Project: Nifty 350

This was a 2-bolt main 350 that I had put heads, cam, and intake on; without even pulling off the oil pan. Pretty much a terrible idea, but when you're on a budget you don't have many options. I had the idea "what you can't see can't hurt you" so I didn't even want to check the bearings. They were probably fine, in regards to a 100k mile shortblock. It's what happened later that did them in.

This was the point where I junked the primative fuel injection for the primative carburetor. Much less expensive and a whole lot easier to tune. I needed to step down the fuel pressure from fuel injection psi (around 15 for TBI cars) to a more suitable carburetor level (5-6psi). I went with the Mallory AFPR in this build, which cost me around a hundred bucks after I paid for the fittings and adapters to make the damn thing work. It was worth it. In conjunction with a fuel pressure guage, I can see exactly what's going on without having to hook up any external diagnosis equipment.

I ran the car for an entire summer without any problems at all. I take that back- I had traction issues. Where it's nice to be able to spin your tires for miles, that's really a faded glory. No traction means that power is not getting to the ground effectively. Just as I was saving my pennies to get a better rear-end, I ran across that bad knock. Below are pictures from the tear-down of this engine.

Lifting the old engine out of the Firebird. Very simple task because it was just done a year prior so things aren't all rusted together with decades of age. This engine bay has got to be one of the dirtiest. Half of the wires in here aren't even used anymore, since it's no longer fuel injected. Rather than cutting them out completely, I just tuck them back to avoid shorts or unwanted connections.
       
Beginning disassembly of the old engine. Cleaning up the top-end of the old engine for re-use. The heads and valvetrain assembly, the camshaft, the intake, the carburetor, and some other parts are to be cleaned up nicely and put into the new engine.
       
Getting ready to tear apart the bottom end, I was expecting something catastrophic. After tearing this engine apart I find out why things went wrong.
       
The extreme bearing wear was caused by the ignition timing being too far advance, putting a huge strain on the bearings that took the force on the piston's way up. A simple explanation is that there was a lot of resistance for that piston to go through at certain RPM levels that eventually sheared away all of the protection it had. The broken rings were a result of detonation.
       
I cleaned up the stock pistons and rods, and inspected them for any kind of damage. They all appear to be in perfect working condition, so I was going to hold on to them for someone who needed them. Or maybe I'll just make a cool art project with them, like a coffee table.