Worth the wait!!!

[jmwuva05]

Well I just got back from spending a good morning getting my BE running at Hap's shop yesterday. All I can say is wow this engine runs better than it looks, and that is top notch primo. Cam choice is perfect still idles ok with a slightly sinister lope but really jumps to life at 2000 rpm. Should make going out to the beach a lot easier this year. Thank you Hap for your first rate work.

 

[Hap Waldrop]

Thank you Matt, it was fun watching it come to life.

I tried to do an old racing trick on Matt's 948 head gasket, using copper wire around water jackets and such sort for double insurance, we've done this for years on race cars and it always has worked great. With that bein said, for some reason it backfired on me this time and when Matt intially spun over for oil preesure back home he got water dribbling out of the area where the head joins the block on the spark plug side, right where the copper wire had been put, for some reason the copper wire didn't compress enough and caused a leak. So Matt and I came up with plan for him to bring the car up with the engine installed, change the head gasket out, see if we could correct the problem, and then get everything ready to fire the engine, bed the cam, retorque the head re-adjust the valves, set the timing, and see if we could get the ole girl going. The plan worked out well, all went smoothly, no more copper wire, no more leakage. The engine fired on it's second try, and we ended the day with Matt driving the Bugeye around the block before we loaded back on the trailer.

Matt's Bugeye, is a beauty, very nice dark BRG, and nicely done bodywork,very straight and solid tub. I love his green seats and dash as well. It's a great little car and glad I could be a part of it's re-birth.