1968 Plymouth Barracuda Drag Race Car - Wedged To The Max

With the cam installed in the straight-up position, Crane's billet timing set was installed. The cam gear of this unit has a Torrington roller bearing on the side where it meets the block, reducing friction, and eliminating thrust wear from the cam walking inside the motor. The timing set is only temporary at this point since we'll certainly have to adjust cam timing when we degree the cam.

We installed our cylinder heads using Cometic multilayer steel head gaskets. These gaskets will compress to a thickness of .040 inch and will seal the cylinders without the need to retorque the head bolts. We've found these gaskets to seal at least as well as copper gaskets with metal O-rings, eliminating the cost of machining the block and heads for O-rings and receiver grooves. Our ARP head studs are torqued to 70 lb-ft.

After installing our heads and rocker assemblies, we were all set to degree the camshaft. Remember that high lift roller cams must be degreed when installed. When these cams are ground, the machinist will find the highest point of lobe lift on the core and grind the cam on that reference, not on the timing reference on the front of the cam. The result is a much more precise cam grind, which must be degreed to operate properly. Using the extra marks and keyways on our timing set, we advanced our cam timing by six degrees to achieve proper cam timing.

We waited as long as we could, but most of our Milodon parts were still back ordered, so we made do with what we had. we fitted the dual-line swivel pickup into the oil pan before installing the pan. We traced and cut out a gasket to fit between the pickup and pan to aid in leak prevention, then placed O-rings on our fittings before screwing them into the pickup.

Since our dual-inlet oil pump was back ordered, and we were eager to get to the track, we used a single-line Indy-Maxx oil pump and plugged the forward provision in our pickup. This will still provide plenty of oil for break-in and tuning, but we'll install the dual-line pump and additional supply line before turning anything over 7,000 rpm.

With our Hooker headers and transmission in place, all that's left is to install the engine and accessories, break it in, and go to the track for some tuning. Tune in next month when we install the engine, a new Flex-A-Lite aluminum radiator, Moroso crankcase evacuation pump, fire it up, and head to the track. We were pressed for time with this project because we're attempting to make Florida's winter racing bracket series, so there's no time for dyno tuning. We'll head straight to the track and optimize this combination the old fashioned way-by making changes to get our best E.T. and mph on the time slips!