Woohoo!! Reassembly starts!

[Blackpopracing]

Battery is now up to 13.4v so it ‘might’ be ok hopefully – time will tell.


Tried filling the system with water tonight – for it to pour out over my feet the heater matrix has rotted out – just ordered a new one.

Not much of a surprise as it was a junkyard item – mainly used to mock up with. I’ll rig a bypass hose for now to check the rest of the system.

[Blackpopracing]

A step near to firing up tonight, dizzy back out & old modified cut down dizzy shaft & housing in. Spun on the drill got 45 Psi before drill started to smoke
Water went back in with bypass hose fitted and no more leaks.

Petrol will be bought tomorrow and hopefully battery will be fully re-charged by then (14.4v now)

[MoreCubes]

Waiting with fingers crossed & bated breath Mark !

[Blackpopracing]

Fitted the new heater core back tonight, then removed plugs and gapped them for the MSD (45 thou) and then I spun the motor over for 20 seconds without plugs in (fuel & ign disabled) to get oil pressure up. It got to 55psi so that all looked healthy.

Then with beating heart & adrenaline running I reconnected the fuel & ign, set the timing about right & tried to start it. Quickly found a new puddle of fuel under the car

Removed regulator & hoses and tightened joints on bench then refitted. Then tried to start it again - popped back through carb & tried to start but no luck. Went through the timing again and found I'd installed the dizzy 180 degrees out, doh!!

Refitted in the right place, set dizzy at approx the right place and turned the key.......................
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
and it runs

YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds really strong and is pretty loud too and the mufflers are set at the 'quiet' setting

It's not quite right, its backfiring on one bank - think it's no8 cylinder as exhaust temps are down 30 degrees on that header, don't know if its a dodgy plug? as its not a regular backfire (or it's running on 7 cylinders?) will need to run it again to check - I'll pull the plug and see what it looks like (all are brand new Champions) and possible swap it out to the opposite side to see if the backfire swaps sides.

Only had it running for about 5 lots of 30 seconds, bit late at night for sustained 'testing' and it puked the water out of the radiator top (had no rad cap fitted - need to get one) but MASSIVE grin on my face

[Flamin Black A]

well done Mark at last she lives

[Morris460]

A big tick on the "to do" board Mark.
Re Champion plugs, I haven't used them for years. Back in the '70's if you wanted a set of four you bought five!

[langysrodshop]

Hooray !!! I don't know of anyone that uses champion plugs Mark, they have a very bad rep, NGK, Bosch etc are way more reliable.

[MoreCubes]

Well done Mark - onwards & upwards now.

[jsf55]

A big tick on the "to do" board Mark.
Re Champion plugs, I haven't used them for years. Back in the '70's if you wanted a set of four you bought five!

Yep same here, ngk only for my cars

[plumpcars]

Must feel great after so much work. I would be very wary of running it for those 30 second bursts if you have a new cam in there. You would have wiped your cam lube off by now.

[Brizey]

Yep same here, ngk only for my cars

Me too. I`ve not used Champions since the mid 70s ...

Must feel great after so much work. I would be very wary of running it for those 30 second bursts if you have a new cam in there. You would have wiped your cam lube off by now.

Congrats on the fireup Mark, but heed Steve`s advice to avoid damage to the cam lobe. You need to fire it and keep it running...

[Blackpopracing]

Cam was broken in on original rebuild 18!!!!! years ago so no worries there.

I bought cheap Champions from Real Steel (RV17YC) to get it running - any suggestions for make/heat range for a 9.75:1 small chambered head 400HP SBC?

[Blackpopracing]

Thanks for all the nice comments, ran it again tonight. Checked out the ign wires routing and pulled all the plugs on that bank. No6 was perfectly clean – the rest were sooty, so No6 was the culprit.
I got some NGK plugs and popped those in (they are 10mm shorter so allow more room on plug 8/steering column – so that’s a bonus!)

Tried it again and no backfire

Ran it for about 10 minutes until it boiled over – some issues to address now.

Electric fan is cutting out on the 40 amp thermal cut-out so not cooling the motor as it is being shut off way too early before the water thermal switch is triggered. I can run another 40 amp cut-out in series as I have one spare or fit a 50A fuse – and see if it blows. I prefer the thermal cut-out as it will not let me down if I have no spare fuses. The wires can take it as we tested them to 100A on the bench rig and they only get slightly warm even then.

Next issue is I need to alter the fuel pump wiring to use the oil pressure switch as a safety cut out – this will be safer but also stop the pump running as soon as I turn on ign without starting the engine. Should have done this when wiring originally but got lazy – should have known better really!!


I’ve done a video but it’s rubbish as it was on my phone – I’ll do another on the camera another day as preparing to go to the NSRA Supernationals tomorrow night for the weekend. Video is still uploading to YouTube so will post as soon as it’s online.

[Blackpopracing]

And the rubbish video;

[Flamin Black A]

well done mark

[langysrodshop]

Mark Accell do a shorty plug which is real short, it may give you more clearance. Good to see it finally running

[weemark]

mark that's good news that its up and running - I use the accel shorty plugs and they do help with space and stops wires/wire boots being burnt on the ends. never had a problem with the shorty plugs either but then I change theme evry year as a service item.

[Blackpopracing]

Cheers Guys, the NGK are quite small - only the no8/column one thats tight all others are good. Got ok clearance on it now though.

Just need to lay the concrete outside the garage & add brake fluid (and sort any leaks in brakes - bound to be at least one!!) and I can test it in the local car park behind garage

[53pop]

great to see you have got it running well done soon be on the road

[Blackpopracing]

Only a small update as been to NSRA Supernats and domestic chores have taken precedence.
Had a look into the 40A circuit breaker tripping early - and found the wires not done up tight on it oops! hopefully that's why it was tripping early.
I'll find out on the next fire up.

Hopefully pick up new wiring, sleeve & weatherpack connectors this week to re-wire the fuel pump into the oil pressure switch.