Building Classic MOPAR Power - HOT Road Runner Heads Assembly

You know all the

power

s in the cylinders when you make an engine, you know that one thing is annoying about the compression ratio or getting more compression, what was very important is a good valve job, a good connection job, a surface nice and clean, a nice clean camera, and this one. makes the

power

welcome back to nick's garage summer vacation is over and there are projects waiting for nick's attention in the workshop the last few days nick and his team have been very into theo's

road

runner

to bring him back to the glory the car came with a long list of things that will need pudding just before nick is ready to finish this and send it to theo all the way to australia, well, welcome to nick's garage, i just got back from a vacation that was three weeks, which was quite a while when you were. missing from the workshop for three weeks, so I have to move on because, you know, we were close for three weeks and nothing was done and I want to work on the

road

runner

a little, this is my next project, I want to finish it.

I'm working on the engine, but in the meantime I just wanted to show you that I have the frame connectors that are going to be welded to the floor panel and that they are trying to hide as high as possible so that I don't see it once it's installed, so which I have the road runner so we take the interior out and we want to weld them together so you know you don't want to burn the carpet or anything so we take the seats out. the carpet then, after welding them into place like paint in black, as well as the entire back of the car, and then we're going to put the insulation in the floor, the heartbeat seats and everything, and at the same time I have to robert doing the air conditioning on the car, so we have quite a bit of stuff for the club box board events, but in the meantime I just want to show you because I'm

building

you a 3 3 stroke with a 440 crankshaft that's coming. at 426 cubic inches right now I'm working on a set of 452 cylinder

heads

or castings here, let's go into my engine room and I'll show you what I have here, the corresponding 33 engine, it's a 40 overboard.

Flat top pistons to the water, it's an engine to match. I have a 440 crank which is 426 cubic inches with 440 crank flat caps and we got a compression ratio of 10.1 and I'm also working on a set of cylinder

heads

. right here, cast iron factory, late model 1977-78 series, which is a 452 casting which is unleaded seats, in other words, you can use a little bit of fuel, so we moved those too. I have all new manly valves to put in. that are here, I have all the good performance valves to install. I also have a nice little voodoo camera that's from Lunati, which is a flat type of dollar camera that I'm putting up.

I'm looking for more than 425 horsepower. sort of and we're also putting a six pack in this so it's going to be the general looking engine and we just wanted to have good power and good touring so I gotta keep going because I've got I've got my valves I've got my springs I've got my seals I have my shins and I'm looking for a seat pressure of 130 pounds and an open pressure of about 300 pounds for this lid to work with this setup, so before I put the dyno on I have to assemble it, make sure everything goes well.

I have the cartons in stock. I have the intake manifold. I have my camera installed. This short block is installed. It's ready with an aluminum water pump housing and now I have to work on this in the. head so I'm going to start assembling my valves, my valve seals my shims, strap springs, retainers and locks, after that once they're assembled we'll put them on the cylinder block so we have the cylinder heads. Here I just wanted to show you a modification that we do all the time on every engine built, first of all, all the seals that come from these old engines that I work on in the 60's and 70's era, they had umbrella type seals like this, which is simply a rubber seal, but in today's cars I machined the dome guide and put white and seals on it right here, these are vitamin seals, they are the ones that last longer and consume less oil, they lubricate the valve guide and they do a perfect job, so this is what we do on every engine build we have here, so these umbrellas are the old style, we don't use them anymore and I also have new valves from Manly, nice polished valves, intake, exhaust, these are 208, these are 174, I'm talking about diameters.

These are new valves from Mali, high performance valves that are made for the uh 440-3b engine that houses the engine, which is what we have here, so I have a set of 452 castings. I'm not using the 906 castings. of fabric. because they are not hardened seats for unleaded fuel, so this is what I have to say here is a 452, I have all new valves and I'm going to show you that I'm going to lubricate them all one by one and put them in too, which It's very important, I have a new set of valve springs here also in Google Analytics that come with the camshaft, but it needs the height of the spring, so the most important thing is to adjust the idea of ​​the spring by putting shims in the cylinder heads like this, so I had it measured, but I'm missing fifteen thousand, so I have to add fifty towels to these shins to get the spring pressure that I want, which is about 130 spring pressure at 130 seat pressure and about 300. pressure open that's about 500 left so here it is, I've got the 30.

I've got these shims in place, but I need to add 15 mil per valve, like this here, so I'm going to get 16 of these, which is just 15. towel one two three four five six seven eight five nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen 16. Okay, let's put this aside, I just want to get the pressure that I want, which is very important, it's a flat top and a hydraulic can, so I don't want to exceed 130 psi pressure per square inch on a closed valve, so this is what I need. This is exactly what I'm going to work with: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, okay, so let me add.

This right now on one side of the head so it can start tripping, so we have factory retainers. I have the mining valves so I'm using super chrome cam locks. Here I will show you how to call them super locks. Do you make the locks as you say? I'm going to use these, so the retainers will be factory retainers. I've been using the same retainers, but other than that, everything has changed on the cylinder head, so let me put this in its place. Now come on I put grease on these shims you know why it keeps them in place while I do the work installing the valve springs like I said the most important things when it comes to installing volume springs is the pressure because if you have a low tension or full spring pressure at higher rpm you know about float so you will have failures at higher rpm so putting the dyno on we will look at this and find out. let me put these heads together and we'll go from there.

I'm just adding 15 to get to the pressure I'm looking for, which is very simple, so I'll put the thinner shim under the thicker 60 mil because I want to get the spring out I need exactly with the spring pressure. You know each head battery so you know what's most important and you know you don't want to add too many shapes because if you have too many shapes then I'm going to have a coil next to a coal mine, that's when the spring compresses and Leo and all the coils touch each other then you are going to break a spring, but in this case I am very sure because I just did all my measurements. so I should be fine on this one now after installing them I'm sure I want another proper spray brush okay there we go now we have the valves in place we have the seals in place I put in the shims I need to get . my uh 130 psi or should I say 130 pounds I have like 125 to 130 pounds of seat pressure with the mouth closed and it's about 300 in the open bottom out of 500 remaining so I did all those measurements and right now Start installing them together and here we go.

I have a header with the valves in place. I'm going to show you the other one. Note how I start from scratch. Okay, here we go, take the retainers, there are your springs again. Everyone else. containers here the two four six eight there you have everything good now let's put it together with the vault spring compressor so this goes here here you adjust it it's not the best tool I have it's a little worn out it's time to buy a new one, but while so much I'm going to go ahead and finish it, let's install it like this, I'll show you right now, then you put your protector on the other half of the hair and one there, then you let it go slowly and there you have it, there's one and so on, so Now we're going to continue with the rest and you know, I didn't put a radical camshaft on this because we want to go with power brakes.

The car is equipped with power brakes, you don't want to install a Viking pump, so we want to keep it simple, we are trying to make good horsepower, good torque with a six pack, it is a convertible, it will be a family car. It's going to be a cruiser but we want to get some power out of it and of course you put a little bit of a complicated cam on it and hopefully we don't have vacuum for the power brakes which I guess we will and by the way these are sizes of factory. the intake valve is 208 exhaust valve is 1.74 so these are factory sizes.

I also wanted to mention that these heads have ports, not crazy ports, but a good job of supporting them has been done now because they are a little rough from the factory, so it was. Some port work on them, which is all in the bowl area as you can see, so we're trying to gain some horsepower on this as well, so we did a poor job on the cast iron heads, which takes a long time, but we have done it too. let's continue with this you know there are a lot of pieces to put together silly hats you have to do the valve work I just had a machine that I bought in my uh I have in my workshop that polishes the seats it has multiple angles yes Guys, look closely here and you will see the multiple angles, you have four or five angles there with the seat at 45 degrees.

We did something where we also did the valve guides so this

assembly

should be good and just go to factory too and plus we are using air conditioning in the car we are also installing AC air conditioning after all it is hot in Australia and like Theo, the owner of the car wants good power, he wants a frame. Connectors, he wants air conditioning. I also removed much of the chrome from the front vent glass on the windows. I want to take a second here now and I'll show you guys in a second. They know this. It's not the best tool for installing ball springs, but you know what I have to do with what I have now.

Well, by the way, I just wanted to show you how much work is involved. They know that the car has been doing more work with transportation. Painters, I just want to show you that the chrome is installed on the front windows of the front doors, and I took it all off with Robert and Manny the other day, so we'll send you guys out to get it. polished and rechromed this also belongs to the roadrunner. I also have the rear bumper guards that we will install later. I have your glass here. I have to clean them and I'm trying to find thinner glass.

The factory doesn't make it for a convertible so I'll have to put some tint on it to make it look good so I have quite a bit of work on this one and by the way I know I have a three week vacation I just wanted to mention that. I found a corvette on the island of Paros, which is something unique. You don't see it, very often you can see a corvette in Athens, but on the mainland maybe you do. You might see some powerful cars there, but on the island of Paros that was rare in a beach party place where you go and you know, take what you call go to the beach, coltan, maybe read a newspaper, enjoy music, having a drink.

I have good food and what I was looking at let me tell you whatever my eyes were maybe not at the party or on the beach but looking at someone's container to see what they had and I had my phone with me so I had a little uh, the video was made for a short footage for you guys to watch so take care, watch it and enjoy while he was in the greek islands. Nick and his family spent time at the beautiful Paradiso resort in Marcelo Beach. The owner made them feel like family and Nick always saved the best spot on the beach, but even surrounded by all this incredible natural beauty of Greece, Nick managed to sniff out the place where the old cars are kept.

Here we are, another day at Marcelo beach here on the island. from paros greece you know i don't visit here every summer and it is a beautiful island and at mojello beach we come here quite often but what worries me is that there is a bin at the back of the parking lot but apparently the owner phillipos He told me that he has a corvette 82 crossfire injection here, you know, later he will take methese tools have it, yeah, the sides of this tool, so here we go, it's done and there we have it and by the way, this is the spring.

This is a machine I use to measure spring pressure. You know, it says how much you compress. spring and how much pressure they have, let me find a spring just to show you the rough figure, come on. I'll take any spring here, this is a spring for a big block Chevy, let's take an example here, let's say now this machine. starts at two inches and let's say our install height is 1.900 which starts at two inches you have minus one hundred thousand to equal one point nine hundred and we'll see what spring pressure we have at that point look at this the drop down will move one Once it reaches two inches, we go down a hundred thousand, which is now nine hundred and there is the spring pressure 110.

This is a factory spring from a big block Chevy.factory spring let's say we have a 500 left look at this now 100 200 300 400 500 if you look at it closely, we have about 230 foot pounds of spring pressure, so as you can see, this is a huge spring, not a good thing for us to do. I don't need it anymore, I just want to show you how this machine works. There you have it, yes. They know there's a lot of science involved when it comes to heads. They know they must have the correct size valves. They need to make sure they have the bulk guides valve seals spring pressure connection everything is, you know all the horsepower in the cylinders when you make an engine, you know it's one thing to know about the compression ratio or get more compression, it's very important, it's a good valve job, a good connection job Nice clean surface, nice clean chamber and this one makes power and uh guys, thank you so much for staying tuned here at Nick's garage.

I just want to show you a quick step on how to put the seats on the springs and the potatoes on the side of the heads, especially the 52 cast iron heads for this 3 stroke that will go on theo's road runner and thank you all for spending time with me here at the next garage and if you look below the video, we have a ton of products that you guys can buy so whatever you want, buy it, love it, use it, enjoy it and help spread the word about Nick's Garage. If you have some time, check out our Patreon page, we have additional content and you can check it out and grab it. there and see you next time