[jamyers]

Good Grief, I gotta get out more often...and update this thread!

And Photobucket sucks - but their stupidity has reminded me to update my Premium membership here so I can edit, upload photos, and fix my thread.

Lots has happened since last year...got the brakes working just fine, then the engine ate its crank and rod bearings (remember the wiped cam lobe and lifter?). I tried replacing the bearing inserts, but the crank has been scored enough that within 100 miles it ate the new bearings as well. When cold it has great oil pressure, but once hot the pressure drops down to 5psi or so, and there's a pretty hard rod knock going on. Sigh...

So... I picked up a decent used '92 5.7 TBI engine awhile back, and (insert really long story involving mud-daubers making their home inside the # cylinder here) we're doing a half-rebuild on it and about to swap it into Bubba. New Summit Racing 11001 camshaft, lifters, cam bearings, and a new #6 piston w/ rings, and we should be back on the road in a week or so. The block is in really good shape, with minimal bore wear - they measured a few thousandths over stock, basically only the cross-hatching was worn away. I re-honed the bores very lightly to re-establish a cross-hatch, and will put the 7 original pistons back in (they look that good).

I'm keeping the 'crappylow-performance' TBI swirl-port heads instead of swapping the earlier ones on, mostly because of the far better valve covers - and I'm not bothered that "those heads suck above 4500 rpm" because my son doesn't need to be revving this thing that high to begin with.

Oh, and I alread installed an HEI distributor, the points one was just too worn to work reliably, and the stupid pertronix ones are both still dead as doornails.

I'll be posting pics of the latest progress, and try to catch up.