Ok, as some of you know I am going to school for building motors. Anyway, my first motor is going to be a 454 alcohol motor with mechanical fuel injection.
I started off with an old block that was in my garage. The motor came off the green schaida I bought off Jordan Paulk a while back. It was DOA, so it just sat in my garage. Well, I was racking my brains, trying to think of a cool project for school, but something a novice builder can do in a semester. I ruled out the blown alcohol deal. I have all the parts in my garage to do blown alky but I thought I would start out a little more tame, as you can really destroy a blown alcohol motor very easily if it hicups and I am on a budget.
So, in my garage I have this old school hilborn injector system that is set up for alcohol, and I have this beat up 454. I decided to just use what I have and build a NA alky motor with mech fuel injection. This will give me the knowledge I need in fuel injection before I build my next blown motor and also a taste of high performance, high rpms.
So far, I tore the block down. The pistons were junk, the tops were melted so I threw them away. The crank needs to be grinded, so I am going to sell and find one that's standard.
I threw the block in the school's cleaning oven and washed it. Then I started to measure. So far it looks pretty good except the fat that it's a two bolt main deal. In fact, the block is a virgin. I measured the bores and they almost have zero taper. The bores measure out at about 4.2557 more or less. The only problem with the bores is some surface rust. I am going to hone them out and then remeasure. I think I can get some forged pistons and they will work without boring over size since cast slugs were in there and forged require more clearance. The mains were all prefecly round. I put a straight edge across the mains and there is no deviation, not even .0005 between them. Actually, a really nice piece.
So, next class I am going to clean the bores and start calling around to see what size pistons will work. I am going to run a 4" crank and want to get a 13:1 dome piston. Probably run 119cc rect heads (I need to find some cheap ones) and I have not decided on rods yet....
Next Monday, pictures to come.....