Wanted to introduce myself and my limited

spare parts for 40 limited

I sold all the dash gauges so they are long gone. I do have a spare head but don't want to sell it if I ever had a problem. I would be glad to loan it to you for fitting intake manifold and headers...let me know if that would help. That is how I did mine...did all the welding of the intake with everything bolted to the head.
Earle
 
That is exactly what I plan to use the head for. When that time comes around I will hit you up. I haven't been able to find anything local. My motor I believe is a 50 or 51, my grandfather made sure to get the newer motor with the insert bearing etc.
 
Ok so I have been tinkering on the car a bit waiting for my pan gaskets to show up and was spraying brake clean on the starter and passenger side of the motor tryin to clean up 60 years of dirt and find the cam access panel has been chromed and so far still looks ok.
I flushed the radiator as good as I could without removing it. Mounted my carb adapter I made and a known good 2 bbl from a 305 75 camaro.

Still need to go pick up some fuel line and inline filter. Radiator hose to cut up to fit. Gas. I have 10 qts 10-30 oil. Need to pick up the zinc additive still.

Once I get it running i want to convert it to a pontiacs HEI. But haven't had any luck locating one and then I will get degreaser and clean the engine bay really good.

Starting to bud an aluminum fined valve cover for the car and want to put in a pcv system. Would it be okay with the pcv on the valve cover near the firewall and a breather towards the front or is it just point suck fresh air? Any suggestions would be great.
 
Headers

As for headers, a header shop patterned my old headers (1-1/2" tube) and are making a new set from 1-5/8 stainless, ceramic coated. They can make these now fro everyone. I still don't have a price - I will receive them in about a week or so, and will post pictures.

I'll be traveling for a week now, so I won't be posting here.
 
I want to rotate an edelbrock 90*... any reason it wouldn't work? Pros/cons?
I know linkage but converting to cable would fix that. Need to run new fuel lines so that isn't a big deal. Only thing I can think of is possibly of something wierd happening with the floats maybe?? The car isn't goin to be pulling any heavy g's
on acceleration. Sorry if I repeat my self in this post. Just thinkin out loud.

I have been drawing up different ideas for a intake. Basicly just sketches. I want to make the runners as close as possible to the same lengths. And I want to make it a dual plane manifold. I have yet to take a single measurement of the current intake or exhaust so just bear with me here.

I am probably goin to run an edelbrock carb I have a 600 and a 800 sitting in the garage. But I may make the carb plate removeable/swappable and might make an extra plate for a q-jet. My goal is to drive it daily.

I am thinking about rotating the carb 90* .I think it would make the intake easier to design and a lot easier to make. The intake will stick out farther. More toward the driver fender to increase runner length and make it easier to equalize the lengths of the runners. Another benefit would be living my self more room for headers.
 
I notice you are using good tried and true hop up methods on your straight 8. Thats ok however these old engines are built like an old tractor engine. They are built for torq mainly, I have found that my 39 Century will happily pull from a stop in second gear which is even recommended in the owners manual. Your Limited due to its size and weight needs all the torq it can get. With that in mind most upgrades done need to be conservative in nature. Some things I suggest are small tube headers, conservative intake with long small tube dual plane manifold, small 4 barrel carb,Pontiac dist will work but you may have to have advance curved,stock buick dist. is a good one till you really get into hi revs. dialing in dist, can give you more than almost any single other upgrade. I just recommend this because the Limited is so large and heavy that it needs lotsa torq and responds more to conservative upgrades.
 
I notice you are using good tried and true hop up methods on your straight 8. Thats ok however these old engines are built like an old tractor engine. They are built for torq mainly, I have found that my 39 Century will happily pull from a stop in second gear which is even recommended in the owners manual. Your Limited due to its size and weight needs all the torq it can get. With that in mind most upgrades done need to be conservative in nature. Some things I suggest are small tube headers, conservative intake with long small tube dual plane manifold, small 4 barrel carb,Pontiac dist will work but you may have to have advance curved,stock buick dist. is a good one till you really get into hi revs. dialing in dist, can give you more than almost any single other upgrade. I just recommend this because the Limited is so large and heavy that it needs lotsa torq and responds more to conservative upgrades.
 
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I am tryin to build it for torque. That's why I want to extend the runners and build a dual plane manifold. Torque is always name of the game in my book. I ran 455 pontiacs in my daily driver in high school and was a daily driven 68 lemans that ran consistent 13.2 on street tires that I built when I was 16. I like edelbrock carbs for street use. HEI because of 12volt and because I got good at tuning the curves and all my documents using different stock springs and weights. I don't want a high rpm motor. I would guess it would never see 4500.
 
Yea torq especially for a Limited, is the name of the game. Its not to say the straight 8 can't be made to really go. I recently saw Gerry Dutwieler, turn a 11:37 @ 117 quarter with his 38 Century. He was turning over 7k. Seems unbelievable but I saw the time.
 
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With as low of run time on this motor I would think there would be no problem with running a detergent oil. It only has 30-60 minutes of run time. The motor is clean. I do not mind suggestions though. I don't really know the differences between the oil except detergent and non. Can anyone explain to me the differences?? I nave always used a modern multi weight
 
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Oil

If it's a fresh engine, I'd recommend using modern multigrade oil, like a 5W30 or 10W30. As long as you have decent oil pressure, there's no need to go any heavier. The more expensive, the better. You won't feel the difference between a motor oil and another, but the oil pressure is one indicator. A quality oil won't break down as fast, and will protect your components better. When you're after the last bit of HP, the brand counts. I just witnessed a dyno session of a Chevy BB. With Kendall 20W50 Titanium, it made 10 HP less (750 HP) than with Red Line 40 Wt Race Oil (760 HP). With Kendall, the oil pressure was 50 psi hot, while with Red Line it was 70 psi. Kendall Racing Green was tried first, but there wasn't practically any oil pressure hot, so it was decided not to continue with that oil.
 
Small update- started building my valve cover. Figured I would start out easy.

So I made my breather/ oil fill /pcv caps. Need to find open time on my machine before I cam start the actual valle cover.

This is my breather
picture.jpg

All 3 are made in two pieces

picture.jpg

The rest of the valve cover will be soon
Thanks
Ken
 
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