Da Nailhead adventures by whatever

4 minute(s) of a 113 minute read

7-30-2014

Thanks man!

Actually, some '65 Wildcat lowrider. The engine was almost dead, and so the owner wanted to get as much power as possible while rebuilding it. He said, it was going to be his long term ride, but later it turned out that he wanted to just fix the car and sell it better with a performance engine. So, you know, when one's doing for himself and when one's doing that for re-selling - that's not the same attention from the owner. However, I just couldn't make myself do it badly, but quick.

So it's like we take the best of both worlds - the engine is gonna run fine on the street, yet have quite big power. I hope about 350-360 net hp on the flywheel.

P.S. But I actually do create some parts for Volgas, they have their own V8, which is pretty cool - full aluminum die-cast everything since 50s, big block chevy bore spacing, wet liners, 10 degree wedge heads and common as dirt. It's very underestimated, and I think it can be pretty badass, if done properly.

8-2-2014

A non-welded head could be a better choice, but I'm in Russia, and I didn't have much to choose from nor I really wanted to get a new head ported again like this one. And again at my own costs. :P

It was a hard deal saving it! Hope it'd live long enough to enjoy it through out!

There's a little problem with glowing red cast iron. My welder was very very afraid of the white iron - a very hard and brittle condition of iron, and when it's whitened, you can't save this piece or modify - only cut or scrap it. Cast iron welding is not a very common thing here, but it's mostly done on truck gearboxes and other stuff which doesn't a pressure on one side and vacuum on the other side - like in the water passages and the intake port here.

The reason is probably because most of the soviet made car/truck engines never had a cast iron head. It was a pre-WWII thing here, later all engines had aluminum head - no matter if it was flathead-6, V8 or straight-4. The flathead-6, btw, was a metric version of officially licensed Dodge D5 of 1910s, originally with splash lubrication. It was modified quite a lot here, the last version was probably GAZ-52. I still wonder if a Dodge D5 cam would fit, haha. Me and my friends want to try a hot rod with that engine. We also had the licensed 4-71s and 6-71s in 1950s! These were YaAZ-204 and -206 respectfully. It's still the main source for the blowers.

The intake ports on the Nailhead are pretty amazing, however, the intake itself does limit quite a lot due to core shifts! Huge mismatches and lots of smaller than desirable areas.

Btw, found something crazy from the 60s hot rodding.

http://candyshotrodsupply.blogspot.r...ket-heads.html

Still, I hardly believe it had better intake ports than the original design.

My customer's dedication is the something that made me sad while doing this engine. It's a friend of my best friend, so I thought it was all okay, but something went bad... Anyway, since this car is in Russia, where most of the engines are rebuilt with dirt and "one's mother", and my other friend, who had a '66 Riviera, wasn't kind about the Nailhead's performance (said he'd rather have prefered a 455), I thought, all the pefromance stuff was worth to do. Now just need to get my money back.

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Oil pump non-driven shaft was about half-of-an-inch out from the body! Some said they may even hit counterwieghts if they get out a lot! This lead to some scratches on the cover plate, but it's mostly okay! The new driven shaft has some little side play (less than the old one), don't know if I should give it a bronze bushing or just leave alone.

I can't figure out what to do with the exhaust manifold sealing surface. Guess, those on the head and on the manifolds need to be ground flat with a grinding disc machine, not just milled. Since milling won't seal it. I can't find where to do this final operation. I can make some gaskets from soft steel or whatever...