My Shit

My Daytona.

It is a piece of crap. I need a real job if for no other reason than to have a newer car.

Got my pushrods in from Trend Pushrods and threw them in. Adjusting the preload was easy with the correct parts.



Installed the bathtub pan, intake manifold, throttle return spring bracket, and kickdown bracket. I think it is turning out rather well. I hope it runs well too.

Pulled the engine and trans out. I gotta say, a hood that goes straight up is handy:









Pulled the trans off the engine:


Squats a bit with a 440 in the back and nothing in the front!

I started installing some of the parts I got for the truck actually in the truck. I wanted to keep an eye on some things that the current gauges and dummy lights don't do.

I installed a vacuum gauge on the right (necessary for setting up a carb correctly) and oil pressure on the left (there is currently only a dummy light and I want to know more than that). Sorry for the crappy cell phone picture but I was in a hurry and it was chilly today.

Hammered out the dents in the oil pan. Fixed a rip in the metal with the welder and sanded that back down. Finished the pan too late in the day to get it to the hot tank. Ordered the dipstick tube to replace the broken one. Received the torque converter, flex plate, and bolts. Installed the sending unit for the electric oil pressure gauge and the oil pressure switch for the dummy light in the dash.

Sorry I don't have any interesting pictures to go with this stuff lately. It is all mostly just tedious work and there's not much to take pictures of.

Today I got the pedestal issue cleared up. There was a burr from the original machining done that was sticking out and hitting the rocker. Got the rocker side clearance finally set. Used an adjustable pushrod checking tool to figure out what length pushrods I need to order. I checked about 1/2 of the rockers and I'm glad I did because there is some variance and if I wouldn't have checked that many I likely would have ordered pushrods that were too short by 0.050 or so. Well, they would have worked but it would not have been optimal.

My oil pan came in today too. Took it out of the box and got pissed right away because the pan itself has been beat up. If they were still making these I'd be sending this pan back to the guy I bought it from. Oh well, some quality time with a hammer and a welder tomorrow and I'll have it all squared away. But then the pan the pickup both need to go to the hot tank before I can do anything else with them. Ain't nothin' easy on this damn thing.

I spent build day 7 trying to adjust the side spacing on my rockers and the preload. That didn't work out so well for me.

On build day 8 I called a distributor for the rockers. Found out that for a street car the side spacing I was using was far too small and redid everything. Found out the last rocker on the pass side is hitting the rocker pedestal and I'll have to address that before I can finish. Based on some math I'll need pushrods 0.23 shorter than stock as well. I also found out that my el cheapo valve covers are just a hair too short.