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The upper intake manifold plenum box gasket is stainless-steel reinforced and provided a perfect fit.
The upper plenum box is secured with 1/4″ x 20 x 3/4″ stainless socket head cap screws. I applied a dab of moly to the threads prior to installation. I tightened all screws to 60 in-lbs using a criss-cross pattern.
The Profiler upper plenum cover dropped right into place for a perfect fit. Profiler offers both single and dual carb versions.
The Victor valve cover gaskets are really nice. They’re thick and reinforced, so they don’t flop around during installation.
The Moroso sheet aluminum valve covers are secured with 1/4″ x 20 x 3.5″ SHCS, equipped with aluminum/rubber sealing washers.
Eight screws snug the valve covers, and all are readily accessible.
The welds on these covers are very well done. I didn’t run into any warpage or hole alignment issues. They dropped right on and snugged flat.
Our 1150 cfm Holley Dominator one big bucket. High quality see-through sight glasses are among the many features. I’ll address the carb in more detail in the next issue.
I always use ARP bullnose (bullet nose) carb studs. They make nut service a breeze.
The Meziere WP300 electric water pump mounted up in a heartbeat. The body is CNC machined aluminum, and the ports and bolt holes align dead-nuts to the block.
Is it my imagination, or is this monkey growing? I measured a whopping 34.5″ total engine height.
With the humongous Big Chief heads, overall width is about 28″.
Our thermostat gasket of choice is Victor’s racing gasket. This features a thick aluminum core mated with silicone gasketing on both sides. This gasket is totally reusable and there’s no need to add any chemical sealant.
I temporarily installed a billet aluminum -20 AN thermostat housing (hey, I had one on hand), but this will probably change to a slip-on to accommodate the dyno plumbing setup.
The ATI Super Damper is an 8″-diameter unit. The interference fit is a bit tight, but a bit of synthetic assembly lube helped.
An exploded view of the MSD flying magnet crank trigger pickup and its mounting brackets.
Installation of the crank trigger kit was a walk in the park. The pickup can be mounted on either side of the block.
The crank trigger brackets are very beefy. The pickup isn’t going to wiggle around.
Aluminum spacers were included in the kit, and twin pickup holes are featured in the pickup holder, so it’s no big deal to achieve a properly centered location for the pickup, which must be centered (fore/aft) relative to the trigger wheel.
Due to oil pan clearance, I shaved a bit of material from the backside of the pickup bracket’s nutplate and the bracket’s dowel pin in order to fine-tune a perfect centering of the pickup to the wheel.
The trigger wheel features a readily-visible arrow to indicate rotational direction.
The air gap (space between the trigger wheel and the non-magnetic pickup tip) is critical to system performance. MSD calls for an air gap of 0.050″ to 0.080″. I set ours at 0.062″.
She’s almost done. As soon as the distributor and vacuum pump arrive, we’ll prep for our dyno run.
By the way, when the internal-rail oil pan removal/installation is needed, I came up with a simple aid to prevent potential dropping the cap screws and loc washers. Using a @10.5″ length of pipe (featuring a 0.635″ I.D.), I used my lathe to turn the outside diameter down to about 0.700″ to clear the oil pan access holes. With the tube bottomed out against the pan rail, you can then insert or remove the fasteners using a hex bit and extension, without fear of dropping anything inside the pan.
The engine should be tilted about 70 degrees or so, so that the entry end of the tube aimed slightly downhill. Once the fastener is tight, remove the tube and tool together (this also insures that the hex bit doesn’t pop off of the extension). This makes the job much less worrisome.
Tags: ARP, ASSEMBLY, ATI SUPER DAMPER, CYLINDER HEAD, DART, HOLLEY DOMINATOR, INTAKE MANIFOLD, MEZIERE, MOROSO, MSD CRANK TRIGGER, OIL PAN, PROFILER, WATER PUMP
