New motor bought of market place

[Joe Travers]

Yes, running Hooker Super Comp headers. They were on the car when I bought it back in 2020. I pray they don't ever burn out.

Main problem I found was finding plug wires that cleared. Moroso wires have held up very well for the longest after going through 3 other different brands. All of that could have been avoided by mocking them up and dimpling around the plugs a little.
I imagine the e-brake may not clear from the looks of it. I was working on that when I landed in ICU last year. The stock fuel line is also located close to driver side collector and needs to be relocated. Needs a size upgrade anyway, so no biggie. I recently ran into a Wilwood e-brake kit that you can side mount to the frame rail for clearance. May give that a try if I'm able to get back to work on it in the Spring.

Joe

[19cometman63]

Good morning everyone. Good news finally. Got the engine back from yhe shop. Looks great, turned out Good. It's now covered up , nice and warm, in the back room, waiting for spring and getting it put together. Even started a need list to start gathering parts during this ungodly cold winter. I do have a question about the heads. I found the casting numbers and my info is conflicting to what the machine shop is telling me. The casting numbers are D8TE. My info shows them to have 63 cc combustion chambers. The shop says 58.3. That number would give a fairly low CR. 63 cc, for me gives what I believe a very low CR. Bore is 4.04, flat top pistons with 4 valve relief, +3.0 cc, piston to deck is around. 03 below deck. I have not verified that number yet. So, with a 58.3 cc heads and a .047 compressed head gasket, using summit racing compression calculator, I come up with 8.78. And the 63 cc using the same info, compression comes up at 8.35. The numbers seem low to me but being all new to this, should there be any concerns using these heads. My other option is to take the 260 heads in and have them rebuilt. Chamber size on these heads are 49.3 or something around that. Again, it's not a racer, just a little extra when the foot says go, most a nice daily cruiser to enjoy. Thanks everyone and stay warm this week. Northern Indiana is going to be brutal this week. One last question. Since I am starting my build finally, where is and how is.the best place to start a new build thread.
Robert

[poboyjo65]

If it was me I'd put it in the 60-63 comet section. & another thing I would do is on your first page put a link to this thread. & if you have any other threads you made you could put a link to them all & label the links so you know whats in them at a glance. one thing I wished I would have done is edit in the page number (to the first page) of the different parts of the car. it would save a lot of time looking for stuff later on, & you will want to look back & also need to look back sometimes.

[19cometman63]

I will do that. Thanks and I will keep all the advise in mind when I start. May take a bit to figure out the link thing, lmbo, took me for ever to figure out how to post pictures.
Robert

[Joe Travers]

Did the shop deck the heads to reduce the combustion chamber volume?

Joe

[19cometman63]

My shop did not. They checked them out good. Magnafluxed and pressure checked. New valve seats, Ground valves, new valve seals, new guides new springs and set spring height to allow for the cam i have, new retainers and locks Now I am not sure what the previous owner did to it. The surface was cleaned up, but how much, I do not know. Is there anyway I can take a measurement to check how has been taken off? The one thing I did not do, which I may regret down the line, I did not have the rocker arm studs replaced with screw in studs. That still may happen before assembly, but I want to make sure they will actually work and perform they way I want them to. Just starting out, new to this game, my budget is already blown out of the water. It will be well worth every bit when done. I was hoping to maybe have this up and running by early summer. But I am already learning, don't get in a hurry, take my time, make sure it's right, fun will be there waiting.

[Joe Travers]

Yeah, you can measure combustion chamber volume by introducing alcohol from a graduated container through a piece of flat plastic or glass.
I would check the 260 heads as well if you decide to do it. The 260 valves and ports are smaller than the later 289. Not good for improved performance.

Was reading Pat Ganahl's FoMoCo engine book yesterday. He recommends screw-in studs if the engine is turned up to and over 6K rpm.
May be more of a harmonic oscillation problem than spring seat pressure. Not sure on that one.

Joe

[19cometman63]

Thanks again Joe. Since I am still waiting on the warm weather to come back to start building, I have plenty of time think, research,and learn about this stuff. With time I have these thoughts and need some help identifying my heads and what type of rockers are supposed to be on these heads.

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from what I have learned and what I am seeing, these heads would take the rail rocker style? I am only saying this because of how much the valve stem is up above the spring and retainer. These heads were rebuilt by machine shop who did all the assembly and set the spring height. With this info, I have conflicting issues. When I disassembled the motor, the heads had the "normal" rocker arms, no side rails to keep them on the valve stem. Now is this another blunder that the person who I bought this motor from did? Or am I missing something here?.

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. Engine labs.com is wherein found this info. Thanks for any help on this one.

[Joe Travers]

Hard to tell from pic but yeah rail rockers are stock. Not preferred w/ performance cam with higher lift.
Rocker could pop top of the retainer and drop a valve, wreck a piston & cylinder.

Doesn't someone make a screw-in stud that doesn't require milling the pad?
Seems like I ran into this not long ago.
That way you could thread and install the studs, guide plates and use the earlier rockers you have.

Joe