falconvan

I saw on another site where a guy had remedied this with a brake cylinder hone and a long extension so I gave that a shot yesterday. It didnt help much and I'm afraid of getting metal particles in the motor so I just loaded the engine in my van and am going to drop it at the machine shop this week so they can figure it out.

Good suggestions; I'm going to see what I can do with it this weekend.

I got all my pistons in, went to put the cam in and it got really, really tight when slipping it into the last cam bearing. You cant turn it by hand with the gear on it so something is wrong. I'm using one of Jeg's house brand cams; I guess I'm going to call their tech support and see if maybe one of the cam bearing surfaces could be a hair oversize. I think that's probably more likely that the new cam bearings being wrong?

Looks and sounds fantastic! Beautiful fab work, sir.

I did some prep work tonight; I couldn't find the right oil pump pickup for the rear sump pan anywhere as it's out of production and the pan itself was hard enough to come by. So I just welded on a 6" extension and it looks like it will work and clear the crank fine. Also pulled out the clutch pedal as I'm going with a 727 trans, pulled out the 5/16" fuel lines and pulled off the exhaust. I hope to get the short block together next week if the machine shop gets my pistons put on the rods.

The SHO motor left today on a truck to Milwaukee for it's new home in an Austin Healy Bugeye and I got some $$ to help finance the 400 swap. The crank and freeze plugs went in today; I'll be out of town working all next week but hope to get a little more done next weekend.

You know, for me the build is the most enjoyable part and I suspect it's the same for you. Yeah, I like cruising around in the finished product and hanging out with the other car show geezers but it's long weekends in the garage doing the fabricating and stewing up new ideas while listening to Cardinal baseball on the radio that really floats my boat. So as far as all the work; well, if I wasn't working on this one I'd be working on one of my other ones so it's all the same. Either that or I'm just incapable of making up my damn mind about what I want! Thanks for tuning in; this one is going to take some thinking.

I took the 49 to the car show last night with my grand kids for one last time this season and then went ahead and pulled the motor today. It really does run nice for a cruiser but I think the big block will be a lot more fun. I'm putting the SHO motor up for sale to help finance the swap; I'm sure someone out there has a Falcon, Mustang, or Ranger they might want to stick it in.

Not much car stuff happening the last month; we had our little anniversary vacation and I recently went to work for IKEA as a Facility Manager for the new St Louis store. We're in the midst of construction and getting ready to open the store in about 8 weeks so it's been pretty nuts. I decided to change the formula a bit and just go with a warmed over 400 rather than the stroker. Just going with a set of TRW forged flat tops, a bigger cam, some home porting on the heads and I picked up an old Edelbrock TM6 intake. It should be plenty for what I want and will save me a good bit of $ going this route. I got my heads cleaned up and tore down today and will probably start some porting this coming week. I also found a highly elusive big block truck oil pan with a rear sump for a decent price; this was a tough item to come up with but a must for the install.

Congrats; good to see a successful resurrection.

I stripped all the 1985 emission crap off and power washed the drive train to start mocking things up. Unbelievable how much junk they used in the mid 80's; tons of vacuum lines, smog pump, electric carb, etc, etc. My plan is to go with the early vacuum advance distributor and a Weber progressive 2 barrel carb to keep it simple. Iv'e got the power train sitting in the frame and the spindles on the lower control arms, now I can start fabbing some engine mounts.

Thanks, Don. Looks like he hasn't been on in a year but I'll try and pm HIm.

I recall someone on the forum had a mopar 383 swapped into their old Plymouth. Who was it, I'd like to get some advice on the swap if I could?

I got my block back from the machine shop; everything looked good and it cleaned up at .030. I blew my car budget for the month so I'll drop the crank off in a couple weeks. We're leaving next week for our 10th wedding anniversary so no car stuff for a few weeks.

Lots of little stuff done; got the decklid back on, transmission TV cable hooked up, tracked down a parasitic battery drain and did some work on the wipers. Should be ordering a windshield next week and start getting the glass put back in soon. Then its time to start polishing a ton of stainless trim and getting it back on along with wheels and tires in there somewhere.

Really nice job, don't see many Mopars of this vintage.

Butch's cool stuff makes a bolt in motor mount, I think.

Factory Ford Explorer brakes work pretty well as is an easy swap. Just have to have a CNC place cut some brackets to mount the calipers. I had mine cut for a little over $100.

I got the suspension mounts finished today and bolted the IFS down for a test fit. Looks like everything is square. I also cut one side off of the rear axle and will use this piece to make the rear swing arm. I dont know what they make that axle material out of but it destroyed several heavy duty sawzall blades before I got through it so it must be pretty stout.

Got the decklid repainted this week; it had a few bad spots that we figured it was easier just to reshoot it. Should be ordering and installing a windshield soon and begin polishing all the stainless and putting it back on the car.

Got the engine tore down and picked up a 440 crank this week. Everything looked good; probably could have ran the engine like it was the way the bearings looked. Off to the machine shop this week to see what everything looks like. I decided to go with the 451 stroker. That's the 400 block, turned down 440 crank, stock rods, and Keith Black stroker pistons.

I laid the frame and the unibody front section side by side, drilled out the spot welds on the front suspension mounts, and transferred them over to the new frame. After a lot of measuring and remeasuring from different points it looks like they are in the right spot and everything is square. The goal is to get a rolling chassis and then figure out the drive train mounts.

I plan on keeping the stock steering and probably building headers to fit. The nice thing about using the B block mopar rather than the RB block is they are narrower. So you end up with a 470 that is 60 lbs lighter and narrower than a 440.

Actually doing a 470.

Good idea! I'll look into that.