project up and running again.

[Ezrider]

some may remember this car as i have posted pictures from some previous projects iv done with it in the past. its a 93 jaguar xjs convertible. so last fall i parked it one day was running perfect turned it off with the key and never did get it to start again. electrical issue. being iv always been disappointed with its power and the fact have a few late 90's vortec 350 4 bolt main rebiuldable cores laying around i figured id slap together a cheap "preformance" small block for it. 

upon tear down, found everything to be serviceable no machine shop work needed.  just a hone re-ring new cam and crank rod bearings, re-used the stock cast pistons, installed a gm preformance lt4 hot cam, used comp cam tools to do the necessary valve spring seat and guide cutting pinned the rocker studs. installed new valves lapped into the seats, new valve springs to match the cam. there was a very small bit of warpage on the head that was shaved by gluing sand paper to a sheet of glass witch actually worked. after little time heads measured dead true. 

 

future plan as budget allows and after everything is ironed out with the swap is to add 5-7 psi of boost via a small weiand supercharger. to take advantage of the 9.4:1 compression ratio goal is sub 13 second 115+mph 1/4 mile street car. car is deceptively heavy at roughly 3800lbs

 

Edited August 23, 2017 by Ezrider

[Ezrider]

over 4th of july i got the engine stabbed in the car with a 700r4 and the car moving under its own power again. 

a lot of fiddling and tuning on it sense then and finally getting it dialed in and running great. got about 400 miles on it so far, runs great no blow by has not yet burned a drop of oil 

its almost running good enough at this point you could daily drive it if you wanted to. still need to drop the trans again and stuff a higher stall tq converter in it (trans was picked up off local classifieds and came with a stock converter, didn't want to put my new 2800 stall converter in a unknown trans right off the bat)

even on a stock converter it will run a flat 5.0 0-60 on the street on a 235 50 15 all season tire. 

[41chevy]

Really nice job. Sanderson makes headers for both generation small blocks in to Jaguars.  One set dupliates the Ram Horn style manifolds.    Paul

[Ezrider]

i had looked at the sanderson headers, to me they don't look like they would flow much if any better than a cleaned up set of 2.5inch rams horn's i may still buy a pair at some point. but a set of new re-production 2.5 inch rams horns are pretty cheap 30 mins each with a grider and they should flow pretty darn good. i guess i should also mention the heads got a tiny bit of port work done on the exhaust side, this vortec 350 engine came from a 3/4 ton truck had the 906 heads, the valve seats got blended and the valve guides got profiled on the exhaust side only. 

 

i wish i knew someone that had 100's of sets of headers laying around, there has got to be a decent set of headers that will work or even a combination of two sets. i may even build a custom drivers side mid length headers at some point. then i would think i could find a off the shelf header that would fit the passenger side. 

Edited August 23, 2017 by Ezrider

[HeavyGunner]

Nice job, have you seen the Draguar project they did on RoadKill? It's a you tube show put on by the hot rod magazine guys, they did a very similar project to yours. 

 

Edited August 23, 2017 by HeavyGunner

[41chevy]

I got a U Fab  header kit from Speedway Motors for $150.. It was a SB Chevy universal kit, but I only wanted the tubing and collectors. I had a set of 500 Caddy flanges made so I could make up a set for our 64 Cad powered Nova.

[Dirtymilkman]

Will cast pistons be ok when you add some boost to them?  I was taught to use forged or they'll end up in the oil pan. 

[Ezrider]

 

Nice job, have you seen the Draguar project they did on RoadKill? It's a you tube show put on by the hot rod magazine guys, they did a very similar project to yours. 

 

yup i think i started watching roadkill during some point in there second season. probably subconsciously influenced my build to a certain extent. 

 

my engine combo is mostly based off cheap and good with what i had, magazines say the vortec head lt4 hotcam combo makes 400 flywheel horsepower. with flattops, i would have used flat tops had my block needed boring i might have even biult a 383 at that point. but the standard bore just needed a hone and cleanup re-ring and bearing. so figure 4% less for for 1 point less of compression then take real world into account. its probably a honest 360-370 crank hp witch wont be enough to get me into the 12's but considering i have probably 1800ish in the entire engine package currently drop a weiand 142 or similar on it for roughly 2500 should put me well into my 12 second goal for a still cheap engine. at a pretty modest boost level that should be plenty safe plus roots blowers are fun on the street. iv got a couple other blocks laying around too so i could still build a forged 383 block and swap the blower setup to that and drop it in over a weekend if i wanted to later on

[Ezrider]

 

Will cast pistons be ok when you add some boost to them?  I was taught to use forged or they'll end up in the oil pan. 

there ok at low boost with safe compresion ratio's there actually take more abuse than a hyperutectic forged is ideal, but 9.4-1 5-7psi should be plenty safe. just have to be a little more careful they wont take the abuse a forged pistion will. at the levels i plan on running it should be ok.

 

15lbs of boost pushing 700+hp it would be a ticking time bomb but ill probably be round about 500hp or a little less. as long as timing and a/f are kept in check and doesn't see too many drag strip passes should be fine

Edited August 23, 2017 by Ezrider

[HeavyGunner]

Your cheap build is way cool. I'm all about cheap fun. I just bought a 1973 gmc K20 last week with a  modestly built 350 vortec in it. It has a lot of cam and was supposedly balanced and blue printed, sounds bitchin' when you open it up. I'll try and remember to take some pics tomorrow. 

[Ezrider]

 

I got a U Fab  header kit from Speedway Motors for $150.. It was a SB Chevy universal kit, but I only wanted the tubing and collectors. I had a set of 500 Caddy flanges made so I could make up a set for our 64 Cad powered Nova.

that sounds like a cool project i bet that thing is a tq monster.  headers are probably still a ways off project on this one but i had been looking at some of the universal header kits. 

the 2.5 inch rams horns with just a little cleanup look like they should flow pretty darn good, as good as any shorty block hugger header. so the headers are not high priority at this point but would certainly add a nice touch and a long/mid length header would certainly help when i get to it. 

i would almost think there has to be a decent production header that will work its just no one has found/made it public knowledge. i bet if someone could pull the car in a big warehouse of headers you could find something, its tight on the drives side and the steering falls in kinda a weird spot but iv seen worse to deal with. 

[j hancock]

Interesting project!

[mowerman]

man thats a beautiful engine,,,,nice lookin car as well....have a ball with it...bob

[41chevy]

The 500c.i. Caddy is 105  pounds heavier than an SBC . We set it up with Edlebrock heads, single plane medium rise intake, roller cam and lifter kit, Holly pro-jection  comes up with 548 h.p. and 690 lbs of torque between 3200 and 5000 rpm. Hooked to a 700R with manual lock up , 9''' Lincoln Versailles rear with 2:73 gears. Good to cruise  
Nothing better than peeing on a 5.0 stang at a 70 mph roll. 

[HeavyGunner]

my brother put a 455 olds that he hopped up in a 77 Chevy 2wd short box.  It was lowered a bit, had some lo pro sticky tires and a  decent suspension and the thing drove like a flipping go kart with all the torque a person could want to play with. 

[Ezrider]

 

The 500c.i. Caddy is 105  pounds heavier than an SBC . We set it up with Edlebrock heads, single plane medium rise intake, roller cam and lifter kit, Holly pro-jection  comes up with 548 h.p. and 690 lbs of torque between 3200 and 5000 rpm. Hooked to a 700R with manual lock up , 9''' Lincoln Versailles rear with 2:73 gears. Good to cruise  
Nothing better than peeing on a 5.0 stang at a 70 mph roll. 

690 tq sounds like a lot of fun, must be running a pretty small camshaft? i would have expected a higher hp number with a aftermarket head? or is that on a chassis dyno? hows that 700 holding up behind 690tq? i fully expect to grenade my 700 at some point. its a late 700 from a 92 chevy half ton and was rebiult about 6 years ago. but no idea what they put in it for parts or if they beefed it up at all. the suspension on the jag works amazingly well it grips up pretty good on a mediocore tire on a non prepped surface, im sure it would have no problems dead hooking more power than im making on a drag race tire on a prepped surface. but i don't really intend to actually take the car to the drag strip more than once or twice per year. 

last go fast car i did was a 5.0 mustang nothing special some edlebrock heads and a cam was never as fast as it should have been cause it had a blown out posi bone stock suspension and a 5speed and a bit of lack of driver skill and it would pretty much just blow the tires off. it was better at making lots of tire smoke than actually going that fast.  it would only run 13.2's on street tires with pathetic 60' times. i did get it in the 12's on a dot drag tire but even had trouble getting it to hook up then. 

id kinda like to have a project for suitable for a big block iv always done small blocks only big blocks iv done were stock or really close to stock for pickups. seems like making 550+ on a big block is like building a 350hp small block, doesn't take a lot to get there. 

many years ago i had a 72 caddy sedan deville with the 502 bone stock smog era california car, huge barge of a car and that engine motivated that car pretty good. that's one car i wish i still had, bought it from a old couple who bought it new garage kept its entire life neither of them had a drivers licence for 10 years before they sold it only had 30k original miles on it car was flawless. 

 

[HeavyGunner]

Going from cheap fun to not so cheap fun. If I ever win the lotto....

 

[41chevy]

 

690 tq sounds like a lot of fun, must be running a pretty small camshaft? i would have expected a higher hp number with a aftermarket head? or is that on a chassis dyno? hows that 700 holding up behind 690tq? i fully expect to grenade my 700 at some point. its a late 700 from a 92 chevy half ton and was rebiult about 6 years ago. but no idea what they put in it for parts or if they beefed it up at all. the suspension on the jag works amazingly well it grips up pretty good on a mediocore tire on a non prepped surface, im sure it would have no problems dead hooking more power than im making on a drag race tire on a prepped surface. but i don't really intend to actually take the car to the drag strip more than once or twice per year. 

last go fast car i did was a 5.0 mustang nothing special some edlebrock heads and a cam was never as fast as it should have been cause it had a blown out posi bone stock suspension and a 5speed and a bit of lack of driver skill and it would pretty much just blow the tires off. it was better at making lots of tire smoke than actually going that fast.  it would only run 13.2's on street tires with pathetic 60' times. i did get it in the 12's on a dot drag tire but even had trouble getting it to hook up then. 

id kinda like to have a project for suitable for a big block iv always done small blocks only big blocks iv done were stock or really close to stock for pickups. seems like making 550+ on a big block is like building a 350hp small block, doesn't take a lot to get there. 

many years ago i had a 72 caddy sedan deville with the 502 bone stock smog era california car, huge barge of a car and that engine motivated that car pretty good. that's one car i wish i still had, bought it from a old couple who bought it new garage kept its entire life neither of them had a drivers licence for 10 years before they sold it only had 30k original miles on it car was flawless. 

 

The numbers are at the wheels. Flywheel numbers should be close to 690h.p   876 tg. Also running a OEM HEI unit whisk limits RPM. It is my wife's go to market car.

The 700 has extra steels and fiction discs, revised servos and pump and reverse  manual valve body,  now it works. The biggest issue was finding a good B.P.O. case.

[Ezrider]

i figured that was probably at the wheels, if your getting a 700 to hold up to that i shouldn't have any trouble, after this one pukes and gets re-done. i wanted a overdrive trans but i didn't wan't to go to a 4l80e and have to get a trans controller. also the deeper low gear is a plus for the 700r4 with a car on the heavier side. 

 

heavygunner its amazing how far things have come to be able to biuld 2k hp like that and have it be so well mannered and drive-able at low throttle positions. 

[HeavyGunner]

Yeah it is, NRE puts 2 injectors per cylinder, one for pump gas and one for race gas once a certain amount of boost is reached. Very clever set up in my opinion. I couldn't imagine what one of his custom, in house built twin turbo 427 Chevy small blocks he builds costs but I'm sure it's an arm and a leg. 

[Ezrider]

im sure one of his engines costs way more than i have into my entire car....lol.  it wasn't that long ago if you could make 6-700 hp at the flywheel and have it be street-able and pump gas friendly was really something. now we have production cars that make that out of the box with full powertrain warranty. and people with engines making over 1000 hp that will idle in traffic without fouling the spark plugs out and puking coolant everywhere. 

 

i was taking to someone the other day about my car, and i said yeah its pretty quick. they asked how fast i thought it would go. i replied right now it feels like it would run a mid 13 as it sits at the moment. there reply was basically wow that's really slow. i just kinda had to laugh obviously they watch way to much tv and never actually have gone out and ran a car to realize there daily driver is like a 16 second car at best and what a 3 second difference feels like. yeah 13's are not blistering fast by any means but still faster than the vast majority of cars on the road. and considering this car factory spec's list a 8+ second 0-60 and 1/4 miles in the 16's and it now does 0-60 in 5.0 and it was not a painfully slow car to start with. was actually fairly quick on the top end in factory trim but pretty slow out of the hole. 

 

anyway enough ranting, i think a lot of people get used to reading this stuff and do not realize how insane a 1000+ hp  sub 8 second car really is. 

[HeavyGunner]

I agree, most people throw big 4 barrel carburetor and some slick looking valve covers on and a set of headers and think that makes a 300+hp car.  I get a kick out watching the hotrod or super car fail videos on YouTube. It's usually some boob with the money to go buy a high hp car but has likely never driven anything more powerful than his Camry. Most end when the driver gooses it and loses traction then either over corrects or stands on the skid pedal until said object they were trying to avoid stops them. Keep us up in your progress, I enjoy cheap fun. 

[Ezrider]

there probably won't be a whole lot of note worthy stuff for a little while. just a lot of little things, there quite a few things that are just kinda thrown together to make it work,  things that need re-routed cleaned up calibrated ect so thats going to be most of the progress for a little while anyway, the little things that take it from works good to is good if you know what i mean. 

 

i do have another cheap fun project i could post too, built and raced a car in 24 hours of lemons you can actually see parts of the car in some of the engine pictures on this thread if people want to see that project as well, i might start a thread for that one too. 

 

 

 

[41chevy]

 

im sure one of his engines costs way more than i have into my entire car....lol.  it wasn't that long ago if you could make 6-700 hp at the flywheel and have it be street-able and pump gas friendly was really something. now we have production cars that make that out of the box with full powertrain warranty. and people with engines making over 1000 hp that will idle in traffic without fouling the spark plugs out and puking coolant everywhere. 

 

i was taking to someone the other day about my car, and i said yeah its pretty quick. they asked how fast i thought it would go. i replied right now it feels like it would run a mid 13 as it sits at the moment. there reply was basically wow that's really slow. i just kinda had to laugh obviously they watch way to much tv and never actually have gone out and ran a car to realize there daily driver is like a 16 second car at best and what a 3 second difference feels like. yeah 13's are not blistering fast by any means but still faster than the vast majority of cars on the road. and considering this car factory spec's list a 8+ second 0-60 and 1/4 miles in the 16's and it now does 0-60 in 5.0 and it was not a painfully slow car to start with. was actually fairly quick on the top end in factory trim but pretty slow out of the hole. 

 

anyway enough ranting, i think a lot of people get used to reading this stuff and do not realize how insane a 1000+ hp  sub 8 second car really is. 

My SVO Mustang runs 8.81 /156 the the juice limited to a 100 h.p. and boost down to 22 lbs.  Full launch shot of juice and all 4 stages lit and boost at 45lbs I'll run 7.99 /189 and need to do the rod and mains every 4 runs. Had the basic assembly built by Ohio George Montgomery. But  the class changed and I can no longer run because of the turbo/ juice combo. I'll end up probably is S/SX next year.

Funny in 71 I ran 2 new Challengers one in S/SC and the other is S/SCA and a 1971 340 Duster in S/SE. In 1972 got my fuel license and added a Alcohol Funny (Marino's Italian Ices "Iceman" )  to the group for 2 years lost blowers, motors and 5 clutch flites, Finally gave the car to Garlits a few years ago for his collection. All the SS Mopars were sold 2 years ago in Atlantic City. Both Challengers had less than 1800 miles and all three were never titled in any state. A side from my dads old 55 Chevy  D/gasser (ran from 1962 until I made a street racer out of it 25 years ago) and my  banned  P/N SVO, got no track cars any more. Got 6 street racers in progress, but only one done my 66 D100 max wedge pick up . You ever come east your welcome to play in my shop and try a few toys

Edited August 27, 2017 by 41chevy

[Ezrider]

that sounds like a lot of fun, iv never drag raced competitively i had a few fast cars and iv gone out to drag strips on test and tune days done some auto crossing and road course racing. none of it at a competitive level. when i was a teenager i had a 4 door dodge dart that i stuffed a 440 in never did take it to the drag strip but that was a fun car, and would throw people off being a 4 door. my mustang was one of the funner cars to drive that iv had mostly cause the thing was tire smoke for days on the street. but that was probably 10 years ago now, my go fast for most of that time has been a honda goldwing engine in a custom hard tail frame that i built. never ran it on a drag strip either but its pretty damn quick i wouldn't doubt that it would run a 11 flat if not faster. 

on paper at a conservative 360hp flywheel horeposer right now the jag should run about a 13.40 @ 112 witch honestly is pretty close to seat of the pants feel. it may be making more power than the 360 estimate. on 5lbs of boost 360 should make 485 or so should be more than enough to push it into the mid 12's real world. i wouldn't want to push a stock rotating assembly over 500 hp though. ring end gaps are filed for boost but cast pistions and stock rods i don't plan on spinning it much past 6000 rpms or over 500hp without building a whole new bottom end for it. 

12's are my goal for the car cause its a street car and 12's certainly not fast for a all out drag car but it is where i consider a street car to be pretty darn fast. later down the road i may build a forged 383 swap the blower setup onto it and make some real power. budget didn't really allow me to build the engine to that level and get it in the car and everything else that goes with that on what i had set aside for the project. but once all the little minor details of the swap are worked out i can build any small block Chevy i want and plug and play it in and out of the car. its one of them projects that isn't really planed as a build it once and done it will evolve over time. 

 

i certainly wouldn't mind hitting you up and playing in your shop if i am ever in the area.

 

drove the jag today just normal running around town stuff. very happy with the drive ability last weekend i pulled the hei and welded up the advance slot a bit and re timed it for a bit more initial timing (the Chinese hei had 17 degrees of mechanical advance out of the box) i ended up at 11 degrees now, timing set at 28 all in and 17 initial have far better idle quality now and the car even runs cooler and starts like as if it was fuel injected. very happy with that change. defiantly look forward to ditching the hei though and going to a better ignition system but really couldn't beat 85 bucks for a complete functional ignition system to get the car up and running. 

Edited August 27, 2017 by Ezrider