For the last couple weeks, I have been gathering parts and working on swapping the cam in my brother's van. The plan had been to swap in a used cam which had been reground to the specs of the Erson RV10 cam, and, at the same time since the head would be off, get the head rebuilt and milled to bump up the dynamic compression ratio to increase fuel economy and power. My brother was coming down to spend a week at my house starting on the 28th of December, so my goal was to have everything lined up to just remove his old cam and head and swap in the new ones. The van had been left at my place a week previously to allow me time to pull the head, measure it, and get it rebuilt and milled. That was the plan, anyway.

I gathered all the parts and then started looking for a syringe to CC the head. I called and physically visited three medical supply stores and two auto parts stores in Tacoma, but NOBODY carried syringes or any other tool that could be used to CC a head. I ended up buying one online and ordering it two day delivery, but I did it one day before Christmas. Needless to say, the syringe still hasn't arrived.

We decided to just press ahead an use the cylinder head I had rebuilt about a decade ago that has Ford 300 valves installed. It hasn't been milled, but it has been rebuilt.

So we began tearing the motor down and pulling parts.



The van looks sad without its face.

I checked out the MP double roller timing chain I installed on this motor about 10 years ago, and it looks good. Nearly no chain stretch.



Got the new cam in and got the degree wheel installed. I recommend installing the vibration damper, and THEN installing the degree wheel. This way you hold the degree wheel to the damper with the big center bolt but can use the thee other bolt holes in the damper and the degree wheel to hold the degree wheel in one place and use the three long bolts to turn the motor anti-clockwise.



I made an interesting discovery while the cams were out. The cam that had been in the motor was a stock spec 1976 cam that had been installed when the motor was rebuilt. The reground cam was a 1964 factory 225 cam I got from Ceej (Thanks Ceej!). The 1964 cam had two holes drilled on the backside of it but the cam in the rebuild only had one hole. The single hole was larger though. Any thoughts as to why the difference and what effect it might have?



So we go the cam installed and got the head and manifolds installed and torqued down, including the rocker arms. Note the HUGE transmission cooler my brother installed on the van, as well as the HUGE oil cooler tucked behind the tranny cooler (this picture only shows the top 1/3 of the oil cooler):



We got all this done on December 31 by 11 pm. Went inside to celebrate the new year. The plan was for us to get the cam degreed and broken in on the morning of January 1, since we were leaving on the afternoon of January 1 to drive down to the Columbia Gorge on the Washington/Oregon border to spend the weekend on a family vacation (and to go to the meet at Wildcat on the second!).

So bright and ealry on the morning of the first I go out and we start trying to degree the cam. The numbers I am getting are totally wrong and don't make sense. I start getting nervous that the cam grinder put the wrong profile on (and a really goofy one at that), or that I did my math totally wrong about the cam profile. I put a panicked post on the board asking for help degreeing the cam and, to my great surprise and pleasure, Joshie225 took the time to give me a call on the phone and walk me through degreeing a cam. What a guy!

It turns out I was (a) measuring valve lift in the wrong place, and (b) measuring the wrong valve event. I was trying to measure valve lift off of the top of the adjusting nut on the rocker arm and I was trying to measure when the valve opened and closed rather than peak lift. Plus, I HAD done my math wrong about the valve events. The only thing I HAD done right was find TDC and put the pointer in the right place. Oh well, live and learn. At least I didn't break anything.

After the phone call, I determined that the intake lobe was centerlined at 106.5 degrees, right where I wanted it. I didn't even have to use the cam advance bushings I bought.

So we buttoned the motor the rest of the way up, topped off the fluids, sprayed a bunch of WD-40 into the carb to try and fill the float bowl, and tried to start it.



I then adjusted the negative battery cable and we tried it again:



I then dug out a can of gas and poured it into the top of the carb until it started to over overflow (this is an advantage to the BBD- you can pull the metering rod cover and dump gas in there to fill the float bowl). We broke the cam in and got it running!



The bigger cam and big valve head have made the motor noticeably louder. Here is a video of the motor running with the stock cam and head:



I hadn't run the big valve head for about nine years, so I had forgotten that the rearmost manifold stud holes was stripped. We didn't discover this until the head was bolted on and the manifolds were being torqued down. Nobody that carried a Helicoil was open on New Years day, so we tightened it as much as it would go and crossed our fingers. On first startup, everything was fine for a bit, and then radiator fluid started bgushing out and making a HUGE stinky cloud of steam since it was immediately hitting the hot exhaust manifold. We shut the motor down and cobbled together a short term patch of teflon tape and high-temp copper RTV gasket maker. Yes, a lame mickey-mouse fix, but it is holding.

Valve lash on the motor is currently set .090 intake and .018 exhaust. These settings were recommended to me by AggressiveTed as a good compromise between torque and a quiet valve train. Vacuum at idle is around 17 inches, so I lost about four inches there, but I think there is a vacuum leak somewhere. Base timing is set at 14 degrees BTDC. My brother reports improved power and acceleration. However, at the Wildcat meet on the second, Ceej gave me a 60 CC syringe (yay!) so the plan is to get his old head rebuilt and milled and to swap it on in a couple weeks.

We got this all done and were on the road south to the Columbia Gorge by 3:30 p.m., but that is another story.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

I hate to have to say it, but I watched your engine-cranking video and it's clearly audible that you've got a cylinder with no compression. Listen to the starter rhythm: four compressions and then none, four compressions and then none, four compressions and then none. Did you figure out why and fix it?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Not yet. I will hazard a guess that it was the valve lash setting. I had only done a rough cold lash setting at that point and went back and readjusted the valves once the cam had been broken in and the motor got warmed up. However, the vacuum was lower than I would have liked, and it was a bit rougher idling than I would have liked.

My brother called me today and reported that the van is running very good with improved performance.

We will be swapping the big valve head with a rebuilt head in a few weeks. I will check compression then, both before and after the head swap. I will make sure that if there is a dead cylinder, the problem is in the head, and not the block.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Quick checkup today: compression is 130 PSI even across all cylinders. Valve lash was checked and reset to .008 intake and .018 exhaust. Resetting the valve lash, bumping the timing up to 14 BTDC, and upping the idle speed to 750 got the idle vacuum up to 18. It used to be 21 before the cam and head swap, but the 18 isn't too bad.

There are some noticeable exhaust leaks at the cylinder head, but those will be fixed when we swap the rebuild stock valve head and dual exhaust manifolds on.

I still need to verify that the timing mark on this new vibration dampener is in the right spot. It seems like it might be a few degrees advance base don how well the motor runs when the timing mark is at about 20 BTDC.

Sooo, I have to say I'm pretty happy with the cam swap so far. I am excited to get the stock valve head rebuilt and get the dynamic compression up to 8.2.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Hi reed, nice van. Those huge coolers are great, they will pay for themselves in the long run. The tranny loves cool oil...
Olaf

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Aspenized

You do realize that 8.2 DCR will require premium fuel?

I thought 8.2 could still run regular? Crap. Now I need to rethink everything...

Wait a minute, most of the anecdotal evidence in THIS thread seems to indicate I can get away with 87 or 89 octane with an 8.2 dynamic compression ratio.

Maybe I will just cross my fingers and get the head cut. I have a few spares if it goes catastrophically wrong. I can futz with timing and thermostat temp and then start rethinking the head rebuild.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

I think you should take a couple of minutes and do a google search. Plenty of stuff on DCR ratios on the net.

how's the van coming Reed

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Nothing beats a slant six
1987 D150

Still chugging along. Haven't had the money or time to get the head done yet. I have been trying to determine what DCR requires what octane and I haven't been able to find anything on the net. I will keep looking though.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

The consensus seems to be a DCR of 8.1 requires 91 octane fuel.

Hmmm. I think my brother can live with premium. It typically costs 30 cents more per gallon and he has the 36 gallon fuel tank, so .30 x 36 = an extra $10 per fillup. Of course, since putting 36 gallons of gas in his tank already will cost him $70-90, and extra $10 isn't that much.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Counter spin department:

Counselor Reed:

[quote]Of course, since putting 36 gallons of gas in his tank already will cost him $70-90, and extra $10 isn't that much.[/quote]

Reed you are sounding like a politician using that logic matrix…. It’s only a wee bit more… Hell, it’s not my money… He won’t mind…

It looks to me like a bit over 10% increase in his fuel bill, and at less than 20 mpg, that crummy 10% could add up to a nice pile of jingle over a year’s time… I smell dead dinosaurs here. Fess up, you are heavy in Exxon-Mobil equities aren’t you… Come on come clean. Ok, than how-bout Valero, BP, or Gulf?

Estate building Department:

You remind me of my kids when they were at the smart-ass high school stage fifteen years ago. I pick up pennies off of the ground all the time. When confronted by one of them as to why I had taken the time to bend over to retrieve a Lincoln head, I mentored him that if you get enough of them you will have a buck... His reply: “a buck ain’t worth anything either.â€￾ I gave a shrug, and dropped old Abe into my pocket.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

WJAJR- Why so nasty all of a sudden? The higher the price of gas goes, so long as the $.10 difference in fuel grade ratio remains the same. the less it actually costs to run higher octane. Plus, I am hoping that the increase in compression will also increase his fuel economy.

In any event, my brother usually already fills up with premium, but I will run this by him first.

kesteb- thanks for the info.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Generally this "ruler" was put in place by the V-8 guys... My engine in the 8 DCR range can run on Regular, but the timing has to be degraded a bit (2-3 degrees out of the vacc. advance), generally I can run plus all week...if I want the 2-3 degrees back I run super...no decline in mileage during my daily driving...You just need to "dial" in the combo to see "what it wants"...

-D.Idiot