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Here's a bit of arty stuff. As you can see, the polishing job turned out pretty nice. And yep, those of you with a keen eye will notice the same crappy old plug leads I've had on the car for over 10 years! |
| This is what you look at four o'clock in the morning after spending most of the day and all of the night running new brake lines and then bleeding them on your own. |  |
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It's early Saturday morning, Saturday, as in the day before Sunday. The day of the Drags! Yikes! |
| It's funny what you get up to when you're really, really, really, really tired. |  |
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But we got it in there! Yay!!! Just in time for the drags. Couldn't get it running though, but I towed it to the event anyway just to say I got there. I was a ZOMBIE! Apologies to anyone I walked past, offended or didn't recognise. |
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There's a whole section on this wonderful construction of mine. I got myself a brand new Aussie Desert Cooler radiator (Thanks Norm), and I didn't want to stuff it up by mounting thermo fans through it like I had done with the old radiator. So I built a shroud/mounting bracket for my fans. Not bad for an amateur I reckon. |
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Getting the V8 to fit in the engine bay isn't that hard. Getting it to clear the steering is another matter. I run the standard Aussie AMC oil bypass, but run it to a Valiant remote oil filter setup. |
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Just another angle. As you can see, I've still got plenty of room at the front of the engine. |
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So how's it go then? Well I haven't properly tested it yet (on a dragstrip), but it feels pretty strong, at least as strong as the old engine. Good news is it doesn't overheat and I've driven it several times in Sydney peak hour and it rarely gets above 190F. I'm running the factory recommended 180 thermostat, but I may put a colder one in as it heats up towards summer.
On the freeway it's great and the temp stays constant. My old engine/radiator used to slowly creep up the temperature gauge if I drove much faster than 70mph (110kmh). That sucked!
I'm entered in the next Nostalgia Drags on October 16, so I'll let you all know how it goes when I get back.
