Late Fall 1998 - Begin Searching for a 455 to build for
a car I don't even own yet, nor do I know what it will
be.
Early 1999 - Locate 1976 T/A with 455 in Deleware for
$800. Drive whole day down and back to buy car and
part out to get the 455.
Summer 1999 - Find a complete 455 (minus carb) sitting
in the back yard of a guy 1/4 mile from my house for
$25 including the TH400 trans! Isn't irony great.
I only happened to find this because the guy was selling
his 1969 Grand Prix which I just had to go look at.
I tried to convince anyone I knew to buy the car, but
alas they didn't.
Fall 1999 - 1969 Grand Prix still for sale, so I pick
up the '69 Grand Prix, the '71 Parts car with 455
and TH400, all for $1000.
Late Fall 1999 - Take first 455 to machine shop
to check it out, it looks good so machine work
begins.
Spring 2000 - Get block back from machine shop.
Trade '71 Grand Prix parts for set of #96 heads.
Put '69 Grand Prix on the road and fall in love with
it. Start planning a combo of parts for my 455 that
will power this big beast.
Summer 2000 - Decide to buy a project car for my kids,
who are 8, 5, 3, and 6 months. Kids pick '77 T/A
with T-Tops and Snowflakes from a bunch of Pontiac
pictures.....as fate would have it, one shows up in
the local paper and I buy it....it comes with lots
of unneeded spare parts (trust me, this plays into
the story)
Still Summer 2000 - Rob Freeman (Robb from Classical Pontiac)
unfortunately is hit while driving his beautiful orig
'78 T/A. Needs parts to repair, so I offer him anyting
he needs from my spares. So Rob schedules a trip out
East to visit with Poncho friends and pick up parts.
As part of the visit we decide to assemble my 455 while
he's out here. Once that was decided Tony Defoster also
decided to pop in and help with the assembly. Rob then
encourages me to try to also plan to INSTALL it the same
weekend.......he only plans to be at my place from a Friday
noon until Sunday afternoon.
Thursday Afternoon - November 16th, 2000
While finding the exact specs on my Valve Springs
and doing final calculations, I discover that I may
be within .030 of coil bind on my valve springs....
not the .060 min safety margin most recommend.
I haven't actually coil bind tested my springs with
retainers and don't have a spring compressor to remove
them from the already assembled heads, so as a
precaution, I ordered a set of Crane springs and
a shim kit from Summit with overnight shipping.
Friday Noon - November 17th, 2000
Rob arrives and we begin assembly. Things start out slowly
as we spend time talking and planning etc. Tony arrives
around 3:00 or so. At this point we have 1 piston installed.
Tony is astounded at the amount of used, dirty bolts and
washers and brackets I intend to use....and worse yet that
I don't have a wire wheel or sandblasting cabinet to
clean them with. Hey, look at the rest of my car and see
if I care :)
Friday 4:30 PM - November 17th, 2000
While attempting to install piston #3, the 2nd Ring breaks.
CRAP! How many local shops would YOU expect to have a
.040 over 455 Pontiac second ring, which oh by the way is
the only pontiac ring which is 1/16 and not 5/64?
(Answer NONE) That's what I thought, so I called Summit
Racing and ordered a FULL Set of rings, with overnight
delivery, Saturday Delivery, and held for me at the local
UPS.
Friday Midnight - November 17th, 2000
Completed assembly of 7 pistons, one head, rocker arms,
pushrods, and set lifter pre-load. Also mock installed
the second head and intake so it could be painted.
Get on Internet to update "the world" on progress and
track Summit Shipment. UPS tracking number doesn't
show up.
Saturday 8:30 AM - November 18th, 2000
Get on Internet again to track UPS shipment...uh oh.
Summit shipped it std ground and attached all the
special shipping notes to my PREVIOUS shipment
of Valve Springs which I already got on Friday.
Saturday 9:30 AM - November 18th, 2000
Take a trip to pick up the sandblasted pullies,
and a '77 T/A hood for Rob. Call Tony Defoster
to see if he can find any place in Syracuse with
the Ring we need. Painted the engine parts so
we'll be ready to assemble later IF we can find
a ring!
Saturday 12:00 Noon - November 18th, 2000
Tony called, can't find the ring. But did find
out that the .040 over 1/16 ring we need would
be a .065 overbore of a 4.125 bore Chevy 400.
Decide to try one more call to a Speed Shop.
They are open until 3:00 and said..."who knows,
we might have one, you're welcome to come down
and search through our pile of rings."
Rob and I make the call to give it a shot.
Afterall, if they DON'T have the ring, we don't have
much to do anyway, so it's not like we wasted crucial
time.
Saturday 1:30 PM - November 18th, 2000
While searching for a 1/16 4.19 bore ring....in
the last box of rings at the Speed shop, we
find a 1/16 ring which measures about 4.275 when
compressed. The speed shop lets us have the ring,
and we figure we'll file it down and see how well
it fits the bore. Of course, we don't have a ring
filer!
Saturday 3:00 PM - November 18th, 2000
We find that trying to take A LOT of material from
the end of a ring isn't going to work with a finishing
stone on a Black & Decker "Wizard". For lack of anything
better to do, we put a grinding wheel on my 4 1/2 inch
angle grinder and go at it. After getting the gap
down close to spec, with use the "Wizard" to finish
the ends to a fine finsh. Put the ring in a bore and
it actually fits pretty good. With a light behind the
ring, no light passes around it for 3/4 of the bore,
and on the last 1/4 I can get no more than a .001 feeler
gauge to go behind it. We make the call to go for it!
Just before putting the rings back on, I decide to
double check the TOP ring end gap, which need to be
.027 min for my KB Pistons. The machine shop knew
this and I paid them to file them and install on the
pistons. So I check one and the end gap is only .021 !
Now at this point we have the other 7 pistons installed
and one head on including rockers, pushrods, and lash set.
So we popped one more piston up enough to pull the top
ring and that one was .021 too! Crap, time to pull
the head, and go through the pistons one by one, popping
the top of the piston out and re-gapping the top ring.
Holy Cow, it's almost Dinner time on Saturday and all
we've gotten done is install the pistons, cam, and timing
chain! But at this point we're just about as happy
as can be just to have found a ring that works!
Saturday 6:00 PM - November 18, 2000
Begin putting in oil pump pickup, windage tray,
oil pan, valley pan, intake, fuel pump etc etc.
Finished basically everything by 11:30 PM.
Sunday 12:30 PM - November 19, 2000
Before we get going again, we have to load all the T/A
parts onto Rob's truck to go back home.
And eat lunch too......
Sunday 2:00 PM - November 19, 2000
Start disconnecting old engine.
Sunday 5:00 PM - November 19, 2000
Old Engine Pulled and Dropped.
Now begin transferring all the parts that need to go
on the new engine so we can install it.
Amoung other things, I broke off the stud on
the starter for the small wires, so Rob had to use
one of my spare starters for parts and swap a stud
into my working starter.
Sunday 9:00 PM - November 19, 2000
After dinner and an exteded break, we now have the
engine all ready to install.
Sunday Midnight - November 19, 2000
Engine installed and mounted, including torque
converter bolts etc.
Monday 4:00 AM - November 20, 2000
After fighting with exhaust manifold bolts that
wouldn't start threading, a trans dipstick tube
that didn't want to bolt to the head, and a
misalignment of the alt/pwr steering pullies,
it's finally ready to go.
When we first try to start it, it turned over
REAL hard, and then backfired a few times......
hmmm.....must be the timing is 180 out...maybe.
Monday 4:25 AM - November 20, 2000
Yes, it's 4:25 AM, and we're still working.
We were bound and determined to get this thing running
before Rob left for home.
With the wires swapped out 180 degrees, it fired pretty
much right away, 60 PSI oil pressure, WHOOHOOOO!
Monday 5:00 AM - November 20, 2000
After break-in and an oil change we took it for a
drive. The timing is not set right, the carb isn't
tuned for this new engine (just bolted on the old
400 carb), and we kept the RPM under 3000, so it
was no rocket........YET! But heck, it drove 10 miles,
and kept good oil pressure, and isn't making any
funny noises.....aside from the exhaust leak from
having the gasket upside down on the center ports.
I just want to thank everyone that had anything to do
with this for their support. It was a great time.
And especially thanks to Rob, for sticking out this
gruelling weekend and being there for the finish!
Here are the engine specs:
Block 1973 455 - .040 over
Crank Cut .010/.020
Pistons Keith Black KB222
Rods Stock Resized with ARP Bolts
Rings Sealed Power E300K
Cam Wolverine 1096, 224/234 at .050, .465/.488 lift, 112 LSA.
Bearings Federal Mogul
Timing Set Double Roller - Unknown Brand
Gaskets Fel-Pro
Fuel Pump Carter Street Series Mechanical
Pushrods Melling Stock Length
Heads 1971 #96 Heads - Stainless S.I. Valves - Mild port cleanup
and pushrod buldge griding. cc'd at 100cc.
ARP 7/16 Rocker Studs.
Crane Race Gold Full Roller Rockers
O-Ring & PC Seals on Intake, O-Ring Only on Exhaust
Intake 1971 Cast Iron with secondary divider cut 1/2 Inch
Carb 1969 7029268 Quadrajet - Stock Metering
Ignition Stock Points Distributor with Crane Hi-6 Box
10 degrees initial, 34 total, all in by 2800 RPM
Exhaust Long Branch Manifolds
2 1/2 Mandrel Bent Pipes
Dr. Gas X-Crossover
Dynomax Hemi Super-Turbo Mufflers
