" . . . so carefully and conscientiously."
We're old men, we do EVERYTHING carefully and conscientiously, including walking across the room and taking a piss . . .
Although I HAVE fallen down twice in the past two months with some disasterous results
Well . . . WHAT a run around ! ! ! ! We pre-fitted the engine with the bell attached but not the transmission, just to be sure that the front cross-over mounts were installed/welded in correctly with regards to front-to-back and side-to-side positioning. Perfect ! Photo below—
When we tried to install the engine/bell/trans as a unit we ran into big trouble. Everything hit everywhere. The notched oil pan wouldn't clear the steering cross link, the bell hit the bottom of the firewall, the trans hit the inner tunnel, the front engine mounts wouldn't come within a mile of the frame mounts. Fussed with the things for an afternoon with it in and out and hanging on the hoist, pulled the unit out of the bay and gave up.
Next day we separated the trans from the bell thinking that we might install the engine first, then fuss with the trans. Loads of folks on the various Vega forums said that they always did it this way, although getting the release arm positioned correctly with the release bearing in the fork and everything situated within the bell, while balancing the trans on a jack and moving it all forward to align up with the pilot bearing seemed like a lost art.
Whitey came by on the third day and SAVED the day ! Fans of this thread might well remember him from Page One where he uttered a girlishly shrill "Oh NO !" when he saw the spider gears pop out of the housing and go missing in the pan of rear end fluid beneath the pumpkin during our ill-fated rear axle removal . . .
Being a lefty, he was able to get the clearance and positioning to pound the lower firewall to tunnel seam with the sledge to perfection, made more than enough room to clearance the firewall for the bell housing to fit perfectly. Re-attached the trans to the bell and got the arm/bearing.ect/ all in alignment, then he and Bruce slid the engine and trans right into the hole perfectly ! ! ( I was home napping at this point. ) Added the right amount of shims and rubber buffers, bolted the engine to the frame mounts, made sure that the steering cross link cleared, and raised the end of trans up on a jack to work in position with the rear end.
All done and ready for the engine ancillaries, rear trans mount, and drive shaft installation. Progress for a change . . .
New photo of the engine/trans installed and bolted in below ! ! !
First, great thread, really enjoying it. Second, I am helping with a 350 vega swap right now and the steering shaft hits the exhaust manifold (very similar set). Is your engine centered in the bay? And how far is it off the firewall? It looks like you have plenty of clearance.
We centered the engine the bay, counter to the passenger's side off-set that was stock in the V8 Monza, didn't want any problems with the mechanical fuel pump. We used Trans-Dapt front cross over mounts so as to eliminate hitting the exhaust headers and dumps that would possibly foul with the side engine mounts.
With the "clearanced" lower firewall (Whitey stopped his girlish squeals at every mishap long enough to get this done,) you can slide your whole hand in between the bell housing and the bottom of the wall with ease. No clearance problems at all now. We also shaved some of the passenger's side "frame rails" away to make room for the mini-starter.
In order to be sure that the the exhaust manifolds wouldn't hit the steering shaft or side walls or get in the way of anything, we opted for a set of factory Monza V8 manifolds which we trimmed down, smoothed over, and removed all of the barbs, fittings and brackets for a nice fit. Even the dip stick went right into the oil pan fitting and bolted up to the manifold, clearing the steering shaft, no problem. Nothing hits anything else (SO far) loads of room for everything. Took a couple of trial fits and such, but worth the extra effort for sure until we come up against another fitment issue.
Next "problem" is building/modifying a trans cross member. We've got two to play around with along with some scrap 1.5 X 2.5 box pieces, something will come together by next week. Still have to clear the clogged wire jammed up in the welder though.
I guess that this conversion was sort of popular in it's day, been a LOT of time and trouble to get everything to work and fit. If it were my car, I would have abandoned it and just bought a 5.0 Mustang AGES ago. The stuff that we put up to fulfill a friend's life long dream . . . ? ! ? ! ? ! ? !
Good luck with your project, if you would like any specific close-up photos of what we did or are doing, just lemme know, OK?
Made some good progress since the last post.
Engine and transmission are in and all hooked up. Shifter is bolted in, dash and gauges sorted out, all of the ancillaries and "smalls" taken care of. Here are a couple of photos of the engine in place, I'll post a bunch of the details that went into the installation later in the week. A BIG step in the conversion, now onto a few more engine related tasks, then the interior and finally the general body work and rear C3 Corvette bumper conversion.
The over-all goal with the conversion was to mimic the 1963/1964 Corvette as closely as possible, without heading down a money rabbit hole buying a ton of genuine (expensive) vintage parts. Trying hard to look the part, or create an illusion of the "truth." We're using a bit of a mix-and-match of different year Corvette pieces, the fuel filter for instance, but focusing mostly on the 1963/64 for inspiration.
Genuine 1964 Corvette engine photo below, you can see kind of see where we're headed with the conversion.
In reply to MuSTANK :
A clean factory-appearing V8 Vega is going to confuse some people. I love it!
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Thank you ! You got our intent . . .
We're sort of shooting for a kinda of "factory" side project that might have happened back in the 70's. Possibly some bored GM techs decided to try to fit a small block Chevy into an early Vega on the sly. Maybe a pre-cursor to what happened with the first GTO. Big engine, small car, terrific performance. This car would almost be the result of that project. Factory Vette engine and trans, as many "off the shelf" Chevrolet parts as could be found, keeping an original appearance as much as they could so that when those bored GM techs showed the results to the "Brass" at Chevrolet, they couldn't just dismiss it as a hot rod, but would honestly have to see it as a production car possibility.
At least that's what we've been shooting for . . . just fun to pretend.
I would classify this as a Phantom Rod? The engine bay is coming along really nicely.
Thanks !
I guess that "Phantom" would be the very best description for what we're attempting, for sure !
Got the engine running in the car a day or two ago, sounds mean ! Now time to hook up all of the wiring for the choke, tach, senders, gauges, and stuff. One wire, for the water temp sender still eludes us, can't find the info on the hook-up to the stock gauge anywhere.
Later next week it'll head out for the exhaust. Going to try for the look of the '66 GTO with the pipe ends exiting behind each of the the rear wheel openings. Not quite original Vega, but maybe more in keeping with the theme. The car has a huge gas tank in it that's in the way of having the exhaust exit at the rear of the car. Would have been neat to have the pipes exit through the rear valance like the C3 Vettes, but not possible . . .
Sort of an update . . .
We've had the car up an running for a little bit now. New stainless exhaust, all of the wiring woes solved even the re-calibrated tach works, dropped the rear end a little by pulling the two inch spacers out from under the rear springs.
Ran into a problem with the carb (supposedly a good used Carter/Edelbrock) in that the idle was erratic, the engine kept "hunting." Perfectly timed, all vacuum lines OK, no gasket leaks, distributor and coil are new Pertronix. Bought a new Holley Brawler this past week, hopefully that will fix things.
Not at all sure, but the engine may well have an after-market cam in it as well. The block was over bored, heads are camel hump rebuilt with big valves and are shaved/surfaced to a degree. The engine (300 hp 327) and trans came out of an early Vette. Sort of indications that something might have been done in the way of a cam swap as well. Possibly there is more to it than we thought and that could be affecting the idle, causing the problem. Lost touch with the original owner/seller so can't get any info there. We'll know soon enough if the Holley calms things down, then on to the interior.
We'll post some more photos after the carb is installed . . .
Does a vacuum test reveal anything? What Hg does it idle at?
Following along, always happy to see updates.
I like the Vega, and I love that body style. The back 1/3 looks so much like a VW Squareback.
In reply to SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) :
Vacuum is normal for the engine specs, fuel pressure is correct as well, spraying starter fluid all around the carb base did nothing to raise the idle, no leaks there. After a LONG time of feathering the gas we can get it to idle between nine and twelve , but it hunts up and down from there. The choke is set correctly as is the timing. New distributor, coil, and wires. New carb is bolted down, just re-working the timed vacuum line, rubber fuel lines, oil vapor hoses—no PCV on the early 327 intake or valve covers, just a vent at the rear of the block that runs from the lifter valley to the base of the carb and another vent in the oil fill tube that runs to the base of the air cleaner—and throttle linkage to conform with the Holley Brawler. Maybe have things all set up by tomorrow, depends on how difficult it is to reposition the fuel filter and hard fuel lines.
We want to be able to bring the car up to New England Dragway for some grudge matches. test and tune, Friday Night Shootouts, and such. The NHRA rules restrict the amount of rubber fuel lines allowed to MAYBE around six inches, down from twelve from a few years ago , so we've plumbed the car with as much hard line as we could manage with just short rubber "connector" lengths between the fuel filter barb and the carb twin feed hard lines and such.
I've had brand new Pertronix pickups cause the idle to hunt.
In reply to APEowner :
DAMN ! ! ! Really? What was the solution, if any? We'd be more than willing to do whatever's necessary including buying a repro points-style distrubutor if necessary. We really thought that we were doing the right thing by going with the Pertronix, maybe not, huh?
MuSTANK said:In reply to APEowner :
DAMN ! ! ! Really? What was the solution, if any? We'd be more than willing to do whatever's necessary including buying a repro points-style distrubutor if necessary. We really thought that we were doing the right thing by going with the Pertronix, maybe not, huh?
For years Pertronix was the ultimate solution for points replacement and I put many miles on cars equiped with them. In the last decade or so quality has really taken a nose dive. I've lost track of how many cars I've fixed by changing changing them. I don't know for sure that that's your issue but I've seen it often enough that I'd want to check it out.
Temporarily lock out the mechanical advance, unplug the vacuum advance and put a timing light on it while it's acting up. The timing should be rock steady, and the light should flash steadily. If it's not, then my money is on the Pertronix.
They're not cheap but I'd probably run an MSD #8360. Link
That's sort of the problem here, the owner won't go for anything that doesn't look "stock" on the 327. No MSD, no HEI, has to have the vacuum canister and basically look like what came on the 327 when it was placed in the Corvette. We went with the Pertronix over just a re-issue of the original points-style because we believed the reputation for quality, performance, and for the looks. If this Holley Brawler doesn't solve the idle problem, then we're gonna have to look at the distributor esthetics vs performance equation once again, make some hard decisions, and spend some more money . . .
MuSTANK said:In reply to SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) :
idle between nine and ten grand,
Wow! That's crazy! What does it rev to?
Lolz.
think he means hundred
MuSTANK said:That's sort of the problem here, the owner won't go for anything that doesn't look "stock" on the 327. No MSD, no HEI, has to have the vacuum canister and basically look like what came on the 327 when it was placed in the Corvette. We went with the Pertronix over just a re-issue of the original points-style because we believed the reputation for quality, performance, and for the looks. If this Holley Brawler doesn't solve the idle problem, then we're gonna have to look at the distributor esthetics vs performance equation once again, make some hard decisions, and spend some more money . . .
That particular MSD has a vacuum advance and a small diameter cap. That's why I suggested that particular unit. Spray the body with a flattener and paint the cap brown or black and it should fit your aesthetic. You don't need to run the wire retainer on top of the cap.
MuSTANK said:That's sort of the problem here, the owner won't go for anything that doesn't look "stock" on the 327. No MSD, no HEI, has to have the vacuum canister and basically look like what came on the 327 when it was placed in the Corvette. We went with the Pertronix over just a re-issue of the original points-style because we believed the reputation for quality, performance, and for the looks. If this Holley Brawler doesn't solve the idle problem, then we're gonna have to look at the distributor esthetics vs performance equation once again, make some hard decisions, and spend some more money . . .
Crane also makes a solid state points replacement unit. Not sure what their status is now as a company.
Make sure the distributor is getting a clean >12.5V. I had some problems with mine when I was running off the stock Ford wiring (ballast resistor fed the distributor <12V). The issues cleared up when I ran battery voltage to it.
Shavarsh said:Make sure the distributor is getting a clean >12.5V. I had some problems with mine when I was running off the stock Ford wiring (ballast resistor fed the distributor <12V). The issues cleared up when I ran battery voltage to it.
That's a good point. Pertronix make modules designed to work with and without a resistor feed. Make sure you're using the correct one for however the car is wired.
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