It’s been a long wait but the motor is running and as of tonight it’s broken in! We ran the motor for the required 20 minutes at 2000 RPM to set that cam wear patterns. It took a little longer then expected to start the motor up but in the end it was well worth it.

Eric’s been helping me the past few days to give tips and help hook up the motor. I can definately say that I’ve learnt a lot and I know my car’s engine a lot better. There’s still a few issues to take car of but the car seems to be in good shape. I need to talk to Dan at Vogt Brothers Automotive for a few timing related questions. The car will need a new radiator and I need to hook up an oil temperature guage for the transmission. The stock radiator in the car now is a single core design and we had to keep a cold water hose spraying on the rad so the car wouldn’t overheat during break in. With the water on the rad it stayed at a constant 200 degrees in the drivers side cylinder head. I’m a little worried about the transmission temperatures because I’ve got a 3800 stall converter and only a small transmission cooler. The cooler is infront of the electric fan but even then there will be a lot of heat to worry about.

I may need to rethink my exhaust plans just a little bit. The car sounded great with a fairly stock motor, turbo mufflers and pipes ending right before the back tires. Now this thing screams. The car is very loud and I can already see myself getting a noise violation ticket.

I spent a good hour - 2 hours painstakingly going over my motor cleaning it completely and masking it all off. I took my time making sure everything was masked off just like I wanted it. It’s going to be a different paint scheme for sure but I think its going to look awesome in the end.

There will be 3 main colours on the motor. The top end will all be a natural as cast finish, the block is duplicolor flat black(2 light coats, then a medium, then one more light), everything else on the bottom end other then the block is orangy red. I’ve got red spark plug wires and the plan is a red distributor cap. I think it will look amazing when its all in the nova. I’ve already cleaned and painted the front subframe so its ready to accept the motor.

You’ll notice to that I taped off the brass freeze plugs. For the little bit that they’re shown I wanted them to pop a little against the flat black paint. There will also be very little chrome on this motor. The water neck, air filter rim, and push in valve cover breathers are the only parts of the motor that will be chromed.

Kid in a candy store doesn’t even explain it anymore. I’m absolutely pumped to have the motor finally back and in one piece! It went off to the machine shop nearly 6 months ago now. I’ve spent literally every cent of my high school student income on my car. Almost all of it has gone into this motor. Every cent is worth it already and I haven’t even put my right foot into it yet.

Dan at Vogt Automotive did an amazing job with this motor. I had never done any major engine work before and I wanted this project done right. He built this engine and answered my millions of daily questions. Originally I was going to put the motor together because I wanted to learn how it was done. Dan told me he would give me a fair price and walk me through the entire process. He did more then that.

The motor, time line, budget and my education all came out great.

I’ll be putting up the full build specs + cam card right away.