C-V8 engine rebuild nearly finished

[cannonball]

This or similar happened a lot with the 383 even when the Jensen test driver guys out testing them, they seemed to have a massive problem certainly on FF cars with the centre thrust,,,

[Robinson D]

Or if you want to take no chances:

[John Staddon]

I picked the car up from Appleyards yesterday. I decided on yesterday rather than earlier in the week as the weather forecast was for cooler conditions than we've had lately, what wasn't forecast was thunder and lightning and torrential rain and now my lovely new engine bay is filthy. But 160 miles covered on the way back to London with no problems even when sitting in a 6 mile tail back from the Dartford Crossing on the M25. Mindful of the need to run the engine in I kept the speed down, 2000 rpm all the way (boring) but I can tell it wants to go and I can't wait to let the engine off the leash. Some pics later after a car show today where I will probably spend most of my time cleaning, cleaning an engine will be a new experience, i didn't much bother before!

John

[cannonball]

You don't want to strangle those rpm,s John, give that baby some wide open burst,s to bed the rings in, if its gonna blow up it will at tick over or 6,rpms makes no difference,lean on it,

[Mark1Stu]

[John Staddon]

I confess I am confused - bursts rather than sustained high speed running I suppose, which I thought was bad. I did another 30 miles today to small local show (first I have been able to get to this year) so now 200 miles, plus whatever Andy B did testing, so I thought tomorrow when I have another show to attend I might go a little faster.

Any way, photos. It's not concours, there are chunks of metal that Andy has left me to paint (radiator goal post brackets, fan support bar, horns), but it's come along way, first here are some 'before' shots, and then 'after'.

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Other than a 'builders clean' the car hasn't been touched since December so about 5 hours of cleaning have been done today, and then of course it got rained on (and my cover seems to have turned to cotton wool in the six months the car has been off the road).

John

[slotcarone]

Back in the '60's and early '70's when all of the Muscle cars were new after they were dealer prepped and the mechanic then took the car out for a road test of course they were all hammered on! There rarely were any problems though.

[RayR]

I would have thought the best way to run it in would be on a dyno? Total control of how you load it and can incrementally increase load to maximum, also check AFR whilst you are doing it for any issues. I have done it many time on low tech race engines with good results every time. You also get to have bragging rights on the HP and Torque!