On Wed Mar-02-2011 15:52, Roy Witt (1:387/22) wrote to Roger Nelson:   
      
    RW> 01 Mar 11 08:17, Roger Nelson wrote to Roy Witt:   
      
    RN> I keep thinking, for some reason, that the Del Ray was a station   
    RN> wagon.   
      
    RW> Not in 55-57. It was a wagon in 58, but that was dropped and   
    RW> renamed Biscayne and Bel Air.   
      
   I remember now.  (-:   
      
    RN> We then tried to cut corners by collapsing the hydraulic lifters,    
    RN> which was a flop of an idea and I ended up putting solids.   
      
    RW> I'd hate to think of the position your rockers were in after you   
    RW> did that lifter thing. Was the rocker even on the tip of the valve   
    RW> stem?    
      
   We already knew that, so we shimmed the lifters to take up the slack.  When   
   that did not work to my satisfaction, I dug deeper in my pockets and bought   
   the solids.  Little did I know that I'd end up working at that dealership six   
   years later.  The solid lifters didn't cost as much as my imagination thought   
   they would.   
      
    RN> Manifold was an Edelbrock 2-pot with altered Rochester 2-bbl   
    RN> carburetors and progressive linkage.   
      
    RW> You mean it had 3 dueces.    
      
   Yes, I corrected that in a later message.   
      
    RW> Was working on a 66 GTO this morning with the same setup. This one    
    RW> came into the shop for a re-seal, but it had a lot of other    
    RW> problems that needed to be addressed first. The valve stems were    
    RW> mushroomed over from the rockers beating on them. We didn't    
    RW> realize it at the time, but the cam was going flat. All of the    
    RW> valves, rockers, push rods were replaced. When it went out the    
    RW> door, the owner called me from a friendly shop up the road and it    
    RW> had begun to make rocker noise again. I had him tow it back after    
    RW> listening to it and then replaced the cam and lifters. When we    
    RW> fired it up today it sounded rightous.   
      
   After we got the solids in and fired up that Corvette engine, we decided to   
   take a test drive from New Orleans to Slidell.  Somewhere along the way there   
   or back, both head gaskets were blown, so we had to pull everything off from   
   the short block up and I installed custom aftermarket gaskets the next day.  I   
   think I forgot to mention I had the heads milled, but it was so long ago, I   
   don't remember the thickness.  I also had to drain the water and oil out of   
   the pan and flush the engine twice with fresh oil, just to make sure I got all   
   the water out.  As it turned out, that was the right thing to do.   
      
    RN> We also used a burr drill bit to smooth out the rough interior of the   
    RN> exhaust manifolds.  That was the hardest part.   
      
    RW> Shoulda done like I did for my first 55, by some Hedman headers.   
    RW> NOT! After brazing up the cracks three times, I went to those 57   
    RW> ram exhaust manifolds and sold the headers that Hedman sent me as a   
    RW> replacement for their junk headers. Learning my lesson from that   
    RW> episode, on the 56 I used 91-98 Chevy truck headers. They're   
    RW> shorter and have a ball outlet. The reason the Hedmans cracked was   
    RW> because the header has to be so long to get past the rear engine   
    RW> mounts. I removed those and their brackets on the frame in the 56.   
    RW> The only thing I wish I had done differently was to replace those   
    RW> feeble front mounts with side mounts, like Chevy did in 58.    
      
   I kept and used the stock headers.  We also removed the rough edges in the   
   intake manifold that we could get to and then spent a lot of time blowing it   
   out with compressed air.   
      
    RN> Engle 3/4 race camshaft, Mallory dual point distributor started that   
    RN> engine so fast, you'd swear all you had to do was look at the   
    RN> ignition key and the engine would start.   
      
    RW> I had a 72 Chevy pickup like that.   
      
   I couldn't get any vehicle I had since then to start that fast.   
      
    RN>   Logy below 40 MPH, but after that, no one could stay with me.  I   
    RN> don't recall what rear end ratio was in it,   
      
    RW> Probably a 3.42:1...that's what the 55-57 rear end I have in the   
    RW> shed says it is. There's a 71 Camaro or Nova rear end under the 56   
    RW> and I want to rebuild this one and put it under there. The 56 has   
    RW> 3.08:1 in it and the OD makes its cruise speed at 75mph, a bit too   
    RW> fast for me.   
      
   In my Mark VIII, I can't tell how fast I'm going unless one of two things   
   happen: 1) I actually look at the speedometer or 2) a cop pulls me over for   
   speeding.  So, what I do now when I'm on the highway is use the Ron Popeil   
   method of "Set it and forget it".  (-:  And I always set the CC to 5 MPH below   
   the speed limit.   
      
    RN> but we didn't fool with that and instead concentrated on the engine.   
    RN> 137 MPH clocked speed and took a mile to stop.  Later on, I installed   
    RN> dual exhaust.   
      
    RW> If they had made 57 brakes like those on my Z28, you could have   
    RW> stopped in 198 feet.   
      
   THAT I would have liked.   
      
    RN> I think I have the 35 lbs you lost.  (-:  I have to get back to 219   
    RN> or so or I'll regret it if I don't.  At my height it isn't too   
    RN> noticeable.   
      
    RW> I notice the lighter weight in my joints and muscles. I don't get   
    RW> as tired as I used to.   
      
   I still bowl every Tuesday in the afternoon senior mixed league and that night   
   in the men's league.  So far, I'm not suffering any duress -- not even a year   
   and a half ago when my BP was 200/100.  Remember that?   
      
   As an aside, I've been driving my daughter's 1999 GMC Yukon a lot recently and   
   decided it gives a smooth ride and acceleration.  In other words, I like it.    
   Too bad it wasn't that way in the previous decade or I'd still have my 1984   
   3/4 ton Chevy.   
      
      
   Regards,   
      
   Roger    
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: NCS BBS - Houma, LA - (1:3828/7)