Well, so much for that engine...

[KIILew]

Sorry guys; just venting a little...

Today started out with a bang, literally. I got into my truck (79 Big 10 454 Trailering Special, all original) and traveled about 1,500 feet down the road when the engine died at 40mph. Concurrently, load metallic percussion emanated from under the hood, sounding just like the "clickity-clack" of railroad cars on a track. The noise stopped as the truck finally coasted to a stop off the side of the road. I tried to restart it (it didn't even begin to fire) but the uneven cranking sound/effort made it obvious that several odd cylinders had no compression.

I don't know much, but I immediately guessed that my engine- -original block with 115,000 miles- -must have thrown a timing chain. Worse, I am imagining that the "percussion" I heard was pistons striking valves. All this, after gambling this old girl--with good compression a month ago- -still had some life in her. So I replaced valve seals at that point and performed some other minor engine repairs. What a waste!

So now, what do I do? Whatever, I imagine a rebuild or engine replacement is in order. Thanks to a new Chevy promotion, I discovered I can buy a new 454 HO for around $4,700. Still, incredibly expensive and maybe overkill for a guy like me.

I don’t use this vehicle for high performance driving; I just enjoy it as one of my daily drivers (and use it around the farm), but it is kind of my baby, and some day I would like to restore it, although it is in pretty good shape even now. However, I would like to have an engine with a reasonably higher compression ratio (than my stock 7.9:1) and I would also like a roller cam and other small refinements primarily for smoothness. I do not intend to trade in my core as it is numbers matching, so if I don't use it, I will store it. I also want to retain my smog controls (i.e. egr), and keep my original exhaust manifolds and quadrajet.

There is something to be said for the HO crate engine. It would seem most of the guesswork concerned with selecting the right combination of parts is eliminated, although I would have to swap away the intake that comes with it to accommodate my egr. Otherwise, I would probably find a good machine shop, if there is such a thing, to rebuild and update my existing ’79 vintage engine. Decisions, decisions!

Any thoughts? If not, thanks for just listening!

Ken