Progress + pics - Big block swap into the 72 Super

[LPoole]

Hey I love your truck. That green with the brown trim is such a head-turner. Keep up the great work. Would you mind telling me what size your wheels and tires are ? The nasty drag ones... lol. Ty

[Jhawk73]

Hey, I love your truck also. Mine was originally the same color but was painted 2 tone green at some point. My plan is to repaint the original color. In fact I have a picture of your truck on my phone to show people what is is supposed to look like. The biggest diff between out two trucks is that mine came with the 402 and mine is a 72. Now it has a 396 that was installed with a good size cam in it. My current motor has a smoking issue that I think is valve stem seals from sitting for years. I am now trying to decide weather to go crate bb, sb or ls the dang thing! I have already changed from vette rallys to truck rallys soon I will be doing the CCP 4/6 so you will soon have a Clone in NC

[Ekliptix]

Originally Posted by LPoole

Hey I love your truck. That green with the brown trim is such a head-turner. Keep up the great work. Would you mind telling me what size your wheels and tires are ? The nasty drag ones... lol. Ty

Tire size is listed in the new-parts on page 1: 295/55R15.
Wheels are 15x8 which Mickey Thompson says will fit.
Have not test fitted the tires on the truck yet so fingers crossed.

[Ekliptix]

Progress.

Need to spend some time cleaning up the brake booster.


Hey, and extra gear


CPP crossmember to route the 3" exhaust through.


700R4 trans and new CPP trans crossmember


Rear end out for the mechanic to install the gears/posi


Old parts. I'm taking the rear drums and trailing arms to the sandblasters today to clean em up put a coat of paint on.

[Ekliptix]

I will be doing the flip trick on the air cleaner instead of drilling holes now. didn't know about that.

Aaaand, anyone have any issue mounting these headers to the heads on a 402? Mine has Edelbrock heads. https://www.summitracing.com/int/par...1hkr/overview/

I'm finding the headers can't align low enough with the header bolt holes because the head bolts (bottom ones) are hitting the headers. I'd have to remove a decent amount of header material to make enough clearance for the lower head bolts.

[rsgt]

What I do for more flow on the stock air cleaners is to take a piece of vacuum hose glue or fit the ends together to make it fit the inside of the base for the filter element to sit on. This will raise the lid the thickness of the hose. The lid will be off of the sides to suck in more air but it is not that noticeable.

[Ekliptix]

Called TCI to find out what speedo gears I need. Called all around town and no where has them, so I put an order in with Summit, plus ordered some new CPP shocks after reading the thread 'how to properly dampen ECE 4/6 thread.

To buy locally this weekend:
Throttle cable bracket
Fuel pump push rod
Coolant bypass hose
New heater hose

[franks72]

I had the same problem with the head bolts when I put a LS7 454 in a nova I had. I was not happy when I had to grind on a new set of ceramic coated hooker supper comp header flanges to fit. I think I even ground on the bolt on the side closest to the head. I think the arp bolts with the washer are taller then a stock bolt..

[Ekliptix]

I was just reading up on your truck and your progress at the drag strip. Super cool. I just had my 295 drag radial mounted today on the spare set of rallys. Our track is at 2,200'. I just checked the DA and it's 3,800' at the moment. I'm aiming for low 13's but would crap my pants if I can get into the 12s. Will definitely be reporting and recording the first passes.

[Ekliptix]

Most of the engine is buttoned up. Need to change the oil filler cap to orange or black. Waiting on the rear end to come back with the posi and gears installed. Getting the radiator flushed, pressure tested, painted today. Just got the speedo gears from summit.




Headers clear no problem. The header flanges did need to be ground to fit on the heads.


Sandblasted trailing arms painted.

[TexasLS1]

Looks awesome, love the orange, and that you're going all out painting drums and trailing arms. Not that I would expect anything less from you, though. Nice work.

[SKT]

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Progress looks great - anxious to see the 'finished' pics!

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[Thimet]

@Ekliptix, Does the Trans OD Gear selector lense you used fit directly in the Stock GM Selector housing, or did you have to use a different housing as well? Your build progress is awesome!

[Ekliptix]

The OD gear selector DOES fit in the stock housing, which is the main reason I bought it. Just needed to adjust the 'click' points on the shift linkage connection to get the selector letters to line up with the right gears on the trans.

In other news, I've put about 300 miles on the truck with the engine swap now. Had trouble with the quickfuel 680 carb that came with the engine, my mechanic could not get it to run right. So we put a spare holley 750 on it and sent it off to a performance shop for tuning. The performance shop adjusted the carb idle but said they could not adjust trans shift points or adjust the carb + timing because the factory tach was way off.

So, I installed a column tach for the moment but winter is here so I've been driving it as-is through Oct + Nov.

Instead of bringing it back in the spring time for $1,000 worth of carb + timing tuning, I'm going to order and install the Holley Sniper EFI kit over the winter. I also have come new CPP shocks to install to replace the KYB ones that came with the ECE kit, plus a CPP rear swaybar to install. I'm going to modify the rear shock upper mount point as a few others have done, to allow for a more up-and-down shock movement. Also, the vacuum is pretty poor, making braking not as strong as I want, so I plan to order and install and electric vacuum pump and hid it somewhere. Seems easier and better then adding a mechanical vacuum pump.

[Ekliptix]

Idle and Burnout Video: https://youtu.be/An3NhSvO9-M

[Mollzyie]

Love yer truck man one of my favorites on the board .

[NJRC10]

Your truck turned out even better than before!!!!! I put a ZZ3/700r4 in my 72 and used the same new gear selector lens as you with a little trimming to fit but have not been able adjust the detent to work correctly??