No it was a 6 cyl swapped to a 80-85 350. Had some flat-tappet baby cam in it. Comp hi energy pushrods comp magnum 1.52 stamped rollertip rockers, some old school m/t valvecovers, a weiand intake and a edelbrock 600 carb.

Now it will have summit 1103 cam, summit street strip intake and carb and hei from nova since thats gonna get a crate. Father-inlaw wont sell me the original nova motor, hes bagging it and putting it away incase he ever sells it.

Bill thanks for the heads up. I may take that oil from you if i dont have to buy pushrods. Money is tight.

Anybody have a good break in procedure for a flat tappet mill? My concern is do i dump the oil after the 20 minute run, then do another at 500 miles? Or should i do something else?

I dumped the oil afterward and replaced it with VR1. Do you have an oil pressure gauge?

I dunno how far you took the engine down (or how you cleaned it), but given that it had cam shavings in it I'd drain it right away.

Yes i have a pressure gauge. I pulled the pan and vacuumed out/blew out everything from the top down

so i tore the motor down and found a gear drive, and a cam marked 434 lift......interesting.....

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...78534942_n.jpg

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...67712027_n.jpg

the culprit lobe:
http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...15886532_n.jpg

The lobe next to it is damaged as well. In fact, that looks like it's been run on a flattened cam lobe for a long time.

Consider roller, if you can. It might cost more up front but you won't need to hunt for special oil or additives.

ill run the flat tappet. if i go roller im goin with a lt1 block. its wierd though. i pulled the main caps that were easy and saw no scoring in the bearings, they actually looked great. i also looked at all the cam bearings with my inspection camera and they had no scoring. i had no metal in the motor really. my 94 camaro has more metal on oil changes.....its really wierd. unless someone put a used cam in it maybe....

this motor has my father inlaw and i scratching our heads more than anything. it just keeps giving us suprises

i ordered the bigger cam, i forgot to switch it from the summit 1104 to the 1103...whoops! yeah well, i like the sound of it. i found a vid of someone with it haha. to the garage!

Break in went good. Now trying to make it run at idle etc. Sucks. If i hook up the vac advance at idle it flies up to 2k. I can only get 6 degrees initial since i dont have enough rotation on the dizzy since the vacuum line for the brakes is in the way. Le sigh

Reseat the distributor? Pointing towards cylinder 1 is just for the ease of things. As long as the rotor points to #1 on the cap, the rest doesn't really matter. Otherwise buy a fancy ignition box and due away with the vacuum advance completely :lol:

Which box does that? Not common msd or mallory ones.

I think his issue is that the distributor won't physically spin that far. Just unhook and plug some stuff if you have to.

MSD does make a semi-common spin off of there 6AL/6AL2 boxes that are tuned using a laptop. For the amount of features it has I'd consider the $360 price tag pretty good.
http://www.msdignition.com/Products/...ble_6AL-2.aspx

And I understand what he was saying with his advanced hitting the brakes/firewall. Correct me if I'm wrong, as long as you are at TDC you can seat the distributor any which way that you want regardless of where it points. You can even go as far as to switch the position of the #1 terminal on the cap as long as your rotor is pointed to that terminal.

He can go back to TDC, spin the distributor a bit and reseat it so it clears whatever he is hitting. It's just good measurement to point at #1 during TDC so you have an idea of when you are at TDC easier but isn't mandatory.

im just gonna move the wires to the next terminal over all the way around and reset initial timing. we did it on the nova too. as long as your at tdc you can make #1 whatever you want, and just follow the normal firing order. two things:

one, i used mr gasket ultraseal gaskets for the "great" commander intake and the "seal ports" didnt line up in correlation to the gasket/intake. the intake physically sits a little lower than the head. the gaskets lined up with the heads/bolt holes no problem...hmmm.

two, i hate that gear drive. it screams on cold start for a second. to the point that i dropped the oil pan and pulled the timing cover to see if i screwed it up somehow. it rides in the exact same spots as before on the timing cover. so whatevs.

now fighting a losing battle with the clutch hydros. didnt know it at the time, the kid i got it from replaced the master and line but not the slave cylinder. go to put the truck in reverse, giant grinding. finally get it into reverse, idles back like a automatic with the clutch fully depressed. BIG STREAK of hydro fluid on the ground dripping out of bellhousing from slave. fml

update: slave fixed and bled. it shifts perfect now. carb finally is set up. timing is finally right (just reset dizzy and moved one pin counterclockwise on all the wires on cap). took 3" exhaust from my camaro, two strategic cuts, a stick welder, and some music to make a single 3" side exit. thing sounds great and runs just as nice.

update: nova parts have been put on the truck now. the hei i had didnt hit full advance until 4200rpm, the edelbrock carb was leaking by like hell, and the holley contender intake sucked. now i have the summit 600cfm carb and stage 2 intake along with the brandynew hei from the nova and finally got everything dialed in. where its at half throttle now was floored before. quick starts, no funny idling, etc.

truck was traded for my 94z back