A little rig I made up to check the piston to deck clearance. Not exact, but close enough. I got a measurement of .047. With a beaded steel gasket with a compressed thickness of .015 I’m looking at a quench of .062. Not a good number for a performance engine. The original engine had a deck height of .042 and a compressed head gasket of .015 so a quench of .057, but that was with dished pistons and I’m using flat top pistons. If GM was happy with that then I should be OK.
I don’t have the special tool to push the oil pickup tube into the oil pump. I used a brass punch, small maul and lots of oil. Worked OK I twisted the pick up down a bit.
I installed a new oil pump extension rod with a metal collar before installing the new standard oil pump.
I installed the oil pump and then put the pan in place to check and see if I had twisted the pickup down too much. Turns out I did and it held the pan up off the block. I just twisted the pickup up a bit and the pan fit properly.
Time for the cam’s timing chain to be installed. I’m using the harmonic balancer installation tool with a metal spacer to push the sprocket on to the crank.
This is a Cloyes timing chain kit. The crank sprocket can be installed in three different locations for 2 deg advance, factory fit and 2 deg retard. I have put it on the factory fit for the first test of the cam timing.
Timing marks lined up. As you can see it is a double roller setup. I think I went overboard on this as the engine won’t be raced or driven extra hard. A standard quality single roller would have been fine.
First step in degreeing the cam is to install a degree wheel and static pointer.
Next: Degreeing the cam.