Watch the transformation

It’s easy to pay attention to just the outside of the car. Some people are fine with just having the exterior repaired, body worked and painted. But others, love to take their car to a show and pop the hood! When this particular project began, there was some indecision as to what exactly the client wanted as far as the engine compartment went.

Here is the thing. I KNOW this client well, and he is a hood popped at the car show kind of guy. So when we knew the car was getting a 451 Stroker swap, and the state of his project’s engine compartment with it’s current 318 was very, very sad. The engine compartment had to be stripped to bare metal to fix the issues regardless, the extra steps to make everything look right was an obvious choice.

Decades of rust, dust, grime and filth.

As it comes apart, hidden rust becomes more obvious. Behind the hood hinges, the top of the cowl, the firewall seam and some below the battery tray.

Sand blasted, rust repaired, inside of the cowl cleaned and coated, epoxy primer applied to the engine compartment.

The 451 Stroker the had been built by legendary drag racer, Jerry Stein some 20ish years ago, sitting in a basement collecting dust. 400 B Block, forged 440 crank, forged rods and pistons, and heavily ported Direct Connection Stage V heads with port matched intake.

Once the engine arrived at our facility, it had to be opened back up and inspected. When an engine sits that long, the assembly lubrication drips off and/or dries up. There is the chance of piston rings sticking to the cylinder walls as well as flash rust. It’s also important to check for foreign objects inside as a few ports were left open while it was stored for all those years. Upon initially blowing the dust off, a good bit of the Chrysler orange paint came off the engine. Engine builders are often great at what they do, but not often are they focused on the best paint job on the engine.

2-1/2 weeks of work has gone by since the 318 was removed. The 451 Stroker looks new with it’s fresh Chrysler orange paint, the oxidized aluminum treated with Aluminew, fresh Schumacher engine mounts, new hardware, the K-frame was treated with Steel-It Polyurethane black and that bright, bright B3 Basin Street Blue paint!!

Here the NOS exhaust headers are being carefully test fitted. They were then removed, blasted, and treated with 2000 degree ZyBar Midnight Black exhaust coating. Little details are being addressed down to re-rubber dipping all the wire loom retainers. The original Midland 10.5” single diaphragm brake booster we are rebuilding, we just received back from having the yellow zinc plating redone! Details on that will be a blog post in itself, so stay tuned!