February 2000 Archives

I got the car back today from the media blasters. It is better then expected. It is hard to know what is lurking under the 50 coats of paint over 30 years. There turned out to be no suprises. I did have a problem getting the car over the hill. I was hoping to beat the weather but it started raining on my perfect metal cat as I was driving back to the shop. DOH! When I got to the shop we dried the car off and turned on the heat. Fifteen minutes later the car had a definite "rust" hue to it. I will use an abrasive to remove the surface rust and primer it with epoxy primer this weekend.

I also talked to somebody about doing a little body work for me. I will have him get started on the rocker panels and floor board next.

The car went off to the paint strippers wednesday. I rented a trailer and trucked it down to the place. The owner of the shop said he is going to take his time with this one. He is afraid of cutting through the sheet metal with the plastic media. I have time to wait though. I don't to rush anybody.

On other fronts I have puchased my valves, guideplates, and keepers. Also studs for the rocker arms. These items are necessary to assemble my A3 heads. I found a in A331 intake manifold that I should get next week. The manifold was $575, rather pricey but hard to find. I may have been able to get one cheaper if I was able to wait. I also found a Scat stroker crank that has been used but only on 10 runs supposedely. It doesn't need turning just polishing. The other benifit is that this crank maybe balanced well enough that it may save me some money on balacing, anyway the price was $375.

I dissasmebled the A-arms today. I removed the bushings by cutting off one side of the metal inner collar then burning out the rubber with a propane tourch. Then I pressed out the outter sleeve. The upper front A-arms were the toughest as the outter sleeve had no "gap" between the sleeve and the A-arm bushing hole. I had to grind down the sleeve collar until it was fairly thin, then I used a screwdriver and hammer to pry the collar away from the A-arm hole. Then I used a bearing holder in the press to get enough "grab" on the A-arm to allow me to press out the sleeve. I used a 1/2" ratchet extension to allow me to press all the way through the A-arm. Now I know why you pay people to do this work :)

I have a couple of options for body work so I will wait until the car comes back from the strippers to see how bad it is before making my decision.

I took out the wiring today with and the last of the break lines. I was able to remove the entire harness from the car. I dont know if I will remember where everything went when I put it back in. I also removed the  last of the door mechanism and window mechanism.

I started on the door trim around the frame of the door. This trim is really hard to remove. I know that I have mangled some pieces getting it off. And if it goes back on I may have trouble keeping it on. I hope you can purchase the trim.

I have found a media blasting place with the help of some members. The will chemically strip the car of paint then lightly media blast the car with plastic media. Afterwards the will paint the car with primer, all for around $1000. Not a bad deal.

I also sent my new A3 heads out to have them ported and plolished by a friend. I still need to find valves and a manifold for the motor. I have a guy who wants to sell me an SVO manifold that fits the heads with the block but I don't know which manifold it is yet. I have a machine shop setup that will sonic test my block for $55 and also flow test the heads for me for $50. I will be able to get a good idea of how much horsepower and torque the motor will put out when I know the head flow numbers.

Hopefully I can finish the trim work tomorrow and deliver the car to the media blaster this week.

Well almost there. As of tonight the car has no suspension, no interior, no drivetrain and now glass. I made a really nice "dolly" for the car today. I used mostly 2x4 with some 2x6 as well. I will take some pictures of it later. It basically consists of two boxes that mate to the spots on the frame where the A-arms used to attach. A box was built to span both a-arm brackets for the front and the back. After I was finished I was able to hang from the structure without damage. I used construction adhesive and screws for the job. Screws hold better then nails. And with adhesive it makes a pretty solid structure. I finished the boxes by putting casters on each. Two swivel caster for the front and two static casters for the rear. The caster I got were too small so I will have to go find some large ones. It's too hard to push the body around with the little casters.

On other fronts I was able to trade a guy a 2-stroke dirt bike I have in exchange for porting and polishing my new A3 heads. The heads should come in on monday or tuesday. The guy that is porting and polishing them is an Alfa-Romeo specialist so he is used to porting aluminium heads.

A glass company removed my glass for me, they charged me $100 to remove the windshield, rear window and both small side windows. I still need to remove the door windows. After removal of the rear window we broke it, I will need to look into getting a new one.

I also purchased the Dyno2000 desktop engine simulator from Mr. Gasket. It is a nice program that calculates your hp and torque ratings based on cam profile, head flow, bore/stroke, and several other parameters. The really fun part though is that it has a tester in it that allows you to take a specification like intake lift and specify a range that you want to test over and how large the steps are that you want to iterate over. You can iterate over 8 different parameters in one run. So you can easily determine your best cam profile for your engine based on your rpm limits and usability ranges.

I was able to dial in my 408 stroker to about 531 hp, that is with the A3 heads as the come from Ford. After porting they heads should allow more hp but I will have to get them tested after porting to get the exact numbers. If any of you are still reading my log and want me to run you engine numbers for you I would be glad to do it, just drop me an email.