Chevelle By Chevrolet

Pulling an Engine

Okay. So I haven’t pulled the engine yet, but my mechanic told me that he’d be able to arrange to have the cherry picker today so that we could pull it today. 
WEEEE I’M SO EXCITED!! 

Uh-oh

What’s Under YOUR Heads?

I ripped the heads off my engine the other day, and to much of my surprise, the pistons were not what I was expecting. In fact, they were the exact opposite of what I was expecting. Ironic. 
So according to my specs sheet, the pistons in the engine have a piston dome volume of -13.6 c.c. which would mean that they would be concave and have a bit of a dish to them. Instead, the pistons I found were dome-like and came up-convex-which contradicts what the specs sheet listed as their piston dome volume. 
I was ordering pistons from JE originally, but then the previous owner of the car said he’d hook me up with stock pistons that were bored over 30 thousandths for way cheaper. Originally I’d thought, “Well how could he possibly hook me up with stock pistons and expect to lower compression? The pistons are already deep dish, and stock pistons will just make the CR go through the roof!” But now I understand. Stock pistons will get rid of a little bit of that dome, maybe even be flat top, which will make the combustion chamber larger and lower compression. Excellent. 
However, now the order for pistons from JE is completely off and not even worth ordering since they’d be super expensive and the improper pistons. If I’d ordered them and they came over here, they’d lower my compression to like 4:1. So I’m glad I didn’t do that. 

Another issue that my friend brought up was a matter of balance. Apparently, when an engine is assembled, everything comprising the engine (i.e. crankshaft, camshaft, pistons, rings, counterweights, etc.) have a certain weight ratio that sets the engine in balance, prevents rattling, and optimizes engine performance. When weights are heavier or lighter than what they should be in coherence with the crankshaft and counterweights, that throws the weights off and consequently throws the engine off balance. 
When i first proposed the idea of changing out the pistons for new ones, he said, “You can’t do that because that’d throw the engine off balance.” 
I was skeptical at first, because everything I’d read about lowering compression had nothing to do with balance. And my friend was right, but wrong at the same time. Balance is something to keep in mind if the engine were being bored or if the cylinders were sleeved, but they’re not. So balance isn’t an issue. 
An article that might be more satisfying than my hasty explanation and dismissal is here.
To my relief, I can do everything I’d planned on doing without messing with engine balance or blueprinting the engine (which involves weighing every minute thing on a scale and making sure it weighs the proper amount to match the crankshaft). I can pull the pistons, replace them, and slide those babies right back into the cylinders where they belong. 

Piston order here I come! (after i figure out what pistons I need to buy…) 

Pistons

I already explained the issue with my high CR before, but I didn’t actually come up with a solution. 

So the pistons in the Chevelle right now give the car 12.5:1 compression. The Chevelle’s a true muscle car. But when it has such high compression the way it does, that means I have to put 112 octane leaded gasoline in it which costs $7.66/gal. Instead of buying that, I’d really like to just buy 92 or something, but in order to put lower octane fuel in the motor without it detonating, the CR has to go down. In order for the CR to go down, the combustion chamber must get bigger (at least that’s the simplest way to do it). 

To increase the volume of a combustion chamber seems fairly simple in concept, but it’s actually difficult to determine what you want to change. There are many variables that go into calculating a combustion chamber (i.e. bore, stroke, rod length, head gasket thickness, piston dome volume, piston to deck height, etc.)

I chose to stick with modifying the piston. I’m going to keep everything in the engine the same, I’m just going to swap out the pistons for pistons that will give me the 9:1 CR I desire. How do you go about changing the CR with just the pistons and nothing else, you ask? Well it’s simple. Let me explain. 

First, here’re some specs on the car:
bore: 4.500”
stroke: 4.000”
rod length: 6.135”
piston to deck height: 0.015”
piston dome volume: -13.6 c.c.
combustion chamber: 62 c.c.

My combustion chamber is about half the size of a regular combustion chamber and the pistons look like this. When I was first determining what kind of pistons to put in the car, I’d expected the pistons to look a little like this, with a piston head that was convex towards the top of the head, consequently reducing the volume of the combustion chamber. My pistons already have a deep dish and a small combustion chamber. 

I tried to figure out the math with a teacher at school, but that didn’t really work. So I called JE Pistons and it turns out that the piston I desire with a super deep dish doesn’t exist. In order to bring the CR down, the piston must have around a -40.0 c.c. dish. It’s basically a giant hole in my piston. 

By lowering the face of the piston, the combustion chamber becomes greater, which in turn reduces the compression ratio. So after I get my hands on new pistons and replace the ones I have now with them, I’m good to put junk gas in the car and not hurt it :)

The only problem is I have to determine whether I really want JE pistons or just stock Chevrolet pistons. hmmm…. 

Heads

I finally got the heads off the motor. I know the heads need to be on there good and tight so they don’t go falling off, but MAN! They were near impossible!

In order to take the heads off, first I had to:
- Remove stud girdles
- Remove crane cam aluminum roller rockers
- Remove head bolts
- Remove push rods
- Remove header bolts (in order to get to 2nd row of head bolts)
- Remove 2nd row of head bolts
- Remove P-side control arm
- Remove steering arm bolts
- Remove alternator and power steering bolts
- Remove 3rd row of head bolts

And then I had to PRY the heads loose by inserting a rubber handled hammer in the exhaust ports of the heads and prying towards me. And let me tell you, those heads were stuck on there. They were a bitch and a half to take off…

After we got them off, a whole bunch of coolant spilled out of them and into the cylinders, so now the cylinders are full of orange coolant. I don’t know if that’s good or bad or what. I’m still figuring out what happened with that. 

The pistons are as big as my face: bore = 4.500”, stroke = 4.000”, rod length = 6.135”

Today was a really big day for Chevelle and I. And I’ll tell you why.
I’m going to go get the heads cleaned and pressured tested at NAPA. If they’re not warped or cracked, that’s great. And if I don’t find any sources of leaks in the block, that’s great too. Then I can swap out the 12.5:1 CR pistons for 9:1 CR pistons and throw the engine back together and it’ll be just fine. 
So I’m waiting to hear about the different parts. If nothing seems wrong, Chevelle and I are golden! Maybe I can have this thing put back together and ready to go before mid June!! 

Update

So I haven’t updated you on what I’ve been doing with the Chevelle in a while now. 

I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve worked on it now. You might be able to tell from the motor oil in my nail bedding, but I’m working on scrubbing that out… especially since it’s purple because right now I have Royal Purple synthetic in it. 

So far, I’ve:
1. Replaced the upper driver side and passenger side balljoints (with MasterPro)
2. Replaced/pressed in the lower driver side and passenger side balljoints (with MOOG)
3. Taken off the intake and had it inspected by NAPA for warpage (it wasn’t)
4. Taken off the carburetor and had it inspected and cleaned by NAPA
5. Taken off the valve covers
6. Taken off the stud girdles and crane cam aluminum roller rockers
7. Removed the HEI distributor
8. Removed the alternator
9. Removed the header bolts
10. Taken out the pushrods and put those somewhere safe
11. Sawed the bolts on the wheels down so that I can put the hubcaps back on 

And I will soon be paying about a grand to get new pistons that will lower my CR from 13:1 to 9:1!! Although I’m a little bummed about losing a thousand dollars, I’m pretty excited to be able to drive the car to the gas pump now and fill up on 92 without the engine blowing up :D
I’m also going to get the hubcaps re-chromed and cleaned so that they’re all nice and shiny for the summer.  

Other than replacing the pistons and putting the engine back together, I think the Chevelle is good to go! Hopefully I can have this thing up and running by the end of summer!!

Pictures to come :) 

Chevelle: The Heartbeat of America

Today was a big day for Chevelle and I. 
This morning at precisely 8:17 AM, I drove to the BMV and registered the Chevelle as an Ohio car in my possession and obtained temporary 30-day tags for it. 
Later, around 4 PM, the AAA mechanic came by to install the new battery in the car. He says it’s a strong battery that cranks out about 800 CCA, which is basically what the old battery put out. (The old MTP-24F Interstate Mega-Tron Plus battery put out 800-1000 CCA. This new one is a AAA battery. I just hope it can crank out enough power to turn the engine in the Chevelle, because the car has no computers and it’s going to need all the power it can get.)
Compared to the rest of the day, installing the battery was the easy part. We loosened the terminals on the old battery and took that out. Before we put in the new battery, we noticed that the battery case in the trunk was loosely bolted down to the frame. I thought it kinda looked funny so I brought myself below the back bumper and to my amazement, there were two 9” long bolts hanging freely from below the battery. I’m going to have to get those cut and then replaced. 
After taking those bolts out, we installed the new battery and fired the car up.
At this point in the story, the mechanic has nothing else to do at my house and I still have no idea how to drive the car (keep in mind that I still have to take the car for an out-of-state inspection on Tuesday). So I asked him, “Hey, do you think you know how to drive this thing?” He said yeah, so we figured, why not take it for a spin around the block. You know, give the beauty some sun. We found out later that that was the wrong thing to do.
So while the engine is roaring, we shift it into reverse and start backing it out of the garage, then in drive, back to rever- and that’s where the trouble started. 
It wasn’t shifting properly. The shifter was stuck. Completely stuck! 
So we threw it in neutral and pushed it back into the garage. Eventually, with the help of WD-40, we lubricated the joints enough to shift (though not without a fight. And did i mention that it doesn’t have power steering?)
So we fire the thing back up and back it out again, this time successfully shifting the gears through. Then we drove out of our driveway and out onto the road we went! And then there was more trouble.
The transmission wouldn’t shift into third gear, no matter how slow we went up to 30 mi/hr, no matter how fast we went. It just wouldn’t shift to third gear. So we turn the car around and drive back to the house. 
And I remember leaning over the front fenders with the mechanic, staring at the steaming hot block before me, when he looked over at me wide-eyed and said, “Eeshee… you remember on Wednesday when I told you to check the transmission fluid… did you do that?” 
I looked at him and then at the dip stick peeking out from behind the block and said, “Fuck.”
We scrambled over to the stick and pulled it out. It was as unfortunate as we’d suspected; there was hardly any fluid in the transmission at all. And with that, he looked at me and said, “You better put those keys away, girl. We’re not firing this thing up for a while, at least until we check the transmission and get some tranny fluid in there.”
Since neither of us had anything to do for the rest of the day, we took a trip to O’Reiley’s Auto Parts and bought us:
Motor oil, transmission fluid, a jack, jack stands, zip ties, hand gloves, fast orange, an oil filter, an oil pan, and lots of other goodies.
When we got home, I changed into some ratty clothes and threw some carpet under the car. I was shaking with excitement, anticipating the oil gushing onto my fingers from unscrewing the nut of the oil pan. 
Once we did unscrew the nut though, we were shocked to see that the motor oil was not amber or brown, but a sludg-y, muddy, gray. 
The Chevelle is beautiful and has lots of lovely things in it, but it’s starting to look like whoever was taking care of it did a really shitty job of maintaining it. 
Around 9 PM, he and I called it quits. But he’s coming back tomorrow for most of the day. He’s going to work with me now and teach me everything he knows about cars with what the Chevelle can allow me to learn hands-on (I mean I’m not going to go tearing apart the drive train if it doesn’t need tearing apart.) 
I’m thinking about re-naming the Chevelle, Chev-homme. Because let me tell you one thing: the Chevelle isn’t a girl, it’s a man.

MTP-24F Interstate Mega-Tron Plus Battery

That long title up there is the name of the battery in the Chevelle. 
Over the long trek over here from it’s previous owner, the battery drained because the transporter kept the ignition timing and the switch on the trunk on for 6 days.
AAA came by the other day and figured out that it was just not performing nearly as well as it should be, so we bought a new battery for the Chevelle.
It’s getting installed today.

I also got temporary 30-day tags from the BMV, so I’m going to go drive it a wee bit today sos I can be comfortable with it on the road when I take it to get an out-of-state vehicle inspection.

BMV

So here’s the deali-o. 
I can’t drive the car since the tags are expired, the plates aren’t my home state’s, and because it hasn’t had an out-of-state vehicle inspection yet. I have to go to the BMV to get all this done with the kind help of my mother, of course. 
When I requested the pleasure of my mother’s company when I visited the BMV, she frankly, but kindly told me that she would expend no effort going to the BMV for any reason. 
Although having the owner of the vehicle with me when I have to get everything done for it would be much easier, it simply looks as though that’s not going to happen. The BMV understands though. That’s why they have 6 forms for me to fill out and bring back to them. 

So if you want to start driving a car with expired tags that you bought from another state and you have/want to do it without your BMV-phobic parents’ help, here’s what you do:
1. Get a Power of Attorney for Transfer of Certification of Title form
2. Get 2 copies of the Registration Information and Authorization to Register form
3. Obtain Bill of Sale
4. Obtain Vehicle Title 

- Fill out forms 1 & 2(both copies) and have your parent(s) sign them authorizing their turnover of responsibility for signatures and paperwork involving the car to YOU
- Go to the BMV with all those forms and obtain 30-day temporary tags for your illegal plates
- Drive vehicle to BMV for out-of-state vehicle inspection
- Complete inspection
- Possibly receive more forms for your parents to sign (don’t quote me on that though)
- Take forms back to BMV and register for new plates (respective to your home state)
- Obtain plates & tags
- Put new plates and tags on car

AAAAND YOU’RE DONE!
Don’t forget to get all your insurance stuff together too, like your insurance card and the vehicle registration. Put those in a safe place so you can find them easily if/when you get pulled over by an officer. 
And if you’re like me and you switched the insurance on the car from sitting to driving today, then call your insurance agency and figure out what paper work you need before you get all that stuff in the mail. 

HAPPY (legal) DRIVING!

Running

I charged the battery on slow charge (2A) overnight for 12 hours. I also threw 3 gallons of 112 octane in the gas tank. 
I tried to start the car, but it wouldn’t start. It’s been over a month now, so I gave up on doing it by myself and called AAA.
They sent someone over and helped me start it.
Turns out, it was improper starting technique all along. Let me explain: In order to start a cold engine in a carbureted car, you have to pump the gas just slightly (4-5 times if it’s cold, once if it’s already warmed up) and then turn the key and possibly “flood” the engine by holding down the gas (ever so slightly). Then it should fire right up. 

In times like these, I wish I had my camera.
I also found an auto mechanic who is willing to help me work on my car!!
TODAY IS A DAY OF SUCCESS!!!!!