Just spent all weekend thrashing on the 500 for Mikey's Cavalier 4x4 project. He got some new valve seals, so we got the heads back together, bolted them on, then I finished up the ported intake manifold's plenum and we got that and the rest of the valvetrain back together. Started working on it at 3 PM Sat, had it running on the garage floor at 11:30 PM the same night. (FYI, the heads had the valves cleaned of carbon buildups, as much as 1/4" thick in places, the valve bowls were blended/smoothed, and thinned out the valve guide area to a smooth taper. The intake has the plenum area fully opened up to become a single-plane with larger plenum, and the entire exhaust crossover/EGR passage removed via small angle grinder. The intake looks stock from underhood, yet now weighs 34 pounds, a total of 16 pounds of unneeded casting removed in the valley and plenum area.)

Sunday we went and got some beach sand for my sandblaster, duct-taped off the motor ports and various little bits, and went to town on it, about the same time. Went thru 2 cans of dollar store oven cleaner to degrease it, then started sandblasting. We ran the bucket of sand out and re-sifted it back in 3 times before we got it looking clean and like fresh cast, then we slung it back up on the cherrypicker, wheeled it in over a tarp, vacuumed all the leftover sand off with my little 1HP shopvac, then I started painting it. Mikey got a couple cans of Plastikote Ford gray engine paint, and a can of glossy black for the valvecovers, oil pan, and assorted little bits.
Pics are up on Page 6 of my Starphoto site http:photo.starblvd.net/docswebshots
but I thought I'd post one here for everybody to see.

He was hoping to get it bolted into the Cavalier today, but I told him it'd be smart to clean and paint the motor up while it's out, besides, I still have a little underhood welding to finish up.

We currently have plans to shoot some video of us running this engine on the garage floor and get it up as a .MPG movie file up on my website, oughta look killer...

Doc

Doc Chops Garage

isn't it about time for a massive update to your website? I look forward to Doc Chops articles and features...

hey, sup jesse J... Still got that bad azzz viper? and when ya gonna build a mustang JJ style?