1971 Firebird455 - Project

[LeighP]

Today, while I was at work, my friend decided to get the pistons into the block. Forged Speed-Pro, they came up near zero deck, which was nice. Pontiacdude's H beam forged rods....nice piece of gear, great value for money.





I also received the new Canton pickup I ordered from Summit Racing (great guys, got it to me as fast as possible without it costing me the earth). This one fitted up OK as the tube was set into the pickup at the right angle. Fitted the pump with my Nitemare Performance HD pump end plate....its twice as thick as the standard end plate and machined with two oil grooves inside where the gears run on the cover.



If we can get time on Thursday, we hope to have the engine finished to long motor stage.

[LeighP]

Hey Matt,

Thanks. That sounds like a cool project...you starting a thread on it I hope!

Hi Leigh,

I love that you're doing a PT car over here. It's rare to see them!

I'm just up from you (in Newcastle) and I've started a new PT project - a '71 454 Corvette. Should be fun!

[LeighP]

Down the back straight-a-way, heading for home........
We got together this morning and finished up the long motor.....then transported the engine back to my place. As soon as possible, I'll do the porting on the intake and paint the engine....its got an appointment with my Firebird it needs to keep.
Oil pump fitted.

Windage Tray....we had to space it a little for clearance due to the billet 4 bolt main caps. Tray has been gone over to remove stress raisers, weld up where it was cracking and include some re-inforcement. Extra drain back holes added.

Canton Road Race pan.

SD Performance CNC machined heads (6X-8s) are on.

Set up the valve train - Comp Magnum 1.65:1 roller tip rockers, Comp locks and Comp custom length push rods.

Valley pan is on and sealed up.

My best friend, Master Mechanic and Pontiac engine guru - Michael....you can see one of his Firebirds in the background...he took time out from restoring that 69 to show me the ins and outs of assembly. Thanks mate!

Safely home on my engine stand...paint and final assembly work to follow.

[critter]

Very nice. I'll come pick your brain on the windage tray mods you did when I get to that stage with mine.

[LeighP]

Thanks, Chris...no problem.

[Doug1]

Great job Leigh. It is really coming along nicely. I did similar mods to my tray as well. I also have a home made tray that the guy who built the 455 in my blue car made. Pretty damn good. I'll get pics up of it here one day. He made it of very thick mesh plate. It would definitely kept any splashing to a minimum but let oil drain back very quickly.

[aronhk_md]

Leigh.....looking good! I'm hopefully not far behind you...lol.

[LeighP]

Thanks...I've got the weekend off - I dug out the new Performer manifold and I hope to get stuck into doing some port matching. I'd have gone the Performer RPM except that I'm running the factory Ram Air system and the RPM is too tall.
My friend in the above pics runs an RPM on his 428 and it works better than the Torker II that was on it previously...great manifold.

[LeighP]

So, between getting some sleep after night shift, and cleaning up around the place for my wife's little get-together with friends, I got to spend a little time on the engine today.
I clearanced the waterpump divider plate and fitted the pump.....using the new stainless steel transfer tubes and divider plate and a FlowKooler alloy pump....I liked the one that I used on my 77 T/A.
I checked the inlet gaskets to the ports.....SD Performance must CNC the ports out to the dimentions of a Felpro gasket as they fit prefectly...no trimming required. Same can't be said of the Performer manifold...needs quite a bit taken out of each port to match the gasket. The floor of the ports are the correct height, though....which makes for a good reference point.
I also got to clean up and paint the valley cover before I finish the manifold and fit it....I like the stock 71-73 colour...the VHT paint has a nice gloss.

[LeighP]

I had the day to play around with things...cool...

I'd marked out the manifold yesterday, so I started in on cutting out the ports to size. All seemed to go OK...I think its not too bad for a first timer. I didn't blend in too far into the ports...just enough to make a smoother transition to the new port size. Didn't take as long as I thought it would.

Heres the before on a pair of ports.....


And heres the after on the same ports...the others were very much the same deal.


I checked the manifold and head matching faces were parallel to each other (tip from my engine builder friend) just in case there had been some machining mis-match....all was fine.
Got the manifold bolted on and sealed up. Then I masked it up and shot some colour on it.....nice.



Started fitting up the accessories....fuel pump blockoff plate, Nitemare Performance remote oil filter adapter (nice piece of gear, it's O ringed, doesn't use a gasket).


Day off again tomorrow...more fun....

[LeighP]

Spent today chasing down some bolts, cutting them to length (why don't bolts fit first time?)
Sat the carby up there to have a look at how everything went together, painted the valve cover centres and mounted them up.....still have to dig a few temp sensors out and mount them...water temp and oil temp, and mount the Canton dip stick.....tomorrow job.

Mmmmm, shiny.....

[critter]

A Quadrajet? Oh heck, you know that will never work!

[LeighP]

Its a Cliff Ruggles Q-jet....darned straight it'll work....lol.

Little more sorting out today.....hung one of the headers on to check clearances on the remote oil filter fittings and the run on the Canton dipstick flex tube.....after a little head scratching on how the dipstick was going to work, I read the instructions....ah! I now understand.....lol. Dipstick needs to be trimmed to length.....

I'm going to have to do a little work on clearancing the LH breather, it hits the bottom of the ram air aircleaner on that side.....I think I've figured a fix.

[critter]

Leigh, why the flexible dipstick VS the stock one?

[LeighP]

Canton pan had the plug already in the sump for their dipstick, I wasn't sure about clearances with the windage tray/billet 4 bolt main caps ( I did have to space the windage tray a little) and the headers vs the stock dipstick...and I really never cared too much for the separate guide piece sitting down in the block that is just located by it's position between the dipstick tube and the windage tray.
.....plus
lol...doesn't look bad, either.....

[critter]

As you know, I'll be using the same pan and I already have a flex tube type dipstick tube for my 4L80e so I didn't want to use another one if I didn't have to. It looks like I'll have to, huh? Maybe put an "O" and a "T" on them so I won't get confused! LOL!

[LeighP]

I can't imagine filling a trans through one of these....but as a dip stick only they look fine....

[aronhk_md]

Thats looking terrific Leigh. I STILL dont have my block back.....sigh. I do have a new and bigger turbo coming though :D Those headers of Ron's look great. What coating did you get on them? Also, any chance you could post over on the Tri-y thread on PY that last pic and maybe a pic from the same spot but lower down level with the pan bottom.....so people can really get a good idea of how they dont come down past the pan?

I'm hoping to get a set of stainless ones from him. He's going to try to move the tubes forward as much as possible, and they are going to be really short since they make a sharp turn toward the passenger firewall right before the trans. But I love that blue purple look stainless gets when it gets hot........and its going to get HOT with that turbo.....lol

[LeighP]

I'll dig them out of hiding (in the trunk of the 71) and hang one again and snap a lower pic...they do indeed sit above the pan, which impressed the owner of the red 74 T/A you can see parked out the front of my house in the above pic. The white truck in the drive belongs to my friend who helped with the engine build.
They both really liked the quality of these headers.

[NOT A TA]

Looks very nice Leigh! Be sure to use some sealer on the dry sump fitting plugs or they'll weep.