Learning curve. My 72 Firebird adventure.

[Tempest67]

that looks familiar,

when I was in High School, I did this to my 73 Formula. full of Bondo, but I loved it anyways

[HO455]

Another beautiful bird. I don't think mine will be as attractive as yours as are. I'm hoping to at least get it one color.

[HO455]

While not specifically for the Firebird I have been working on a 389 that I picked up over the summer. It was pulled out of a 66 GTO several years ago and was supposed to be under 10K miles since it was rebuilt in 05. It had high compression 66 GTO heads with a roller cam and had run 13.30's before it was pulled for an LS conversion.

I'm not going to use the original heads but a set of Edelbrock's 72 cc round port roller cam version. So I will be able to run pump gas and a reasonable timing curve.

I cc'ed the heads and pistons to be sure of the static compression ratio And since I had the engine this far apart I checked the oil pump internal wear. It was pretty good. I decided to pull #4 main cap to get an idea as to the condition of the bearings. That turned into one of those I'm kind of sorry I did/I'm relieved I did things. The bearings weren't very pretty.

It looks as the engine wasn't very clean when it was assembled as there is a bunch of scoring and some copper showing. When I pulled the rod caps those also showed signs of dirty assembly as well as they seemed to have been installed without enough clearance as there are a lot of shiny spots and some of them are black in the middle of the shiny areas most likely from getting hot.

The bearings are a .010 set. Hopefully the crankshaft can just be polished and a new set of .010 bearings installed. We'll it looks like a trip to the machine shop is on the horizon.

[HO455]

Here is teaser photo of the crankshaft for the Firebird.

[Tempest67]

I always laugh to myself when the ad says 'was running when pulled'. I just assume the motor will need work when I buy them.

It is a good thing that you found the problems now, and you will be glad to know you have a solid reliable motor when it is done.

It's all part of it, carry on and keep going................ and nice looking crank