Going retro, 96 Imp with a 70's BBC

[Glen Koenig]

I'm pulling the 454 out of a 67 C10, it doesn't fit well anyway. It will go into a 96 Impala drag race car. The goal with the car, and this new mil, will be for low 11's NA @ 3,800# race weight.

This will be my first BBC. I do have a builder with excellent credentials, who is also a good friend. We're going over options and I ask him lots of questions, and although I feel he gives sound advice, he's also leaving a lot of it up to me, i.e. his comment is generally "what ever you want to do". So, I need to educate myself on possible options and make my plans. Of course, the budget is going to be a constraint. I also need to determine a budget figure and propose it to the wife before I start.

Here is what I got so far...

96 Impala SS, ~3600 empty weight

TH400 RMVB with Hipster brake
Moser 9" with 35 spline axles, spool, 4.30 gears
PST carbon fiber DS
Rustic Racing upper and lower RCA's
15 gal. fuel cell
Aeromotive A1000 pump, AN-10 line up to Y block, the AN-8 to carbBlock: 74 Truck 454 (3999289, Oct. 74; Assy TRY - 75 454 215 HP)
Intake: 74 Truck (848242)
Heads: 68-69 396/427 100.9 cc semi closed (3931063)

I don't know what's inside the block. I hope to tear it down this weekend. I did a leak down test and put a vacuum guage on it. The vacuum was wacky, ocilated rapidly between 10" and 15".

Leakage was not good (1-8%, 2-14%, 3-66%, 4-14%, 5-52%, 6-11%, 7-20%, 8-62%)

It will need new headers and the carb is an Edelbrock 600CFM, which may work but might be too small for what is needed.

I'd like to rebuild with stock stroke and get close to 550 at the crank for less than $4K.

Thoughts are to work these heads, bigger valves and bowl work. Keep the FT for now, perhaps solid FT race cam, and build the bottom end to hold up to the power, plus at least a 200 shot. If I can re-use the complete rotating assy I can save big now and possibly stroke it later. I'd of course want to recond. the rods and make sure the block and mains are square and solid. I suspect a good bit of the budget should go into the block. John says to build the bottom end now, then do the heads and valve train later. He says rebuild it and go have some fun.

So, what all will the various parts cost and what are some other options for a budget rebuild?

TIA

[mtperformance]

Well I have a buddy with a 71 chevelle and before he got crazy and built it in to a 505 stroker it was a Jasper crate engine(8:5:1)with RPM Edlelbrock aluiminuim heads , a comp cam hyd.flat tap. (dont know the specs) stamp steel rockers , Team G intake , well tuned holley 750 mech sec. , th400 3200 stall and 150 shot base plate and he ran 11.2 to 11.6.

[Glen Koenig]

Do you know what that car weighed and whether or not that was in street trim? I thought about stroking this and making a 510 with a 4.375 stroke. But for now I just want to keep it low budget and keep my eyes open for a 502 block or a Mark IV tall deck for the stroker build.

[mtperformance]

Do you know what that car weighed and whether or not that was in street trim? I thought about stroking this and making a 510 with a 4.375 stroke. But for now I just want to keep it low budget and keep my eyes open for a 502 block or a Mark IV tall deck for the stroker build. I know it was damn close to 4k and he still has all its interior and the factory bench and console shift ( old 307 car) . I have a buddy that has some tall deck 427's but we are in WI and that would be quite the trip for a dump truck engine :roflmao:

[Glen Koenig]

Well I got the engine apart yesterday. It's a little rough. The crank will need to be turned, every journal has groves. The rods are run of the mill and they are beat, will have to be re-sized for sure. It's a 2 bolt block. The main cap bearings are down to the copper but the ones in the saddles look almost new. The rods and mains have number stamps. I suspect it's been rebuilt at least once. Good to know they put everything back where it came. The bores are OK, but a little scored and highly polished. I can't detect any cross hatch at all! The rings actually look new. The push rods were very clean and the lifters don't look abused. I did find two big chunks of old gasket material in the pickup screen. I suspect someone did a recent top end job. However, based upon the vacuum gauge readings and the sound of the valves, I'd say there are numerous sticking valves.

The heads have stock valves but not a whole lot of carbon build up. It almost looks like they gasket matched the intake ports. They look huge. But then I wouldn't really know if they are stock or otherwise. It has dbl springs with stock rockers and push rods. The guides are probably shot, I'll take them apart tonight. The gasket was blown between #3 and #5 and leak down on #8 was also bad. So the heads will also need to be decked.

If I just redo this block, i.e. bore it and get a rebuild kit, it's still going to cost over $4K for the engine alone, with approx. 2K going into the machine work. :eek:

John is going to see if he can do most of the machine work at the engine shop where he works. If so, he can probably save me some money. It's basically going to needs almost everything if I'm going to race it and squeeze it. I figure square the deck, bore and hone with plate, deck the heads, grind the crank, re-size the rods and balance the rotating assembly. He also wants some of my EFI stuff, so I can possibly barter for his labor.

Next up, I'll need a cam. I'll most likely rework the heads with bigger valves and replace that 75# cast intake.

How much FWHP could I possibly get from say a 467 BBC with solid FT cam? What SCR can I get away with if I want to hit it with say a 200 shot?

TIA

[Glen Koenig]

Oh I forgot to mention, this is an LSx 454. :lol:

J/k, I guess this isn't really the BBC place.

[SStrokerAce]

If the heads need to much work look into a set of Dart 275cc Oval ports. I think Car Craft just did a article on oval port heads and the Darts made the same peak HP as the other heads but with a point less compression. Good thing about the Oval ports is that they can be ported later on since the outer pat of the port core is the same as the bigger rect port Dart castings.

Remember once you get into BBC's they are not cheap and usually 50% more money to do the same thing as you did with a SBC/LT1

Bret

[Glen Koenig]

Yea, I saw the CC article. I wish they'd have done some of the large oval port castings instead of the peanut port truck heads. For the money, those Edelbrocks look good too. I'm trying to get a figure on reworking these 063 heads. If the price gets up over $1200 then I'll probably sell them and get the Edelbrocks.

[SStrokerAce]

Glen, before you get those Edelbrocks give me a shout I can get you a set of those Darts inexpensively and we can add some "tweaks" to them if need be.

Bret