Pumkinator Lives!

[SRD art]

Finally, after many hours of wrenching, the wagon is almost ready for a test drive. This vid is of it's first start up of the 406 after new ported factory heads and Summit 600 carb. I don't have the gas tank hooked up yet so it only ran a few seconds until the float bowl was drained. Open headers for this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwa_1-q13qk&feature=g-upl
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwa_1-q13qk&feature=g-upl)
More info about the car in the link in my signature...

[BulldawgMusclecars]

Very cool! I just posted it to our Facebook page.

[carguykeith]

Awesome! Always nice finally firing off the engine huh?

[SRD art]

Boy you can say that again. Simply hearing the car run for a few seconds, long enough to know it's going to run, not leak fluids everywhere, and see the oil pressure hit where it needs to be was a huge milestone. I've run into so many "issues" (i.e. challenges) with this build, having it fire up on the first try was a real breath of fresh air.

[CruizinKev]

oh cool sweet!!

[csouth]

Congrats Ben! That's gotta feel good.

[BCHALK22]

gonna be fun to drive.

[SSninja]

Congrats! Is the motor already broken in?

[SRD art]

Thanks guys.

Yeah it's plenty broken in. I had done several top end rebuilds in the past, but this motor was the first motor I assembled the entire engine when I rebuilt it for my 76 4x4 Suburban, back around 1997. We ran it maybe 7 or 8,000 miles/ yr for about 6 years, then it was parked for about 4 years. Eventually I put it in my wagon and ran it for about 2 years, maybe 15-20,000 more miles, so it has somewhere around 65,000 +/- miles on it. When I do my LS swap this 406 will be going into the 73 Nova my son and I will soon be building for him.

On page 1 of my build thread you can read up on the cracked valve spring that happened at the track with this motor. Luckily it finally let go and dropped the valve at idle in the pits and I shut it down super fast. No real damage to the piston or cylinder, just a small scuff on the piston face. I recently disassembled it down to a rotating assembly and checked everything out, then reassembled with a new set of heads I ported for practice a while back. They started out as basic factory 400 heads that I gasket matched the intake ports, blended the bowl area, blended and gasket matched the exhaust ports, and then had them shaved .010 and a 3 angle valve job done. I also added aftermarket springs and roller tip rockers- 1.6 ratio on the exhaust side.

Before, with junky stock smog heads, a crappy carb that was running rich and shorty headers it put 221 hp and 282 ft lbs to the wheels at 4500 ft altitude. Hopefully the new heads, along with the new long tube headers, better exhaust and new carb, the motor will pick up a few more ponies over the stock 400 heads and shorty headers that were on it. I'm looking forward to pulling out the G-tech here pretty soon and comparing old 1/4 mile times...

[sr73bu]

Awesome Ben! man, this car has come a long way in a short time! Great work!

-Sean

[Tony_SS]

Good job Ben!