This is how I bought it in 2019 #ad

It came with a complete brand new interior still in the box, new control arms and a panhard bar w/poly, good Hedman Hedders already installed among lots of other parts. Although the front nose was off it, the car did start and run and we drove it on the trailer.

My background is as an engine machinist. I have every assembly tool and measuring tool to tear down and re-assemble any North American classic V-8. I've worked on engines as big as Waukeshau 7042 (thats 7042 cu.in. for those unfamiliar with them) and WS 8G 825s (825 cu.in. per cylinder x 8!) through all HD truck diesels.
Of course as a grass roots street/trip guy I don't know how many classic V-8s like Chev/Dodge/Ford/Ponch/Buick/Olds etc engines I've done the machine work on and/or assembeld. I have also "built" at least 30 or so Drags and Oval Track over the years as in I did the math, selcted the parts and "built" the engine as opposed to just putting some guys parts together. A couple were for me!

I overhauled a 302 and flipped an 85' Ford Mustang a couple of years ago.
However I'm immensely proud of the 1974' Camaro I bought and built for street/strip about 20 years ago. I dragged it until they closed our Calgary Alberta Drag Strip in 2011. It was a super fun and ridiculously reliable 11.5 second driver (3000 feet above sea level ET) 115 MPH and 1.56 60foots if track conditions were good. 350 passes and never once failed to make the pass! Drove it there and back every time.


The 406 in that one ran AFR 195E heads TH 350 and 4.11s in a 10 bolt with home made Caltracs. I spent tons of time and effort on suspension and shocks and it had frame connectors.

But it was just too rowdy to drive year round up here after they closed the track. I'm not into trailering a street car so I sold it in 2014 and fished around until I found this solid 85' project a guy was forced to sell for a song $3000 Cdn!. (He broke his hand badly and couldn't work on it)

First step was to re-paint with Body Shop spray cans and clear coat the front end and fenders. ( a major paint job comes a few years from now after its run a few drag passes)
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THE PLAN
Z-28 is a Classic GM Badge and I want this thing to be based on the real 70' style Z-28s if not a little better.
I also choose a 3rd gen as it has the OD Automatic 700R4 so I could hop up the engine, run a 2800 stall and gears and still drive 3 hours to Nisku which is the nearest Drag Strip.

I want a sleeper! Love a sleeper! I'm staying under the hood witha GM ZZ4 low rise intake, a Q-Jet and the factory Air Cleaner and front air tube. The engine will NOT have "fancy valve covers" they will look stock. Don't worry about me and a Q-Jet I have tons of old tuning parts and have raced Q-Jets as well as the traditional Hollies.

Zs were great handling cars however I'm still wanting that clean simple drivable straight line hole shot drag car version.

While I'm an engine guy I know from loooong experience that the rest of the car has to stand up to the power. I'll get to that

355 SBC not assembled just had the last parts arrive from Summit!
-genuine 1178 forged steel crank!
-4 bolt block that had studs in it for a windage tray (block and crank cost $250 and measured the bores when I bought it and they wer perfect at .030! He "threw in the crank" !!!)
-I scored a set of Professionally ported GM492 castings for $750 from a guy in Edmonton who worked for the shop that ported them and needed money during Covid
-Flat top hypers clearance is 1.5 thou
-decked .012 and using a steel .017 gasket to achieve 10.2:1 and a .035 quench
-new forged steel full float rods w/ARP
-Howards Cam with intake close 230 ABDC @ .050 and retarded 4 degrees for intake close 235 ABDC / .480/.488 lift
-roller bearing rocker arms
-Deep pan that fits 3rd gen Camaros and a windage tray

I will post pics as I prep the block and assemble the engine

-I use a line lock and a Ratchet shifter
-2800 stall convertor
-SK700 shift kit purchased

I have all these parts for the rear axle. I firmly believe the 7.5 is a weak link and have addressed it
-Moser Axles
-An Eaton Posi with 4.11s still on it although I hope to run the 3.23s
- Diff cover girdle with cap supports
-crush sleeve eliminator
-control arms and panhard bar with poly
- I have a budget decision coming re a new Torque ar and transmission mount set up

I'm knee deep in it right now and while Covid and helping out family have put a hole in my budget I am plugging away on this.

 

First close look at the heads today.

492 castings, ported with screw in studs and guide plates. Came with new exhaust and good intakes. All in keeping with my Z-28 theme. I've done the "500HP/500Ft Lbs" thing and I'm not over doing this one or using a head someone would recogonize as after market in keeping with the sleeper theme.

I knew they were okay. They have Mag Ok written on both heads and the shops I.D. info stamped on the end.


I didn't do the valve grind obviously but I did plenty back in the day. They were bead blasted I think so I choose to relap the seats.
The Exhausts look great.


I really had to work the Intakes. The seats "looked" to big however they also lapped in nicely.


Because of the bead blasting I marked the seats to be sure they too were cleaning up and all seems well.


Still have the 2nd head to do. And of course give them a good bath before assembly.

Also should be hauling my block to the Diesel truck shop I work for (Outside Sales) to deglaze the cylinders and get it decked.

 

Re lapping the seats in. Upon close inspection the seats on the intakes were too close to the same size as the seats on the heads. Both about .075". The exhausts were new and seated great.

Decided to take the intakes in and get them touched up. It expanded the face of the valve to about .090-.095 so I'm very confident the heads will be seated at start up. Took them to the shop and pressure washed and blew them clean. I hope to start assembling them today.

Also running a Rochester Carb for the 4th time. Love Hollies but for the stock sleeper look a Roch is actually easy to hot rod. Ran them in a 1966 Acadian Canso 283 (Chevy II to you American folks), 1965 Chev 1/2 ton 312, the 1st version of my 1974 Camaro 406 which ran 12.47 with a Roch and a stock hood at 3500 feet up here in high altitude Calgary.

Now this one


75jet w 48k rods primary
G DR secondary
medium spring for primary
3/4 turn n air door
idle screws set back 2.5 turns to start
Throttle plate screw covers slots properly
lower casting plugs epoxied
trimmed primary shafts

A tip of the hat to a long time Chevy Board guru name of Damien who's been part of many boards and is the genius behind the G DR secondary set up. The primaries and spring are always a bit of an educated guess to start. The secondary's are "Air Demand" and the G DR combination works on everything for straight line drags.

 

I actually did assemble the heads last sunday just didn't get around to posting until today.

165cc stock however excellent porting job and I could cc them however no real need. a "torquey" 355 street/strip engine should have about a 170-175cc head and these will be very close.

I hadn't noticed when I bought them however the intake valves on these have an area where they are shrouded that I knew I would have to look at. No need, on close inspection the porter also fly cut the intake area and shrouding was already cleared. That valve unshrouding is the last piece of the puzzle to really help the porting job to preform to its best.

A shot of oil in the guide (all new!) spin the valve, put on the seal, compress the spring and retainer and fight to put the locks in in and keep them there! All good!




In the bags and ready for when the assembly starts in about 3-4 months.

Took my block to the shop I work for to deglaze the cylinders for break in with a ball hone we have. Then the block goes to Extreme Engines for decking.

 

Deglazed the bores this morning at the shop. They have a ball hones, which can't be beat for the job unless you happen to have a Sunnen CK-10 honing machine handy. Took longer to set up and clean up than the 20 minutes it took to do it. The bores are excellent and just a hone for ring break in takes barely a 10 thou off. Clearnces with the Hyper pistons were .0015+- so great for the type of piston.






Now it's off to Curtis at Extreme engines for decking. I don't happen to have a surface grinder or broach kicking around either.

 

Been a while since I posted. Some family matters to deal with in Kelowna.

Just got my block back from Extreme who decked it for me .012 to A: have a good surface for the steel shim head gasket to seal and B: to compensate for my piston mistake where the new pistons (a bargain) were for some reason .012 lower than most flat tops (might explain the bargain).
All good now and I will have a .038 quench when its assembled.

Of course I just had it surfaced so I wasn't happy with the chamfers left afterwards. Don't want to break rings on install.

An old Tech School pal of mine used to look around his shop and say "everythings a tool and you can always make a tool".

I remebered him when I fabbed up this "Rube Goldgerb" chamfering tool. A new real one was $150 US and no ones got one around here anyway even to rent.

So I made one out of a steel oil filler funnel and some other pieces to keep it centered. Worked like a charm and I'm content I won't have any issues punching the pistons in.

Stay tuned i will have it on an engine stand next.

Then comes the scubbing and cleaning and blasting the bolt holes with air etc. until especially the newly crosshatched bores are so clean nothing but the cross hatch is left.

Then the fun part the actual assembly. #ad
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i like that your doing it with the Q jet, can't wait to see it finished

 

The block is now on the stand.

Since it was decked I also touched up the head bolt hole thread with an angled stone to be sure no fringe metal came loose when torqueing.

CLEANING (not much fun however super important)
Varsol tank and the right brushes and sizes and an air compressor are all needed.
I started at the bottom easily scraping off the previous assemblers silicon seal left overs. ( more on that later)
Steel brushed with varsol every bolt hole, oil pan, motor mounts, timing cover holes, fuel pump threads, everything and blasted them all with air. Doing this also ensure that on a block someone else prepared every thread is still good.
Flip the bare block over and do the same to the top end and start on head bolt threads, the oil galleries and lifer bores etc. The threads on the bottom are down and won't get gunk back in them.

Next comes the cylinder bores which besides washing liberally with varsol I also scrub hard with the hard bristle nylon brush and then rinse repeat until a clean white cloth stays clean when you wipe the bores dry. Ditto the oil galleries and lifter bores and areas.

A couple of rinses and blasts with air and put it bed really clean and dry almost ready for assembly.

I still want to buy brand new varsol and just rinse everything and blow dry one more time.

Next up:
Frost plugs, oil gallery plugs, the little plug for the oil sending unit, then cam bushings followed by the cam plug.

Lay the crank, install pistons, install cam, find true TDC and install timing set to achieve desired 8.2-8.4 : 1 dynamic compression etc...

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A Word From Our Sponsor!

For those of you who are under say 40-45 and have the background, experience or just the desire to build or assemble on your own, any of the 'Classic" North American built built V-8's that we all know and love from the 50s up to the 80s, I have a suggestion to make.

I know full well todays modern engines are designed to be assembled with silicon seal.
See the Cummins and Cat 15 Litre engines from the shop I work for I took last week? The guys use silicon seal when we build these modern diesels however these were designed in the 2000s and built just 5-10 years ago and the surfaces were designed for silicon seal to start with. ( Editors note; These are "engines". They are also commonly referred to as "Motors" however that definition also includes electric and hydrostatic "motors". As such in my world I work on "engines" not "motors")(Editors note about note: yes engines can be steam but they still have pistons!)
PIC 1
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The mating surfaces on "Classic North American V-8s were NOT designed to use silicon seal. They are flat, smooth, too smooth, thin. Even the cork pan and intake end gaskets are smooth and flat. Go ahead use slicon seal. Sooner or later especially the rear intake manifold seal however the oil pan and timing covers will leak. May take a while however it will leak somewhere.

I don't care what the guy at the Auto Parts Store told you.
Use this Form A Gasket brown stuff on the oil pan, the timing cover, the water pump, the fuel pump, the intake gaskets and the thermostat housing. I noted in the last post how easy it was to scrape off the last vestiges of silicon seal on the .030 over 350 block I'm getting ready. Use Form A Gasket and you will need a wire brush to clean the surfaces!
PIC 2
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Now see the 406 from my first 74 Camaro on Greg Benzons dyno. This was in 2006 and I know from the Edlebrock carb that this picture is after the first 12 pulls and it is clean as a whistle, not so much as a drop off oil on Greg's dyno! Paint looks great after break in and some good all out runs.
Get Form A Gasket...the brown sh*t. It works. Silicon seal does not on these old engines
PIC 3
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Due to a family illness I was unable to do any real work on this since July. Just this past weekend finally got back at it.

I usually think of everything parts wise, however on this one I forgot cam bushings so lost a month waiting for them to come from Amazon as they were absolutely next.

I can't really demo cam bushings being driven in. It takes two hands and lots of double triple checking to be sure the driver is nicely holding and contacting the bushing. FWIW I've done many however this may be one you want the local shop to do as while I have a cam bushing driver, most guys/gals don't in the garage.

I put a small felt tip marker mark oriented to the top to ensure the oil holes were they recommend it. Also sometimes have to tap a bit further as you should be certain the hole lines up with the round gallery in the cam bushing housing.

I test my work with the cam itself of course. It spins free and easy! Still have to put rear cam plug in. I will have the timing set on as soon as the crank is in which is next and can be done right away!
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Crankshaft is in.

All the shells crushed okay and snapped and stayed in place.
The mains are .020 over and I knew the bores were near mid' from mic'ing them when I acquired the block. I also knew the "free" 1182 forged steel original Z style crank the guy threw in when i acquired the block was polished to minimum.

Note shooting engine assembly lube/ AKA White Lithium Grease/ AKA "Lubriplate" into the oil galleries before putting the shells in and rear seal in. Pre lubing and yes I will use a drill and pre lube it after assemby. IMHO there is no such thing as TOO much Lubriplate, I slop the stuff around generously and if it squeezes out when the mains are torqued so much the better.

I of course stagger the rear main seal 3/8" which is pretty standard.

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I checked the end play right away twice with the crank in, no caps at all and then with the rear thrust main and seal only torqued and on both occasions got .007" end play.

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Next up was a plastiguage check and my pic was crummy but it came out a little higher than I like however an acceptable 3 3/4 thou clearance.

Note every stud and main cap bolt threaded in nicely by hand. Pays to be clean. I use a drop and just a drop of oil on these when I run them in.
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With all 5 mains properly torqued and I always re torque everything over again the crank spins super freely which is just what I want. The final end play measures the minimum but acceptable .004". I can get a .006 feeler strip in there still as well so quite happy with the all important thrust. Also note I pre-lubed the crank and rod throw oil passages with Lubriplate as well. Go ahead and waste this stuff!

Pistons install next up however I did take time to just play around and pre-fit the pump and windage tray.

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useful information