Today we began the assembly of the power plant for project Black N' Blue. It ...was... a standard bore 401 short block. The engine was trusted to the competent hands at JMS Racing Engines in Monrovia, California for all necessary machining of the stock short block components.
I used a porting tool and removed the flash from many points around the block including the oil galley drain holes and chamfered them as well. I also took some time and cleaned up the exterior of the block as well w/ the porting tool and a 3" diameter wire wheel as well as a conditioning pad too. The beast was shinin arse clean... The whole block....
Then, we drilled about 14 holes in the oil galley, and chamfored them as well, at the low points to promote more lubrication as well. Additionally we plumbed in a 3/8" copper tube from the oil manifold to the rear of the galley to persuade the rear mains et al into performing correctly with the proper amount of oil instead of being starved like all the stock 401 police interceptor motors may have been. I also port-ground the front drain holes that dump into the timing cover, lower, as well, of coarse to promote more lubrication in this area as well.
In the works we will give the distributor gear an added shot at life by plumbing in a 1/8 inch or so additional copper oil tube to it too.
The purpose of this post is to ask you pros, if there is anything else you might do to an AMC 401 if you were building it to last and live a long life of servatude for yourself.

To be honest, I am "afraid", to post this in any other forum except for the newbie area. Maybe a moderator might accept my humble request and post this in the proper area where the "pros" might have mercy on a poor newbie like me and enlighten me to the ways of those who know more than I.

:cool2: :roxy:

You have done a lot of great mods to your 401. Are you planning on extended 7,000 rpm romps?

I have a 380horse 401 and the ONLY thing I did to the oiling system was a little clean up on the drain back holes in the lifter valley and purchase a Milodon oil pan. I bought just the replacement deep sump pan, not the single/dual swivel pick-up.

This motor has been in my rig since 1996, and it has not been treated nice.

It regularly sees 7,000 plus rpms (tellico wheeling) and it still has the same oil pressure (65psi cruise, 30 psi idle) since it was installed. I run castrol 10w30 non synthetic and change it every 3 mos.

The guy that did my machine work is experienced with AMC V8s. He is one of the few machinists that know AMCs are not Chevys when it comes to specs, and therefore he followed the AMC factory specs for bearing clearances, ect. I have never had any problems with main oiling, ddist drive gears, ect. I broke a rocker stud once, and that's about it for any problems.

I have been very happy with this motor. I am glad I did not listen to the hoards of chevy people and go that route.

Cool thread. I like AMC motors.The first thing we did after breaking in the cam in my 360 was take some 5-6 grand passes in the back lot while tuning the FI before we took the buggy to the the sand drags that night. (Got my ass handed to me by a 1000 HP sand dragster...that was the only class they would let me run :rolleyes: )Been holding together for over a year of HARD abuse...We also did absolutely nothing special to the oiling system. I wonder if we should for the nasty 401 (nitrous, etc) I'm planning on having my engine guy build for it this winter?(He's not too experienced with AMC stuff, but built countless chebbies for racing) What kind of components are you using to get yours to hold together at 7k rpms? Rod bolts, valvesprings, pistons, etc.

I am using stock rods and crank in my 401 since they come stock with forged steel crank and rods stock. I did replace the rod bolts with some quality ARP hardware. I am using forged seal power pistons that yield about 9.8:1 compression ratio with 58cc heads I am using.

Valve springs should be upgraded with the installation of a performance came. If you get a pre-73 model 401, it should have adjustable rockers like a chevy. these are cake to install roller rockers. AMC motors breath VERY WELL.

Get a copy of Performance American Style. It's a factory printed performance manual that has all kinds of great information for building AMC motors. It even talkes about porting heads for racing. Engine builders that know how to build an AMC motor are rare. Most have know idea how to set the tolerences, ect so they just assume it's a chevy and machine the AMC motor as such. That's a big mistake and the motor the gets machined like a chevy typically runs very poorly (like a chevy). No I am not biased....

Here's a look at my 401.

http://pics.montypics.com/rock-rod/2003-08-29/1062160357_401eng.jpg

Thanks, I'll be hunting that book down.

You can find copies of Performance American Sytle a t planethoustanAMX.com (eddie Stakes) and much AMC info at Performance American Style (Randy Guynn). The AMC List also has a wealth of information and knoweledgeable people of all things AMC.
JB

AMC forum: [ur]http://pub8.ezboard.com/bamcforum[/url]


Other AMC related parts/info sites:

http://www.amracing.com/home.html

http://www.amclives.com/

Did you paint the are under the valley pan? I did this when I built my 360 and plan on doing it again with my 401. I never had a problem with oil pressure on my 360 but the 401 I have now #7&8 holes are scored from oil starvation.

I hope that I can go .010 over and call it good. I don't realy wants to go nuts with the build up so It will be build mainly stock.