Had a half day off today,...planned on getting the 250 mounted on the engine stand,..and cutting the top off of the weak assed "log" intake manifold, to see what was underneath.
So I did.
I guess I expected what I found,....poorly transitioned, inconsistent, anemic intake ports,....with all kinds of bumps and whoopdees for the intake charge to run into.
I tried last night to start that process w/ a sawzall,..but the blade quickly gave out. I went to home depot this afternoon,..and bought (5) 1/16" thick cutoff wheels for my grinder.
Once back home, I installed my new blade in one of my 4.5" electric, right eye blowing out grinders, and fired that dude up.
The intake was "topless" 10 minutes later.
Now the end result is too hideous for public consideration,..so there'll be no pics just yet. Lets just say that when I took it down to the machine shop to have it disassembled, cleaned, and inspected for cracks,....there was more than one guy from their shop looking at "the crazy s hit that this guy had in the back of his truck."
What I wasn't expecting was what I found after I pulled the head from my 300.00 "running" engine.
Firstly, after removing the valve cover,...the amount of sludge almost obscured the head bolts,....but I pushed forward. Once the head was removed,..I was rewarded by a really deep gouge in #1 cylinder wall, typical of a broken ring. There was at least two other cylinders also w/ broken ring scoring,..but not as bad as #1. I decided to call my junkyard dude and let him know what I found,..since it was supposed to be guaranteed to run.
( Yeah,..It woulda ran alright,..........for one minute)
He told me to take it to the machine shop, and have them estimate the damage, or they'd get me another engine.
He assured me that we would work it out.
Suits me,...I need a 4R70 trans,..and a complete dash/console out of a 89-90 T bird.....one way or the other, I'll find some way to make up for the over payment.
The machine shop mic'd the crank.......it will clean up w/ a .010 under cut.
The head still was up in the air,..they'll have to break it down in order to pressure test and magnaflux it.
The block,..........well that is a different story.
A 250's stock bore is 3.68. The cylinders really should stay at maximum overbore of .020.
The #1 cylinder was .027 over just from wear,...and that gouge had to be another .030 deep at least.
#1 cylinder will need a sleeve.
The rest of the cylinders "might" clean up at .030,..maybe .040
So here I am,....getting ready to open another case of waaay too much money in something I'll never get back out of.
The junkyard had exactly one inline six sitting in a ford,..and had no idea it was any different from the one I have in my Mont. The likely hood that they'll find another, is a needle in a haystack,..and even if they do,..I'll still have to spend another several hours getting it,.... getting it tore apart,..and getting it back down to the machine shop for the same micing process to see how worn out that one will be.
The screw it, just do it side of my brain rationalizes that by spending more money now,..I'll have no worries about future block integrity, or overheating issues. I guess I'll sleeve all six holes and run standard forged pistons in the thing.