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After
painting frame and body underside we were ready to lower the body.
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And
we took time to pose.
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Nab
sorted out and arranged the body bushings
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Just
another view.
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Finally
a car.
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Accept
here is an empty spot.
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And
my 383 stroker with street solid roller cam and Samakow LT4 heads.
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I
spent quite a bit of time making sure all was perfect with this
flexplate, converter, tranny set up. Easy to find and fix
problems right here.
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Nabil
owns the tranny. It's a TH400 reverse manual valve body built
by IHRA World Champion Eddie Bolton of TranZaction. The
converter is a mild ATI 10"
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Got
it all sorted out and verified proper fit.
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I
wish it was this easy with my car.
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Almost
on the motor mounts.
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Oil
pan clearance is good.
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Stock
crossmember. Drilled a new hole right between the 2 existing
factory holes for this tranny mount. Measured for drive shift and it
should be 50.5" U-joint to U-joint.
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5-27-05:
More dash parts hit the dumpster. Nab puts on a non airbag
steering wheel.
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Front
clip is on. Paint will be stripped soon.
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Nothing
extra. Just the bare essentials.
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The
engine bay is pretty sparce.
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May
28th. New LT4 Starter arrived. I want to turn the key
and start her up. 1st I had to repair-patch a fuel line, run
the battery and ground cables, and install the tranny and engine oil
coolers. It's ready.
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She
cranked and started 1st try. Bummer though. There is a
clanking noise. I bet its a connecting rod bumping the
cam. I wondered about cam-rod clearance when the machine shop
re-arranged my connecting rods, (numbered them different than how
I've had them for years). Now some had the shoulders ground
for cam clearance and some didn't. Now the rods are in
different locations so maybe that's it? We'll see soon.
I'm planning to pull the motor soon. No biggie.
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So
the next day is sunny and 70F. Perfect day to work outside on
the project.
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Pulled
the engine and need to bolt the work stand behind it. I'm
going to take the heads off and check the bottom end to see if I can
find the reason for the clanking sound.
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I
ripped her apart and spent at least 2 hours looking. I pulled
rod-piston combos that looked like they might have interference with
the cam or the crank. (none actually were hitting and no marks were
found). I even ground a bit for extra clearance and cleaned
and re-installed. The sound was still there when I turned the
engine by hand. I finally got to #4 rod-piston and all the
sounds went away. The rod bearing top shell was not
installed.
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Thankfully the engine was not
damaged from running without that top rod bearing. I
re-installed the engine and we ran 11.90 at Island Dragway with the
tight torque converter and 3.73 gears, that is until I made a tuning
mistake and broke 6 of 8 pistons. I put too much timing in it
and rattled the engine to death. Further down the page you'll
see that I took the LT4 heads and Crane cam from Thumper and
installed them on my new splayed cap 383 bottom end.
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Because
the car has be gutted we wanted to stiffen it up and make her
safe. Bryan Herter at PCMforLESS sponsored our strong and safe
10 point roll cage from Alston Chassisworks. Notice the lower bar called a "rocker bar".
Notice the dash bar called a "dash bar" duh.
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Here
we can see the 2 small struts at each side of the main hoop going
inward to the body floor and the extra "X" struts that go
to the rear frame crossmemeber and one of the long struts that goes
to the trunk.
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Here
you can see the "window bar" and most of the "dash
bar"
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Nab
wouldn't take a break for 2 days. He's doing all the cutting,
grinding, sanding, scraping, hammering, filling and painting.
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Even
the roll cage has a little bit of paint-primer.
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Afterburner
Headers on Thumper.
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Team
Guff-Wein at the NASCAR garage.
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Is
this 4-wide at Talladega?
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1st
in line. Waiting to attack that nasty turn 1 at POCONO.
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This
is the splayed cap all forged ERE383 that came out of my car,
"The Heavy Eliminator". The Thumper 383 broke 6 pistons due to my tuning mistake, (too much timing). The heads
and cam from Thumper will go on this forged bottom end.
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The
bottom end is inspected and it actually looks better than
new.
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And
why not add a Titan gerotor oil pump? This thing is high
volume and will not cavitate.
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Guff-Wein
drivers area as of Sept 11th 2005. We have tach-o, water temp,
shift light, oil press. The Cheetah shifter is the best on
earth.
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I'm
calling this engine Thumper+
It's a forged bottom 383 with splayed caps and same ol Samakow LT4
heads with Crane street solid roller cam.
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The
interior again.
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9-22-05:
We've gone 11.32 @ 120 all natural and are working to remove all
tuning bugs prior to activating nitrous. Interim work: make
fuel enrichment system 100% IHRA/NHRA/FIA legal. Tell me
what's not legal in this photo.
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How
about here? What
do you see that is installed against the general safety rules of
IHRA/NHRA/FIA?
|
Fuel
systems: ...No part of fuel system may be mounted on the firewall or
outside frame rails, (except on steel bodied cars, fuel press. reg.
may be mounted on inner fenderwell only and at least 6" forward
of the firewall). ....rubber hose is limited to 12" max.
(lines must be IHRA/NHRA/FIA accepted).
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So
I spent $100+ on aeroquip fittings and steel braded line and moved
the fuel tank to inside the frame rails just behind the bumper and
on the radiator core support.
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I
put the regulator on the intake and far away from the flexplate
area.
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And
the fuel lines run on the frame and are well protected from hazards
such as shredding belts or God forbid kissing the wall.
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