409ina50buick
Active Member
Rats!
Rat Manure!
- Thread starter 409ina50buick
- Start date
Is that your pet coon in your avatar Jim?
409ina50buick
Active Member
Yes. She is a sweety. A bit cantankerous at times, but lovable. I don't recommend raccoons as pets. They have a vicious bite, and they can wreck your house in one afternoon. Young ones never quit moving. They don't sit in your lap like a cat.
I wish I had an 11 second street car. That it in your avatar?
I wish I had an 11 second street car. That it in your avatar?
Yep, that's the Crusher. I used to go coon hunting with my Dad. He had black and tans and blueticks. Mom raised a few babies. Like you say, they don't make the best pets.
Don, give this a try:I'm not computer literate enough to copy and post the charts that it came out with,but the shape of the torque curve in the rpm where you'd be using it is eye opening.
- Get the application in the state you want it to be.
- Press the "Print Screen" button.
- Press these two keys together - the Window's key (looks like a window, next to the "Alt" key") and "r"
- This will bring up a window called "Run"
- Type in "MSPaint"
- Once MSPaint opens, press the "Ctrl" and "v" keys. This will paste in the screen shot you just took.
- There is a "Select" icon which looks like a box made of dashes/dot, click it.
- Now your cursor will look like cross hairs. Once you click and hold on the picture, you'll see you're drawing a box.
- Draw that box over the part of the picture you want.
- Press "Ctrl" and "c", this will take a copy of the "boxed" picture.
- From the menu bar select File->New
- A box will ask you if you want to save the existing picture, select no.
- In the new window/canvas which comes up, press "Ctrl" and "v" again, this should paste in the smaller selection you made from the screen shot.
- Now from the menu bar, select File->Save As. You may have an option of .jpeg or .bmp, I think either will work, but .jpeg is usually best.
- Give the file a name and specify where to save it to.
409ina50buick
Active Member
Been doing a little due diligence. Weight of a 409 is 620 lbs and the 248 comes in at 746 lbs. That's a net loss of 126 lbs in the front end of the old girl. Replacing that CI behemoth intake manifold with an aluminum one will reduce the front end weight another 20 lbs or more. Exchanging CI exhaust manifolds for tube headers another 20 lbs or so. Am I going to have to cut a couple of spring coils to bring the front end back down?
409ina50buick
Active Member
Any of you ever seen the front shocks on a 1950 Buick? Buick was ahead of its time.
409ina50buick
Active Member
One of my pistons (No 2). OD is 4.3875" and weight is 1035gms. Even feels heavy. I think I can get them to less than 1000gms in my mill. Anyone have an educated guess for the minimum deck thickness for the piston? See the line right above the top ring land? That is the bottom level of the deck. I am thinking about a 1/4" or so cut (from the inside of course). Some reducton will be done with a die grinder.
Last edited:
409ina50buick
Active Member
After examining the pistons, I found the following (red) areas to be candidates for removal of excess metal. By now it should be obvious I am going to do the job myself. I am no expert in this arena, but I am gung-ho. I'll use my Powermatic drill press to drill the four holes in the side undercuts, and I will mill the rest off. The area crosshatched on top of the pistons denotes the area under the base of the dome where excess metal exist (in my opinion of course). I will use a combination of tolls to remove that metal. The area under the pin boss (inside) has excess metal also. I will leave a minimum of 1/4" dome thickness, which I hope will be sufficient.
I have decided to go with the original equipment (rods, crank, etc) to minimize expense. It is going to be a horse of an engine anyway. If she blows, and the block is salvageable, I will stroke the sucker.
The red areas represent areas to be cut away. Opinions?
I have decided to go with the original equipment (rods, crank, etc) to minimize expense. It is going to be a horse of an engine anyway. If she blows, and the block is salvageable, I will stroke the sucker.
The red areas represent areas to be cut away. Opinions?
What will your compression ratio be after cutting to tops off?
409ina50buick
Active Member
Why would it rattle? Holes will be 1/4" deep.
409ina50buick
Active Member
I am well over $1000 on this set.
409ina50buick
Active Member
You misunderstood. I am making the cuts on the bottom of the decks, not the tops. Compression ratio will not change (SCR = 9.5 to 1).
Got ya.
wristpin
Well Known Member
I understand your desire to lighten the pistons but I gotta say perhaps you are fixated on one part to much. I've seriously lightened recipricating and rotating parts before but never just one portion of the whole. The balance factor between rotating and recipricating assemblies are as important as light weight. If your pistons, rods, wristpins, etc aren't balanced fairly close to the crankthrow and vice versa the engine will not make power and will vibrate through every RPM violently.
That being said...true lighten your pistons and also lighten the wristpins and even take weight off the conrods. Drilling holes in the rods and shaving beams takes off substancial weight throughout the entire recipricating and some (big end of rod) of the rotating assembly. My $0.02.
That being said...true lighten your pistons and also lighten the wristpins and even take weight off the conrods. Drilling holes in the rods and shaving beams takes off substancial weight throughout the entire recipricating and some (big end of rod) of the rotating assembly. My $0.02.