John Burns
Member
Hi all- Happy New year!
The reason I joined is that I have a good friend with a 66 Belvedere II. The car is kinda rough but mechanically pretty sound. It has a 440 with a 727. (He also has an 8-second 69 Dart with a Hemi that is absolutely gorgeous. That is more of a pure race car.) I am a hardcore Chevy guy- don't hate me ;). I have a couple of big block cars (68 Camaro and 70 Monte) that are pretty fast, very drive-able street rides.
He put the 440/727 in the Bell a few years ago and has not had much time to dial it in or upgrade much. It is a very stock car. It does have a new gas tank, new steel fuel line, new good radiator and discs up front. He ran a 13.2 & 105 mph and the guy that built the motor says it should go 11's if set up properly. I have no idea what is in the motor as far as cam and heads, but it makes a ton of vacuum and idles at 800 all day in gear. The car is a blast to drive!
Sorry for the length of this. I'm documenting what we've done so far because this all swirls in my brain! I love working on these rides... this is therapy for me. I have been on this site a ton recently getting good information- thank you to everyone that has contributed to this site! I am certainly open to direction and suggestions. Things we have messed with so far:
-New master cylinder. It has non-power brakes and the damn thing wouldn't stop! (This is important.
) It takes more effort than I'm used to compared to my rides with power brakes, but it stops now!
-New carb- 750 Holley dp. It had an ancient Holley 750 dp on it but it was played out and had been modified 20 different ways... no saving it but I tried!
-Fuel pump on order... Carter M6903. It has a parts-store stocker fuel pump that has ok pressure, but this Carter seems to be the one people recommend for this level of power. The current pump holds pressure forever- and eventually pushed fuel out of the car. It did this with the old and the new carb. I'm assuming this issue is with this pump??
-Intake? It has a Torker 2 which is considered complete junk in the Chevy world. I've seen some discussion that the there isn't much to be gained with the RPMs, etc ona 440 at this power level.
-New distributor- it had a MOPAR piece that someone had locked out. I haven't looked into reversing this, but I plan to try because it looks cooler than the billet piece we dropped in.
-New 275/60-15 Nitto drag radials on 7" MOPAR rallys- they fit and don't rub with some massaging of the inner fender! It had much smaller tires and it has 3:55s, so it would rev way too high. The taller tires helped that and they hook too!
-It has a gold ignition box (I guess the color means something?) but the charging system is completely stock and in rough shape. I plan to upgrade the alternator and regulator. I've read a lot about doing this but I'm still not 100% sure what to do. I'm also thinking about the ammeter bypass and going with a voltmeter.
-The transmission... these 727s are interesting! (It has a 2600 converter.) The shift points seem to be a little erratic. I ended up resetting the linkage and that seemed to help. I haven't driven it enough to know yet. I read a little about the governor and I'm wondering if there are mods I might make to improve things.
-Get some heat in the car. It had factory AC and all of that stuff is long gone and in shambles under the dash. I'm assuming we could put a non-AC heater box in, but I haven't looked into it yet.
-Other things... tightened up the column shifter, replaced the turn signal cancel cam (and tightened all of the loose screws in the column!), looking for a good place to mount a tach. Did I miss anything?
Thanks for reading if you got to the end.
The reason I joined is that I have a good friend with a 66 Belvedere II. The car is kinda rough but mechanically pretty sound. It has a 440 with a 727. (He also has an 8-second 69 Dart with a Hemi that is absolutely gorgeous. That is more of a pure race car.) I am a hardcore Chevy guy- don't hate me ;). I have a couple of big block cars (68 Camaro and 70 Monte) that are pretty fast, very drive-able street rides.
He put the 440/727 in the Bell a few years ago and has not had much time to dial it in or upgrade much. It is a very stock car. It does have a new gas tank, new steel fuel line, new good radiator and discs up front. He ran a 13.2 & 105 mph and the guy that built the motor says it should go 11's if set up properly. I have no idea what is in the motor as far as cam and heads, but it makes a ton of vacuum and idles at 800 all day in gear. The car is a blast to drive!
Sorry for the length of this. I'm documenting what we've done so far because this all swirls in my brain! I love working on these rides... this is therapy for me. I have been on this site a ton recently getting good information- thank you to everyone that has contributed to this site! I am certainly open to direction and suggestions. Things we have messed with so far:
-New master cylinder. It has non-power brakes and the damn thing wouldn't stop! (This is important.
) It takes more effort than I'm used to compared to my rides with power brakes, but it stops now!-New carb- 750 Holley dp. It had an ancient Holley 750 dp on it but it was played out and had been modified 20 different ways... no saving it but I tried!
-Fuel pump on order... Carter M6903. It has a parts-store stocker fuel pump that has ok pressure, but this Carter seems to be the one people recommend for this level of power. The current pump holds pressure forever- and eventually pushed fuel out of the car. It did this with the old and the new carb. I'm assuming this issue is with this pump??
-Intake? It has a Torker 2 which is considered complete junk in the Chevy world. I've seen some discussion that the there isn't much to be gained with the RPMs, etc ona 440 at this power level.
-New distributor- it had a MOPAR piece that someone had locked out. I haven't looked into reversing this, but I plan to try because it looks cooler than the billet piece we dropped in.
-New 275/60-15 Nitto drag radials on 7" MOPAR rallys- they fit and don't rub with some massaging of the inner fender! It had much smaller tires and it has 3:55s, so it would rev way too high. The taller tires helped that and they hook too!
-It has a gold ignition box (I guess the color means something?) but the charging system is completely stock and in rough shape. I plan to upgrade the alternator and regulator. I've read a lot about doing this but I'm still not 100% sure what to do. I'm also thinking about the ammeter bypass and going with a voltmeter.
-The transmission... these 727s are interesting! (It has a 2600 converter.) The shift points seem to be a little erratic. I ended up resetting the linkage and that seemed to help. I haven't driven it enough to know yet. I read a little about the governor and I'm wondering if there are mods I might make to improve things.
-Get some heat in the car. It had factory AC and all of that stuff is long gone and in shambles under the dash. I'm assuming we could put a non-AC heater box in, but I haven't looked into it yet.
-Other things... tightened up the column shifter, replaced the turn signal cancel cam (and tightened all of the loose screws in the column!), looking for a good place to mount a tach. Did I miss anything?
Thanks for reading if you got to the end.
aboard. Some interesting things that you said, need pictures and what is the end result that "your friend" expects his car to be?
