Scotty Guadagno of Scotty's...
Scotty Guadagno of Scotty's Racing Technologies lowers our Recession Special short-block onto the milling machine. When he's not building other people's racing engines, Guadagno can be found behind the wheel of his six-second, 10.5-outlaw ride.
Our recent budget-minded engine overhaul was a smashing success with readers, and we have received plenty of emails and letters to prove it. As this is written, they are still coming in. We did, however, uncover a problem in assembling the engine, and it was one that we had before, but hadn't given thought to until it happened again.
Years ago, our Recession Special bullet resided in project ProCharged Pony. The '90 GT started out with a P-1SC supercharger, and it wasn't long before the high-mileage colt gave up the gasket. It pressurized the coolant system with combustion gases, and even a swap to new gaskets and cylinder heads eventually lead to another coolant eruption. It wasn't until we dropped in a new short-block from DSS Racing complete with wire O-rings that we put our gasket problems behind us.
Six years later, we dusted off the old 302 to breathe new life in it with a budget rebuild at home. We topped it off with a killer set of ported stock cylinder heads and a very nice Crane camshaft with just the right amount of rumble, and it made a respectable 249 rwhp and 293 lb-ft of torque. Problem was it started pressurizing the coolant system after just a couple dyno pulls. The heads had been milled, and the factory graphite gaskets we used should have done the trick, but once we saw it pushing coolant, we instantly remembered the engine's past problems. We weren't sure if we had torqued the cylinder heads to the required 75 lb-ft on the short studs and 85 on the long studs, so we opted to change the gaskets out and proceed with our next plan, which was to add some boost from a B&G Turbo system.
Four dyno pulls later it was spilling coolant on the ground yet again. Enough was enough. As much as we hoped there would be a relatively easy solution to this reoccurring problem, it didn't look like any of the easy answers could guarantee a proper gasket seal.
Ask any number of engine builders and you'll get as many different answers on how to solve the problem, but one thing all of the people we surveyed agreed on was that we needed to start with a level playing field. That being said, the motor was pulled back out and torn down to bare bones so we could have the deck surface machined flat.
From the foundry, production blocks feature a fair amount of leeway when it comes to tolerances. The extra time and money spent in producing a more accurately machined block can more easily and cheaply be made to work through the use of forgiving gaskets. The problem is that when you start to change the hard components, those loose tolerances can become a bigger problem.
To square up our little 302, we dropped in on Scotty Guadagno of Scotty's Racing Technology in Spring Hill, Florida, to see what he could do for our Recession Special. Obviously any time you involve a professional in your project, it's going to cost money. However if you limit yourself to only getting the essentials, you can save money while still getting what you need done. It also depends on your machine shop and how much they are looking to sell you on machine work.
Our man Scotty Guadagno spends the majority of his time assembling 10.5 Outlaw, Drag Radial, and Pro Mod engines, so taking care of our little 302 street engine was fairly easy for him to handle. In fact, he was at ground zero of the New York/New Jersey 5.0L movement when it began back in 1986, and accumulated a wealth of experience as his customers were consistently pushing the 5.0L envelope. When we told Guadagno of our cylinder head sealing problem, he agreed that milling the deck was the solution and suggested we make a slight modification to the cylinder heads as well.
 The block is fastened to the...  The block is fastened to the fixture with a pipe through the main caps. This ensures that all machining is done with regard to the crankshaft centerline, rather than the block itself. |  The offending deck surface...  The offending deck surface is about to get whacked. Yes, Guadagno is from Brooklyn and this is a hit-to the deck surface that is. |  The block is leveled in the...  The block is leveled in the fixture and then a thin test run is made across the deck to make sure that it is evenly cutting the surface. This will also show you all of the low and high spots in the factory casting. |
 With the block level and the...  With the block level and the machine set to cut, it's milling time. The actual process doesn't take very long. The first cut was made at .002-inch, and we needed to cut another .001-inch to get the surface completely flat. |  Here you can see the machine's...  Here you can see the machine's tooth cutting into the surface. Sounds a lot like a brake rotor getting turned. |  This is the surface we should...  This is the surface we should have started out with, especially considering there was a previous issue with the block. We'd forgotten about it though, and it cost us several days of hard labor in and under the car. After we finished cutting this side, Guadagno measured the deck height of both banks and found the other side to be shorter, so this side was milled a bit more so both would be even in height and square to the crankshaft. |
 Guadagno pulled the oil galley...  Guadagno pulled the oil galley plugs at the back of the block before hot-tanking it. | | |