OVA1's 396 Stroker Build

Well the Ultra-Pro Rockers came as expected... and also as expected, the seats did not.

So I guess I'll have to measure everything off again in the morning and spend what's left of the morning wading through the phone que at Cam help... It was 40 minutes on Friday afternoon and as anyone knows that has sat on that line knows, there busiest time is 'Monday through Wednesday, 10:00 am thru 3:00pm...', and with any luck I'll find someone over there that can find a proper seat to fit around those guides.

Anywho... here's a couple of pictures.

First is the new 6 qrt pan and the ATI Damper... toward the back you can see the new Oil Cooler adapter.

Attachment 4696

Next is a shot of one of the new Ultra-Pro Rockers sitting on the 7/16th studs and pushrod guides... if I ever get it bolted together, it should be a fairly stout valvetrain.

Attachment 4697

Got back to the build on Tuesday...

Sat down with the heads, re-measured the guides and pockets in the head... called Comp, sat in the que for a half hour, and gave dude the numbers, to which he replied, "That's part number so and so, they're in stock and I'll get'em out to ya today...". So, it just goes to show ya that some things just will not respond well to pressure; which I think is the second law of thermo-dynamics... following the first law, which is: Everything gets harder under pressure.

Anywho... Sat down with all the gear assembled and the first two springs went on beautifully... then I stared at those for a half hour and relented to the voices screaming inside my head, which were telling me that I had no idea what the spring height, bind, or the various compression values were... and to take the damn things down to the machine shop.

Which is what I did and man was THAT a good idea! He got everything installed correctly, plus he cleaned up the valves and the seats... and everything was back in hand by 5:00pm.

So once I get through today's non-F-body work... I can return to assembling the top end and move on to accessories, plugs, wires, headers, flexplate, mating her up with the tranny and sliding her back in.

The only known issue is the A/C, which is going BACK in; life's too short to go without A/C in SW Florida; and that issue revolves around the complete system I bought from a guy parting out a 2002 TA. It had 14k on it and the system looked brand new, the price was right so I bought it. The Compressor definitely looks different and likely will not bolt up, but hopefully the lines, drier and condensor will plug up and all I'll need is a different compressor. We'll see...

If anyone knows for sure what the deal is there, I'd appreciate whatever heads up you can offer.

I'll post up pictures as things move along...

Got the heads on...

Despite dropping some fairly serious coin on the machinist to prep and refresh this old block, he didn't do much, if anything to the threads for the heads.

Spent several hours prepping the bolts with anti-sieze and running them in and out, cleaning the bolt threads and re-lubing the recieving threads in the block with silicone lude, then repeating the process 4 or 5 times for each bolt... so times 34.

I intended to have the entire top-end finished off, but it weren't meant to be.

Attachment 4721

We'll hit again tomorrow...

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Dang man, gitting it done like it's no ones business huh! You're moving pretty quick on that thing.

this has got to be the fastest build thread iv ever read, nice work it should be runnin in no time

LOL... Thanks fellas... It sure doesn't feel fast. I go to the shop with plans to sail through half a dozen items and end the day draggin' out of there looking at the south end of item #1...

But it's comin' along.

I spent the last couple of days learning about Non self-Adjusting Rockers... and the painstaking task of sizing up the guides. No fast way to do that, that I can see. But she's comin' along. Today and tomorrow are lost, with actual work. But hopefully Friday and Saturday should have us back on task with the other side adjusting guides, then it's accessories, including the new A/C, which will surely be a thing all to itself... then plugs, wires, Throttlebody and headers... Then Harness, tranny and back in the hole...

It would be great to know about the AFR seats and the BeeHives. Let us know what Comp says about that since there are other guys having valve train problems they can't find the cause of. One's on CF and the other on LS1LT1.

Which of AFR's heads are you using?

BTW, when I built a 415 for my 86 Vette I was able to continue to use the 86 Vette windage tray by spacing the tray down. I had Oliver 4-bolt main caps installed and used maoin bolts with tray stand-offs to mount the tray. I did have to do a little grinding here and there and, IIRC I also had to elongate a few of the tray holes. Wasn't a big deal though.

Thanks,

Jake

The heads are AFR 195 LT4s. The previous owner had milled 'em down to 58.4 cc... and increased the valve sizes to 2.2 /1.8. I'm told they flow around 290cfm @.600.

I did end up getting Comp seats. The first day I tried to ordet them was the perfect storm of BS... It was Friday afternoon, I thought at the time that I was just going to bolt the valve train together and it would just fall into place; so I was trying to get what I was missing delivered for Saturday. The cell battery was on the brink of DEAD; the Comp "Cam-Help" que had me on hold for a half hour and cell signal was so bad that I couldn't cradle the phone on my shoulder or set it on the bench on speaker without a near certainty that it would drop the call; so I'm talking to the Comp rep and trying to one-hand the calipers, and the number I came up with was inaccurate, causing the guy to tell me to have my heads milled.



After the seats didn't come in I just tabled everything for a couple of days and when I returned to it, I sat down with the heads and calipers, pulled the dimensions and called Comp. When I gave them the new numbers, they immediately gave me a part number and sent the seats out for next day delivery and when they arrived they were perfect.

I ended up scrapping the stock tray. Using the Summit 6 qrt pan which has windage and a scraper. I thought about setting the stocker off to fit, but...

The Ultra rockers are non Self-Adjusting, which I did not know and by pure accident I ordered the push-rod guides, having no idea at the time that they were essential...

I've read a number of threads where guys are having rockers drop off valves, and until now I had no idea how such was even possible. But when I was setting up this valve-train, as noted above I included the 'valve-guides' just because I've seen most other builds had included them. They quickly became a PAIN and I seriously considered just taking them out. It didn't take long to figure out that without the guides, the new rockers could not possibly stay in place. My old Magnums had tabs, or shoulders... that held the rocker on the stem, which honestly, I never even thought about before, The Ultras I ended up with, have no such shoulder. So the guides are ALL that holds the rocker in place. I spent a solid two days grinding the adjustable guides to center the rockers on the stems. Which worked out, except for two, which ended up with the roller not being exactly centered, but they're as close as I could get without machining the edge of the head where the push-rod comes through.

Here's the latest photo... Rockers on. I still need to torque down the intake and the stems... but it's coming along.

Attachment 4812

Intake is on and torqued... Fuel rails and injectors and I started to slap on the accessories and item #1 was the accessory bracket. It was customarily nasty, so I cleaned it up a tad and here's as far as I got today:

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Tried the old valve covers and they're out. Ordered up a set of Cantons... Should be here in a day or two.