........................................--- The Short Block ---
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Tony did the machine work on the block as noted above. I went over to his shop in Cortez, CO to pick up the block and the crank, rods, pistons and rings that had all been at his place, so he could balance the motor. He said he wasn't doing much that afternoon (here is a guy that is always busy) and suggested that we put the short block together there. I had planned on doing this as I had done it with a 383 I put together the year before, but though why not, he knows way more than I do. So he file fitted the total seal rings and installed them on the JE turbo pistons.
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The pistons were put on the 6 inch 4340 rods with floating pins and spiro locks. The Eagle 4340 crank was placed in the block and the caps were put into place and torqued down. You can see the new billet middle 3 caps that Tony line bored. The crank was checked for end play and turned over. So far so good. Next the rods/pistons were installed on the crank and torqued down and he continued to turn the crank over to feel for tightness. One thing to check for if you are using rod bearings like I have in this motor is there is an upper and a lower and they are different.
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A view of the JE piston top with a custom 17 cc dish for the 9.1 compression ratio I wanted. The pistons were setup with .005 clearance and we opened the ring gap to what Total Seal recommended for a blown motor. At this point I took the short block and flex plates home and work ceased for a while so that I could finish some items on my lakester. Tony did an excellent job on all the machine work and I can highly recommend him. This is the second engine he machined for me.
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Finally I returned to assembling the motor and the first item was modifying some lifter valley vent tubes that Tony had recommended. The upper one is the stock one and the lower one has been shortened to clear the under side of the spider assembly that locates the roller lifters in a vortec roller block. All of them had to be shortened.
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I started by mounting them in a fixture I made from some plumbing parts and turning them shorter in the lathe.
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Then the part/fixture was screwed into the middle of my rotary table on the mill and flats were milled on so that a wrench could be used to screw them into the block.
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Here the shortened vents have been installed in the block.
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And you can see how they fit now under the spider assembly. This picture was actually taken further along in the assembly process.