Salan's 1980 Something

[Sac79]

 What are the tires, 33s?

[salans7]

That one is a 33x12.5. I think I'll run a Cragar Soft 8 style wheel, 16x10 or 16x12, and probably a 35" tire.

[Sac79]

You certainly have plenty of space, 35s should look pretty mean!

[salans7]

I believe so as well! I'm running 35's on my little Ranger and I like the look.

[salans7]

Well I haven't done anything major in quite some time on this truck, other than removing the 255/302/351W engine perches from the frame a few weeks ago.

Tonight I decided to start tearing down the 460 so I can see what I'm working with. To sum it up, I like what I see. Most everything looks like what I would expect a 170,000 mile (estimated) engine to look like. I'm down to the block and everything inside it, and have thus far only found one big issue and that's a scratch in the #1 cylinder bore. Something got in there at some point and was only in there long enough to scratch the cylinder wall and nick the piston. I will have to talk to the machine shop regarding the scratch to see what kind of hone or overbore I'll be looking at to remedy it. This weekend I'll pull the cam and the crankshaft and hope that I find no damage on the crankshaft.

[grumpin]

That’s nice! Good engine!

[Gary Lewis]

Shaun - Is that the extent of the scratch?  Is it all above the travel of the top ring?  If so, it needs to be smoothed so there are no sharp edges to cause detonation, but otherwise there shouldn't be a problem.

But you are still going to bore it, right?  Honing alone won't make the cylinders round, and they are almost sure to have taper.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Gary, it can't cause detonation if it's below the height of the piston.

I *think* these trucks are 0.040 in the hole with the D9 block.
But you can see the clean bore where the compression ring rides, and unfortunately the nick is below that.

[Gary Lewis]

Good points, Jim.  I missed that.  

[salans7]

^Yep, scratch is below the upper ring's travel.

I'm hoping a .010 overbore will take care of it, but won't know for sure until it's at the machine shop. Definitely gonna have it bored even if there wasn't a crack because it may be tapered. I don't have the proper tools to measure that, so will have to leave it to the machine shop.

My overall plans for the thing are relatively minor, my first intent to is to de-smog it with a new cam, new heads, upgraded valvetrain, re-curved distributor, etc. I may throw some performance parts in to make it a little spicy, but I'm not trying to build an 800hp mud truck either. I figure if the engine is running around 220 HP stock (give or take), I would be happy with around 400 HP max. I don't want to start messing with the oiling system or modifying this to make that fit.

[ArdWrknTrk]

What are you thinking of for heads and intake?
I might suggest the larger runner Stealth, but that too depends on your redline, cam, etc..

Roller lifters will free up a bunch of power and allow some more aggressive profiles.
Also reduce the need for ZDDP and extend cam life.  💡

[salans7]

Probably just Performer bolt-ons from Edelbrock, but I have Trick-Flow in my thoughts as well. I would prefer peak power to be around 4-5k rpms. So I definitely don't need anything extreme. I'm only planning on pulling trailers and street driving with this truck, so I need the grunt a little further down low to move the load. As you said, the cam I choose will really make the call for everything else. A roller valvetrain has been on my mind as well.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I don't think roller rockers do much for anyone below 6k, but lifters help everywhere.

The TF Streets are nicer than Edelbrock heads in my mind, but may not be worth it for a towing build.

Cylinder pressure = torque and just having aluminium heads (all other things equal) will afford you 10:1 on pump gas, but I don't know what your margins are.

The steeper ramps afforded with roller lifters help a lot with filling because the valve gets farther off the seat sooner.
Lift in the .480- .500 range?  Again this depends on the valve sizes in your head, but at least it helps keep spring pressure down.

[salans7]

I definitely don't want to keep the stock heads, so will have to make a choice down the road. I'm gonna do a little reading into some well-documented 460 builds on the internet and see if I can find somebody who built one for what I have in mind, that way I have a starting point and can figure out what works and what doesn't.

The rest of the tear down went without a hitch, I did find one old broken bolt for the timing cover that I will have to remove, but everything else looked pretty normal. The camshaft has some pitting on the lobes, but the bearings look good for their age. Same goes for the rod bearings and journals, no abnormal wear. I'm gonna wait on pulling the crank until I'm ready to take the block to the machine shop as I have no good place to store the crank and don't want to risk damaging it. Plus, it'll be easier to keep corrosion at bay with it mounted in the block. Any recommendations for something better than just a film of oil on the journals and the combustion chambers to keep them from corroding?

[ArdWrknTrk]

If your shop is tanking the block, the cam bearings are toast anyway.

If you are going to bag the crank, white lithium spray works well.
Allow the carrier to evaporate before wrapping it up.

For something like heads that are going to sit on the shelf a long time and be prepped before going back in service, the red battery terminal protection spray seems to work well.

Your climate in Ocala is quite different than up here though.
Iron in a freezing cold garage gets completely wet on warm spring days.

[salans7]

I was only looking at the bearings for signs of hard use, didn't really expect to find anything there no do I plan on re-using them.

Thanks for the tips. It's VERY humid here, and that's my worry. My work shop is not climate controlled, so I need to take that extra level of precaution so I don't end up having to put the crank on the lathe for major rust removal.

I hope to have this thing off to the machine shop sooner than later depending on their schedule, so I hopefully won't have much to worry about with corrosion.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Really the worst is when steel gets cold and then you have a warm rainy day.
(or a lot of run off from a few feet of snow melting. )

[Rembrant]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Really the worst is when steel gets cold and then you have a warm rainy day.
(or a lot of run off from a few feet of snow melting. )

lol. Life is the northeast eh? If you don't drive you car for a couple days here the rotors get so rusty it sometimes takes a couple stops to scrape it all off...lol.

I always forget that Florida is so humid. Not all of the south is the dry south.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Central Florida at least.
The coasts are pleasant if there's a breeze but not a hurricane.

My point was there don't seem to be the huge temperature swings that cause thick metal to condense all that moisture out of the air.

[salans7]

It only really happens when going from the A/C of a building into the humid outside air. Our oxygen tanks at work will pour sweat when moved from inside the hospital to the outside storage area.

It's not rare for us to dip into the 40's at night, but move to near 70-80 degrees mid-day during the "winter" season. But you're right, the weather on the coast and even 10-20 miles inland is much more mild than what we deal with in Central Florida.