Yes, 13psi. Has steel core gaskets now, never would have guessed this would happen but it did. Runs a lot better now.

 

Well I took it apart last night and the gaskets looked fine but every intake port looked like the Exxon valdeez on the bottom of the runner and the valves had nastiness all over them. I thought it had to be valve seals and the reversion was making it suck back up the runner, but upon further inspection/head scratching there was an oil film along the bottom of every ports gasket. I had it rtv'd to the head and that was solid, but that little "print-o-seal" broke loose and was sucking oil past it. They were already steel laminated I guess that's why they didn't come apart, but I cleaned everything very well and have rtv around every port on both sides and rtv on the endrails instead of the cork. You could see where the printoseal was slightly depressed on the bottom but not near as much on the top, hopefully this solves it, if not its the block not being square or the heads, it wasn't decked very much, I can still clearly read the numbers on the front of the block. Im going to let it dry for a good two days and test it out.

 

And thanks denmah, after seeing the projects you've worked on that's a big compliment!

 

Less smoke, but still doing it. Plug #4 and #3 were greasy and the rest looked really good, compression test yielded 125-130lbs on each cylinder so that was a relief. Pulled the valve covers and you can see on the suspect cylinders where the valve seal pushed up off the guide and was just sitting on the upper part of the valve stem. Had the rubber style umbrella on, I ordered a set of the smaller vitons yesterday. I need to get this thing back on the road before the snow hits.

 

A little update, with spring time warming up I started getting some pretty good traction and had a pinion bearing fail on me, rebuilt it and had a local shop setup a 3.08 gear for me (previous was a 3.73) broke it in on jack stands then 10mi trip and a 20mi with cool down, after about 3 pulls it was making more noise. Bearings were good but its rolling the teeth off the ring gear, the back edge and the "top" of the tooth have flash on the edge now. He's standing by that and putting another gearset in and it will go in my dads two lane blacktop replica, and I bought a 9in with 35 spline mark Williams axles and a spool. Also have a mikes racing th400 with brake in the garage so I'm going to build a big driveshaft and 1350 joints. The 3.08 is definitely a big improvement in drive ability and performance, and it pushed off the new valve seals as well, guess the guides are a little worn. Going to jbweld on a new set and hopefully get to the track in a month or so.

 

Re: 1972 pontiac ventura 355sbc 88mm t6, efi/e85

Got it all together yesterday, beat on it for about 50 miles. All is working well except i have a trans cooler leak, guess my worm clamps on top of a brake line flare isnt cutting it with higher line pressure. Im very impressed with the jd hygard, dropped my stall by 500-600rpms and is getting a lot more drop on the gear change. Leaving for vacation in less than a week, but i need to fix the trans lines, adjust a rocker arm thats chattering, and install a battery cutoff switch, then go and cross my fingers at tech. Hopefully get a run in middle to the end of may.

 

If I'm hose clamping... I use the fi clamps=expensive and I double up at each joint.

 

Thanks blown shovel, i did an fi clamp on the end of the hose then threw on my worm gear clamps behind and it appears to be holding so far. Went to test and tune last night to talk to one of the tech inspectors and i need the obvious rad catch can, cutoff switch, bulkhead the trunk, and neutral safety switch. I just wanted to have one look it over before i go to actually run and have my friends show up to fail tech, but after he completed the list he says "if you have some long pants ill let you make a couple passes." Haha, i still need to hook up the transbrake though and get rid of my ebay front tires that are scaring me, hopefully the next guy is just as cool. I unhooked the reference line on the wastegate though and it raised it from 10lbs to 13, its pretty amazing how much stronger the car is with just an extra 3lbs, although i wonder what my back pressure is since thats the only thing opening the gate now, i expected the boost to run away more. I also have a helmet camera setup from my dirtbike racing days that im going to have running.

 

I'd definitely put some sort of catch can on there. I've seen many folks quickly install the beer can mod aka running the overflow hose to a double deuce just to be able to run. The other items aren't that easily resolved.

 

Made it to bandimere yesterday afternoon, first pass with the turbo and my first time ever to the 1/4 and the car left good at first leaving off about 2-3lbs then spun pretty hard after the boost came on and just let out since i was only certed to 11.50. Changed the tire pressure from 19 to 16 and the car left really well around 4psi and had some weird stumble then picked right back up so i didnt think anything of it, in high gear it pushed through the converter to rev limit (6200) and nosed over pretty good at the end of the track but ran a 10.499@124, 6.7@107 in the 1/8. I look at the datalog and see it go lean after the launch then being heavily compensated by closed loop the rest of the run, my damn fuel pressure reg ref line blew off again! 17psi of squeeze (19psi above atmosphere but i just base boost of standard sea level) and it held together, im kind of surprised with stock block and cast crank/rods and el cheapo procomp heads that SOMETHING didnt give. I couldnt get the helmet cam to work there but just stuffed the handicam underneath the headrest and actually got some ok shots, ill post the video in a couple days once i figure all that out, timeslip as well. Calculating %28 converter slip and 300rpm drop on the shifts so time for a real converter. Overall it surpased what i expected, but i hate knowing i busted that 11.50 with something left on the table, actually more than one thing on the table.

 

Just say, THANK YOU E85!!! Haha. Good job, keep it up!!

 

Yea e85 has saved me more than once, i was looking at the logs, normal duty cycle is around %65 %70, after the ref line popped out it went to 100% and afr was 7.7(lambda) where my target afr is 7.4 so it was pretty close. You see the lean spike and the closed loop picked up right away and stayed right on track as boost climbed.

 

Good looking setup! I like it! Making good power too. Still on 10lbs right?