The Official Vortec 454 Info thread

[someotherguy]

Thing is the investment in such.

And there it is. So like I said, nevermind. Super niche ideas like this that take development time and money for likely negative return. If it was me, doing it for myself, I'd probably just carefully silicone the crap out of it and check it closely with the propane torch afterwards.

Richard

 

[BeXtreme]

Each port doesn't need it's own o-ring. You could mold an o-ring of out of silicone if you wanted that would be just like the gasket made for the plenum. Two acrylic plates (so you can see voids) with the pattern milled out put together, pour it, vacuum chamber it, then separate them.

People make custom stuff out of silicone molds all the time. Shouldn't be too hard as long as the mold faces are nice and flat and it's clamped good. Thing is the investment in such.

The spacer seal recesses could be machined and polished in. You'd need 4 o-rings but totally do-able. Who's going to be able to invest in the R&D for such though is the bigger hold-up.

Seems like they are making it more complicated than it needs to be. You could just as easily cut spacers out of steel on a plasma table for 1/4 the cost of milling it out of aluminum. You could also just make a spacer out of acrylic using a router and standard jigsaw or bandsaw in an afternoon. 3-d printing would also be an option and wouldn't cost $300, but it would probably take a while to print and would likely need to be done in 4 separate pieces due to table size restrictions.

Easiest thing would be if you had a CNC router table. Just do all the prototyping and manufacture of the final product on a CNC router table using a sheet of acrylic.

 

[Schurkey]

...as long as the plastic used would stand up to petroleum vapors (gasoline + ethanol, oil)

 

[BeXtreme]

...as long as the plastic used would stand up to petroleum vapors (gasoline + ethanol, oil)

Both PLA and ABS are regularly used for things like gas caps, but they do get severely compromised if directly exposed for significant periods of time. I would probably just prime and paint the final product manufactured in PLA based on this study.
https://www.irjet.net/archives/V6/i7/IRJET-V6I7187.pdf

Or just cut it from an acrylic sheet, which are very resistant to hydrocarbons.

 

[Erik the Awful]

3D print it from polypropylene?

 

[rpoL98]

3/8" aluminum still sounds good.

 

[Scottm]

What do you guys see for oil pressure? My old 97 engine with 233k miles had 60+ cold, 50 hot and 30 at idle hot. I thought that was high. My new engine is the 99 in my build thread. It hits 75 cold, idles at 40 and 50+ hot. I even put in two of the drilled pipe plugs in the front oil gally to oil the timing set. And that's with 10w-30 oil too. Are the L29 pumps known to be high volume? I'm scared of the stock dist drive gear being eaten up on the comp cam.

 

[Piratehunter]

I used a melling standard volume. It is 70 at cold and 35 warm, based on the oem gauge in the dash. I have two of the oiler plugs behind the cam gear. 10-30 oil. the dizzy gear does not get direct oiling, so I cut a .030 slot on the bottom of the dizzy housing to direct some oil to the dizzy/cam gears

 

[Schurkey]

What do you guys see for oil pressure? My old 97 engine with 233k miles had 60+ cold, 50 hot and 30 at idle hot.

I wish my L29 had oil pressure like that. Mine is actually on the low side particularly at hot idle, but not so far gone that I'm motivated to pull the engine and deal with it.

I suppose I should plug in a known-good mechanical gauge to verify.

I even put in two of the drilled pipe plugs in the front oil gally to oil the timing set.

The vented plugs are not intended to oil the timing set, which gets plenty of oil otherwise. Any oil they squirt on the chain/sprockets is incidental.

And that's with 10w-30 oil too.

Try the 5W-30 GM recommends.

I have two of the oiler plugs behind the cam gear.

Again, the vented plugs are for purging air in the oil gallery at startup to reduce lifter ticking when the engine is first lit. Any oil they squirt after that is just by-product of the primary purpose.

10-30 oil.

Try 5W-30.

the dizzy gear does not get direct oiling, so I cut a .030 slot on the bottom of the dizzy housing to direct some oil to the dizzy/cam gears

The dizzy gear does get direct oiling, from the leakage between the distributor housing and the block. Cutting a groove (no o-rings) or drilling a small vertical hole in the housing aligned with the two gears at more-or-less common distributor position for "typical" initial timing--started when MSD put O-rings on the housing to eliminate the "leakage" in the housing-to-block clearance. The O-rings and the drilling meant that a "metered" jet of oil got sprayed on the two gears, instead of a sorta-random amount based on the clearance around the distributor housing. Excess clearance without the O-rings lowers oil pressure, sometimes considerably.

 

[yevgenievich]

I had a rebuilt 305 from machine shop that had excess clearance and the only way to get hot idle oil pressure above 5psi was to put a high volume oil pump on it. Was not happy about that motor. On big blocks, have one showing 25ish hot idle (200k miles) and similar temperature on more of a fresh rebuild showing 30-40 hot idle. But with the oil pump that I have, anything above 1k rpm goes to full max pressure.