OILING! Small Block Vintage Chevy (Chevrolet) Motor - Ed Smith's Tricks of the Trade

okay I'm here at Five Star engines and Ed gonna cover some oiling part one building a small block Chevy with performance so this is going to be fun Ed what do we have here we have a Chevrolet motor we're going to put it in a stock car that would be a dirt track car okay and uh a little rounded round racing and I built several of those over the years and uh it's nothing that there's no secrets about it but it's just some of the things that we do to make our motor maybe not as fast as anybody else's but they might last longer okay if they last longer in a race and finish the race that's a good part yeah durability is a big deal it's a big deal yeah okay so so we built some Motors over the years bigger Motors and I've had some small block Chevy motors 434 cubic engine and that would be raced on a mile track okay so with three tracking and we've done our 377 Motors that would be a 400 cubic inch with a 350 crank so that would be a big bore Short Stroke type thing and that was good for uh some 3 8 tracks but we our favorite probably is the 383 stroker motor okay what do you like about the 383 in particular just a stroke and we can put a longer Rod set it six inch Rod anytime you make the rods longer it takes the the scuff off the skirts of the piston and don't push the Pistons sideways the longer the rod the Piston will just go straight up and down instead of talking sideways I see and that's a big deal right especially on race cars and and we're holding six thousand seven thousand RPMs and we've had some of our Racers that uh some of the guys came here with a lot of money and so we had to spend a little bit more money to keep up with them so we had to run 8 000 RPMs wow that wasn't too bad to do we ordered a few things about that but uh this particular motor here the main thing is the oiling I spend a couple three hours on this motor just to do a machining and it's got nothing very little to do with it but it's going fast let's just make it live longer okay so awesome do we want to jump off on that point right now let's talk about oiling yeah we could look a little bit just so anyways we would uh basically start out by picking a good motor yeah and we want this cam here this low area here to be the same all the way around okay and not order one side you're talking about the casting at that casting yeah okay there's cast order one side that means that this cylinder walls may be thin and these over here thick because the whole thing is shifted on the casting this is a good indication but this circle around here that's the same all the way around interesting okay so then we always start here we we tap these holes and we always tap them with plugs in them they have free spots in them just drove in and sometimes they fall off okay so then so that's part of oiling then when we put our cam bearings in we always put the the oil hole down here because the cam rotates this way the oils comes out here and it picks up the oil whereas under pressure as the engine rotates this way around I see so if it was up here the more the camber and wears it would go down down further and this Gap would be bigger and bigger and bigger wow okay so you're kind of thinking ahead that's a little bit of wearing that's the way they're supposed to be put in okay and a lot of people this this we'll uh skit we're doing here it's not for the true engine builder but the beginner okay and he can pick out a few things like this he wants to do and maybe he said he don't want to do those things right that's quite all right sure but we're at least uh even the some of the major engine builders they might learn something okay good yeah they're good good thing they might learn something yeah so then you get up the top then we've taken a d bird all this with a little grinder all the way around this head so we don't have flakes growing flaking off this machine shop work okay and then we turn on and tap these holes in here put these pipe in because we don't want the oil we want the oil to stay up in here and not go through these original get holes and fall on the crack oh really we don't want oil falling in the cranks because it just turns more with if it's in some 30 weight oil takes more horsepower to turn it okay so it's really a drag on the crank to have too much oil to push through okay yeah got it there's a lot of oil up here okay so we would put a head gasket on here and make sure this area right here is not casted through the head gaskets on a hole here okay and we want it to be sure that that this casting didn't plug the hole that's the oil returns from the head okay so the oil to return to the edge here then we're gonna go here now we want the oil somewhere with the floor on the front because it's not going to go good to the motor it's going to go out these holes in the front and go in the timing chain which is all good oh I see okay so if you didn't put these in all the way up to here okay and this way more oil is going straight to the time okay got it and these holes look there these are sometimes as small as a dime really here and here okay it's very easy to take a grinder and just spend a couple minutes and make these holes they're as big as a mouse a rat would almost complete that hole okay so as you're going on the track the oil goes to back it all goes down that hole okay and no no restrictions at all okay so so so just so I don't misunderstand it's okay if they'll go through here or to the timing yeah you don't want it going down to the crack on the crack okay got it okay so the oil goes down to this hole here yep then uh and and again we've tapped these and tapped the other holes and on this one we turn around and cut the deck already okay what we want it to be okay and we put the bore on this particular engine it's a flat top motor that was spec motor you can't do much to it supposedly okay they say we can't do too much but we don't tell them everything anyways we might run about maybe a four inch more we might run four inch three thousand more clearance okay enormous maybe a thousandths and a half or two but we might start out right we're on the four okay so let's go back to the oil then yeah the oil's gonna go down that hole Yeah so now it's going to go down in the engine I'll turn the motor over here let's see where it's going it's going to come out in this area right here come down here all right okay and it's going to hit this flap okay then it's gonna flow out over this and the crankshaft comes around the counterweight and hits it and throws it up the cylinder wall oh okay so we're gonna drill drill this hole uh-huh this hole has never was there oh that you put that hole in yes the crankshaft right here all the oil from that hole comes out and goes in here okay and a little bit comes over the side I see yeah so that oil returns back through this hole okay so again it's good on any motor okay so again that's still to keep not too much oil on the crank on the crank okay it Returns on both ends of the pan okay yeah getting into the pan I got it okay so then we've taken a drill on this particular motor uh-huh we're taking the drill and it has a hole here that oils from the camber up oil is one rod bearing okay this hole here oils two rod bearings and this one holds two and this one holds two and the rear one only boils one right we've drilled this out larger than quarter inch okay I see always you hear without the cam bearing all the way in the oil galley okay the drill bits about this long right so once we drill these I'll get the bearings for you okay this is a normal bearing yep I haven't did this that's a small hole in it yep for the there's oil and that's going to go in that hole sure and we don't want this hole to be a big hole a small bearing hole right because the oil is going to push the bearing up on the crank ah right right you should match the sides yes this hole here should be bigger than that one I see okay so we've taken these bearings and we drove them on the back side with a drill okay so we don't want to drill the other side because it should mess up the bearing so we drilled these bigger than that hole there just they were so slightly bigger see how big it is it's as big as that wall right compared to the hole in this bearing wow that's a huge difference some people may say well that's gonna have any oil pressure don't worry the oil pump a small block should be usually is big enough for two engines we never considered but not a 454 oil pump and a small block really okay yeah that would be dump way too much oil okay then you can't control it now so yeah if you had a terrible oil pump that might be a point but not in this case yeah not this case okay I got you we've got these all drilled uh-huh when we did this we chamfered this hole right here with the healing Mark yeah we made it a little bigger like porting it out it's going to be a sharp right that's where the oil goes in the filter and goes through this hole and comes out here and oils the rest of the motor I see once this comes out of here uh-huh it was in this filter here this is a foiled filter adapter we definitely would put it over here so it's more room in around this hole I put this thing over here right in this way plug it up so this this is the correct way to put it in here okay then these have a valve in here right spring-loaded valve so maybe certain percent of the oil goes through the filter the restaurant goes in the motor okay so we're going to plug this off uh-huh put a plug in it okay you can buy this made with the plug in it and put this in it so 100 of the oil goes through the filter okay yes now you're making sure yeah all of it all is getting filtered instead of only 20 sure that's great okay and we have a little cutter we should actually run a motor we cut the filter apart yep take it take the paper out and spread it out get a magnet and go through the debris okay so it's aluminum and what steel if there's anything at all okay so we know where we're at as far as excellent yeah some people just look for glitter but without the magnet you don't know what it is right what it is okay here's the little device here and I've drilled this you piece of panel so you can see that or not yeah I can Genie holes in here and a CD hole in the end of it here okay now these are restrictions that we put in the back block we're back the motor and we stick this oil going to a roller lifter solid roller lifter and a bigger race car motor okay so it restricts the oil instead of flooding the roller lifters and not Hydraulics okay and that plugs the lifters is that because the engine was made originally for a hydraulic lifter yes okay the holes are too big yeah I got it okay this just restricts the lifter area not the rest of the motor I see okay that's a little couple things oh that's a great great point because I'm sure a lot of people will change from a hydraulic to a solid lifter but not necessarily know to do that's right yeah they do yeah so then this is a front cover you have aluminum cover or a chrome cover okay this particular one we always grind a notch in the bottom I see and that oil is less the oil out of this other than that you have a big Reservoir okay oil around the seal and it won't drain the pan okay it's a good way to stop that oil front seal from leaking interesting yeah just a little secret there cut a little notch in that before you put the seal in okay great that's a great great idea yeah at the same time when we get ready to do a distributor so again oil is important this is a regular Chevrolet distributor HEI okay so then this is oil pressure from one side of the motor to the other one okay that's the way it's made that's all this might be 80 pounds oil pressure okay so when we get ready to do our Distributors if you spend a lot of money on distributor like the HEI or MSD there'll be a little hole here drilled into this passage to oil this gear okay but you have to spend five or six hundred per distributor oh yeah really it's a lot of money yeah I see that Sanderson Ford thanks Neil so anyways we turn on and take our distributor and cut a little notch in them with a hacksaw okay a little and see that cut yeah I do see that yeah and this is oil pressure and we have to cut at an angle because the gears are cut angle and the saw won't cut the gear so we cut a little angle there okay and that's a little cpg of course oil on this gear just a little bit right it's just a little bit but I don't have anything to do with oil pressure right because it leaks everywhere oil leaks everywhere so you don't yeah whatever it's one big leak so guys sometimes on our distributor we have a bigger camshaft a lot of valve springs then we'll change that distributor gear to a brass one okay and that's quieter right no no it actually will ruin this brass gear oh really yes instead of ruining the cam oh it's like a wear item that way that's right we can throw this away oh okay I wish I don't get swore out so other than that about 30 weight oil and uh 4 000 RPMs might take 25 or 30 horsepower to pull that oil pump right wow yes that's a lot that's a lot even some of our secrets on our drag cars not a secret at all we might put a accumulator under the seat of the dragster okay and that accumulator will hold a couple quarts of oil Under Pressure spring pressure okay I'm gonna drain the oil on the motor really on the last run and that accumulator under the seat that can full of spring-loaded will hold 60 pounds of oil pressure okay by pastel it'll hold it for like maybe five minutes okay that's enough to make a make a run I'll run yeah yeah and the last one on the day that's what we would do there sometimes okay all right the silver somewhere Pistons this has to be a flat top piston the skyline expensive one for a for a little uh dirt track car here yeah okay and then for the oil we've ground the side of this oil narrowed this Rod okay it says on here minimum seven thousands okay maximum maybe a hundred oh wow yes I like to run thirty five forty thousand side Trends okay so the oil if you kept the oil in this bearing it's doing its job as a bearing but if it can't leave then it will get hot okay the oil will get so hot it'll melt the bearing right melt the lead that's why I have to keep the oil moving yeah we want to go in the pan cool off and come back around I see so we round these all up the same time we turn on the ground this Notch okay this Notch is on the top of the bearing yep on both sides the rod okay and that's of course oil on the camshaft okay right because the cam is down underneath right on top where I was the cam right it's got those screwed oil on this under the head is what I meant yeah yeah we used to do this years ago before I had a belt sand we'd grind these notches in all four okay to get the oil out of them right I think I heard summertime and a good source told me NASCAR sometimes runs almost a hundred thousandths sorry clearance on the rods will be a job build the motor the center of the rod they put shims in the in the wristbands really so this Rod might be here is shimmed over a little bit in the center of the crank okay and the only other side would be shimmed over perfectly in the center crank even though it's got a hundred thousand sight okay but they run less than one thousands Rod clearance but zero in oil right right that's the difference yeah and I hear say that every time that they put the uh went back to zero or one thousandths clearance of Rod yep it took that vibration out of all these eight rods banging on the crank at different times if they were tight they would sit there on the crank like an electric motor right the first one went right up wow yeah I guess that makes sense I never thought of that that's okay yeah people think about that well thanks for making me think Ed so that is awesome yeah yeah so that's a little bit on the oil okay got a rod berries covered we got our oil controlled right oil pump said no secret there no depends on the pan now is there anything about how you assemble how you assemble the motor that has anything to do with oil pressure no not really not really okay it's just not the clearances yeah and then on this crank and this this is a 350 crankshaft I chose one that's 30 000 it's under okay under around 30 000 it's under under stroke okay so once you do that NASCAR so go back to NASCAR because they know a lot yeah we do they went ahead and ground their throws down to and send it inch and a quarter maybe two inch okay and one inch 800 thousands and they put a Toyota rod in it okay now that's the difference a little technical here the difference between a small small one eight hundred thousands Rod it's the speed between the crankshaft and the rod bearing is 6000 RPMs okay the two differences that's like a small pulley and a big pulley right that's a good way to describe it sure wow so that slows the bearings down okay and they'll last a lot more we've got we've got a pranker here you know who that is no I don't the bearings are thicker the bearings are thicker let's start again because of that sneeze yeah all right well we chose the 30 30 cranks it's already under and then the thickness of the bearing is thicker than a Standard Bearing oh right so therefore we got a little bit more pound to it a little bit more than beating up a thin bearing right sick of the bearing it's a lot better it lasts sure yeah yeah plus the speed of the crankshaft between this this size and and the bearing speed between the two pieces right yeah so wow then we're done with pistons piston top bring lands I'm going to get ready to grind the Rings okay got the Rings we always have to and on this particular front we'll run probably 30 000 top ring okay and 25 the second ring and Gap and what's the purpose of a gap in the Rings they can't touch okay they'll get hot these motors get hot if they touch as soon as I touch the ring breaks okay and it comes apart right sometimes it takes the chunk right out of the Piston wow something will break right people spend it all the time with pistons the chunk out of them okay and then never Gap the Rings okay so you're basically estimating how much Gap it needs when it gets hot yeah so that it won't that's right I have a problem yeah okay we're gonna start out with 30 on the top ring okay 25 on the second range okay and the oil ring is just a flimsy ring okay gotcha this happens to be one of our race race car Pistons we'll talk about this for no reason sure but there's one that's been cut down this sounds gonna be for a junior fuel car okay you see how many holes has been wow so it's got to be lightened up by all that right enough so this motor would go about 10 000 RPMs really it has some oil holes in here to return that oil find the ring this ring here the skinny ring takes the oil off the cylinder walls it has to have some place to return it okay so those are there for oiling yes with the oil off the off the skirts okay yeah yeah okay so when the when the Piston's traveling down it's capturing oil that's right and and then it builds up so it's got to escape somewhere that's right okay I see and this one happens to be where we have some total seal Rings oh yeah right and the top ring is just a little rail right instead of a top ring like our normal rings are sure because of this we have holes in the top the Pistons okay what are those holes for compression goes in that hole okay it goes behind the ring and pushes the ring out but the ring is a skinny Oil ring wow and there's no drag on these Pistons wow that's crazy we used to put a piston in the bore and oil it like it's supposed to be and get a spring tester and see how much it takes to pull the Piston up and down okay and that's important sure on how many RPMs and horsepower right so now these have these Rings there but the first and second ring are skinny little Rings yep I see that wow those are thin right yeah this is all new technology in the last probably 15 years okay yeah excellent wow yeah that's really cool the camshaft we'll talk about that a little bit yeah let's do that we chose a camshaft lifted duration and overlap and things like this but once you choose the camshaft people ask about degree in a cam with all kinds of degree wheels and and indicators and stuff once you buy the camshaft you can't change it right right you can't change where the intake valve opens compared to the exhaust valve no that's set when it's yeah set right if you don't like it buy another cam right the only thing you can do in the camshaft whatever you do I talked to a cam grinder one time Chris even a little bit he quizzed me a little bit he said how old are you actually says you're not a degree of camshaft yes he says why ask me any more questions you either can advance it are you yeah retired the camshaft a couple degrees for every degree it's ten thousandths valve left oh okay so you move the the intakes ahead of the piston or the exhaust the end of the Piston one of the other you could either on a cam you can either Advance or it we're done wow if you the camshaft the car possibly would go 150 miles an hour if you advance the camshaft it will spin the wheels and only go 120 miles an hour okay so they give you more torque but less high speed okay less horsepower so our charger if the guy's got to go to the top of the track I'll recharge the cam don't go to the bottom we're not drag racing right right if I'm going to stay along the top sure that it totally makes sense now so many times the Ford trucks at Sanderson Ford down here I've done so many for those in early ages the 464 dually yeah Ford Motor Company had the camshaft almost six degrees and they want torque for those things that would not spin the wheels right but it saved the drive shaft the U-joints but it wouldn't pull nothing right it wouldn't pull a trailer for these Farmers wow so we took the cam out to take the cam out we took the lower gear off and put a 460 police car floor gear put it back together again and the dually would sit here and just spin the wheels and pull anything we didn't care about that dually going 100 miles an hour right right simple interesting yeah Simple Solution yeah right on over the years yeah interesting well that's fantastic okay well I guess this concludes part one part right it's part one mostly engine oiling yeah where you're in building an engine Ed thank you so much for your time and we'll look forward to seeing the next part of this very good thanks for coming right I enjoyed this [Music] [Music]

Channel: BarryT’sGarage

Views: 125,707

Keywords: BarryT, Barrytsgarage, edsmith, five star engines, flathead v8, custom engine, engine rebuilding, 3 dueces, carb tuning, carburator tuning, engin building

Id: -3gjwBGOOCo

Length: 25min 46sec (1546 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023