Thread: 350 to 383 Clearance and assembly.

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Now you can install the oil pump drive shaft, I re-used the stock one with my stock replacement pump. If I expected high RPM use and/or high pump pressures I may use an ARP shaft here. For my application its not needed.

Now we can install the pump to the block. This is a metal-to-metal part, about the only that I can think of. Torque the pump to 65 FT/LB. Its only one bolt, quick and easy.

NOTICE - Before we weld the pickup on, test fit the pump and pickup and make sure the pickup screen is level to the blocks oil pan rail. Look at it from the side like this:

OK, we installed and torqued the new ARP bolts, but as per the directions they want the bolts torqued and loosened to be retorqued and on the 4th torque you leave them in. Make sure you use the ARP thread lube for this procedure, its the only way to get a proper stretch. Run the bolts all the way out and relube them then run them all the way in. I use a speed wrench to make the out/in cycle go fast.

Use a speed wrench to make this a much faster. Once you set them all in with the speed wrench you can goto a torque wrench.

Now that they are set down use a torque wrench and make the pull smooth and steady. I like to set the wrench at half the torque setting and make my pull on all the bolts, then re-set the tool to full torque and make a smooth pull to the click at full FT/LB.

OK, now we have the bottom end finished. The crank is torqued, rods are torqued 4 times with new ARP bolts and lubed each time. Oil pump is welded to tube and in. We are getting ready to smear the camshaft with Cranes assembly lube. Apply a large gooey amount on each cam lobe and on the distributor drive gear. Use standard assembly lube on the cam bearing surfaces, if you drop some cam lube on there its fine, dont sweat the small stuff. Once you carefully slide the gooey camshaft into the cam tunnel you need to put your timing set on with the new bolts and use ARP thread lube. Before you put the bolts in make sure the cam gear and crank gear are positioned so that the dots on the gears are all pointing at each other. Also there may be a plate that goes under the bolts that has tabs you can bend over the bolts to keep them tight. Use the plate if its an option.

Now we can button up the bottom end, put the timing cover on and put the oil pan on. At this time I use the Permatex OEM Black for putting a light coat on both sides of the timing cover gasket and also on the 4 corners of the oil pan seal. Lightly install the timing cover and oil pan as well as the 1-piece rear main seal. I smear some OEM black on the seam between the one piece rear main seal and the rear crank cap. Also on the ridge on the radiused part of the timing cover. Once its all slightly snugged, wait about 10 min and then go ahead and tighten all this stuff up. I used a torque wrench and went to 16 FT/LB on all of these bolts, I feel that is plenty tight. Dont forget the rear main seal, tighten it too!

As I said, I like to tidy all of this up at one time. Tighten all the oil pan bolts down starting at the middle and working your way out, then torque the timing cover down and finish up with the rear main seal housing. Dont forget that OEM black. You almost can get away with no gaskets anywhere but for heads if you have OEM black, this stuff is the best!

One more thing for tonight, then I have to goto bed. You can rotate the engine around to be upright and apply that black Crane camshaft breakin lube that we used on the cam lobes and we smear a good thick coat on the lifters. Just put it on the lifter/cam interface area, not on the sides of the lifters. Why? Well, we need these lifters to start to spin like mad as soon as we start this thing, if the lifters are glued into the lifter-bores with the gooey lube it will never work. You will destroy the cam and lifters if you goo up the sides, use the general assembly lube. Mine is a nice and pretty red stuff. Also, Crane ships a bottle of cam break in additive to add to your oil, use it if ya got it. Everything that helps fight failure is my friend. OK, until tomorow night I am calling it done. I will wrap it in plastic and goto bed. Tomorow Summit racing should be delivering my 0.051" head gaskets and my TCI Torque convertor for a tow/heavy haul Turbo-400 tranny. Ill get more pics tomorow.

Hey Denny, I aint perfect man, but I am trying to put together a nice guide for others to use. Sometimes I forget things that I consider common knowledge, or I dont realize its something that really needs to be talked about, but please, help me fill in the blanks and make this thread a monumental guide to helping the less experianced guys get there legs under themselves and get going! Its all easy, we just need to make a great guide!

Do it man! Jump in and make this a post that deserves to be pinned! Tomorow I get the Fel-Pro 1044 head gaskets with 0.051" compressed thickness. I will finish tomorow and by dinner I plan to have it in and running. Thursday it should be pulling 10K lbs :]

OK, as for the tolerances that I had:

Block deck before 0 decking was:
#1 0.027"
#7 0.026"
#2 0.031"
#8 0.026"
After 0 decking the block something turned up odd. I re checked the deck and found 0.009 out the bore. This is why the 0.051 gaskets are being used rather than the stock 0.041" gaskets. I ran a 460 once with a 0.038" quench and after a few runs I yanked a head and the ".030" that was cast into the piston was stamped into the quench pad on the head! I consider 0.040 a min quench.

OK, Piston measured 4.0275"-4.0280" and the bore measured 4.029" So there is a .0010" to .0015" clearance. These are Keith Black Hypers.

Rod Side clearance was 0.022" to 0.024" and Eagle says they want 0.016" to 0.024" so I'm all good there.

Main bearings measured out at all 0.003"

Rod bearings were 0.0010" to 0.0015" so thats a great tolerance.

I did not even measure the lifter bores, only because I was going to use the lifters in the bores as they were no matter what. In a BBF this is a huge problem area, the bores wear and you bleed a huge amount of oil pressure out here. I run bushed lifter bores in my race engines.

As I mentioned, tomorow will be final assembly of the heads, I'll try to take pictures, sometimes I forget for a while. Then I have to type more and show less, I am sorry if any of you feel I missed alot of important shots.

I went to Autozone and got a book on rebuilding SBC's. Its been a great place to set tools, other than that I am amazed how useless it it. I'm sure if I had called Summit and I ordered a couple books, maybe something by Smokey Yunick as well...I would have a literal bible of SBC info, but the Autozone (large automotive retailer around Pittsburgh PA) around here does not have options, so while I was there for other things I grabed a book.

After the head gaskets had an hour or so rest with torque on them, we went and re-torqed them to spec. Its amazing when you get an extra 1/8 to 1/4 turn out of a bolt that was smoothly pulled into torque.