Well-I thought C8 meant 78. I look on the spec's for a 68. I'll have to check the block casting #. Can the crank be vatted to clean it up, or should I just use some parts cleaner on it. Well, I guess I'll be rethinking what I'm going to do to this motor. I don't have any plans for the trans yet. This motor stuff is taxing enough.

 

Hi Steve,
Yea I have heard that line "it was running good when taken out of the truck" I don't believe it unless I can hear it run. I am bilding a motor simualer to yours for my motorhome. I am looking at a low rpm high torque bild. Let me offer some aditional sugestons.
Luneti cam and lifters, flat tappet, advertised duration 250/256, lift intake.503 exaust.535. The Sumit part number is LUN-61600LK price $189.95 This cam should produse great torque at low rpm. I allso like double roller timing set part number SUM-G6630 FOR $37.95 You will want to install this strait up.
When you get into doing some head work this site has some great info. http://www.reincarnation-automotive.com/index.html

Good luck
Bill

 

for the crank- if the bearing surfaces still look good then you shouldnt have to do much but run some parts cleaner over it, if the bearing surfaces are bad then youll have to have the crank ground and get oversize bearings... if the crank bearing surfaces are too bad then you may have to replace the crank- at which point you may as well either get a stroker crank since they are only about 150 dollars more than a regular crank, or just look for a different block entirely- which by the sound of it would probably be your best bet, but definitely save those heads and sell them on ebay, or use them to build a high performance engine and put it in a light car

 

Darrin, William, Danny, + all you other great guys. I've seen your posts all over this site + need your advice. Is it possible to use these C8 heads, bored out block- max 60 over, with dished pistons + still use pump gas? I'm not trying to be stubborn, just trying to salvage the $$ I've already spent on what seems to be a boat anchor. + because my home time is limited to search for more parts.

I appreciate you telling me these heads are worth something.

 

ok... i did some checking and if you leave the pistons .010 down in the bore, use a .041 thick head gasket, 22 cc dish pistons, and use cam part #crn-354551 from summitracing, and new lifters and matching springs you should be able to use midgrade pump gas... if you try to use a smaller cam than that your engine will detonate. also youll need a 2500 rpm or more stall converter or a stick shift for that cam

 

You have an early block. These blocks have a short deck height and there is not much room for resurfacing the deck. An engine that will run well on regular gas should have around 9 to 1 static compression ratio. Using dished pistons and a thicker head gasket will lower the compression ratio but the quench distance needs to be around 0.041. The rust in the cylinder is likely not a problem. I am using an engine that had severe rust that produced "freckles" in a couple of cylinders after boring and honing and it is not a problem. If the rust goes completely through the bore "porosity" the block is not useable without sleeving. D3 cylinder heads on your block with dished pistons set at zero deck and 0.041 thick head gasket should get it done. I thought you were using your existing power train? If you have an extra 4x4 power train you could sell it to help offset the cost of this build. Hot Rodders use the older small chamber heads you have to raise compression on newer engines so you may be able to sell them or trade with someone for a set of D3’s. Starting with an old rusty engine may not be the most reasonable solution. Personally I’d look for a running, later model engine with a history.

 

Well, called the machine shop. Won't be as expensive as I thought it would be to have the kind of work that I'm lookin at doing. Seems the machine shop guy is well acquainted with my son's shop teacher and is willing to work with what we're trying to do. I'm doing one final cleaning of the parts + one last part # check. I know I said this is a C8 engine, but doggone it, all the accessories look just like what I have now, + I can't imagine the steer pump, alt, pwr pump are the same from 68 to 77. I also need to double check on the balance thing. Not sure I understand the diff. Or the reasoning behind it. Steve

 

what balance thing? do you mean internal vs external? if you do yours is internal. im paying to have my external balance stroker crank internally balanced because i like the idea of internal balance better- keeps weight off the front and rear of the crank and in the middle where its stronger. if you mean do you need to balance the rotating assembly and why- yes you do or the engine bearings will toast out on short order because an unbalanced motor will vibrate.

 

Well.........I can kick my kid's butt! All this frettin + thinkin over nothing. I've spoke with him several times on the phone + told him what to do. Well, your kid aint the only one that doesn't listen to you! I finally got frustrated at his progress on the casting #'s that I had him bring the block, crank, heads, + cam home. I've just looked at them + guess what? The casting #'s I thought we had aren't the ones we have. I showed him how to distinguish difficult to read cast #'s by using a liquid to enhance the #'s. We now have a D1VE block, D3VE heads, one bent pushrod, + some very nasty heads! This engine had some serious soot buildup.
darrin, I was asking about the crank. + yes, I'll take your advise about the rotating assy. + have it balanced also. I told him to check on the crank + of course I got the "oh, I forgot." i guess I should be happy that I have the rest of the motor.
Now, it's back to this site to check about a build for these heads!
My apologies guys. I hate wasting my time as much as you do. Sad thing is, Sat. is my only day to hit the machine shop, + tomorrow is Scouting for Food pick-up day. (I'm an asst.Scout Master) + we'll be picking up, sorting, + boxing up food items all day. It's a great thing to do, so the motor will have to wait.
steve

 

If i was building a good street motor with D3 heads I would use pistons for a later model 460. I think 87 or so. They don't have the canyon dish as the 70's motors did but do have a dish that will make for a very good compression ratio that will run on any gas that you put in it. There is nothing worse than to build a motor that is picky about what octane it needs and constantly messing with the tune up because you used a different brand of gas. Been there done that. A 1/2 piont of comp.won't make any difference in power.

 

well the d3s make things much easier, just get some flat top 3cc relief pistons, cam #crn-353941 and matching springs, do a little porting on the exhaust with a die grinder, and you should be good to go on pump premium with a 180 degree thermostat, with a 160 thermostat you could run midgrade- if you have to be able to use regular youll either need to get pistons with a little more dish or put a little bigger cam in

 

green- i know what you mean, i had a 1969 monterey that didnt like anything but premium, and sometimes it was even picky on that- ran best on 93 octane shell gas that i found on my vacation to myrtle beach a little over 2 years ago... i miss that car. said in the owners manual not to use any less than 95 octane so i knew id have issues. surprised a few imports on the way too with that old 390 2barrel. cruising the interstate at 80, hear the fart can coming, let him pass about 150 feet in front, hit the gas and pass him doing 95-100

 

Don't feel like building it yourself? Motorworks in Spokane and Seattle Washington rebuilds engines and markets them wordwide. They do a very nice job. NAPA here in Alaska carries their engines. I put one in one of my pickups and am very happy with it. You should check out their prices. I think that you'll be surprised.

http://www.motorworksengines.com/

 

Everyone keeps recommending building a motor where you have to run premium fuel and I don't agree with that. The quality of gas is getting worse all the time. I say build one that will run on 87and have fun and enjoy the power. Your never gonna miss the few extra horsepower that the 1 or 1-1/2 point of compression is gonna loose.

I've had two motors that were picky about octane. Then I had a bone stock 73 460 in a 79 F-250 4x4 that all it was used for was hauling and towing. You could put the cheapest gas you could buy and it ran good and had great power. It actually had more low end and mid range power than my 69 429 with ported heads an Comp Extreme cam. Both trucks are 4 speeds and have the same gears and tire size. I pulled the same trailer with my pulling truck on the same roads and the stock motor would pull hills in 4th gear where the other would have to down shift to third. 30 c.i. will make a difference but the 429 was also detuned so that it wouldn't detonate,even using 93 octane.

 

If you run such high compresion that you have to detune it, you just lost any noticable horsepower gains. Also, you are paying a significant amount more at the pump. I would go no higher than 9:5:1 (you may get away with 10:1) and put some money in some good heads (trickflows are pretty sweet), intake, cam, and headers if you really want it to scream. With this configuration you will run just fine on 87 octane all day long and have a 500-650 horsepower build depending on cam and other things. However, you won't be under 1,500 dollars, closer to 2500-3000 depending on what you do. You can get your factory heads ported (less than 500 dollars) to match your intake, and hog out the exhaust ports. You can even do this yourself pretty well, it is not that hard - just time consuming. This will make a bigger difference in your performace much more than a half point of compression will. I think that you could build a 400-450 hp 460 yourself for the money that you want to spend.