January 2010 Project Begins (Raspberry)

[3X00-Modified]

That's just an optical illusion... They just have a circular pattern on the top of the piston. The rear bearing had no issues with the plug.

As far as the chain, yes its a lovely item, but definitely not the best solution... with it being a rocker joint chain and not a roller it does take a beating, and beats on the sprocket a good amount. I can see tiny wear spots on the sprocket already, Nothing too crazy off normal as far as buffing the area, but if it starts to show dents then I may have to go for the double roller and just take the crank to get clearanced up front for it...

There are arrows on both banks, one side they are on the top obviously and the other side they end up on the bottom. They are hard to see in that picture, but trust me I have them in right... I had to remove two pistons after tapping them in when I realized I had it upside down. And a FYI, the piston center pin is slightly offset its not dead center of the piston, and that's why the pistons are directional. It however will run with three the wrong way... LOL I proved that with my other 3400 build, I screwed up when building it, and when I had to pull the motor to fix the rear main cap for a bad oil leak, I noticed both sides of the engine you could read the lettering on the pistons through the sparkplug hole... SO I had to flip her over, pull the crank and then twist three pistons without removing them from the bore... That was fun.

[Money pit Beretta]

An optical illusion? That's cool! Ok, I have seen rings all around the pistons before. Last time I had to mess with pistons they just had the four valve eyebrows. And we could put them anywhere in the block. Glad to hear that the plug has no problems sealing.
Oh man that sounds like a PITA to rotate the pistons. Did it knock or anything when they were not in the right way?
Hope that chain lasts. I'd sure hate to try to find a shop around here that could mill the crank. Most of the shops here have a good old boys club thing and only like those people and V8's.

[Asylum]

It would be interesting to see the numbers if the pistons were put in "upside down".

I know in my Chrysler days it was common practice to use 340 pistons upside down to take advantage of the offset pin and get a small increase in compression.

[3X00-Modified]

I'm not sure which way they are offset though... It had no knocking when they were in that way and seemed to run fine... Also I never measured the deck height on them so I don't know if doing them backwards made them stick out further or go back in the bore.

Ours already punch out .020 from the bore, and we only have a .060 thick head gasket, so we need to be careful with how much more is added to that.

[3X00-Modified]

Well time to update this...

Finally this motor is getting the port work it deserves, Talk about time consuming.










Head Half done



The other completed head.

[Money pit Beretta]

Looking good.
That thing jumped on you pretty good there in that one spot.
Is that some bad casting near that exhaust valve(photo #6)?

[3X00-Modified]

That was just the buffing wheel that slipped off the edge and rubbed the gasket surface.

The spot in the exhaust area, I'm not sure if thats a rough area or just a dirty spot... I'd have to double check.

[woody90gtz]

Looks good. That's got to be a lot of time. Too bad Edelbrock or AFR dont make CNC 60* heads... haha

[3X00-Modified]

I'm down to about 30-45 min per intake port, vs my first 1.5hrs.... The exhaust goes a bit quicker since I did not already port that so I don't have to be as careful around the gasket side... With the intakes being previously matched and polished, I need to texture them but NOT remove a lot of material otherwise they would be over sized. That takes a delicate touch to do...

After a quick rough of the exhausts then yes, the cross buffing takes time, but it's worth it to have a nice polished smooth exhaust port.

Just looking at this stuff looks like it should help significantly this year with my car... and I hope thats true.

I've already touched up the lower intake to match, Its got a rough texture around where the fuel is induced, and the top where it meets the upper is buffed with 120 grit flapper wheel. I think that should work well.

[Money pit Beretta]

Are you going to do a write up on this with it still in your mind?

[3X00-Modified]

I'm not sure, there are plenty of writeups on porting and such elsewhere... and I got my info from Dave on 60degreev6 so I don't want to really just spew his info on a board without him doing so himself.

[Money pit Beretta]

Me and my thoughts.....
What are you going to work on next?

[3X00-Modified]

When I get time I need to finish up the porting on that head, and send them off for a nice valve job, and exhaust valve inspection. I have a new set of GM LIMG's coming, and a new set of 04 3400 exhaust manifold gaskets coming. Mine had some leaks.

Other than those items... I'm still waiting on my crank scraper and headgaskets from WOT-Tech, and then I need to wait to get the heads back, and I'm also waiting to hear if I should replace half of my head studs due to some rust pitting on them. (long story)

so once I finish the exhaust porting, its just a waiting game I guess...

[Asylum]

Nice work.

Now I'm going to have to spend more freakin' money on this stupid little car it seems if I want to stay a step ahead.

Rodney's going to freak, but it looks like Ben is going to be preparing a set of heads for a trip to Canada.

[IsaacHayes]

Gah, I can't wait until I get this house crap sorted out and have ROOM to MOVE and work on even my motor. My to-do list just keeps growing and watching others make progress irritates me.