Author Topic: My departed brother has shown me the light  (Read 2470 times)

Offline Cdennis

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My departed brother has shown me the light
« on: April 07, 2017, 11:17:52 AM »
Recently my brother lost his battle to cancer. Needless to say I have inherited a few toys. One being a 1980 Camaro with a 428 Pontiac motor in it. Great running street/strip car do not have much info on setup my brother was really quiet about that.
He also left me a 1978 Pontiac Firebird Esprit he wrecked. He has collected parts to reassemble it. We have started the task installed another subframe with new and re manufactured parts to replace damagedand woren parts from the accident. Right now we found a 400 Pontiac motor on a stand in his garage which is nearing completion of having bored .040 over  somebody went over zealous with a ridge reamer, crank 20/20 it had spun rod bearings. Going with silver lite flat tops (cast) and the engine had 64 heads that needed to be gone thru on it. When complete figuring just under 9:1, went with a xe262h cam, performer intake, 350 converter in a 400 trans with a 3:23 rear gear. Being new to the Pontiac seen I have some questions, I would like to run this car on 87 octane. What total timing should I start with 28 ,30 degrees. I do not have the carb that was on said motor but there are quite a few Qjet' s in his garage from which i can choose which i would assume I need to list to get any other input. Like starting point for jets primary ,secondary and rods for each. Trying to be as accurate as i can in description sorry for being long winded

Offline Cliff Ruggles

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Re: My departed brother has shown me the light
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2017, 03:59:26 AM »
Stock replacement cast 400 pistons are a horrible choice for those engines.  Too much quench area from the 8 valve reliefs and most are .030-.050" down in the holes at TDC.  With #64 heads at 87cc the compression ratio would be pretty low.  The Comp XE cams are crap in Pontiac builds, and the 262XE isn't nearly enough seat timing and LSA too tight.

I'd take steps to establish tighter quench and higher compression.  At that point I could make a much better camshaft recommendation.

For Q-jet advice we need carburetor part number(s), and all of the engine spec's.........Cliff