V2 Justin Reed Racing Hillclimb Special V2 (#2)

[Justinreed7]

Since this is an all out race build, a built engine is a must. Started with tearing down the donor engine and sent the block and head to the machine shop.

Block and head arrived back honed and measured. He also measured crank, rod and piston tolerances for me. As well as ported the runners in the head and lapped the new valves.

 

[Justinreed7]

Engine build list:
82.5mm JE Pistons
Boostline Rods with ARP 625 bolts
ARP 625 headstuds
Athena Cut Ring Headgasket
Super tech upgraded valves and springs
Pretty simple build list, these engines seem to be able to take some abuse from what I’ve researched

 

[Justinreed7]

Assembling the short block and gapping rings to .020 top ring and .022 bottom ring

 

[Justinreed7]

Head assembly was a pain installing the new valves and springs. Pro tip here, don’t skimp out on your spring compressor tool!

 

[Justinreed7]

Head studs and Athena Race Head gasket installation. Install with the cut ring groves facing up to the head.

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

Justin, great to see you're making progress on the engine. Will be interesting to see what the dyno numbers are for this motor compared to the Ecotec in your previous build.

 

[Justinreed7]

After the head has been installed, cam install is probably the most tedious part. The exhaust cam can only be installed in a certain orientation. Without the special tools to hold the spring loaded actuators in place it can be tricky to get right. There’s plenty of videos about this online so I won’t go into detail.

Timing is pretty straight forward, line all the marks up. Plenty of videos about that out there as well.

 

[Justinreed7]

Bottom girdle install, make sure your chain is on the gear before you install the oil pump. If not you can not get the chain on the pump

 

[Justinreed7]

Chassis #002 has arrived!

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

That looks familiar! It's a little more done and powder coated from the last time I saw it. X-brace at the b-pillar, yep. Did a diagonal or an X-brace go in over the top of the foot well? Can't quite tell from the photos. Should be a more rigid chassis to work with than the V1 - at least as it was originally delivered. Can't wait to see how this build turns out.

 

[Justinreed7]

That looks familiar! It's a little more done and powder coated from the last time I saw it. X-brace at the b-pillar, yep. Did a diagonal or an X-brace go in over the top of the foot well? Can't quite tell from the photos. Should be a more rigid chassis to work with than the V1 - at least as it was originally delivered. Can't wait to see how this build turns out.

Front view

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

I see the longitudinal bar going from the dash bar forward to the near front frame cross bar that is the part of the support for the pedal box mount and steering mount(?). Does not appear to be any diagonal bars to add more torsional stiffness to the 'open top' above the foot well?

Just my thinking and opinion, based on conversations I've had in the past and the modifications I've made, a diagonal brace bar across the top of the foot well can provide a major improvement in torsional rigidity. In this mark up of your photo, either the red line or the green line for adding a diagonal brace is what I'm trying to explain.

Even doing a partial diagonal can be an improvement, if the hardware on the drivers side impedes doing a full diagonal that can reach side to side. Even better yet would be an X-brace for a full tie-in. Again, this is just my opinion based on engineering conversations and is only a suggestion. Not certain you would want to mess up that nice and newly coated frame from some old guy's rambling...

 

[Justinreed7]

I see the longitudinal bar going from the dash bar forward to the near front frame cross bar that is the part of the support for the pedal box mount and steering mount(?). Does not appear to be any diagonal bars to add more torsional stiffness to the 'open top' above the foot well?

Just my thinking and opinion, based on conversations I've had in the past and the modifications I've made, a diagonal brace bar across the top of the foot well can provide a major improvement in torsional rigidity. In this mark up of your photo, either the red line or the green line for adding a diagonal brace is what I'm trying to explain.
View attachment 57312
Even doing a partial diagonal can be an improvement, if the hardware on the drivers side impedes doing a full diagonal that can reach side to side. Even better yet would be an X-brace for a full tie-in. Again, this is just my opinion based on engineering conversations and is only a suggestion. Not certain you would want to mess up that nice and newly coated frame from some old guy's rambling...

Compared to v1 this one has far more support in general. V1 doesn’t have a bar tie in at all from dash to front of the car. V2 does