My 1964 Impala Restoration - Page 5

With the Impala cleaned up for the VCCA car show, I took a few pictures. If you squint, it almost looks good.

October 14th 2010 – I took the car back to the A/C shop after one of the hoses blew off. The A/C guy could only figure the condenser had a restriction in it and it needed replacing. So he ordered another one from a different company, and I attempted to install it. For some reason it was made too wide to fit. Of course this was not evident until the front end of the car had been disassembled.

The stagger of the tubes was different too, so I could not trim the corner off to make it fit.

So I found yet another vendor who had a condenser that was made to look just like the original, complete with the angled cut on the top of the fins and the strange bend in the condenser as well.

So with the new (third!) condenser installed, the A/C is working fairly well. I still think it is a bit weak and will check on the fan to see if I am getting full power out of it.

October 22nd 2010- I took my car to Superior Automotive for a dyno run. It will be interesting to see how much improvement I can get out of the new engine. The toque curve is pretty disappointing. I would have thought it would stay fairly flat to 4,500 RPM , at least.

November 16th 2010 - I discovered that a 383 can be built from a small journal 327 block. This is never brought up in the books since the 350 block is more plentiful and has the larger journals. But for my purposes, having the extra cubic inches of a 383 and the stock looks of a 327 are important.

Orange Engine will be doing the engine build. Jim Larr, the owner or Orange Engine, likes my somewhat odd idea of a stock looking 327 with 383 cubic inches and a few performance tricks to get even more power out of it. All while keeping it well mannered for more sedate driving.

It starts with a crusty old 1964 327 block. It has never been bored. Too bad it was stored outdoors, it will need a bore of .030 to .040 to clean up all the rust pits. It also has a burnt main bearing. Fortunately it did not damage the block, no cracks were found when magnafluxed.

F0527S F=Flint Michigan where the engine was built. 05=May 27=27th of May S=Powerglide automatic transmission

E234 E=May 23=23rd of May 4=1964

3782870 Casting number used for 327 engines, both the 250 Hp and 300 Hp versions.

December 10th 2010- Block is back at Orange Engine after a side trip to Hollins Machine in Orange where it was line bored oversized to fit the large journal stroker crank. Main caps from a 350 were used and the block opened to match. The boring was done slightly offset to take less material from the block and more form the cap.

Next procedure is for Orange Engine to bore the cylinders .030 over to see if they will clean up at that size. The rust from the engine sitting outside with the pistons frozen in place will determine how much of an over bore is needed. Once that is done, then the block gets decked.

December 13th 2010- Block is getting decked today. First pass is an .011 cut.

December 17th 2010 - Block getting final honed out to .040 over. The cylinder that was in the worst shape from the rust is done first so it can be determined if .040 will be enough.

There is still an "eyebrow" of rust where the old piston must have been wearing the block in a unusual way. This appears to be above the rings so it should not matter for the boring.

December 20th 2010 - The block is decked and honed, waiting for a trip to the tank for a final cleaning before I take it home for painting.

December 22nd 2010 - Meanwhile under the hood, well not exactly, since the hood is removed now. The hood is off, the intake is off so it can be tanked (again) in preparation of the POR-15 painting of the entire engine.

December 29th 2010 - I have the engine block, heads and intake from Orange Engine at home for painting. I am using POR-15 Engine Enamel kit to paint it.

Step one, spray with "Metal Ready" which puts a zinc phosphate coating on the metal.

Step two, brush on the POR-15 primer.

Step three, brush on the Chevy Orange enamel. Looks really bad with just one coat. The instructions fail to mention you may need more coats, with a one day wait between them... Now I am wishing I had sprayed the enamel on.

January 2nd 2011After spraying on the enamel, several times to mostly get it right, it looks fairly good. The valve covers will need another round after I sand out some runs. The rest of the engine is back to Orange Engine tomorrow for the machine work to continue.

Jan 5th 2011 - The hood hinges are back from being rebuilt. Wilson Antique Car Parts drilled out the worn holes and installed new, larger hinge pins and springs along with a nice powder coating.

I also checked the numbers on my distributer. It has a part number of 1111015 date code is 4A6. The part number is for a 283 car in 64. The date code is (4)=1964 (A)=January (6)=6th day. All this adds up to this being the original distributer from the original 283 engine. It has been transplanted to the 383 back in the 80's and now to be transplanted to my new 327(383).

January 11th 2011 - Engine is in the stand and Jim is ready to get busy on it.