A Wonderful New Powerplant

For the third now, I have went on a search for a new (to me) engine. The last Chevy 350 I got out of the C-60 farm truck had some pretty bad compression, with cylinders as low as 70 psi, making it not a very strong runner. It had problems starting and idling and didn't get close to producing its full potential of power. So I went on a search for a better one, here's what I found. I went with another Chevy 350 that was said to have came out of a Monte Carlo. This engine didn't come with a carburetor or distributor but I knew it was going to be a good very strong runner as soon as I saw the compression results. Some of the cylinders had double the compression as the old engine had, with the cylinders ranging from 135 all the way up to 150 psi. Here's a picture of what I got.

The engine came with new rods, a high capacity racing oil pan, a new water pump, an Edelbrock Performer intake manifold, new valve covers, all new gaskets, a new alternator, a new fuel pump, new wires and plugs and a bunch of other new little parts along with the engine stand. I then scavenged the 600 cfm carburetor, ram horn exhaust manifolds, and Jegs high performance distributor off of the other engine and put it all on this one along with the parts that came with the engine and here is what I got.

After many hours hooking up gas lines, vacuum lines, battery cables, priming the oil pump, putting in final plugs and much carburetor tuning and distributor timing here is the outcome.

I still have a little more carburetor tuning and timing to work on to get it running a little smoother, but I am very happy with how it is turning out.

Just as a side note, here is a couple pictures of the oil pump primer I made for the new engine out of an old distributor. This saved me over $70 from buying a new oil pump primer online and works just as well. It is easy to make, I think this one took me less than 5 minutes and if you've got an old distributor lying around or can find an old junk one it's also free. A simple "how to make a homemade oil pump primer" video will be put up soon.

An Evening of Mounting

Today I worked on making mounts for the battery and the radiator. For the battery I just made a very simple rectangle out of angle iron the size of the bottom of the battery to keep it from sliding around. I will still need to make a clamp out of some all-thread to hold the battery down but getting it permanently in place is a good start to figure out what I need to fit around it, such as if there will still be enough leg room for the passenger.

The radiator mount was a little more complicated, finding a reasonable place for it was definitely a challenge. I first though I would put it between the top mounts of the rear shocks and the top mounts of the 4-link suspension but not only was that going to be a very tight fit, when the shocks compressed the driveline will come up and would have created a conflict with the radiator. The next place I though of was to mount it flat hanging from the ceiling but although it would have fit there with no problem I did not like having the sight of this big radiator and fans in the view of the driver. You could still see straight ahead but the drivers vision upward was then blocked. I also just didn't like the looks of placing it there, it seemed way out of place. So finally, because there was no room to mount it up front, I decided to mount it here...

This is still not an ideal place for it because the inlet and outlet are facing the back but to get the fans on the right side I had to put it there and there was simply no room anywhere else. The inlet issue won't be a big problem I'll just have to get some U-shaped tubing to get them going the right way again. Being mounted up there it will also get good air flow through it as there is very little in front of it.

Also, just as a side note on the steering I got a hydraulic steering ram that has an 8 inch stroke and two inch bore from Poly Performance. Like the majority of the rest of my steering parts I also opted to go with a Performance Steering Components (PSC) one because of there high quality reputation. This hydraulic steering ram and the orbital steering valve should both be getting mounted fairly soon. Now, I just hope that the stock steering pump will have enough pressure to operate the system as it should so I do not have to purchase a new high performance pump for another couple hundred dollars.