My build so far, What ya think?

That sounds like a good thing

Merry Christmas to you also

 

Great progress! As a side note you might want to consider changing to a late model starter which will allow you to eliminate your Solenoid completely. The late model starter has the solenoid built in. Another advantage is the late model starter is a lot smaller which is a big help on replacement if you have headers. See link below for how to article. Keep the updates coming.

http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=40882

 

I thought about that after i bought the small high torque starter, but will certainly go that way when the starter goes kapoot, and yes i have the hooker 6901 headers. Thanks for the great advise!

 

OK here it is. Like the Video says, Its still a work in progress though. So be gentle.

http://youtu.be/4bK5k_MrdA0

 

Sounds great, I would lose the air cleaner, that style looks good but will catch fire easy, are you gonna move the gauge set in the car?

 

Well the air cleaner is all I can use for now due to hood clearance. Gonna have to figure out what i am going to do there. And yes, gonna have gauges under hood and in car. I need to do some tuning, The engine lopes better than in the video, Its idled up there. Also those patriot heads were junk. was idling the engine one day a few months back and a retainer popped off #6 intake valve, shaved a lobe off the cam. It was the cheap Chinese valves and keepers that patriot installed. Since then the engine has came back out and had new Ferrea valves and keepers. new cam, lifters, push rods, and a good engine flush for obvious reasons.

 

Sounds good! Now go make a burnout video!

 

It's really too bad I didn't see this thread earlier. I would have warned you about the cheaper heads out there using off-brand valvetrain parts to cut corners and lower prices. Guides can be cheap and drilled off axis too causing increased geometry related issues.

If you ever decide to save cash like that down the road.. it's far better to just buy bare castings and put in known good parts. Course.. then you could have just bought better parts to begin with and only spend slightly more in the long run.

And I love gauges under the hood too. Makes tuning and troubleshooting much easier when working from that vantage point. Vacuum gauges are nice to have for timing and carb tweaking as well.

Couldn't see much of the exhaust in the vid.. but hopefully you have a crossover pipe under there to equalize the duals. X pipes are best(greater gains over wider rpm band) but you'll at least need a balance tube under there since even the flowmasters will respond to it in the low range. Smooths out the lope at idle a bit.. but what ya gonna do, eh? lol

 

Yes sir, I wish you were around as well. At at any rate, Sometimes we are so bent on saving a penny or two, we wind up costing way more in the long run.
It doesn't have a crossover yet, I plan on putting on an x-pipe, in the near future, Its 3" pipe with 40 series flowmasters behind hooker 6901's. Its temporary for now. Have plans to replace the rear end with a ford 9 inch. At that time, I plan on improving the exhaust, It kind drags at times when the road gets rough, lol

 

yeah.. we've all been there a time or two.. or three. lol

Just thought I'd chime in once more about the exhaust system you're currently running. In my experience.. 3 inch tubing is waaayyy too large on that little motor. You'd be much better off for all around performance due to better average torque with a mandrel bent 2.5 setup and not lose one bit of top end.

However, if you intend to eventually run really short gears(4.0+) combined with a big duration cam?.. the low end torque losses are well worth the gain upstairs. You'll also need fairly stout compression in the 11-1 range to really keep the exhaust velocity up with smaller cubic inches.

Best.. and cheapest.. advice I could give would be to reduce to 2.5 from the mufflers back.. preferably to a side exit if space allows.. or dump it before the axle with angle out and turn down towards the wheel wells.

If you do redo the exhaust eventually?.. on shorter wheelbase cars it pays run a canted muffler setup(inlets closer together than the outlets) which allows for a better merge from the x-pipe and reduced radius's while simultaneously setting you up for better outlet angles coming out of the mufflers to get the tails out towards the front of the rear tires. A good mandrel bent 2.5 will easily flow up to about 400 horse/7,000+rpm. Beyond that.. 3 inch is the way to go.

Just thought I'd share some of my hard learned lessons with running huge exhausts on smaller motors. Hope that helps.