So many irons in the fire

There have been times in the past when I've wanted to make some progress on the car and have had some time earmarked for Chevy progress, only to spend it wandering aimlessly in the garage not knowing what to do. In those times, it was because I've had no one area to work on, nothing stood out as a pressing "next step", or worse, there WAS a next step and it was a sticky, unpalatable, involved task that I had no desire to do, such as the countless hours I spent on my back under her belly, scrubbing off forty years of accumulated road crud and old body sealer in order to prepare it for paint. That really sucked.

Lately though the problem seems to be (and it is a good problem) that there are many fronts I'm working on, and they're almost all fun, rewarding, clean tasks that can be done in a finite amout of time. On the downside, all this progress costs money and I've been giving the Visa a right royal hiding this past two months. It's a little frightening actually, but it's a calculated risk- the US dollar is expected by most to be much stronger by the end of the year, so the credit card interest on all the stuff I've been buying recently should be less than the cost of buying things later with a cheaper aussie dollar. But enough about that.

There's so much good stuff going on with this car right now. Cheifly, tomorrow morning I'll finally get to light the wick on the 383. Last week, Ivan told me it'll be "knocking on the door of 500HP and as much torque". 500HP and 500 lbs/ft is a nice set of numbers. I don't think it'll be quite that high- I'm guessing more like around 460 HP and 450 lbs/ft. Still, that's enough to make for spirited driving to say the least. What's more, the clutch, flywheel, gearbox, driveshaft and diff are all adequately strong to make good use of every one of those horses. No pussyfooting this lady around, fearful of the box or diff scattering like a pile of leaves in a gust of wind if I decide to open the throttle up. So stay tuned for a possible video of the 383's first run. This engine now has all forged internals, H-beam rods, World sportsman II heads, compression around 9.7:1, solid cam with 230/236 deg at 0.050 and 0.488/0.501 lift and an LSA of 110, roller rockers, Edelbrock Victor Jnr manifold and a CHROME OIL DIPSTICK! (which I'll be ditching at some point in the not-too-distant future... DEATH TO ENGINE BAY CHROME!) The shape of the pistons and the zero deck height make for excellent quench and Ivan told me that this bottom end- Eagle forged crank and rods, and SRP pistons did 100 laps in a sprint car at 8200 rpm without cracking. So it should be good enough for my little lady. Contrast all of this with my last post regarding the engine- this reciprocating assembly was quite a bit more substantial than I intended for this (at the time) stop-gap engine, but Ivan offered it to me for a very reasonable $2k. It was from an abandonded project for a customer of his. So this 383 might end up being a little more permanent and a lot more tough than originally intended.

In other news of significance, the TKO arrived last week. The TKO is a five-speed box, capable of taking up to 600 lbs/ft, with a 2.87 first gear and a 0.64 overdrive. I looked at a few gearbox options and it was pretty obvious the TKO was the way to go. I had originally intended to stick with the Turbo 350 and do the box swap after rego, but the more I thought about that, the less I wanted an auto in this car. Real cars have three pedals, and it turned out easier than I thought to get this conversion under way. There are still two semi-complicated jobs to do, and these are mounting the clutch cylinder and cutting the floor to fit the tall-and-narrow TKO in place of the wide-and-low auto box. For the latter, I'm thinking the way to go will be to cut part of a driveshaft tunnel out of a scrap car and make a removable cover out of it that can be bolted in place over a hole in the floor where the box can stick through slightly. I'll be able to take it off to work on the box if necessary in the future, so it's win-win.

I've also had lots of little bits and pieces arrive recently, including the only recently available quarter vent window rubbers, which were previously only available for coupes, convertibles and hardtops. This is good news; the old rubbers on the quarter vent windows are perished and cracked, and were about the only original rubber left on the car. Also got my gauges, tacho, oil pressure and water temp. They're beautiful old style gauges with modern electronic guts, made by Autometer. I was originally going to get Bonspeed Roulette gauges, but apart from being quite expensive they're also slightly silly- more at home on a rat rod than a classy lady. I've already mounted the tach on top of the steering column, which I've also finished rebuilding and is now completely functional.

Also in the recent purchases is my hydraulic throwout bearing and clutch master cylinder set, which is a kit supplied by McLeod racing. It was recommended to me, subtly and with a nudge and a wink, by the very knowlegable and helpful tech guy at Hurst Driveline. They sell their own setup but this McLeod kit looks like a very well engineered piece of kit.

There's bit lots of other stuff too, but less interesting. To quickly sum up: Crossmember, trans yoke, bonnet hinges and springs, rev limiter module, shift light, scattershield (consisting of an amazing, SINGLE PIECE SPUN steel bell with a welded on gearbox flange- stunning piece of engineering), gear stick, an excellent wiring kit from Late Great Chevys, which has all circuits fully terminated, grouped and marked, with reproduction sockets on virtually everything, AND a new headlight switch, high beam switch, ignition switch, all for a measly $600. This will make the wiring, which was going to be an infuriating chore with the other, generic loom I bought, into a fun one-day operation.

Times are good. This is the fun part.