Some progress...bolted on the valve covers, and torqued up the oil pan.
Got a line on a spare transmission. The C6 in the car now seems OK, but it never hurts to be prepared. $250 for an allegedly good, recently Jasper-overhauled C6 from a parted-out '77 Ford highboy.
Did the deal one night in a parking lot of an upscale equestrian community. Odd place to find a used transmission, but one of the stable hands had it for sale.
The 460 prepares for its new life in a LeMons car...
Two weekends ago, the (mostly) assembled 460 took it's first ride in a vehicle since I picked it up a couple of years ago. Except, instead of being a smogged up, rusty, inefficient old boat anchor, it arrived at the Tunachuckers' southern racing HQ looking like this:
Nine dollars' worth of Advance Auto Gold "Hi-Temp" engine paint made all the difference. 
The work weekend got off to a good start. The teammate who's currently providing shelter for the LTD Landau had already plucked the existing engine out of the engine bay, and doused the car with a few gallons of degreaser. The garage wasn't long enough to put the engine in from the front of the car, so we put the car on the lift, removed the wheels, and snuck it in from the side.
Another teammate rebuilt the carburetor:
And, a few minutes later...
It's in!
Thanks to some thought and planning, and careful calibration, the engine actually fired up on the first try. The distributor was pretty close to where it needed to be- we dialed it in to 36 degrees of total advance at 2500 RPM (when the mechanical advance should be "all in") and idle to 1000 RPM. It sounds super healthy and mean. Plus, with that high-rise manifold and carb spacer, we get a very pronounced Shaker Hood effect.
Did you video the start up? Could we get some sound please?
Jerry From LA wrote: Did you video the start up? Could we get some sound please?
As excited as we were, no one thought to video the initial start up. We fail at internetting.
I'll ask my teammate who's housing the LTD to go out and video a start up for everyone's enjoyment. He refuses to perform smokey burn-outs, though. Something about newly laid concrete and all. 
Taking video of stuff increases the odds of failure, it's unwise to record flat tappet cam break in.
Working on the video...for now, how about a nice "Before and After" shot?
It would be cool to see how much more power this thing makes now. Cool build.
It's been a while...but this weekend (April 29-30) is the big inaugural race weekend for the new 460! I'm currently in Raleigh, NC, at teammate Matt's house; the LTD is loaded up and ready to head to CMP in the morning!
Of course, it wouldn't be a LeMons weekend without some drama...
On the way down to Raleigh from Maryland, somewhere in southern Virginia my Big, Stupid Truck decided to not start after stopping for gas. Luckily, it has a Spanish transmission (El Manuel) and with the help of 3 gas station attendants we roll started it again. In my haste to get back on the road, I forgot that I'd left a tool box sitting on the tail gate...
After cleaning up that mess and arriving in Raleigh, we swapped in the new radiator (the old one was full of dirt) and decided to re-do the lower radiator hose. With some pipe and hose we managed to put this together:
Which looks at least a dozen times better than what was there. At any rate, it shouldn't collapse under hard pulls.
After firing the engine up to fill it full of water, I noticed a clanking noise coming from the valve covers. My heart filled with dread- a loose rocker? A rod knock? Then I pulled a valve cover.
The cam, being higher-than-stock lift, was causing the rocker arms to ping the inside of the stock (because LeMons) valve covers. You can see the witness marks in the picture. Needing to get the car loaded and not having a lot of time, I pulled both covers and used a blunt steel rod to "bowl" out the valve covers at the witness marks, to give a little extra clearance there. The valve covers now have 4 little humps each- we'll call them "power humps". One particularly aggressive lifter actually managed to crack the valve cover. Well, that's easily fixed.
Because LeMons.
Awesomest tuna boat ever!
In for straightaway pull vids :D
On standby for an update. 
In case anyone who was interested hasn't found it yet, our race recap is HERE.
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