Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Swapping the oil pan and pickup tube is dead simple, don't pass any good used 230/250/292 engine because of that .

The 194 CIC i6 is simply a gutless/worthless engine and was in 1963 too.....

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Just put my 250 all back together this afternoon after buying a new exhaust manifold and painting up my intake.

On a side note, does anyone know what the connection in the 2nd picture is for? I managed to knick it while reinstalling the the manifolds. I presume it's something to do with coolant?

-Mike

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

? what pic. Mike ? .

Need to see to answer your question .

Did you buy one of the new Chinese made exhaust manifolds ? I bought one for my old '76 GMC 2500's 292 and it fit *perfectly* and had NO quality issues ! .

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Whoops

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Is up now, sorry. It was from summit racing in the US, I believe it's American made. I was advised against buying anything offshore.

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

That's your Water Temperature Indicator Light- or Temp Gauge sensor.
If stock, there should be a green wire with a clip connector that mates with that stud.
If you don't like Idiot Lights or inexact electric temp gauges, the input for the Mechanical temp sensor capsule would go in that hole, too.

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

that arrow is pointing to a temp sending unit ........Don

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

I am not aware of an American made exhaust manifold....

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Are Clifford's offshore now?

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

I don't think so. They weren't when I got mine. Easy enough to see...the craftsmanship is to nice for the cheap crap produced overseas.

New Exhaust Manifolds
 

The Chinese exhaust manifold I bought in 2010 was top quality, not cheap crap in any way .

China is in the same place Japan was in the early to mid 1960's : able if not always willing to make better than American quality products for less than 1/2 the price .

I don't know if anyone here is aware that NAPA has an entire catalog of Cast Iron exhaust manifolds including Chevy V8 ' Rams Horn ' and ALL of therm are Chinese made but you'll never know to look at them .

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Looks like Skip White no longer sells them on ebay. I bought a Chevy L6 HEI distributor from KMJ ''Assault Racing'' on ebay. It was a total dud. I had to restore the point-triggered distributor just to get home.
Big post on Electrical Forum. Reply there.

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Haven't posted for a while so here's one of the 292..
Btw, wondering what you guys would suggest in the way of a new carb? Rebuilt mine awhile back but suspect it's simply worn out, runs okay but rich. Prefer to stick with manual choke. thx
https://i.imgur.com/f5c6QAa.jpg?2

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Here is my current work in progress. I installed the other half of header wrap last night just no new pic. Went out and got a new battery today so should be back on the road. Let it sit to long

i6 Carbys
 

Hands down the Rochester Monojet is the best bet .

'68 ~ '72 (I think) has very little in the way of controlled bowl vents etc. and is available with manual choke, some of them I have seen converted to manual choke from automatic .

RockAuto.com sells them from some Mid Western place that has amazingly good cores .

Unless you can wobble the throttle shaft noticeably in the idle position, it's hard to imagine it being worn out .

Most "Carburator problems" are in fact, electrical so move slowly and never, EVER let go of your old core part until the job is 1,000 % finished to your satisfaction .

EVER .

As far as HEI dizzies, the GM ones don't look fancy but are stellar in application ~ the one I bought from a clapped out 1977 Nova Coupe was nasty looking and badly worn in the flyweights and springs etc., I used good used weights from a V8 dizzy that had the same #'s stamped in then plus new plastic slides (important, you'll understand as you take it apart) and springs .

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Here is my 292 build. It's not too pretty but it is functional.

I'm running Tom Langdon's headers, Offenhauser intake with water heat, Edelbrock 500cfm with manual choke, mid-70s stock HEI dizzy. The engine is bored .040" over and an RV cam installed. I gapped the plugs at .045 but I am considering opening them up to .055.

Problems I had were the Edelbrock 650cfm I pulled from the small block I pulled out was simply too big, hence the 500cfm. The Proform dizzy I picked up turned out to be a wobbly, barely functioning POS. The Edelbrock choke cable was also a turd so I found the stock cable with correct handle from SOKY. I also had an issue with it dying on the road but that turned out to be a bad 5psi oil pressure switch I have for the fuel pumps.

Problems I anticipated but did not have were the manifold mounting. I used the small hold-downs where they would fit and double stacked washers where they would not. I pulled the outside studs out and I used Grade 5 bolts for the install as they expand with the heat better than Grade 8.

I started the initial timing at 8* but I have since advanced it by ear. I may be at 10* or 11* and no pinging. I keep the idle set at about 500rpm and there is no movement or vibration.

The tube off the valve cover goes to an old external oil filter that I gutted and filled with steel wool and activated charcoal and rednecked an evap system together as I run dual tanks and the tank in the rear does not vent through the cap. Now, neither does the in-cab tank and the smell in the cab is all but gone.

Current problems are few, mainly it likes to mark its territory out the back, I think it's the rear main but I haven't really ventured into it.

I am on the road a lot and this engine has 10,000 miles since I installed it this past April. I cruise no more than 3,000rpm but typically 2700-2800rpm which puts me at about 62mph. A Gear Vendors would be really nice. My mileage, regardless of what I am doing, loaded, pulling, empty, shut off, it hovers around 10mpg and no change to that with a 15,000 pound trailer. No change pulling my Indian to Arizona from Tennessee either.

Cold starting I found it to be rather warm blooded and even at 20* I have never used full choke. Once warm, it will start with no more than a blip on the key.

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Looking good there .

Experiment with the plug gaps in .010" increments, after about .060" you may notice the cap inside lugs beginning to degrade faster .

Those end bolts on the manifold are a very bad idea ~ GM used pins because the manifold expands and contracts so much, using bolts / nuts on the ends causes all those broken manifolds .

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

I appreciate you! It was a lot of work for 1 guy on leave with a tight window. The whole truck is much like Cajun cooking, a little bit here and a little bit dere.

Thank you for the heads-up. I thought about that but I have also heard it is just about impossible to seal the outside exhaust ports using the cast headers as they are a 2 piece design. This is another reason I use Grade 5 bolts on the manifold and Grade 8 everywhere else, aaaaaaand I chewed up the studs pretty bad pulling them out.

I agree with you on the .010 at a time. I don't think I would go over .055 as I've seen bad things happen to all the electrodes between the plug and the rotor with a bigger gap.

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

#1 :

For those who don't know, 'Rocinante' was Don Quixote's horse when he was Tilting (means attacking with a long spear) at windmills ~ learning the ins and outs of older engines and their proper tuning is often analogous to tilting at windmills .

Anyway, back on point :

I had to open my spark plugs up to .070" on one old 292 (1976 GMC C2500) before the plugs would stop getting oil fouled, after that it "flew" (the test guy's actual amazed word) through the stringent California smog test .

It also ran *perfectly* although it consumed a quart of oil every 300 miles.....

Didn't hardly leak a drop after I finished with it, no visible smoke either . I didn't use Chinese ignition parts for obvious reasons .

If you take some time you'll find dist. caps and rotors with brass contacts, these out last the aluminum ones by far .

Remember : dielectric grease in the wire ends ! . any green on a plug wire end means it's kaput ~ don't waste time trying to clean it .

Each and every plug wire should be checked with a test light, it either passes 12 volts of current or it's bad .

InLine engines often have manifold to head sealing issues, the Dealer training taught us to loosely assemble the two manifolds then offer them up to the cylinder head and start all he bolts, studs and so on, begin tightening the manifold to head bolts from the _center_ then moving outwards, one left, one right and so on ~ the idea is to even draw the manifold assy. the head .

After they're all tight go back and tighten the intake to exhaust pinch bolts .

This should help .

Get rid of those end bolts ! .

I use grade 8 only, I find it too easy to strip or break the grade 5 ones .

I also use mostly old, original hardware I collect off "junk" engines at my local junk yards ~ turned in core engines often have very good stuff on them .

Clean and de rust then re use .

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

My brothers 65 stepside with a 250.

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

I love the plug wires ! .

? why no vacuum advance to the dizzy ? .

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

I wish I could answer that for ya. I do know that when I took the pics, he wasn't finished yet. I can tell you that it is very fast and he could've bought another truck for the money he put in just the motor.

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Cool .

:chevy:

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

He threw everything at it except turbo. If I remember correctly, he said it's upward of 350-375hp. But primarily just hangs out in his warehouse.

Re: Post Your Straight Six Pics!
 

Sadly, that's the end result of most Hot Rods ~ they're no fun to actually drive so they get left sitting after they're finished and fully dialed in .

Me, I build fairly low compression engines that are well balanced and tune them sharply, then I can not only drive to the store daily but I also can keep up with many others in the twisty bits where I most prefer to drive .

Obviously, my rigs get left behind on the straight but that's boring, going fast in a straight line anyway, right ? .