New Guy in the Nation's Capital

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brad.arcova

Member
Hello!

Found this site from a link one of Grumpy's messages on ChevyTalk. After being a gear head with no money in high school, life happened and I stopped thinking much about cars. Now, 30 years later, I have a bit more time, I'm still interested and I can afford real tools, a real car and real parts.

Here's a picture of my '64 Impala I got last June. I put the 5-sp Tremec in last winter but have been chasing a variety of engine demons since then, I've only driven it a couple hundred miles this year. Finally reached the point that I need to tear down the engine and decided that if I have to pull the engine, the same one isn't going back in. It's a wrong year 350 with 2-bolt mains and camel hump heads. Rather than try to fix this pig, I decided to start over with a known baseline. Just got this (http://www.blueprintengines.com/popular_configurations/index.html?topic=specs&pc_id=67 ) BluePrint 383 with 440 ft-lb torque last week; doing the planning now so I do it right.

Just joined the local chapter of the Antique Automobile Club of America but I'll have to admit, slavish devotion to bone stock original is not my game.

By the way arcova means Arlington County Virgina.

Brad

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sounds like you've got a good plan and have selected about the ideal engine for a street cruiser, so you can get both a reliable car for transportation and have some fun kicking dirt in the import cars grills if you want too.
Its getting rarer these days to see clean older cars on the street,and yours looks far nicer than most I see.
whats your rear gear ratio? ideally you'll want the transmission first gear and the rear gear ratio multiplied to be about between 10:1-11:1 and have the tallest & widest tire that fits the wheel well clearance and some suspension mods like at least air shocks
 
Thanks!

Rear end ratio is 3.36. With the TKO 500 1st gear of 3.27, that gives me 10.99; could probably replace the rear end with a 3.08 if I wanted to. Tires are P205-75R15 Michelin X radials from Costco; great tires that suit my preferences but having some minor clearance issues in the front fender wells. That's probably mostly due to widening the stance with a 4-wheel disc brake kit. Car's riding a little low too, probably because of swapping out an aluminum case PowerGlide with a Tremec and 30lb flywheel. Most likely need new front springs so suspension mods are in the future.

Have to admit I went cheap on flywheel and balancer since I just cruise and stay below 3000 rpm; ordered OEM, non-SFI stuff. :geek: Using just the stock rear end and driveshaft. I do have a good MSD distributor and Sun-Pro II tach in my "shopping cart" at Jegs, still debating the MSD 6AL-2 though, the 8360 distributor doesn't require a box. Just ordered 10 bottles of ZDDP to keep that flat tappet cam healthy.

Have some family commitments over the next month so I'm just planning and ordering parts now.

Brad
 
I would NOT bother swapping rear gears, the cost of the swap to benefits are far too high and the gains too low between the 3.08 vs 3.36:1 ratio
 
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