Great work Matt! Love seeing the progress. Those wheels do look really good on there. What's the plan for the paint? Will it polish up ok?

Looks lovely. It's going to look even better when you join me at the autocross.

Oh, sorry Greg. The plan for the paint is that there is no plan. It might get a light polish and get sealed up, but it's pretty thin on the roof (you can actually see the white through the red) so it might not be a great idea to hack away at it. Besides, there are bits that shouldn't go near a polishing device, like the sin on the right rear fender & everything aft of the rear axle. Suede is maybe the way to go here, until such time as I can deal with it properly.

The past two weeks have pretty much been spent tidying up the engine, so I don't have much progress to show besides this. The "power" plant: B18, .040" overbore, zero decked, D cam, stock valves, 10.2:1 compression ratio, ported head & combustion chamber. Nothing too fancy, a whole bunch of used parts and a few new ones. It might get out of it's own way.





I never really stopped to take pictures of the inside, but I had the block honed and decked, and a valve job done to the head. I didn't go too far on the head and left it pretty rough so there was no need for glamour shots. The head was pretty thin when I got it, I measured 87mm which is right on the spec for a B18B, but once it was clean and decked it was down to under 86mm. That put the compression ratio up at 11:1, and I spent a bunch of time carving away at the chamber to get it back down to something more reasonable, and hopefully increasing flow while I was at it. This is an "in progress" shot showing you the general shape of the chambers. The valves are old B18 valves and are in there to protect me from dinging the valve seats with the grinder - the good ones were kept safe during this process, haha.

Damn - that's looking like a very nice job Matt. Can't wait for it to fire.

Sorry about the lack of progress pictures, folks. Lots of little things getting done, and most of the time I'm on a roll or too greasy so enough photos aren't getting taken. I have a hundred little details to tick off my list now, nothing really visually interesting.

Engine's in, head's torqued, rockers polished & cleaned, valves adjusted, alternator bracket built and installed, distributor cleaned and set up, transmission filled and shifter installed, horns installed and wired, rad hoses figured out (the supposedly OE ones are wrong, wrong, wrong), and a bunch more. I still have to fix one brake pipe, install the front brake hoses, install the clutch slave cylinder, and bleed everything. I have to install the seatbelt anchor points, and I can install the back seats. I have to replace the center bearing on the driveshaft and hook that up. I have to figure out an exhaust manifold and hook up the exhaust, and build hangers. I have to tie down the battery and tidy up the wiring, build the charge and ground wires for the alternator, and figure out why my oil & amp lights aren't working all of a sudden. I have to wire the overdrive. I have to install the carbs and set up the linkage, then I can fill the rad and fuel tank and it should be ready to fire up. I have to install front shocks and the front sway, and give it an alignment. It'll be a race to get it done by Father's Day.

Awesome Matt. One thing at a time and I'm sure you'll get there.

That's a ton of stuff already, jealous...

In spite of not having much of a work weekend with Father's day, I am just about at the point where I can start the car and drive it around. I need to build a couple of minor wires and come up with a PCV hose, and after I tighten the exhaust to the header I can pull the trigger and break in the cam. Tonight won't see much work done but it should be making vroom vroom noises tomorrow evening.

Again, there are no progress pictures 'cause I'm not doing anything groundbreaking, but I'll post some photos when it's done. It's mostly been fiddle-farting around trying to get pieces to fit with one another.

One tidbit of information I found interesting (and SHOULD have taken posterity photos of) was that the '66 M40 driveshaft nut (for the center bearing) and the '67 M41 driveshaft nuts are different, and don't interchange. (I'm installing an M41 into this car, I think perhaps obviously, but only have a front section for a '67). The threads are microscopically different. The problem arose where the '66 support bearing inner race is about 1/2" wider than the '67 bearing, and the '67 nut has a fairly long unthreaded spacer section. I couldn't get the nut to thread onto the driveshaft, and the '66 nut would only go onto the '67 shaft about 2 threads before tightening up. I thought maybe there was an issue with the threads, but each of the '66 and '67 nuts spun cleanly onto their own shafts but each only 2 threads onto the other shaft. I ended up chucking the '67 nut into my lathe to knock off that lip so that I could get the whole thing bolted together. The tool needed for each style nut are quite different too - the '66 needs a 1 15/16" socket (try finding one of those at Canadian Tire - how fortunate is it that I had one for something else?) and the '67 needs a 1 3/8" socket if my memory serves.

Not to steal Matt's thunder but I'm on a roll...

https://youtu.be/Pr2LlmMCavk

Thanks for the extra set of eyes yesterday, Dale.

You saw it here, folks. I had primed the oil, set the points and timing statically, filled the carbs with fuel, and generally had a pretty good idea it would start when I turned the key (though I had forgotten to hook up the battery ground...) but was pretty pleased that it actually did come to life so easily! The whole deal with the vice-grips was to prop up the throttle enough to keep the engine speed between 2500 and 3000 to break in the cam, which I held for 30 minutes before taking it for a victory lap around the block. The temperature gauge came up to warm and never moved, it didn't leak a drop of fluid, it basically ran exactly as one would hope! When I pulled the vice grips the engine speed dropped to a nice idle, mixture and synchronization seemed pretty close (I was careful with this during install) and it didn't even diesel when I shut it off! I shouldn't be surprised but I'm pretty happy.

I have a few more adjustments to do over the next couple of nights but it'll be on the road before the weekend. Everything else can be done while I'm putting miles on it.

YES! Sounds smooth. Awesome work Matt. So happy for you.

Congrats, I'm not surprised it started and ran smoothly. Sounds good out the back as well. So much high quality work in a short amount of time, well done. Noticed your fuel filter downstream of the pump, Dr. Pushrod may not approve...

Was thinking about how to polish your thinning paint, you should try one of the non-abrasive polishes that use chemistry and heat to clean the paint. Won't take out the deeper scratches, but will clean up the oxidation with less risk of finding the OG paint below.

I know Jim, I know. I'm used to seeing filters after mechanical pumps like this:





...and in the fuel injected world, it's an absolute sin to put a filter before the pump (the in-tank sock filter doesn't count). I feel that it's there to keep all the crap out of the carbs/injectors (including what would come from the pump), Craig feels that it's there to keep the crap from the pump which will keep it from the carbs. It's just one of those things Craig and I disagree on, though we both see each other's sides. Happily with this car we both get our way, as there's a filter in the fuel line before the pump as well as one in the fuel hose after the pump.

So, how does it feel?

Yeah I'm just messing with yuh, who am I to tell you or Craig anything...