I'm building a 300... 5/19/12 SHE'S ALIVE!!!

[fomocoguy]

Engine run stand is pretty much done. Factory y pipe is on the way. New flywheel ring gear is on my bench and ready to be installed. I bought a very slightly used 500 cfm Edelbrock for $200 off craigslist so carb is ready. Hopefully in a few days I'll have pics of her all mounted up on the run stand.

[fomocoguy]

Just a few more shots with carb and various odds and ends installed:

[fomocoguy]

Got her all mounted up on the test stand today. Still need to fab up a panel for gauges and tach, but it's getting there!

[Joeseph]

Looks like your using the fel pro intake gasket, when it fails replace it with the Mr gasket 260. My truck is a DD and although my engine isn't in need of a full rebuild and runs very well I run the same intake/exhaust setup and that fel pro gasket is a fail.

[killakobra]

i have used both and i see little difference in seal. proper torque make more of a difference than the gasket. another problem with the mr gasket gasket is it doesn't have the added thickness of the seperate intake gasket to make up the manifold thinkness.

[ANGELO1]

a 300 is a big block 6. a real big big block. they arn't gas milage champs. have you thought about overdrive. gearvender, or ranger are both very stout units. so stout that you can split the gear when you are shifting. me in alaska driving in 4x and the od ingaged, still getting 18 with a warmed over FE. think about it

[fomocoguy]

As of tonight she is alive! I had a minor cam timing setback but after an hour of pulling the crank gear back off and getting everything lined up like it should be she fired off on the first try. I think it was pretty late and I was somewhat tipsy when I put that timing set in (thank god 300's are non interference engines). I knew I had a problem when fuel was puffing back out through the carb. Anyhow, she runs like a champ now! It sounds freakin' fantastic. It's like a cummins sound but with no diesel clatter. I took video of the whole thing, so as soon as I can figure out how to get it from my camcorder to photobucket I'll post it up.

[Ranchero50]

New engines are always things of beauty. Now get it in the truck and dirty like it should be.

[sargentrs]

That's awesome!

[fomocoguy]

Yep, pretty exciting stuff! I wasn't super motivated to get it into the truck until hearing it come to life. The wife was less than thrilled, as the first thing she said when I came in afterwards was "Are you done being noisy?", but I've come to terms with the fact that she'll never get it. Anyhow, here's a couple vids. I'm a little dissapointed at the sound quality; there is just no way the camcorder can capture the deep bass coming from this thing! Plus ya'll get to see me get a face full of gasoline while I'm getting the timing set
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... aAPp3VPOdU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... m8uQQVn-sY

[max03]

Great build thread! I recently purchased a 68 swb with a 300 and three on the tree, engine had a bad headgasket so I pulled it yesterday, hopefully I can finish disassembly tomarrow and send it to the machine shop. This will be my first build and your post have offered great info! Maybe mine will turn out as good as yours. Is their anything in perticullar I should be aware of as far as replacement parts or recommendations on upgrades? It's just gonna be for joy-rides and make ppl remember how trucks ust to be made .

[fomocoguy]

Great build thread! I recently purchased a 68 swb with a 300 and three on the tree, engine had a bad headgasket so I pulled it yesterday, hopefully I can finish disassembly tomarrow and send it to the machine shop. This will be my first build and your post have offered great info! Maybe mine will turn out as good as yours. Is their anything in perticullar I should be aware of as far as replacement parts or recommendations on upgrades? It's just gonna be for joy-rides and make ppl remember how trucks ust to be made .

Glad you found this helpful! I honestly learned a lot about these engines during this build. I can tell you that for starters Offenhauser claims over 100hp gain from stock figures by installing a 4 barrel carb, manifold, cam change, and header. I went with the split efi manifolds from the FI engine just because they flow great, fit nice, and I hate headers. There is a lot you can do to help it breath (bigger valves, clearancing around the exhaust valve, light porting, etc). You just have to figure out what your end goal for your engine is and do what you feel necessary to get you there. I wanted big low end torque, so I left the valves alone but opted to de-shroud the exhaust valve and did a lot of smoothing in the ports. I also used pistons to bring me up to 9.0:1 cr and got my quench down to ~.038 (using a .021 copper head gasket) to help fight spark knock. Last I advanced the cam timing, which boosts low end. If you want yours to rev past 4500 rpm, you'll want to do things a bit different. I just want to be able to pull the heft of my 5500# truck plus an occaisional load, so big torque was my focus.

[gregamorton]

sounds good with the way you built it. What size pipe and what kind of muffler did you go with?

[fomocoguy]

sounds good with the way you built it. What size pipe and what kind of muffler did you go with?

Well, the factory efi y-pipe is 2.5", but I had a thrush welded muffler (flowmaster knock off) laying around so I just stuck it on there. The muffler is only 2.25". I'm thinking that once it's in the truck I will increase it to 3" as close to the y as I can and run a single 3" pipe to a 3" version of this thrush muffler, with it dumped just before the axle or possibly turned out in front of the tire and finished off in 4" pipe for that sweet "echo" sound. We'll see. I just keep thinking that 2.5" might have been good for a stock efi engine but may be a bit small for this build.

[austin]

sounds good should pull lots of stumps

them flowmaster knock-offs sound good acutally im running a hedman header with dual 2.25 exhaust and flowmaster knock offs on my 2 wheel drive people ask me all time if its got a 390