SWAPORAMA!

I finally did it on March 14th, 2001 at 119,206 miles. I swapped my engine!

I didn't use any port templates when I ported the engine. On the exhaust side, I just ported out to match the shape and angle of the top and bottom surfaces of the steel sleeve. I didn't want to mess with the sleeve! The port ends up looking a little smaller than the "normal" porting templates that you'll find for sale, but I didn't want to go too large, and I figured, from a shadetree point of view, the way the exhaust port was shaped had a nice diverging angle to it, a smooth and clean expansion from the port to the header. Plus, the angle of the top surface would seemingly help prevent reversion. I really wish I had a flowbench!

On the intake side, I DID NOT TOUCH the "runners" of the ports! I figured that they were plenty big enough, as they were larger than the venturis and throttle plates of the carb! Opening them up more would be futile and could only hurt low RPM flow. (Wish I had a flowbench!) I also didn't vicariously wallow out the ports. I left the leading edge (the one that the corner seal slides past) and the inner edge (the curved edge near the the limit of the oil rings) ALONE. All I touched was the upper (closing) edge. I didn't focus on "bigger" so much as "smoother". I carefully ground out the edge at about a 45 degree angle, then blended it in to the "bowl" in the port, and the tricky curve against the leading edge. I tried to get some curve into the wall I was working on, too. I spent a lot of time just running my finger back and forth in the port, feeling for high spots or depressions or any problem areas. When I finished one port, I made a template and used it to verify that the next port was the same size and shape. I checked primary to primary and secondary to secondary - I got them correct without the template! I put the template over the freshly ground port and it lined up perfectly.

For the intake manifold - I have two recommendations. First, please don't modify a shutter valve manifold. Get a '79-80 manifold instead. There is an incredible amount of work required! The #2 primary intake port is much larger than the #1 primary after you remove the shutter valve butterfly. This requires that you a) fill in the sides of #2 to match #1, b) add epoxy to the outside of the intake manifold around the #1 port because you WILL break through when you try to open it up to match #2, or c) don't worry about it. I chose "c". This was because I already went through two cards of JB Weld and one card of JB Kwik just plugging up all of the holes left after removing the shutter valve and its butterfly! And that doesn't include the mess behind the ACV, only the passageway between the ACV and the (#1? I forget) intake runner.

And that brings me to the second recommendation: When doing this kind of work, use JB Kwik. It costs a little more, but JB Weld doesn't harden right away. When I started on the intake manifold, I used JB Weld. It didn't "set" for about 12 hours. I had to keep going back to the manifold and pushing the goo back into place, but it still had run down and made a mess for me to clean out. JB Weld rinses easily with water when not set, but it really reeks when you attack it with the ol' Dremel! I used it to plug all of the odd little pass-throughs on the #2 side. JB Kwik is just that, QUICK. I decided to try it to block off the passage between #1primary and #1secondary, to make it full independent runner like I'd made #2. It was hardening as I was mixing it, and was completely set-up within an hour! I was thrilled!

SOUNDS

No More To Come: The Quasi-Evil Engine blew an apex seal on Christmas Day, barely 23,000 miles since I slid it between the fenders and it bawled (and brapped) its way to life for the first time. I'd overrevved it the day before (just because it holds 8400 at part throttle while doing a burnout doesn't mean you can floor it in 2nd gear and expect the RPM to not creep up on trailing ignition alone!) and I was having a little cruise and the engine hiccuped at 6200rpm. Then it started losing power. Then I was driving at full throttle in 4th gear just to not-quite keep up with traffic on the highway, exhaust popping and spitting! But it did get me 20 miles home, and 5 miles to work the next day, on one rotor! After the engine comes out it will get disassembled, and I'll finally put up the pics of my intake and exhaust ports, as well as all the cool gory carnage from when the seal let go. So if you're running 3mm iron apex seals, DO NOT go over 8500 for ANY length of time! The engine was completely fine, it always started nearly instantly, and would go from 30 to 50mph in 6-7 seconds... in 5th gear! (That's an average of over 100lb-ft between 1500 and 2500, not bad for a 12A with a powerband between 5500 and 8000!) A pictorial of the engine pull and disassembly can be found here