General projects

[Sberry]

We can add to this for stuff that is just everyday stuff. The first is an exhaust return I made from 2 elbows, the fit was just right. I flared a short piece of exhaust pipe to fit to the engine and welded to the first one, then screwed the other one on, adjusted the angle and welded the rest of the exhaust to it. Added a bracket to stiffen it all.

[Sberry]

The second pic is some solar water preheaters for a shower house, this saves a fortune in gas and in the afternoon the water is really hot when the workers come in from the fields. They are old well tanks or water heaters, painted black and plumbed in series before a booster heater on the shower house. They sit on top of a building out in the sun. Sometimes I have 4 of them but only hooked up 3 this time.

[stock z/28]

Hl,

Thats a neet water heating system.

Whats the engine for? It looks like a cadillac?

Jeff

[Sberry]

Yup, 500 Cad on a water pump. It sits here before we weed whacked around it.

[Sberry]

I had a cracked head, this was before we pulled it in and changed engines.

[stock z/28]

They do make a ton of torque. I build a few 500s for some hi perf stuff too.

I have build several 455 olds for irragation as well. They actually had a specific 455 olds for pumping applications. They make a ton of torque as well.

I do a few olds for jet boats as well.

Jeff

[Sberry]

How much of a deal is it to up the comp ratio in these Cads? The stock pistosn are all custom fit per cyl. I read some on one of the Cad sites and they got into CC the heads, I dont need a 5000$ engine but upping the comp ratio some wouldnt hurt effeciency at all as I am running LP and the octane is about 103. I have the hub machined and the bellhousing for Cad, that could be changed for Olds I guess but its nice to use a bolt in application that I have now, I enlarged the oil pan to 10 qts.

[Sberry]

I wouldt mind buying eng also if it was priced fair and all setup. Machine work is so expesive anymore that the DIY stuff costs almost as much as re-mans. I dot think I bored the original I put in this one, re-ring and brg, new cam etc but it ran a lot, 13 yrs or so. I spose with a new bore you wouldnt have the cyl sizing issue that the stock ones had?? How sensitive would it be to combustion chamber volume,, etc, by changing pistons. Seemed to me that they were really pricey. The engine I just put in was from jukyard, ran comp check and it was great, just installed it, new plugs and wires, runs good so far, not as great oil press as the old one but its working @45 lbs or so, drops off a bit at idle.

[JTMcC.]

The cheapest and easiest way to boost the comp ratio is to mill the heads. You certainly don't need to cc the heads for a pump motor, but you need to make sure you have suffecient valve clearance. Like you said, you're not after the ultimate motor, but you can sure use more compression to run on lp gas.

JTMcC.

Do you know what year caddy the engine came out of??? If it came out in the mid 70's compression is probably 8-9 to 1 compression. With 103 octane you can go to about 10.5 to 1

Mac