Jeep Strokers

Got the block all prettied up.

Sandblasted the banks header and used the KBS primer and charcoal metallic hi temp heat.

bleedsblue wrote: ↑February 8th, 2021, 9:55 am Got the block all prettied up.

Love the color!

Thank you Sir. My wife asked, are you even going to be able to see any of that?

I went back to baking the header on my bbq grill....

nope I have mine all painted up nice and it looked so good on the engine stand........... installed it and you can hardly tell it is painted and it's red

Well, she's getting close. Lifters dropped in. Head torqued down with ARP bolts. I ordered 9.600" pushrods. Wishful thinking on my end. The pushrod tool says they a bit too long. Ordered some 9.550" rods from Summit. Hopefully they are here quickly. I hope to start getting it in the Jeep this weekend.

Man that head is heavy!

Some more pics

Sexy!

A little more work while I wait for the pushrods.

The valve cover is not bolted down. Just checking to make sure I didn't have to modify it to work with the head bolts.
The header is REALLY close to the intake. I sandwiched a heat shield in between. I rolled it out and cut it to fit.

Well she is in and running. Not without issues though. The engine went in without too much of a hassle. I was doing it by myself so it wasnt bad at all. I took a couple of days off of work and just took my time. I had to trim a little metal off the ac compressor to get it back onto the block boss but other than that, not too shabby. I learned the hard way, if you sand blast parts, make sure to clean out ALL the bolt holes or you will break them and spend a lot of time with the bolt extractors.

I used Royal Purple break in oil. Started it, set it at 2k rpm and let it sit for 20 minutes. Then while it was cooling off, I put the front end back together. Changed the oil again and took it for a spin. We made it about a mile before it shut down. Apparently, the video Golen engines made on You Tube on how to properly set up the cam synchronizer (CPS) is WRONG!! So, I reset it to where it should be and viola. I don't fully understand how it ran being 180 out, but it did. I put about 20 easy miles on it and then the fun began. Backfiring through the intake. I limped it home and put it away for the night. Fast forward to today through lots of reading and tinkering trying to get it to run right and I find this bent pushrod on cylinder 4 (see pic below). Lifter is still there, rotating the engine it moved up and down freely so I put a new pushrod in, .040 shorter and torqued the roller rocker back down. Fired it up with the valve cover off and everything looked and sounded good. I noticed some marks on the inside of the valve cover where the roller rockers where making contact so I "massaged" them with a 1/2" extension and a hammer. I then put it all back together and took it for a 25 mile drive. Everything seems fine now.

I do have a question though. Everything says that my fuel pressure should be 49.2 psi +- 5 psi. My fuel pressure gauge said it was 39 psi. I started small and put a new fuel filter in, still 39 psi. Bad/tired fuel pump....So, I put a new fuel pump in. PSI is STILL 39! So, I got a new fuel pump without needing one. I traced the fuel lines and none of them are kinked. Why is my fuel pressure so low?

I haven't been too hard on it yet. Just easy, but it doesn't seem to be the rocket ship I was hoping for. I will wait until I get more miles on it before doing any hot-rodding. I'll report back. Thank you all for helping me with this adventure! And of course, another plug for Russ who ALWAYS answered the phone no matter how many times I called to seek guidance.

So the rocker smashed the top of the valve cover? There are several excellent valve cover spacers available. A valve cover without baffling is never a good idea and that's why spacers have become the preferred method to achieve proper clearance. Baffles are preferred even if you're venting the crankcase to atmosphere. If you're venting to manifold, those new valves and ports are gonna get trashed very quickly.

No. The rockers didn't smash the valve cover. They had barely made contact with it leaving a slight wear mark.

I still have the stock valve cover baffle 100% intact.