Ross

I have a friend that owns a shop here locally who has built the motors and tuned my last 3 projects. The wifes injected 383, The 850 HP lightning mod motor and my Turbo 347 car. And he is and was of the same belief as you. Until about 6 months ago when I lost the wide band on the roadster and I was fouling plugs like crazy.

He came over and we changed out the wide band and while there we used Autolites as disposable plugs to set the tune, He brought them. The car was all tuned up and running good and everything checked out fine. I pulled the autolites and threw in a new set of NGK's and even he noticed the difference.

He shrugged his shoulders and said................I do not know and have never seen a real difference between plugs accept for longevity. I have noticed it before on the turbo 347 car as well. Did I gain any more power....................never even checked, and till this day I cant explain it, I just know that the NGK plugs in those two application had a difference at idle and seem to stay lit for a long time.

Mech fuel pump or electric?

If your pig rich is more then likely carb or Ignition. However I would do a compression check as well, Had a crate SBC many years ago that would foul plugs within 200 to 300 miles......................turned out that compression in that brand new motor was 90 average in all 8 holes.

So I am in the market to have a Aluminum drive line build for the Bad Byrd project, the guy that has always build my stuff over the years has gone out of business. There is a couple other builders in town but I have never heard anything good about either one of them.

Anyone have any good experiences with a certain driveline builder that they want to share with me?

Thanks for the input Barry!

The cam was designed for the very reason you mentioned SOUND.............I could have went down the bigger CI, bigger HP path without a problem, However and I dont mean this disrespectful the FE motor as a whole and the car I am putting it in really isnt going to be a rocket ship on pump gas anyways.

You builders are doing very well with what you have to work with, but at the end of the day where dealing with a 600 HP at best crank HP in a 4000 lb car. I want it strong..........no doubt and at the end of the day if I was potentially leaving 65-100 HP then one would notice a big difference.............but with the power loss through the drive train and the weight of the car itself 40 HP really isnt enough.

I remember back in 2005 doing some dyno tuning on my 01 Ford lightning and gained 40 hp, this was tuning only.........this cost me $750.00 for the dyno time and the tuning. $3K for 40 hp I guess isnt enough for me to bite.

Keep up the good work, you and Blair are doing some great things and I love what you guys do for the diehard FE guys!

I have been working on the braking System for the Bad Byrd project and got the rears on, but now its on to the fronts. The rear set-up is a 13" Wilwood 4 piston caliper set-up and the front is a AeroSpace Brakes 14" with 4 piston Calipers and the GT Hub. Although Quite a bit different then the Brembo and Stop Tech kits I have done in the past these are equally well done. One little hick-up that appears to be my fault is the front Calipers where supposed to be Black and I didnt relay that to them...............So I might be sending those back!

The Grade 8 bolts will work just fine, I think the expectation is high when you buy an aftermarket block that costs that much................and to be honest it should be. Personally if it was mine I would change them out but thats me and it really has nothing to do with if they would work or if they wouldnt work..................its just sleeping at night knowing I made the right call.

What make me laugh is a lot of people re-use 40 yr old factory bolts on there rebuilding, along with re-worked 40 yr old parts that have Millions of cycles on them but are slamming new Grade 8 bolts......................but thats America for you! A person doesnt need facts, they have all the beer they need to talk smack!

It would be hard for any company to make a converter recommendation without all engine specs, including dyno numbers.  Torque will change the stall speed, so without the exact numbers, the best they can do is give you a ballpark, unless they're extremely familiar with your exact combination.

I agree which is why on all my past builds I have spent the $ to have the engine dyno'd then ordered the TQ converter. Being it isnt a drag car I will probably just run a 2200 or 2400 and call it good. No real point in having a loose converter if I am not going to use it all that often I guess.

I did give them the engine specs just not they Dyno numbers which i dont have..............so I am not casting blame anywhere just thought I would get some opinions here to sway my decision one way or another.

Not to be argumentative Mr Brown but when I went to a 3200 stall on the wifes 32 roadster I saw an increase of well over 30 degree's trans temp on the freeway. So I added a fan to the trans cooler and I got 20 back! Now that is a 383 Stroker SBC with a TH400, but that car doesnt weigh 2200 lbs.

So I just assumed that with a big ole Tuna Boat I would see even a greater increase in heat.............maybe the C6 is a better trans then the TH400 in this scenario but I wouldnt think so!