Marginally better than the original power plant...

What are you doing for the heater hoses down the passenger side of the block? I see some brass fittings in there.

1 hour ago, Patcon said:

What are you doing for the heater hoses down the passenger side of the block? I see some brass fittings in there.

Those are transport plugs. The engine came to me in the back of a pickup truck and needed to have a couple plugs to prevent leaks from the residual coolant. I left them in to keep contaminants out for now. I took the hose plug off for the pictures. The stock lines will run as normal under the COP setup.

10 hours ago, wheee! said:

Those are transport plugs. The engine came to me in the back of a pickup truck and needed to have a couple plugs to prevent leaks from the residual coolant. I left them in to keep contaminants out for now. I took the hose plug off for the pictures. The stock lines will run as normal under the COP setup.

I had SS hose fittings in the heater in/out-lets. Both BSPT and NPT have 14 TPI for these 1/2 threads so it fits without drama. The 280's have the threaded heater hose fitting on the lower rad outlet, and the hole at the back of the head is always threaded, so it's an easy conversion.

Makes it easy to put a simple brass plug in it.

Most people in my part of the world wouldn't know what a transport plug is. The engine just ends up in the back of a truck and what comes out, comes out!

There was however a mystery hole in the side of the head that was tapped and led to a coolant passage. That leaked a little and surprised me as it was definitely someone’s mod. Jim wasn’t tracking it either as it lays beneath the intake manifold gasket.

You can see it beneath the 4&5 intake ports.

 

I have since plugged it with threaded aluminum rod.

1 hour ago, Patcon said:

Most people in my part of the world wouldn't know what a transport plug is. The engine just ends up in the back of a truck and what comes out, comes out!

It's the same here except you might find bits of an old T-shirt stuffed here and there.

It’s amazing the stuff that eats your time. Tonight I spent three hours in the shop working on a couple little things.

One of which is the oil pan reinforcing ring with the exhaust standoff. It had been crunched a bit and needed some love. So after media blasting, bending, anvil hammering and more media blasting, welding, more media blasting... it looks acceptable!

No pics but I thought it was funny how much time that took...

 

Here’s the piece I’m talking about.

 

So this is definitely going onto my car somewhere!
Leopard 2 Main Battle Tank breather fitting! All Z cars should have tank parts...

GPMG C6 Machine gun 7.62mm round for scale.... [emoji51]

2 hours ago, wheee! said:

So this is definitely going onto my car somewhere!
Leopard 2 Main Battle Tank breather fitting! All Z cars should have tank parts...

GPMG C6 Machine gun 7.62mm round for scale....

Cody loves that!