Charlie, If you are building your car to drive, 9.5 compression is not a bad idea. Cam selection will be critical for the changes you make and the use you intend. That whole issue can be involved. That is a drive ability issue.

The cosmetics you are discussing have to do with the "correctness" of your resto. A lot of the things mentioned were not like that from the factory. The engines were painted as an assembly including head bolts and freeze plugs. With the effort to get the engine, it sounds like you should do it like the factory.

Keith C.

Keith; thanks. Builder is confident that with the 9.5:1 (approx) pistons I'll still have good driveability running on premium pump gas with the L35 cam. (SANITY CHECK HERE PLEASE ANYONE???)

He said with the stock pistons I'd have to use either racing gas or octane boosters-- and would get pretty tired pretty quickly of mixing fuel or trying to find racing gas...

My ex(small block) manis were glass beaded painted and baked in oven at I think 200 degrees for a couple hours years ago.The paint is VHT Lastblast.I can get youre a part number if needed.This is the best thing I've done for a driver! Holds up, looks like cast iron.Every couple years I take them off and just spray another coat of the same and bolt them back on.Go back and look at my engine fresh up pics.You may see a couple specks of rust after a couple years of driving,just respray,no worrie as Geoff would say!

By the way, I think engine was painted with manis on so there would be overspray on them from painting engine,at factory.I paint with manis off.

charley-- I am pretty sure that the exhaust manifolds were installed and then the whole engine was painted, but not all of the exhaust manifolds. I believe that they only are about 1/2 way painted. I think that john z put a great pic on dave's post. we painted everything without the manifolds on because I thought that it would just burn off too. If you are going to drive it, I would paint them on and let bake on what bakes on and burn off what is going to burn off. The more original the better is what I have learned. Dave will have to answer the engine questions as I did not put that together. We had an old chevy boy do that for his car so I can't answer any of those questions

keep up the good work-- looking good

jeb

page 14 of dave's post has an excellent pic of how the exhaust manifolds should be sprayed. we used engine paint from quanta it was a great color. I would order about 4 cans though it is very transparent. no primer on the engine either in my opinion. paint straight to clean metal


jeb

Agreed.. no funny business.. paint everything just like the factory regardless how sloppy.. keep the motor bone stock or less... Your not 19 years old and what you don't want in Arizona is a car that overheats... stock or less and enjoy yourself!

The car is still gonna spin the tires at will

Let me spin my question a different way-- To the L35 guys--

1) Is there anyone out there with a STOCK L35 engine build (cam & pistons) and can it be driven with pump gas?? Or do you have to do something special for fuel??

2) If rebuilt to a non-stock configuration, any comments on results/driveability with the cams and/or pistons you used?

I would love to run a stock L35 configuration, but my engine builder is cautioning to use lower compression with the stock L35 cam.

I would build it as high performance to your specs and octane booster with high test. How much is the car being driven? If it's 10,000-15,000 miles a year I understand the thought with the lower compression but if it's not driven that much, I'd overpower it. Life is too short, live it up.

I've been running premium pump gas in mine for over a dozen years with no issues, timing set to 4 deg BTDC as shown in the manual. As far as I know a stock L-35 THM-400 (that will overheat [stock 23" 3-core rad.]in long traffic jam/long parade).

EDIT: I used to add some octane booster every now and then, but since they don't have lead in them anymore I quit doing it as I no longer saw the point without the lead for the valves.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MLakin,

These look like stock pistons?

For what its worth........
I had my L-78 rebuilt to run on pump gas. I had a different cam put in it and added roller rockers. And I am considering taking it back to my builder and having a roller cam and lifters installed. As big blocks seem to wear down cams harder than small blocks do...
and roller motors seem to last a long time.
Thats my 2 cents.

quote:

Originally posted by Robert 375 BB:
I had my L-78 rebuilt... As big blocks seem to wear down cams harder than small blocks do...

Would that be because of the L-78's solid lifters, and therefore is that true of L-35's with hydraulic lifters? Don't know much about engine building.

All I can say for sure is that I have a full factory roller in my safari and in my Z-28 the safari has 248,000 mi and my z has 125,000
both start and run reliably...I remember ( back in the day) and seeing cams that have wore down. and listening to the engine before it was pulled.. I could hear this thump.. thump..thump coming aout of the exhaust..
I am a believer in full roller motors.. and I don't want to work on them constantly

Hi guys- Hard to believe more than 2 months have gone by since last update...

Carburetor came back yesterday-- I ended up using the Holley Carburetors ProShop in Bowling Green KY, they were highly recommended by John, my restoration guy. They quoted a Fixed price of $426 + $20 S&H. All nice & pretty now...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charley Maule,