The V8 Owners Forum -

Mine is strictly a summer car so warm-up time is irrelevant

I have my heater valve closed in the summer and do not have a bypass hose. I have drilled a couple of 6 mm holes in the thermostat allowing some water to bypass. Works nice and there is less hose connections.

I don't think that V belt works with the 4.6 pump. It is too narrow. The serpentine belt is wider and has thus more surface area to transfer the motion to the pulley. I believe that once you have enough load at the pump the V belt starts slipping. I run a 4.6 with Real Steel Tornado cam. It is a hea...

Easiest option as Eliot pointed out is to put a 90 degree elbow between the manifold and throttle body. It still on the same cluttered side but has more room.

If you need more space, cut the manifold flange off and weld a 90 degree elbow on the manifold. This moves the elbow towards the center.

Pontiac 455 has 3,25" mains and Pontiac 400 has 3" mains.

If you choose the correct bearings for the crank size you should be close.

There is limited length due to a chassis crossmember that cradles the end of the box . This cannot be modified so have to fit the new engine and box forward.

Why can´t you modify or move the crossmember ?

I have not had these particular ones apart but an aftermarket unit instead. It was a clone of factory Bosch unit. The reduction gears exploded into million pieces and what is funny, it was 13 months from purchase. I took the reduction gear pieces back and asked if the 12 month guarantee was this wel...

Are you sure that this is all because of valve tip height ? Have you checked the difference by putting a straight edge on top of each valve ? This will show the actual difference between the valves. Sounds like you may have wear elsewhere.

Do you mean the piston, like this ? SUhif.jpg Some pistons have circlip, some don´t. I think that HIF44 does whereas HIF7 does not. Anyway, check if you have enough travel when the carb is assembled. You can machine the dashpot top lower, there is plenty of thread for the damper. If required you can...

You can get different dampers, e.g. http://sucarb.co.uk/damper-19098.html. That alone should gain close to 10 mm reduction in height. The threaded section at top is machined slightly lower, moderate machining should suffice. Same amount from the piston top if even required. A bit hard to tell but lo...

Yes, commercial boxes have 4.1 or something first gear, also 2nd and 3rd ratios are a bit different.

My R380 box came from commercial vehicle and I had to rebuild it with passenger car gears. I got all I needed from Ashcroft. By the way, input shaft is also longer on commercial R380 boxes.

Try new spark plugs in dead cylinders. I have had a few new ones failing due to cold engine and rich mixture.

Also, old engines had different oil pump, timing gear cover, distributor package.

Too easy !

I have had a K1100 head for over 10 years and still the project is in early stages. I started machining stuff for it but messed up some adapter pieces. Then the project got stalled. I have since bought pistons from MED. Nowadays there are complete conversion kits which are tempting. So far I have re...