Been a little while guys. Finally got my nephews Silverado build out of here, and he’s happy. Lots of work, life, and travel baseball in no particular order, has taken a lot of my time lately, but I was finally able this weekend to put the 434’ back together. Glad I pulled it down when I did. I found that the oil was badly overheated, to the point of sludge in the oil pan, and #4 main bearing with a black streak that transferred itself to the journal. Bearing wasn’t spun, but I’d say it wasn’t far away. I had Proline Racing polish and mag the crank to make sure I’m ok, and all is well. The cause of overheated oil in this case is no oil cooler, and perhaps the fuel problem thinning the oil, although I changed the oil 3-4 times (due to fuel in the oil) in the 45 miles or so I got to drive it. An oil cooler will go back in this go around, along with an oil temp gauge to keep my eyes on that potentially happening again. I’m not a fan of synthetic oils, but I believe I will go back with Gibbs LS 5w30 synthetic this time around, after first oil change. RPS BC2 is installed, and it’s ready to go back in car. I’m looking forward to getting this thing to the dyno.

Thanks guys. As cool as it looks sitting on the shop floor, I personally like it in the car better. Engine is still sitting there...I’m waiting on a fitting for my f-body slave, so I can use a speed bleeder. It drives me crazy to have a small item like this hold up progress. Happens every time, it seems...

I have a great pedal now, but every time I pull the engine/tranny out of the car, I want to install the speed bleeder assembly, just never have time. So now I’m making time. I’ll prolly never use the thing, but it’ll be there if I ever need it. I made a custom wrench to fit the long bleeder screw on the slave I have (f-body type), and it works ok. It’s just a pain to do, and then the bellhousing gets fluid in it. The slave has a quick disconnect on it, and I never lose the pedal. It’s always been fine every time I’ve put it back together, which is the 4th time now.

I’m back. Started the car a few weeks ago. And then the heater core took a dump. Really? Geesh, I can’t catch a break over here. Oh well. So the entire dash has to come out of the car to replace this. I run Holley accessories out on the engine, and there is a new compressor there. So guess what I did....yep I installed Vintage Air. What a pain in the rear end. But I figured it was a great time to do this.
Anyhoo...drove the car today and the new clutch is amazing! What a difference it makes in the way the car feels, shifts, drives. I really can’t believe what a difference it made. Oh, and the car runs pretty good also. Spent first five minutes setting the rings, and brought it back to check for drips. Nothing. Back out we go, and it runs strong. So strong in fact it makes me almost laugh. It’s a rip. Time to schedule a dyno tune!

Yessir. Pleasantly surprised. Blows more air than I thought it would, and it’s cold. I’m not much of an a/c guy with these cars. I’d rather run down the road with the windows down, but it’s there and it works well. Not a lot of room behind the dash in a Chevelle, so getting all of this in place was tough. I already have the ECM and all associated wiring there, so it was fun. The proverbial 5 lbs. of stuff in a 4 lb. bucket, if you know what I mean.

Currently the slow speed driveability has a little to be desired, but a lot of it will get tuned out. There will always be some cam surge at 10 mph with a cam this size. But when you hit the loud pedal, it’s a rocket ship...IF you can hang on to it. First and second, don’t even consider full throttle. Third, you better focus, and it will spin in fourth if the weather is cooler and my tires aren’t up to temp yet.
Thanks for the props!

Awaiting to hear back from my tuner. You guys will be the first to know.