Ok, so finally here’s the big update. I’ll start with a picture of the upper intake plate I machined with the ever-popular 5.0CD logo! My EGR delete plate also has the logo, but it’s a little hard to see back there. It’s all back together and functional, and I’ll outline some of the dumb moves I pulled and other bumps in the road on the way to the triumph of it actually being done and running.
5.0CD upper intake plate
Where I last left off, the pilot bearing issue had just been taken care of. After that, I had a few things to reconnect like exhaust, o2, wiring, get the belt on, and all that little stuff. On to the next crisis. I filled it up with fluids for the first time and fired it up for the moment of truth … it sounded terrible! The lifters were extremely loud. So I shut it off after a few seconds. Hm. The rockers must need to be adjusted, I thought. Not really the most fun task since it involves removing the valvecovers (which is actually doable without taking off the upper intake because of my phenolic spacer, which is handy!) shimming the pedestals, and a lot of turning over the engine by hand. I ended up doing this and changing the thickness of a couple of the shims, but at the end of work one day out of the blue it hit me what really happened … somehow I remembered that I had never put in the oil pump driveshaft! That was a stupid move and it could have been disastrous if I didn’t catch it when I did. It had hardly run and there was plenty of assembly lube in there, so it should be fine, I figured.
When I pulled the engine, I accidentally yanked the trans dipstick out of its hole when unbolting the trans, which dumped fluid everywhere so I had to top that off also. The brakes are a little soft from sitting and I think they might have to be re-bled at some point, but they work ok for now. I had run it a few times to move it around but hadn’t really gotten a chance to test it out, which I did yesterday. It still had the hood off, so decided to put that on today. I’m assuming that due to the old sagged mounts, it made just enough hood clearance for the engine – it’s always rubbed and hit in a few spots, I really need a cowl hood. In other words, the hood wouldn’t shut with all the new gear. As a temporary measure we put in some washers to space up the back of the hood just so it will close. It looks funny, but it works for now.
As for the test runs, it feels good. Really good. Partly because of the old tires out back and I’d like to think partly because of the bigger cam, it really winds up fast and it will spin the tires with almost no effort at all. I was a little surprised when I got on it a bit how little it took before traction was out the window. I also wondered if the hyper pistons maybe contribute to a slightly lighter rotating mass, but that’s just speculation. Anyhow, I couldn’t help but do another lap around the block today and distribute some of my rubber off the tires to the pavement where it belongs. It made me feel better after my Sunbird woes of the day which will be chronicled in an upcoming post. The only things left for it now are to make it legal and get it registered, and then I’d like to get the AEM wideband installed so I can keep an eye on the air/fuel and keep the new motor out of trouble. Then I’d like to feed it some nitrous. Oh yeah, and the cage has to go in too.
The original 5.0 lasted a whole lot of drag passes, hard use, and a lot of fun miles, so here’s hoping the same from this one!
4 more cubic inches!
re-engined
Wasn’t that nice of someone to let you use that .030 over short block?
It sure was 🙂 That means though, that my car is now powered by your parts, therefore making it partially yours.
If it’s partially mine, then I say no nitrous!
Denied.