Applying Joe Mondello's Motor Magic To Our First Ever 455 Build - Horsepower S13, E6

[Music] oh boy what a great place to kick off this week's horsepower today on the show we're going to build up a monumental motor in fact it's a streetable version of the one that powers this famous door slammer called the twister what's more the owner's going to help us he's a famous horsepower hero known worldwide as dr oles [Music] the only place you find a helping hand is at the end of your own rest no free lunches there's nothing for nothing nobody's going to hand you anything and nobody's going to make you famous you're going to make yourself famous it's that kind of work ethic that made joe mondello famous as a racer engine builder and technical innovator driving its way to comp eliminator championships in the 60s joe also had the drive to design better ways to make engine horsepower by the 1970s all kinds of race cars were running and winning thanks to his innovative cylinder heads horsepower is limited by the amount of air that can pass through the cylinder head that is the controlling factor period and the story and that's the way that works in 1968 mandela started racing for oldsmobile while also developing specialty engine parts for their 455 big block hence the name dr ols they're just self-driven air pumps but when you do really good cylinder heads um now they're dynamically driven dr oz is now a member of five halls of fame and with a legacy like that he could easily rest on his laurels but years ago a new mission emerged the lady that you met today mary mandelo said joe i want you to start teaching people what you know because when you die it's all going to go in the box with you so we decided to open a one week class he used to say learn 40 years in a week and he tried to cram it all in too thanks for turning out good you've got great grinder control let's get around that front part of that guide a little bit better right here yep and you walk in the front door you're an engine assembler when you leave on friday you're an engine builder big difference that's the difference before we could apply mondello's magic to our own 455 build we had to find a decent used block and we were pretty sure one was waiting under this motor we bought for a few hundred bucks so after a complete tear down and displacing a family of brown recluse spiders we had the foundation for a true classic motor creation after cleaning in magnaflux and the block we're ready to start the machining process now here at the tech center they've got all the latest equipment and the guys that use it well they were trained by mondello himself so you know everything's gonna be done right the first time after cutting the main caps to shrink the bores about a thousand the first major step is to line hone the block to make sure the mains are round and straight then brett loads are blocking an rnc block surfacer first the machine has to probe the block to learn where the holes are then it takes out 30 thousandths from each cylinder before the initial pass of surfacing deck surfaces were not square this way and you can see being that it touched here and not here that it wasn't square this way also you're seeing how unflat the deck surface was in the high spots and the low spots there after several passes the machine has taken off about 13 thousandths of surface material then david and a sun and sv10 take over to hone out the cylinder bores to make them perfectly round with a cross hatch to allow the rings to seat properly that's pretty much telling you a basic idea what the boar is looking like we're reusing the stock rods but only after brent resizes them with new arp bolts the stock crankshaft's in pretty good shape but david will need to do a little drilling to bring it into perfect balance then a little polish on the journals and the cranks ready to go in it's about time for the master engine builder himself to take over and he's got a bag full of tricks and tech gems that'll make any motor last longer and make more power [Music] we set out to build a piece of horsepower history the old 455 by first tearing down a boneyard beast to render a usable bottom end then we took the block to joe mandelo's tech center for a complete machining at the crank balance and the stock rods resized for use with new speed pro pistons now it's time for dr oz himself to step in for his basic cleanup porting of our edelbrock performer rpm heads the biggest thing about doing these heads is mastering this grinder because the grinder gets away from people you gotta have grinder control remember you on the grinder than on you no doubt who's in charge of the grinder here and after roughing out the short side radius time for a little polishing and here mondello uses a creation of his own called a flapper stick it leaves one consistent texture in the port which helps to have a much more better homogeneous fuel mixture and a lot better straddle layer of incoming fuel in the port runner our heads are also treated to a basic valve job to make sure the valves seal to the combustion chambers but that's not the only reason the different angles on the valve seat are going to change the wet flow characteristics and the drive characteristics of a cylinder head what we're doing here is pressure testing the seat to make sure it's sealing properly see we're well into the green here at point eight back in the porting room mondello meticulously deburs the block to eliminate the smallest possible obstruction of oil flow like here smoothing out an oil hole that lubricates the timing chain done even goes into the water jackets to clean out the rust and calcium by getting in there with this thing and cleaning that up engine runs cooler through break in and cooler through the whole life of the engine hey before we start building up our bottom bed i want you to meet the real boss of the tech center this is the cisco kid he's dressed for speed and born to run meanwhile i think the doctor's ready to operate and the first or procedure is to knock in the new cam bearings before anything else happens joe installs the rear main to measure it with a gauge hey check out the tool he invented for getting the main back off modelo spent years coming up with innovations that improved the oldsmobile engine's notorious oil return issues well like the four oil restrictors he puts into the mains it keeps more oil down in the main bearings and around the rod bearings because of the large capacity of oil flow of course you have to modify the main bearings in order for the restrictors to work in goes the cam now which by the way is a comp hydraulic roller with their special pro plasma nitride treatment next installing special front and back oil galley plugs make sure that the oil galley plug in the back has got a forty thousandth oiling hole in it if it's a three inch pipe plug you will burn up the cam and you will burn up the distributor gear guaranteed now the crankshaft can go in along with main caps and arp bolts then using a feeler gauge he makes sure thrust is between six and twelve thousands it's a six okay check the top and also check the bottom next he pulls the crank forward to tighten the bolts before torquing 90 pounds with molle uses timing gears that change the olds from a slit fit to a press-fit setup it's plain to see that mondello doesn't use any part right out of the box that definitely goes for piston rings after precisely checking the end gaps and in many cases grinding them down a little he uses a special stone to smooth out the sharp edges the biggest scratches in a cylinder bore are the sharp edges on these o-rings this side is for opening and closing events this side over here is for intake center line mondello is a strong advocate of degreeing the cam at four cylinders two on the right bank and two on the left your degree or camshaft you have worked on the heart of the engine if the cam timing is right everything else will fall in place after installing the oil pump and pickup we'll be good to go and finish the build back home at our shop meanwhile it was mesmerizing to spend a couple of days with this icon of engine building still going strong after 50 years of high performance perfection question is always asked to my wife when's joe lynn retire joe's not going to retire we're going to have the funeral and retirement party the same day so show up that's the way it's going to work [Music] well our 455 olms motor is back in the shop and ready for us to finish the build next week with all these parts and they will even take it back to the dyno and pound on it you know i guess it goes without saying when you build a motor the best way to save money in the long run is to build it right and build it to last we certainly witnessed that at mondelo's place those guys are meticulous with every step of the process including degreeing the camp and why not when you degrade the camshaft you're making sure it's synchronized with a crankshaft well it's been a while since we've done this drill so let's review the steps of one of the more popular methods of course you got to have some tools like a degree wheel a dial indicator a pointer and hey what better use of an old coat hanger in this and some kind of positive stop device and you can even make one of these with an old spark plug with your timing set and cylinder heads installed rotate the crank clockwise until number one piston is at top dead center then after aligning the pointer with tdc on the wheel install the piston stop so the bolt protrudes about an inch rotate the crank till it touches the piston stop record the degree wheel number and rotate counterclockwise till you contact the stop again the numbers should match with the dial indicator mounted to the block and directly over the lifter or intake side spring rotate the crank clockwise till the lifter is at maximum lift and zero the indicator now rotate the crank and as the lifter moves up stop when the indicator shows 50 thousands of rise record that number from the degree wheel okay continue rotating past maximum lift till the indicator again shows 50 thousands and record that number both should match the numbers on your cam card as we saw at mandela's tech center joe insists on degreeing at four cylinders two on each bank of the motor so why isn't one enough doesn't tell you whether or not the lifter boards are straight doesn't tell whether or not your cam tunnel is straight doesn't tell you whether it is slanted front to back so when i teach somebody here in my engine blueprinting course i make all my students degree four cylinders two on the right bank two on the left bank oh well one thing i've learned over the years is no two engine builders do everything exactly the same but i think they all agree that some degree is better than no degree we'll be right back [Music] a well prepped block is the critical starting point for any engine build but it can also be an expensive one when you get your build back from the machine shop so today we're going to show you a couple budget tech tips that will save you money in the short run and extend the life of your block in the long run for the first one all we need is a die grinder a grinding stone and some burrs this 5-liter ford has a good oiling system however the oil return holes here in the lifter valley have sharp edges and raised points that can slow the oil down from getting back in the pan now using the grinder and the stone i'm going to chamfer the holes in the valley so the oil has a nice smooth passage back to the pan [Music] with the burr i'm going to smooth down the area around the rear lifter boards where oil can puddle now be careful not to remove too much material remember we're just smoothing out the rough edges one more thing the rough porous surface of the valley can be restrictive itself so for the icing on the cake we're just going to cover it with some acrylic enamel to give it a smooth slick unrestrictive surface well now that mike's icing or rather paint has dried let's be a little bit more block specific these 5-liter blocks do have one drawback that's worth pointing out the material here in the lifter valley is pretty thin at high rpms some of these blocks have been known to split and it usually starts right in the lifter valley so how does that happen well in a high performance setup the engine can actually twist the cylinders will distort and since the valley is the weak point guess where the crack starts well here's an affordable ounce of prevention called a valley girdle pro and it comes from horsepower sails now you install them here bridging the valley and they strengthen the top of the block reduce stress and dampen harmonics you just tighten down the allen head bolts drill quarter inch holes at each end of the girdles tap in these roll pins and that's it in addition to forge they've got them for other high revving engine applications any place where a little extra strength might prevent a not so simple twist of fate [Music] yeah i don't mind cleaning shop tools i'm off the floor what i even do windows there's one place i draw the line though and that's doing laundry that's one of the reasons we've given up cloth shot towels for these disposable wipe offs now these things are tough and durable even when wet check this out cast iron manifold ain't heavy they're also absorbent and will soak up just about any oils greases or other liquids we throw at them now we like the pop-up box here but like their other towels you can also get them on a roll any car with a high performance engine needs a suspension that can handle the straightaways as well as the curves now adco engineering has been in the sway bar biz since 1961 with over 2 000 applications now this setup here is for mustang and it's made of sturdy tubular steel comes with all the hardware and urethane bushings you need to put it on your ride to keep it handling like a true sports car now the price well it's pretty easy to handle too at 300 bucks build on a budget horsepower projects that save you time and money oh you finally found your dream right but after the first night in the driveway you realize you're still chasing rainbows of course the rainbow in this case is oil well most leaks aren't the result of mechanical failures in fact this one could be the result of a pinhole in the oil pan a less than perfect seal who knows well to try to find and fix this camaro's leak we're going to try out a new product we found called super seal it's actually a two-step process and the first step is to pour in the ultraviolet dye after running the motor about 15 minutes you shut it off and take a uv light to look for the leak okay looks like we've got a little leak here at the oil pan gasket now time for step two the fix-a-leak sealer after that you just drive the car around a few days check the source again and if you don't see green well you've saved some green at the repair shop by the way a bigger leak might take a second application now super seal makes their stop link stuff for radiators transmissions and power steering pumps and the parent company quest even makes the uv light that doubles as a flashlight right now i want to leak some information about upcoming horsepower shows next week we've taken on the challenge of hot rodding one of america's most popular police cars the dodge hemi charger later on we'll correct the gearing in our turbo mustang before we take it to the strip for some serious test and tune see you next time you

Channel: Gunpowder & Gasoline

Views: 23,736

Rating: 4.9050846 out of 5

Keywords: powerblock, powernation, engine build, howto, automotive diy, 455 engine, joe mondello, horsepower, Oldsmobile, engine guru, muscle car, performance engine, joe mondello oldsmobile

Id: pw4RmUFpVig

Length: 17min 48sec (1068 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2020