February 2001
We started having second thoughts about the power we'd get
from a naturally aspirated 302 so we started looking at superchargers.
This brought up the engine clearance issues again as we looked at photos
of the JBL engine bay. Richard from JBL was also concerned about whether
this would fit since no one had tried a supercharger that he knew of.
Richard suggested that we forget about the 302 and use a 351W with a
TWM Induction fuel injection system. This system takes up a lot less
space under the hood. It is still fairly tall, but this will fit under
the hood scoop. The TWM system looks gorgeous so we decided to go with
this.
Richard also suggested we look at DSS Racing for a short block and
build up the rest of the engine ourselves. I was pretty nervous about
this, but decided that this would be a good opportunity for Scott and I
to learn a lot more about engines than if we bought one that was fully
assembled and tested.
I contacted DSS and they had a Sportsman 351W block stroked to 408
with 10.5:1 compression. I thought the compression ratio was a little
high to be safe with pump gas, but they then said this was based on 58cc
combustion chambers. I figured I could use heads with 65cc combustion
chambers to reduce compression to a more comfortable 9.8:1. So I ordered
the short block.
At about the same time, I ordered an engine hoist and an engine stand
from Summit. These arrived in just a few days and were fairly easy to
assemble. The engine stand, however, had the bolt holes drilled
incorrectly in one of the legs, so I had to drill new holes.
We finally got the quote from JBL including all our
"extras". The incremental costs seemed pretty reasonable, so
with a deposit to JBL in the mail, we were on our way.
We also placed the order for the TWM Induction system. They quoted an
eight week lead time, so we'd have to wait a while before we could get
too far along on our engine build. We'd like to look at the intake
before we make our final call on the camshaft, and the camshaft has to
be installed before we can do much else.
One of the engine builders we had talked to about the 302 based
engine was Panhandle Performance. Since they have a lot of experience
doing cylinder head porting, we decided to go with them for the heads.
As soon as the TWM intake arrives, we'll send it to them so that they
can match the intake ports to the intake manifold.
The DSS short block arrived at the end of the month. But getting it
on the engine stand was going to be a challenge. The engine hoist just
has chains that are meant to be connected to the block, the the block
has no lift tabs or anything easy to connect to.
