My conference was great.
the day after we got back, we got dumped on.
I had to spend most of the day sunday plowing and scooping snow lol. but I
spent a lot of time while I was gone planning and scheming.
I also got my crate engine from summit delivered. I was going to wait until next month and do the engine and transmission at the same time, but I decided to spread it out a bit. I am embarrassed to say I did not build this engine. I have built several but this time looking at the cost of parts and materials, My Dad found this blue print engines 408 stroker on summit racing with all the stuff I wanted 425 hp 455 ft lbs tq already dyno'd for about the same as it would cost me to build it. so I decided I didn't need to build it this time.
of course it comes with a front sump oilpan no intake,and I already bought my explorer serpentine conversion from sandman. so I needed to do some work on it.
first I got it out of the box and onto the engine stand. I decided to drop the intake on it temporarily so I could use my engine lift plates to get it out. that worked fine
so first I pulled the oil pan and timing cover off. pulled the oil pump and replaced the oil pump drive shaft with an ARP version, new gasket, and installed the oil pump pickup I removed the fuel pump eccentric and torqued the timing gear back on, then put a new seal in the front cover and installed it with my damper dudes 28 oz imbalance explorer harmonic balancer, I like to install the balancer before tightening down the timing cover to allow the front seal to center itself hopefully preventing leakage. and then , test fit the pan, then installed the wild horses pan with a nice one piece gasket. and a wix oil filter.
I also planned to replace the valve covers once it is in the vehicle, and I wanted to see what it was going to look like so I went ahead and pulled them. checked the rockers and valve springs etc. over. everything looked great so I put my guide bolts in, when I had temporarily installed the intake manifold I checked the front and rear "china walls" and they both looked good, very little gap so I put a nice thick bead of rtv on and dropped the intake into position. then my new valve covers. I plan to put the old ones back in when I put the body back on to keep from scratching these up, but I wanted to see what it was going to look like. then I put the throttle bodies and the air cleaner on temporarily. I think it looks awesome. can't wait to see it running.