Leaks=While I’m in There=Roller conversion

Q

QUIKSVT

Member
Little back story here. For the past year or two I had a pin hole leak in the radiator. Then last summer my oil pan decided to retire. So I’ve been collecting parts to fix those items. Kinda sucks the radiator was an aluminum Summit racing one. Radiator shop says no fix for it. I picked up a bunch of parts from rock auto, stock pan and radiator and other supporting pieces. I had other parts already waiting, like new hoses, intake spacer, upgraded tranny switch and some other parts. One thing I wanted to do for a while was the roller cam. I fell into a deal for the Comp cams CL35-512-8 ( XE258HR-14 ). Well then i ordered up the rest of the parts, springs, pushrods, dog bone tray , etc. Now I’m just waiting on time to get the engine pulled to start on R&R.
 
I am at the same point, leaking antifreeze at the timing chain cover. I have a f303 cam, and 1.6 roller rockers, I just need the correct push_rods.
 
Struckby alt cable, Copperhead DS loop among some other parts to put on. I’ll probably find more parts in my stash I’m forgetting.
 
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Getting closer

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I am changing out the efi valve covers and going with the ribbed ones. The efi had cracked around the fill tube when I was bending the tube.
 
And the oil leak was not from the oil pan or valve covers or intake. The head gaskets were the culprit. All new gaskets, heads cleaned up, new valve springs and seals. Comp roller stick and crane roller rockers.
 
Looks nice! What bolt kit did you end up using on the water pump and timing pointer?
 
Well finally had a day free to install the engine. Worked on it all day. Fought with the trans/engine alignment for a while. Went to loosen the trans mount and broke the stud for the spacer between the crossmember and trans mount. Going to try to put in a new stud or bolt for that. Also the exhaust is pretty much toast too. Need to look into my options for that.
 
The Lightning runs! Fired it up a few days ago and working out some things. I need to work on the tune a bit, not wanting to idle on its own with out pressing the gas pedal. The oil pressure gauge mod does work! I will have to go thru the throttle linkage and check everything, it was all apart cleaning may have been knocked out of adjustment.i have a hell of a whistle from the TB/EGR delete spacer. I need to chamfer some edges. It’s all 75 mm and matched to intake but the alignment was off a small amount.
 
New radiator is toast! I have transmission fluid mixing with coolant. New one on the way and going to bypass that in-radiator one this time. I don’t know why I even tried it before, usually go aftermarket. On another note the engine is running pretty good. Been playing with the ve table and getting my a/f looking good. Btw Spectra brand radiator from rock auto.
 
Wow! This Lightning has really woken up. I guess I didn’t know how sluggish it was before. So before it would hardly spin a tire and was just really a turd. I do know that I ended up having vacuum leaks and the cap and rotor were toast. And it had dual 3” exhaust that wasn’t helping. So my new improvements which include a Comp roller cam, rebuilt heads, 1.7 crane rockers, intake spacer and 2 1/2” dual exhaust. So now after a few test drives and still needing tweaking on the tune, it will roast the tires from a slow roll or dead stopped thru first into second and keeps going. The responsiveness is crazy and it pulls up to gear change unlike the old setup laying over about 4600 rpm.
 
Did you install the cam straight up or advanced it? If so how much? Did you need to remove the baffles in the valve covers to clear the rocker, assuming you are using crane cobra rr.
 
Installed straight up. Did not remove the baffles. I rotated the assembly and never heard any noise. No noise since running either. And yes they are the Crane cobra rockers.
 
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