The little 304 that could...

[1time]

I've been a 2yr+ lurker on here and never posted anything so figured i'd fill you all in on what this forum has inspired me to do :P

I had a VR SS that i was dailying but the finance minister said no to 3 cars so yanked the motor and sold the shell, tore the motor to bits, threw everything in degreaser, and re assembelled with some new bits and slotted it into my VH.

I don't have any pics of the tear down but im sure we've all seen a stocko in bits before.

I should also say that i'm pretty budget limited so if nothing else you lot will get a few laughs out of it - i'm not sure how this thing is still running..

Heres the car:

[IMG]http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z452/1timeav8/DSC_0225_zpstbcnpxnz.jpg[/IMG]

The specs on the motor are:

Stock block - copped a powerdrill dingleberry hone, new welsh plugs and oil gallery plugs, Head and main studs and thats it. No machining. No oiling mods. Yeehar.

Stock pistons - wire brush and some ebay rings and straight back in

Stock rods - new stock size bearings, with the 120,000k's of wear on the crank popping stock size bearings means we end up with slightly bigger clearances than factory which suits our needs here, stock bolts (8200rpm and still together - arp who???)
Stock crank - new stock size main bearings, again with the mentality of new bearings and a worn crank giving bigger clearances. We measured with plastigauge but seriously that stuff is dodgy as, 25 thou rings a bell but dont qupte me on that.
Cam - Second hand Surecam off ebay 242in 259ex 110lsa sft "nitrous cam" (i dunno it had nitrous 330ci written on the spec sheet - lets assume that was the intended motor) came with lifters "in order" and some dodgy crane springs and crower retainers with locks. cost me $400. ripper.

Heads - Stock VN's with some stuff done to them by HPE to make the springs work etc and with the instructions of: "deck the badboys for as much comp as you can muster with stock pistons" Pete says we ended up with 10.25:1 by taking 100thou off and something around a 47cc chamber. call it good. Ports and Valves are stock for now.

Exhaust - stock cast manifolds sawed off about a foot of pipe left attached to the mani directing exhaust straight to the ground.
Intake manifold - china ebay torker eqivalent, bolt holes slotted 1/4 inch due to heads, no match port, no nothing.
Igniton - China dissy locked (no advance) using fence wire from QR (brilliant). Crane Hi6 and LX92 coil off ebay brand new for half the price. Dodgy leads approx 100m long each.
Fuel system - Holley Black pumping E85 through some 1/2" hardline, big arse filter, Holley reg, QF E85 Blowthrough Annular 750. (And before anyone asks, this is an aspirated engine - no turbos here.) Again an ebay steal picked up this for $300 brand new. Bolted it on, dropped jets 2 sizes front and rear and called it good.

Anyways i intend to do up some posts adressing the points of interest, but for now i'll leave this skid video here. Engine took a day to sort out at powercruise, and after that was gloriously mediocre! enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCNw4dokHdw

[Bill355]

Nice work mate - I'm sure most of us will agree that some of our best memories have been in our first budget builds.

I hope you are driving the wheels off her.

Please dont let this post be your first and last - if we dont support the forum, it wont exsist to inspire others.

[3554me]

Awesome , love it !

Doing things on a budget and getting good results great to see !

[Deuce.]

Crack up!
I like it.
I feel like you said 'she'll be right' more than a few times building this.

[hq308]

That's a tidy looking VH, make sure you throw up some more pics.

[RVK 355]

Nice work, i love a good budget build like these, 8200 rpm stock oiling system suprised she hasnt poped yet,

[wagond]

these builds are always more fun than the big budget ones!sounds like a lot of beers and laughs went into this,and a bit of hope!bloody awesome!

[paulzig]

I like the deck 100thou off to make 10.25:1 with stock pistons ... You sir, you are awesome

[v8bulldogs]

She's a ripper !!!

[1time]

This forum is gold and i'll add whatever i can to the goldmine of expertise/tomfoolery that goes on around here. Get after it i say.

Anyway the heads on this were what i spent the most amount of money on to date - only due to the labour to get a set of heads from a stock state to something that will work with the parts i used, So lets look at that.

Stock VN heads are a good thing - and with mild tweaking can cabably support decent power. It goes without saying that the threads that TK, HPEpete and ZOK (theres more but these are off the top of my head) make and post up on here are a literal gold mine of info and ideas on heads, if you're not across them they're absolutely awesome.

My heads were pulled off the motor and stared at blankly by me until i threw them in the ute with some parts and headed off to HPE.

The basic parts list was:

Crane 7/16 Roller rockers - ebay special, i bought the last set off old mate and i can't remember the part number. $400 new with 7/16 posi's.
ARP 7/16 Rocker studs - chev ones? i dunno, but they seem to work. $80

7/16 guide plates - Procomp im pretty sure, $30.

Crane double springs with appropriate retainers and locks - Came with the cam so no part number or anything, but really theres a thousand springs out there and if you want it perfect get someone to match it to your cam. These came with the cam and my trust is huge to here we are.

Viton Stem seals (on advice from HPEpete)
Sexy trend moly Pushrods - 8.950 long, if you're doing the length checking yourself invest in a proper tool they're $30. Pushrods were $200 for 16

Using 7/16 rocker studs is a fairly common upgrade when using solid cams and double springs for obvious (strength, stability) reasons, it was a no brainer for me. It necessitates drilling and tapping the stud holes for correct size and milling the height so that the stud sits at an appropriate level. The height of the hex on the ARP studs and the guide plate needs to be taken off the stud mounts to ensure skids eventuate. Machining for double springs is another thing that needs doing and you can see the difference in this photo. Left pad is cut for stem seals and double springs, right is stock.

[IMG]http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z452/1timeav8/20150808_131525_zpsfnkzu5qv.jpeg[/IMG]

Finally the viton stem seals dont simply slide on the stems need to be sorted to fit them.

Now all this is way out of the league of someone like me but i thought i'd add it in anyway. Finding a good machinist can be tough but once you find one treat them like kings because they're worth it - not an area to skimp on and thats a big call coming from me :P. Obviously HPE do this stuff with their eyes closed so thats that.

[IMG]http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z452/1timeav8/20150811_104628%201_zps3rs78h2n.jpg[/IMG]

Machining all done.

[IMG]http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z452/1timeav8/PART_1439175531885_20150810_125810_zpswmh4rhzj.jpg[/IMG]

This pic shows the stock ports/bowls that we left untouched this time around. Easy gains to be had by doing a couple basic mods to these but i simply didnt have the funds at the time so stocko's it was. Pete also did various voodoo things to the exhaust seats because mine were rooted. Stock valves went back in. Stock chambers etc, and milled for days to get the comp up. (not great) Flat tops are a better way to get comp, and if we went zero deck with flat tops with these heads we'd have 12.5:1..... E85 will love it. All in good time.


[IMG]http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z452/1timeav8/DSC_0181_zpsd6rdl3rp.jpg[/IMG]



Quick shot of the bay when they went back in all torqued down etc waiting for rockers and pushrod length checking.


[IMG]http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z452/1timeav8/DSC_0182_zps0odjnts6.jpg[/IMG]


And another one with the rockers sitting in place.

To sum these up they're literally the bare minimum to get this combo to make noise, and anyone with half a brain would do more to give the bastard some justice but i care very little. They did the job and the best bit is the future gains that can be made will be all the sweeter by starting at the VERY lowest potential these heads can offer. Pocket port, lumps knocked off pushrod pinch, guide boss skinnied, 2.02in and 1.6ex valves with good seats would have this motor behaving completely differently - it's all coming just you wait.

Now i should mention it wasn't all roses and happiness, i did run into issues due to reasons.


[IMG]http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z452/1timeav8/DSC_0197_zpsnxs9cwnn.jpg[/IMG]


As you can see.....

So a little investigating, swearing, and beer drinking ensued. This was a pic of the first rocker i installed with a pushrod, and i was trying to check length etc and wondering why the wipe pattern looked odd. Turns out the guide plates have SLOTTED HOLESSSSS!!!!! WHYYYYYYYYYYY. anyway now thats out of my system, to cure what ails ya simply undo all your hard work and start again, armed with supreme knowledge and more beer we end up with a situation like this:

[IMG]http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z452/1timeav8/1440746488247_zps3ylg2kgh.jpg[/IMG]


The angle is dodgy on that photo but they're all squared up and good now.


Also an FYI for anyone that watched the skid video - engine stoppage at the end was due to trigger signal wires. (one of the wires running from dissy through firewall to Hi6 rubbing through and shorting - lost spark completely and Hi6 went into "WTF" mode. No spark for you bro. sorry.)

More to come, next up is intake shennanigans.

[m016922]

Yep done one of those builds and yes we still talk about it to this day. Best memories and fun

[1time]

8200 rpm stock oiling system suprised she hasnt poped yet,

As am i buddy.

Your Stock short stint was far more glorious. Mine wouldn't hold Top on the pad - that skid was all second gear (TH400)

[paulzig]

What happened to your 1st post??

[1time]

What happened to your 1st post??

I edited some spelling in it, maybe it needs reapproval. i posted a big second post as well which i can't see... not sure if its normal to lag like that?

[Smitty2]

I edited some spelling in it, maybe it needs reapproval.

yes... indeedy, not sure what you did but you 'unapproved' your own post. will fix that

i posted a big second post as well which i can't see... not sure if its normal to lag like that?

even I can't see a second BIG post...but after some digging it is there cause you deleted it.
It will be back in a tick (now I know where it is)