Here's what teaching auto mechanics is all about, bringing a newbie into the trade, and watching his progress! I've been working with a young man for a couple of years, who was near graduation when we met, and didn't have an opportunity to attend my high school classes. He was having problems getting a 350 engine together, and wanted to spend a little time driving his car before going to Marine boot camp. We spent about a month sorting out problems, mostly caused by bad advice from parts suppliers who didn't know enough about engine building to make everything work together, coupled with his inexperience in assembling a high-performance engine. We got it running a week before he reported to basic training, and while it was pretty impressive, the camshaft, valves, carburetor, and rear end ratio just didn't match up very well. The car's an early-70's Mailbu, a real "lead sled", with a too-high gear ratio to take advantage of a high-revving engine.
Fast-forward a couple of years! He's been to Iraq, during the invasion, working on Hummers in the motor pool, and providing combat support to the front-line troops, and is now stationed in North Carolina. When he returned home on his first 30-day leave after his combat assignment, he discovered the engine had frozen during the winter, and pushed a couple of freeze plugs out of the block. (he forgot to drain the block, and was running nothing but water.) Fortunately, no cracks! One lobe on the camshaft had also worn out, due to an incorrect break-in procedure. Back to square one! We pulled the cylinder heads, and I did a full-competition buildup, 2.02" intake valves, 1.6" exhausts, screw-in rocker studs, guide plates, and a pocket-porting job. We chose a little less radical cam than before, a Comp Cams 284/286 degree hydraulic, with high-performance lifters, and degreed it to the intake lobe centerline per the cam card instructions. No shortcuts this time!
He's running a single-plane Edelbrock intake manifold, with a 650 CFM Demon carburetor with vacuum-operated secondary barrels. We fired it up fo the first time at 10:00 PM last night, just long enough to find out it's got oil pressure, on a run stand in my school shop. On Monday, we'll do the camshaft break-in, and get the dyno set up for a 2-hour part-load run, and some serious horsepower testing! With a little mixture and timing tweaking, we're looking for 400 HP.
He keeps asking me what all this work is going to cost, and I haven't told him yet- - - -this one's a freebie! Anyone willing to put his life on the line for me and mine in a combat zone is going to get the best I can give him, at no charge!
Jerry
