exerting more than 560lb of force. Also, the ancient HS stands are sorta frail-looking--which is not an issue with their newer ones.

Here's where I landed with the .100" offset shafts:






That doesn't look so bad, right? That's what I thought, and I was initially pretty happy with the pushrod clearance. Jockeying the stands between thin and thick sides down got me to a decent place in terms of rocker-tip alignment with the valve, too. Ultimately "good enough" wasn't, especially when it occurred to me that a 5/16" pushrod simply wasn't gonna cut it in this application. I just didn't like the clearance all the way through the pushrods' travel, and continuing to grind on the heads wasn't appealing to me in the least.

I had reached a point of dilemma: I knew I had to go to the .180" offset, but how did I want to go about it? I was fresh out of stands to have drilled, so that left me with ordering the balls-expensive Harland Sharp offset pieces, or having Joe machine a custom set for me.

I needed some time to ponder the situation. Should I order expensive, ready-made parts, or do I wait while Joe fabs up some custom ones between jobs at work? :hmmm:

 

[Dr.Jass]

While I mulled over that dilemma, I decided I could continue my cheap-ass ways somewhere else: The exhaust system! :dance:

While I'd originally submitted myself to the idea of big-money TTi headers, a funny thing happened at one of the '17 Jefferson swaps. 'Twas there that I picked up a brand-new set of Doug Thorley headers for an LA-engined A-body... for $30 (or was it $35? :hmmm: ). Gotta love Chevy guys that don't even know what they're selling. :dance: Regardless, they were cheap. Since I've only got the one A-body, I set about to use those instead rather than wallop my checking yet again... that's right, adapter plates!

If you're ever in the need of smaller pieces of new steel, look up user "synergysteeldesigns" on eBay. These guys exploit the US Postal Service's "If it fits, it ships!" maxim to the extreme. If it'll fit in a flat-rate box, they'll ship you 50lb of your chosen iron for the price of a flat-rate box. And lo, I had some suitable 1/2" steel plate from which to make a set of W2-to-standard header adapters. :dance:

Since my W2s have a dual pattern on the exhaust, one of which is the production layout, I started by using an old header flange as a drill guide to establish the bolt pattern:





I made sure the next hole would be in the correct place by bolting the flange to the steel plate.




Due to the packaging constraints of the USPS Flat Rate system, I could not get plate long enough to make a flange-length adapter, so the plates will be cut into three sections once they're done. I also drilled out the approximate center of each exhaust port, meaning the closest I could get with one side being the W2 D-port and the other side being the production dog-leg.

The second plate went very quickly, since I could just use the first one as a drill guide.




Just like that, I had the beginnings of a set of adapters!




The next thing I did was to take the largest hole saw I dared use--1"--and enlarge the port holes out to a reasonable size from which I could start the dreaded grinding. To make abso-damned-lutely sure I was where I needed to be, I shot the plates with layout dye and scribed both port shapes on the side from which I was drilling. NOTE: Yes, the center ports are inverted from the outboard ones. That was intentional, due to the bolt holes' relationships to the port openings.




The next step was to grind out the area that is common to the two ports. It's not a particularly huge area, since the W2 port floor is significantly raised in relation to the factory design (which, as we all know, sucks).




Did I mention I hate grinding? This was absolute tedium. Anyhow, the next step was to rough in the factory shape to the common port area:




Then it was time to flip the adapter over, and rough the W2 side of the plate:






From this point on, everything was done with the sandpaper rolls on the die grinder. While the smooth finish seems the obvious reason, the real benefit was the slower, more-controllable removal of material... it's pretty obvious the cutter jumped a couple of times during the rough-in process.

 

[Dr.Jass]

I should mention that throughout this process, though I'd scribed the port shapes on the steel I'd been using actual cylinder heads (one X, and one of Agnes' W2s) to verify that I wasn't over- or undercutting the actual port shape. These things are going to rob some power--I know that--but probably not $700 worth of it. :helpme:

I was pretty happy with the post-sandpaper results. Here's the factory-port side:




And this is the W2 side:




Of course, the ultimate question on your mind, dear reader, is "Yeah, yeah... so how well do they acutally fit the heads?" I will allow you to be the judge of that.

Here, it's bolted to the W2 head, so you're seeing the surface to which the header will install:




And just for giggles, this is how it matched up to the X-head's exhaust port:




What looks like a mismatch to the left side of the port in the last photo is not; the bit "sticking out" is actually the inward taper of the port from the gasket surface of the X head. The transition is smooth as a baby's butt all the way around--which was pointless effort, since that side will be meeting up to a header tube anyhow. My thought process? "I might need to reverse 'em some day on another project." :doubt:

One final note: Grinding leaves one hell of a mess. Make sure you clean up afterwards, especially those pesky 1/8"-long shards stuck in your left eyeball. No, I'm not kidding... I actually tweezed that anvil out of the corner my eye after a couple of days of agony hoping it would come out on its own. A face shield is a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, safety glasses--and I was wearing my prescription glasses under the shield!




One down, seven to go... I literally have not touched that project since. It took a while for my eye to heal, and I got busy with other things since. Ain't gonna lie, that hurt--a lot--and I haven't exactly been chompin' at the bit to have it happen again.

 

[dodgechargerfan]

I’m not sure why this thread wasn’t stickied.

It is now.

 

[wingnit]

We need updates. I just spent a lot of time reading this book only to find that there is currently no ending. WTF?

 

[Dr.Jass]

I didn't realize anyone was still watching! It's not a never-ending story; there is much to update but no--"Agnes" is still not mobilly self-sufficient. We're getting close, though.

I shall update soon. I've a ton of pictures.

 

[69.5CUDA]

ove the years, iive actualy found LESS crap in my eyes wearing nothing, and the only thing i can figure is that you squint and are twice as carefull, where with full protection your wide eyed n fearless, be thankfull you werent at the DR getting them to dremel your eyeball...it SUCKS

 

[Dr.Jass]

"I shall update soon." --me, 11 months ago.

She spent this winter trapped in the backyard on Stretch's trailer. There was pretty good progress last year; it's mostly wiring and little details left to do. The problem with updates is trying to figure out pictures to post, which details to include and which to leave out. Anyhow, now that the weather's improving it shouldn't be long before I can work out a lot of what needs to be done right where she sits.

 

[Jester]

How's the eyeball feeling these days?

 

[Dr.Jass]

The eyeball's great. It healed pretty quickly with no lingering effects.

 

[Dr.Jass]

OK, we'll get into some pictures. Because of the long delay, I'm just going to hit highlights that show what we've done and the level to which we took things. For as crappy as she looks, a lot of effort and time went into making sure things were done right. That's how a good sleeper comes to be.

First and foremost, the valvetrain dilemma ultimately resulted in another expense. Joe changed jobs, which left the Harland Sharp offest rocker stands as my only option. $250 vaporized, and they still needed work! One would think for that kind of money, you'd get perfect parts... not the case here. There were burrs around the bolt holes, inside and out. I cleaned those with a countersink, then sanded the faces smooth. The insides were cleaned with a brake-cylinder hone where needed.




The large "O" stamped in the top means "oil" due to my desire to maintain the stock oiling system. Because of the ridiculous offset of the shafts, the bottom of the two blocks at the oiling holes required some serious porting:




In fact, when I installed them I shot them with some Permatex High-Tack spray gasket, to ensure the oil gets into the shafts alone:




The nearly-idiotic offset required to get the rockers back to the original production position:




And the mildly-terrifying amount of grinding required to the rocker shaft to make that happen:




And the Lord did grin...




...and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu...




Now, whether this whole menagerie manages to hold together at nearly 8 grand is another matter entirely, particularly at such gorilla spring pressures. But the geometry? It's as perfect as it's going to get without one-off rocker shafts and stands... and I hope that's its saving grace.

 

[Dr.Jass]

With the long-block finally sorted, it was time to move on to the intake manifold. I had already chosen a Holley Strip Dominator as my weapon of choice, but what prompted me to brutalize an NOS one still escapes me... it's not like I didn't have a used one here. Then again, I have another NOS one so there's that.

Having learned a thing or two about grinding by now, and with a new appreciation for my depth perception, I started the intake-porting process by making a tool. I first cut a hole in the side panel from an old HP desktop tower--old computer cases have good, sturdy metal and are great to keep around for this sort of thing:




Next, I took a piece of scrap exhaust pipe lying around from my shop-vac cyclone project, and cut it on a suitable angle:




I then finish-ground the hole in the panel to shape, then centered a carburetor adapter over the hole and drilled out both bolt patterns:




A thick beads of orange silicone (color doesn't matter--it's what I had close) around the carb adapter was allowed to fully cure overnight:




Then the pipe got welded to the side panel, and the adapter bolted in place:




After another bead of silicone was added to this side and cured, the entire contraption was then bolted to the intake manifold, and my shop vac hose was slipped onto the pipe. The existing edge on the side panel made it easy to clamp in a vise:




By taping over the 7 ports not being hogged, turning on the shop vac pulled virtually every chip and shaving down the port on which I was working:




Was it effective? Unbelievably so! In fact, after two ports completed, I looked down at the black sweatshirt I was wearing, and there wasn't a single aluminum chip on it. I still wore my face mask, of course.

Roughing in the new port shape gives some idea of the extent to which the intake needed to be hogged to match the head ports:




One advantage to working upside-down? You're less likely to mangle the critical short-side floor radius. It was blended to the new shape, with very little back-cutting. After the first port was done, I had a pretty good comparison between as-cast and fully ported:




This is the best shot I have of a finalized port--the one all the way to the right. I'd already started roughing in the one next to it:




Rinse and repeat 7 more times. I did not polish the ports, as current theory has that a rougher shape actually improves the airflow... it's nothing to do with keeping the mixture in suspension, either. Think "golf ball" and you'll get a bit of the idea.

Just for grins, here's a shot of a piece of tape removed from one of the covered ports after I finished. Those shavings didn't make it to the shop vac, but much more importantly didn't make it onto or into me:

 

[Jester]

Glad you're not breathing in all the metal bits... How are the neighbors in regards to noise coming from the garage?

I feel bad just flipping on the air compressor sometimes.

 

[Dr.Jass]

I have two kinds of neighbors: Those who understand me, and those who think I'm the wrong person with which to trifle (and hence, don't). I get along with all of 'em well enough, but a few regard me as "the crazy guy in the end garage" and that's fine.

Since the garage is insulated, the noise bleed isn't really that bad. The stereo's louder than the air compressor, and I turn the music down as the hours grow late. The truly-obnoxious stereo's in the house.

 

[Dr.Jass]

Moving right along...

With the valvetrain finally sorted, the time was nigh to assemble the engine. Alas, my 1969 340 valve covers had some fairly-gnarly dents in them, two of which are evident here:




Expensive in good condition but not like this, I had nothing to lose... so naturally, I started beating on them with the body hammers. I'm kind of proud of the results, to be honest--I'd never attempted anything like that before. If you've never done it, about 90% of the beating is actually done on the outside... the metal stretched during the denting process, and needs to be shrunk... that pulls much of the dent back out.








A quick run through the blast cabinet (they're bare steel in this pic) and they were almost ready for primer and paint:




Now in possession of a $200+ pair of one-year, one-engine-only valve covers, it was time to hack 'em up! What good are beautiful valve covers if they don't actually clear your enormous rocker arrangement? It was time to chop out the factory baffles. The problem with that, of course, is that your PCV and breather are now wide-open to oil splash... of which there's a lot up top. I worked around that by cutting up more of that HP computer side panel (I told you they were handy!). The smaller flat one is under the PCV valve, with adequate venting around its sides. The one with the louvers is for the breather, to allow better breathing since it's merely a vent rather than a vacuum point. Is it still going to suck/blow oil? Probably, but these measures should mitigate it quite a bit. This was after being finished inside with Pioneer's excellent T-58 cast iron grey (which was still wet):




Around this same time, I decided the ghastly chrome on the air cleaner needed to go too. Yes, I sandblasted an original chrome air cleaner:






It was blasted inside and out, then covered entirely with self-etching primer:




After that dried, the inside got a coat of straight gloss black--no reason to be showy there--and the outside a heavy drenching of old-stock Krylon wrinkle paint:




Which, of course, wrinkled nicely as it cured:




The low spots weren't so great, but the pie tin hides that quite nicely. I'm happy with the results:

 

[Jester]

Nicely done. Those dented valve covers look brand new, same with the air cleaner. Did you spot weld the baffles on? I can't see well with my phone.

 

[Dr.Jass]

They were tacked in place with the MIG, which was also used to fill a couple of small holes I accidentally created whilst grinding out the spot-welds on the original baffles.

Once painted, the valve covers really became gorgeous... stay tuned, I'll update more yet tonight.

 

[Dr.Jass]

Staying with the "Frayed Ends of Sanity" this engine has created, I finally got to the point where the heads were down for good and I could bolt on the intake. However, that requires gaskets.

W2 gaskets.

See, there are a couple of variants of W2 gaskets: One one hand, we have the floopsy, almost rubber kind and on the other, those made of some kind of titanium/diamond/manila envelope alloy that can not be cut, shaped, or reasoned with. Remember those Holland-Tunnel intake ports? Yeah, you sorta have to make your own gaskets from what's available. I had chosen poorly.

I can't find pictures of this process, but matching the gaskets to the heads/intake was, by a long shot, the worst job on this engine. All I can find is this shot of the as-delivered gasket bolted to the head prior to what was a nearly-futile effort to match it to the head ports:




The "2I" in Sharpie is to keep it oriented correctly: Bank 2, intake side. These gaskets only go on one way correctly.

If you think I hated that gear drive, you ain't heard nothing yet... these motherfuckers simply will not be cut. I broke more X-Acto blades on two gaskets than I did in the preceding 47 years of my life. I have carpal-tunnel syndrome that only allowed me to do little more than a single port each night--an hour or more of cutting--if I got that far! I'm not kidding. I actually tried resorting to the die grinder, but it merely deformed where I was trying to trim.

Here's the rub: These are single-use parts. I have a weeks' worth of night-time labor into them, and the second that manifold has to be removed, into the gar-bosh they go... so, word to the wise: If you have to port-match W2 gaskets, get the pink ones. The beige ones are nearly unworkable. You were warned.

After all that, I got the intake torqued in place, only to find out I'd have to do still more cutting on the gaskets. That's right, they stuck up so far I could not install the valve covers:






Out came the X-Acto collection again, to suffer another round of decimation by these Hell-in-a-Hand-Gaskets. The first one I broke flew across the room. The second one? I couldn't find it. Well, eventually I found it:




Yes, that's it down in the lifter galley. The little prick fell down a drainback hole. I really thought I was going to have to pull the intake--which meant tossing the never-fired gaskets. I nearly wept--my magnetic pickup tool would not fit down there. Then I remembered that my scratch awl had a little magnet embedded in its back end... and that was the cock for Dolly. The offending prick, highlighted in yellow and still on the back of the scratch awl:




Cutting the gaskets so the valve covers would clear would consume two more full nights after work, but I finally got them trimmed back:




This, of course, is when I found out the Edelbrock (pronounced "el-duh-brah" in much of the Southern U.S.) thick gaskets would not clear the fucking intake manifold! Having had enough of this gasket-modifying bullshit, I took them straight over to the bench grinder... fuck me? No, fuck you. I'll be damned--they actually grind beautifully:




Guess what else didn't fit well? The oil pan gasket. With a bunch of sealant and a hardy "go fuck yourself!" I resigned myself to whatever leak I might get should be pretty minor with a 10-quart capacity.

Yes, that hole is a pass-through for the steering drag link:




At least it was starting to look like an engine. Sheesh.

 

[Dr.Jass]

In my somewhat-futile attempt to maintain the "sleeper" bit, I stuck to stock as much as possible. Obviously that included the OE valve covers, but alas--I did forget to grind the "Holley" logo off the intake manifold, damn it. At least I topped it off with a scabby-looking OE thermostat housing.

I bought the MP hot-rod silicone bypass hose, which luckily has a stock-looking rubber coating that should crack the paint just like the factory ones did, seen here with the still-unpainted water neck:




I even dropped an embarrassing amount of money on the correct reproduction oil-filler/breather cap, made more embarrassing by the fact that I had to paint the damned thing:




After masking this and plugging that, the engine got a final coat of red... and with the breather in it, 'twas a thing of beauty. This is my favorite picture of the engine, for the record. To quote 6pkrunner when he saw this photo, "Look at that goddamned beautiful bypass hose."




Moving on with the accessories, a sorta-reconditioned set of OE pulleys was painted and installed. Clearance is at a premium between them:




Once you get that far, you pretty-much have to toss a carb on it--any carb--and install the air cleaner!




Finally off the stand and ready to head over to Stretchy's place for installation... but that's getting way ahead of ourselves, because much happened with the rear frame, suspension, trunk, etc. in the meantime. I'll start covering that in the next update.