Road Runner Nest

Restoration may be too strong a word for what I plan to do with to one of the Satellite Sebrings I bought several years ago as a donor for the RR/GTX restoration. It won't come close to the level of restoration the RR/GTX went through. It's currently mounted up the rotisserie, outdoors undercover, with work having to be postponed awaiting warmer/drier weather to complete some paint and body work. In the meantime managed to finish up the motor and transmission recondition/mild build up. Block appears to have low miles on relatively recent commercial rebuild, .040 over flat top pistons, .010 down, should be 8:1 CR with the 452 head castings that were on it. Along with new rings and bearings, installed a new Comp Cams 268/276 cam/lifters/timing set/spring kit and some left over HP parts. Same thing for the trans, rebuild with a few somewhat inexpensive internal HP upgrades. Should be a pretty decent daily driver with some performance while burning regular fuel.

Wow that's some nice work!

Bruce - the motor looks great!! Nice detail work as well.
Are you running a stock converter in the tranny?

Nice work on the engine, Are you going to paint the tranny silver?

71Beeper wrote:Bruce - the motor looks great!! Nice detail work as well.
Are you running a stock converter in the tranny?

I'll answer this one for you Bruce,
Thanks, I should have mentioned this will be a budget build at every step. The cast crank in this motor requires a weighted converter, any custom/performance stall speed converter would require a special order to have weights added or a special flex-plate. Frankly have other things to spend the funds on. Just picked up a RECON brand rebuilt standard torque converter from my local Transtar transmission parts outlet for a total cost of $64. They list it as a "mid stall" converter, to me that makes it a factory spec for a standard performance 400, around 2100 as the service manual claims. Should be fine for a driver, we'll see how it drives, change it later if necessary.
Funny you should mention painting the trans case. I was kind of bummed, I had left the bare cases with a co-worker at the dealership to run through the fancy eco-friendly water based parts washing machine. Hoping to come back at the end of the day to find a bright shinny new looking case. Not only was it not clean but it was discolored a dark gray as well, turns out the rotating table in the machine failed and rather than removing it from the machine at the end of the cycle, it had been left sitting in the machine most of the day, without an immediate rinse. Thought about painting it but was concerned it would look worse when the paint started flaking/scratching off at some point down the road. Decided to go all natural. Doug

Really looks great , nice work

72Satellite440-Dan

72RoadRunnerGTX wrote:

71Beeper wrote:Bruce - the motor looks great!! Nice detail work as well.
Are you running a stock converter in the tranny?

I'll answer this one for you Bruce

Dang and I SO wanted to be able to take credit for that nice piece of work!

I think you can buy a silver paint that should not flake off at least thats what the guy said when I purchased a can of it and for the 10-14 dollars it might be worth it although you don't really see the tranny when it is installed. All in all it is always nice to see a car that was initially for parts come back to life as a driver

Dang and I SO wanted to be able to take credit for that nice piece of work! [/quote]

I'll get the names figured out one of these days.....

Looks super!

What's that Holley you're running? I've never seen that type with an electric choke that's a Mopar application, just the Rochester replacement.

List #80555-1, 650CFM 4175 series universal spread-bore. When I picked this motor up several years back, in donor car #2, it had a leaking miss-matched Thermoquad on it I couldn't for the life of me find parts for. Bought a couple other used TQs hoping find something to get this motor running well enough to move this car around when needed prior to disassembly, they were just as ratty as the first one. Out of frustration I ordered the Holley, it will fit well for my current plans for this car as a driver, when tuned/jetted correctly for the 400, and the full electric choke will contribute to good all-around street manners.

Cam run-in day for the 400, couldn't wait for the body. (now muffled)

Sounds real good- grats-nice work

72Satellite440-Dan

Some more recent progress to report on the other car, finished up the bottom of the car, shot some paint in the engine compartment, then shoe-horned it into the garage and mated it up with the drivetrain.

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Looking great Doug! Gunna be a super driver. You probably will feel a little more relaxed driving this one around. Is it a Sebring or Sebring Plus? Scott.