secret squirl head quarters, 351w build

I can never think of a tytle for my projects. after hours of searching for a mysterious rattle, and thinking it was the invertiflow baffle it ended up being a broken spring in the bell housing and it was bouncing around. so while the engines out might as well send it off to the machine shop.    

Was the spring piece from the damper plate?

What are the plans for the engine rebuild?

Was the engine giving you any problems?

Reason I am asking, I also have '89 with approx 1200 hours, but runs fine for now . . .

Shawn,
No matter where that part came from, do put a new damper plate in. From the picture, it could also be a broken split lock washer?

I purchased an '89 a few weeks ago. It also made a rattling noise when I put it in gear and it had a dirty idle. I pulled the damper plate and looked just like yours. No physical damage but some of the springs where loose enough that I could move them back and forth in the slots. I installed a new plate and it cured the noise and the dirty idle.

That's the great debate, theirs nothing in that bell housing that would use a lock washer? their is two springs that slop around in their pretty good, size and shape say spring. either way its getting replaced. Question, do you put anti-sieze on the splines going into the dampner? cant hurt..     

Still like to put a small dab of good sealer in corners but the one piece gaskets are worth the extra coin IMO.1 vote for Teal.

Hey Shawn, are you on Long Lake or the Chain?? Who is doing the motor work, a local shop??

I have some of those valve covers in the shop here. Instead of doing the Ford racing ones. I was thinking of blasting the red off and doing wrinkle black and sanding the paint off of the letters after it dries.

Either way could be a neat spin on some factory pieces.

phatsat67 wrote: I have some of those valve covers in the shop here.

If you ever change your mind or come across another set send them this way,I know a Team Red boat that they would look good on

I was expecting to see pictures of a squirrel nest in the muffler!

Gotta agree with Joe on the heads. Spend the money now for a set and take full advantage of the other upgrades.

Silver on the block and Teal on the valve covers would be very cool! Combine those with new hoses with the white PCM branding would be very clean!

as for freshening up a 20 year old engine, my thinking is its better to do it now than wait till theirs a hole in the side. Hyperformance in Fox lakes doing the machine work.
Whats the real difference between the gt40 heads and stock? is it really worth the dollars per horsepower? Ive always herd the stock cast exaust manifolds are to restrictive to make large HP. It would be interesting to see some dyno sheets. Im going for leak free and reliable.   

The manifolds are not the bottle neck. The heads are. The GT-40 and GT-40P heads have larger intake and exhaust ports as well as revised "quench" style combustion chambers. The P heads flow a little better and cost the same so there is no reason not to go with them. There is a place in Florida (someone help me on the name) that sells completely rebuild P heads and will drill them for 351 size studs for somewhere around 250ish a head. Joe and Tim will tell you the upgrades you do if you don't change the heads will just be money you throw up into the air and watch it blow away.

What camshaft have you selected? There is a lot more options for you being a standard rotation engine because of the PCM 1.23 Transmission.

The biggest non roller cam for the reverse rotation engines coupled with a good intake and the GT-40P heads usually nets in the 325 HP range. That is a big kick in the pants compared to the stock 240 horse motors.

Side note: You can weld better than me ha.

A hole in the side of a well taken care of engine is pretty rare, certainly untouched bottom ends going 2-3x as many hours are much more common than ones that have a serious failure. That being said I replace perfectly good engines all the time “while I have it out” so who am I to judge.

A huge part of freshening up an engine is going through the heads. Certainly as important (more important in my mind) than getting into a bottom end that isn’t showing signs of problems. That being said if you are truly talking about a “fresh long block” that would include minimally a valve job on the heads. Depending on the market that is usually at least a few hundred dollars, and the quality of the work and valves used varies greatly- remanufactured gt40p (gt40 heads are more expensive and no better than the gt40p for this application) heads are available for about 450 a pair from Clearwater cylinder head – they are superior to the stock heads in every way. They have a smaller combustion chamber (that bumps up the compression without moving away from stock piston geometry) with a more efficient spark plug location, which happens in our applications to make the spark plugs also easier to change. They also flow better and are typically a better quality casting (and haven’t been in a boat for the last 15 years). With absolutely no other changes you would pick up on the order of 40 hp for a couple benjamins over the cost of reworking what you have.   With an intake and cam change as well you would see a little more, with an intake and cam alone you are not likely to see as nearly much of a change as the heads alone unless you went so aggressive you changed the idle character/reliability of the engine.

The stock exhaust is not especially restrictive, the pcm pyramid design supports considerable hp increases, there is some evidence to support that moving the risers from 3 to 3.5 inch helps a bit but unless you were going for a hundred hp increase I wouldn’t be worried about the stock manifolds beyone perhaps a slight clean up with a die grinder.
Love the spare prop holder. – don’t walk into that thing.