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Old 10-08-2017, 08:38 PM   #60
kuntzbros
 
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Name: kuntzbros
Title: Green Behind the Ears
Status: Not Here
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Jefferson, GA
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Posts: 34
Lildebbie lives again!!! What began the whole box drag racing in the first place was the idea of swapping a 4bt into a Ford Excursion so even though we were having so much fun with the truck that we couldn’t stand pulling the “race” truck apart we had been recently searching high and low for another 4bt motor to do the conversion with. We of course could not find as good of a deal as we had on the first one but it just so happens that the same night we wrecked #lildebbie we found another truck almost the same and for almost the same exact price. We picked her up the same weekend not knowing what the complete plan would be for the future of #lildebbie but it was not long after we got it home and started looking it over that it became apparent that a #lildebbie2 needed to happen.

new truck.jpg

pulling motor.jpg

pulling tranny.jpg

So, then the work began to re-do everything we had done in the past year. Everything was removed and both motors completely torn down. The goal is to still end up with two running motors but to use the new trucks block with some craigslist connecting rods and everything else off the original lildebbie motor. After taking both blocks down to the local machine shop we now have two usable blocks the original one with a sleeve in the cracked cylinder and the other with the virgin std. bore honed out to provide a new surface and extra piston to wall clearance of around 8/9 thousandths. The new motor we got did have over 300k on it so it was definitely time to give her a rebuild anyway. We also opted for the clevite/mahle h bearings this time around because our hp goals have changed and we now plan to take this motor as high as possible with still keeping the stock block and head. Also in the spirit of high hp we decided to use some non-intercooled pistons and do a little custom work to them by widening the bowls out from 61mm to 64.5mm and cutting a 30 degree chamfer to give as big of a bowl as possible and we also decided to up the compression some more by taking 20 thousandths off the block. This got a little tricky because we have plans to run a bigger cam in the future so we also had to cut the pistons down to keep the protrusion in check.

blocks ready to go.jpg

crank end play.jpg

new pistons and fire ring.jpg

With all of this complete the only other thing we decided to address at this time was the rear axle/wheel/tire combo. We searched craigslist and were able to find a dodge dana 70 to replace the 70HD and give us a dodge 8 lug bolt pattern so that we can run some lighter wheel/tire combos. This should make quite a big difference considering the 4 comercial wheel/tire combos in the back were over 100lbs each.
The hope was to somehow still make it to rudys 2017 fall race (last chance for a diesel race this year) but with full time jobs and so much to do there just was no way to make it happen. The local drag strip however will be open on Friday nights through November so we for sure will be getting #lildebbie2 back on the track in the next couple of weeks. With the fueling upgrades we made before the wreck and the new upgrades to lildebbie2 we should be able to bump the timing a little higher maybe 30 degrees. We are thinking we should get into the low 14s or maybe even break into the 13s.

tranny cleaned up.jpg

welding rear end.jpg

new axle in truck.jpg
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