The small block thread, Zach rebuilds a 350 (maybe 383 one day soon) Options

[VaccaRabite]

This thread will document my teardown and rebuild of a Chevy 350 small block engine.

This may be old hat to many of you, but I have never done it before and figured some of you may be interested as well, especially if you are considering putting one of these into your 914.

The engine that I am starting with is a 4 bolt main block truck engine out of a 1985 Chevy K20 3/4 ton pickup. I am not yet sure what the engine will be when I am done with it. I want to build a 383 stroker engine. But, the parts for this engine are so nice that I may stick with stock displacement and just go with better heads and intake. The heads and intake have all the smog stuff on them, so they are not going to be used.

Enough with words. Time for pictures.

First, lay out your tools on the rear trunk of your old Porsche. Only the finest work jacket will do to keep the paint scratches to a minimum.
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For tear down you need 4 wrench sizes (all inch sizes). 3/8, 7/16, 9/16, and 5/8th. You will want to have these sizes in deep sockets and wrenches. You will want to have at least one breaker bar to break torque on most of the 9/16 and 5/8 bolts. Also a rubber hammer, pry bar, and scraper will be needed.

The beast:
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This is the engine that I am going to be tearing down. It was pulled out of the donor truck Dec 10th and mounted on the engine stand the next day. Don't even think of trying to do this without an engine stand. This 1000 pound stand only cost $50, and it is money well spent. Fair bet my 914 has a little bit of engine envy right now....

Valve covers first.
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Valve covers need to come off first, as they impinge removing the intake. One off in the picture above. You need a 7/16 deep socket to take off the nuts that hold the valve covers on. Lots of sealant was used here.

Valve covers, carb and intake are off.
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Pretty easy so far. Time to go for the heads. The rods going into the block are all the push rods. They come up from the cam and operate the valves. The orange ball of fire is my heater. 70K BTU of warmth to stave off the cold, even with the garage door open. I even had to take off my warm overalls, as I started sweating with the heater and the overalls both. The intake was attached with 9/16th bolts. There was considerable sealant used, and getting the intake off was difficult. I ended up using a pry bar to get it started, and hold it up enough to get my fingers in there to pull the rest off.

First head is off.
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This is the point where I had to do some soul searching. It was pristine! The cylinder walls look like they were just done. There was no carbon ring at the top of the cylinders, which is common for an engine with miles on it. The PO of the donor truck said the engine had been rebuilt 4000 miles ago. But given the condition of the truck and the electrical system (the spark plugs were rusted and fell apart on removal) I had my doubts. Now, though... it took a fair deal of will power to not just button the engine back up again and put new heads and intakes on it. But, I am a stubborn man at times... I am going to rebuild this engine, darn it! This is how I learn. The heads bolts were 5/8s and were heavily torqued. I needed a breaker bar to get them started.

With the heads off I took off the pulley and damper. The damper was a PAIN to get off. Lots of prying with the pry bar all over to keep it from cocking. One of those things where I probably should have used a puller, but I did not have one the right size or the desire to go and get one.

to be continued....

[charliew]

After breakin use diesel motor oil it still has all the good stuff as diesels don't use o2 sensors. I hate to say it but you really should start with the ls motor. You are sorta like starting with 914 type technology on you chevy. Old style gaskets and seals and such. You can by a very expensive intake and oil pan gasket that will help. I have several "built" sbcs and the price is the same but the old stuff as in 85 will always leak more oil and be less efficient. I have a ramjet in my 86 blazer. It uses the vortec heads and 1.6 roller rockers and a roller cam. It makes 350hp 400ft lbs stock and has good low end torque. A normal truck newer ls does just about that good for way less money. When I built my 63 j200 gladiator with a 350 sbc in 1980 I used a 4bolt main sbc. I used a high torque cam with a 600 holley and a offenhauser dual port intake. The intake has the ports seperated all the way to the head ports from the carb. This makes great velocity for chamber filling at slow speeds. It would pull in 3rd gear with the stock 4:09 gears at about 1k rpms. With 31.5 12:50 tires, big back then. It has headers and good exhaust. One mistake I made was 10:1 compression though, lots of water injection and slower timing on crummy gas. Newer style heads will help this though.

The biggest problem with vortec heads is the accessories. I had to build all the brackets for the stuff on the front of the motor in the blazer with the ramjet. Or just use a 96 up truck serpentine belt setup. Vortec heads are great though for street performance and the price can't be beat.

I also used a adapter to put the sbc on a t90 tranny in the jeep. That was junk. The input shaft kept ruining the pilot shaft bushing and before I would take it apart to put a new one in (it's a bigger od than the stock chevy one) seems like it's 9/16 od and the chevy is 1/2 so you gotta make a new one. It would always ruin third gear syncro from the shaft moving from the poor front end support, so that meant also repairing the tranny. So then I went to a chevy saginaw passengercar 4 speed to a adapter to the t18 transfer case. Then even with two sealed bearings in the back of the tranny in that adapter the 90w kept migrating and over filling the transfer case. I would have to open the fill plug on the transfer and drain the excess out and put more in the tranny. I even made a inner fender breather for both the tranny and the transfer trying to fix it. When I finally blew the bottom out of the saginaw on the deer lease from low grease, I drug the truck 130 miles home and put a 400 auto and 205 transfer in it and the problems were solved. Now this wasn't just a hunting wagon it saw 80 plus highway speeds and it ran good. With the saginaw tranny it would get rubber in three gears if I tried. I did destroy the rear end carrier once but the original axles are still in it. Also in the j200 it comes with the 258 ohc motor so the radiator is not up to snuff for a high compression 350. My 79 j10 has a 360 in it and jeep used a saberr saw on the radiator support to make room for a bigger radiator and to move it forward. My 63 has had several radiators in it trying to get it to run cool on a 100 degree day with ac on. It now has two 16 inch fans on a 396 camaro radiator and is still marginal. Either use the short water pump or a electric pump and for sure a fan shroud. Keeping the hot air from recirculating through the radiator at slow speeds is a real challenge. Oh yeah I even have the hood lovered to try and get the heat out. On the earlier hoods the inner support unbolts so the hood can be louvered. Then you gotta build a inner shield under the louvers over the motor, to keep water from puddling in the intake when it rains.

If you just want to chug around get a good stock motor and tranny and transfer and leave it alone. You will still need money for the radiator and stuff. If it uses the old slave cylinder type power steering (like the ones on old mustangs and corvettes) you might want to switch over to chevy truck style power steering, it will need a different pitman arm though.