1973 Vega Kammback V8 conversion.

The Monza exhaust manifolds do look good in there, too.

"Seems like the V-8 sits LOW." It does sit low in the engine bay but right on the mark with regards to the transmission/drive shaft/rear end alignment. It clears the steering links and cross member like it was meant to be there, and in a way . . . it was, considering that the Monza eventually got a SBC.  It was nice to find that no hood bulge or scoop was going to be required although we're considering a functional Corvette "stinger" scoop in keeping with the Vette approach to the engine. Not sure as yet, but maybe; especially as the hood already has the "stinger" bulge in place from the factory.

"The Monza exhaust manifolds do look good in there, too."

Thanks ! We had a real go-around with them. Ended up dropping the headers and dressing the Monza manifolds up a bit to better suit the "look" of the engine. For me, they really do look like they were meant to be there.

In reply to RossD :

"No hood bulge or cutting, right!?!?

That V8 looks perfect in there."

Thanks for that, it was a surprisingly good fit, As for a scoop? Not needed, but Bruce kinda wants a Vette-style stinger. To be decided . . . 

In reply to SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) :

"My V8 Pontiac Astre (Vega clone) was much better balanced than my V8 Pintos."

The front spindles are right in line with the center measurement of the engine, add in the bell housing and trans and the package ends at the far edge of the door. Stock, the car had terrific handling with the GT suspension, torque arm, front and rear anti-sway bars and Panhard rod. With the S10 brakes I was surprised at the agility over all. The V8 is realistically going to add a two hundred pounds, something that might scare me but the other H body GM cars eventually got a SBC and handled just fine stock, this car is far from stock underneath, so . . . ?

Plan for this past week was to install the engine and trans as unit. Got the old TOTALLY STUCK pilot bearing out of the crank, and it DIDN'T come out with soap or grease or bread with a tight fitting socket ! It took a Dremel, a sharp screwdriver, an awl, a small diameter grinding bit, and two hours time ! Got it out and the new one in, bolted on the new flywheel, fitted the clutch and pressure plate. The pressure plate took three different deliveries of the wrong ones before we got the right one. Fitted the trans to the bell housing and mated both to the engine. 

Before installing the lump, we thought that pumping up the oil with a stripped down distributor might not be a terrible idea, and that's as far as we got. Three lifters on each side failed. Might be that the engine sat for a bit, might be collapsed lifters, might even be clogged push rods. Something for the next time, too hot to continue . . . we DID manage to pump all of the oil out of the oil filter hole however. We tried two different brand new filters and the leaks didn't stop. There's an adapter plate installed to convert the engine from the old style remote filter to a new style canister filter, that might need replacing, but, as I mentioned, too hot and too disheartening to continue right now.

If you really want the skunk works look you should be mimicking the LT1, not a '65 Corvette motor.  Pretty sure Baldwin built LT1 equipped Vega's back in the day.

In reply to maj75 (Forum Supporter) :

I know that the LT series is the new and old "go to," I imagine that Yenko used that engine as well, but I'm helping build what Bruce has always wanted, a 327 powered Vega Kammback. He prefers simple old school and the 327 SBC is about as old school as you can get and still make respectable affordable power in stock form. A genuine 1967 Corvette, Camel hump head, 300 hp 327 engine in a Vega, what's not to love ? ! ? ! 

This was all set to go in when we decided to spin the oil pump. Just looks SO ready, doesn't it? Be awhile before we're at this point again unfortunately. If it isn't plugged up push rods and we can't solve the massive leak at the oil filter, we're going to have to break the engine down a bit, possibly replace the lifters and rods, check the cam, and look around for that leak. Be a while either way . . . 

You guys seem to work pretty fast.  Sounds like some annoying setbacks you're facing.

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

Yeah, we are/were really trying to keep with a decent schedule with this as SO many other projects have failed in the past. When you miss a step you seem to fall two or three steps behind. Since we've never done anything like this before, we always end up in a two steps forward one step back situation. This is going to take some time to recover from as we were REALLY all set for the (hopefully) final installation. Right now, we're dead in the water . . .

A slight saving grace is just how sweet those modified Monza exhaust manifolds look in the photo, I just love how perfectly they dump just at rear of the engine ! Even under a closer look, you really can't tell where they were sourced from and would never suspect that they originated on the lowly 305 SBC Monza.

The engine that was originally in the Vega is a '76 Dura-Built; the much, MUCH improved version of the original boat anchor. Everything that was wrong with the first generation was corrected and improved on the Dura-Built, it came with a factory warranty covering 60,000 miles ! 

While we were working on the Vega brakes/handling/suspension/327 swap we were also poking around on the four cylinder. It's an extremely low mileage engine that needed nothing at all other than a paint and gasket "rebuild," just a terrific little performer with the header and re-jetted Holley carb. We figured that it might be a nice candidate for a Vega Notchback without a drive line if we found one, or a simple sale to help cover some of the cost of what we were doing. Personally, the Notchback is my FAVORITE Vega body style and I'd love to have one with this Dura-Built engine/T50 in it.

Here are a few photos of where we are with it, coming out well. Not sure if we might not shift over to putting this back together while we consider what to do next with the 327.

Don't lose hope - I  really won't take much to replace all of the stuff you just listed.  And that would be worst-case. 
 

easier to do now while it's out for sure. 

In reply to jfryjfry (Forum Supporter) :

Thanks for the encouragement ! With this current heat wave and the difficulty in getting onto the Cape during weekends, it's just going to be a while until we can get back to things. First look at the push rods, clean or replace, then move onto the lifters, then the filter problem. Simple steps for sure . . . 

One of the more difficult problems has nothing to do with the engine or the Vega, but rather with my Mustang. The trans crapped out and it sat next to the driveway for eight months until I saved up the coin and found a shop that I trusted to do the work. Unfortunately, the Mustang windows have an odd feature that keeps them slightly open until you get in and start the car. For eight months one window was slightly cracked open, the other half way down. Never noticed ! To say that there is a "mold problem" is putting it mildly. Relying on Bruce for a ride to and from is a real problem what with the traffic and being a considerable burden on him. We may be stalled on this project until I can straighten out the Mustang interior/trunk/vents and be able to drive myself down and back.

A little anecdotal story I tell sometimes:  in the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s my dad still drove his well worn notch back hi-po ‘65 Mustang.  It was long in the tooth and the tin worm was starting to move in for good.  4 speed.  One day he and I (I was around 11) were out on a crooked section of US 60 and all of a sudden an orange kammback appeared behind us.  As the road opened into one of the few straight stretches without traffic, dad down shifted and got into the 289 for all it was worth.  “I can’t hold him” I remember dad yelling over the Cherry Bombed exhaust.  The kammback easily stepped around us and was gone.  A couple years later I saw the exact same car at the local Exxon.  It was quiet but I could feel the deep “poof poof poof” emanating from some non visible exhaust in my chest.  The only visible give away was a small decal that said “Motion Performance”.

And that small decal told it all ! ! Baldwin-Motion even topped the more famous Yenko.

Still, I DO love that 289/302! I had a '67 Mustang convertible with the 289 in it and it was a pretty fun little ride. I currently have a back-burner MGA project with a SBF destined to go into it once I finish up with the Vega.

Yeah.  My dad and I always assumed it was a 350.  But looking back at Motion's catalog, they sold a "396 - 454" Vega kit too.  Who knows.  

The only experience I have with a V8 Vega was years ago.  A customer at the time had one with a 400 engine in it.  I put at least 2 deep sump oil pans on the car.  Speed humps and pot holes are heck.  At one point I asked the owner why he left the car on stock 13 inch tires.  His reply was he didn't want to break the driveshaft or the rear differential.  The little tires were his "weak link".

Only other problem was that the car would overheat with the hood shut.  So he drove it with the rear opening hood open to let the heat out.  The overheat might have been because of the 400 cid engine + lack of air flow.  

We're not yet at the "Damn, it's over heating !" stage yet. We have a Flex-A-Lite 16 inch mechanical fan and factory shroud. we also plan on opening up the inner fender wells towards the rear to help the exhaust heat exit the engine bay. We have a 17 inch Spal pusher in case we need it up front. Even though there isn't a space problem requiring a hood scoop, Bruce wants to put a functional Vette Stinger scoop on the hood to take advantage of the factory stinger-style hood bulge. These Vette scoops were blocked off at the front and opened in the rear just in front of the windshield low pressure area. The scoop design ought to help a great deal with removing hot air from under the hood. We also have the option of opening up the lower front valance and channeling cool air up from there to the radiator/engine bay, the Vega GT came stock with a lower air spoiler as well.

Again, we won't know anything until we're up and running, but we sort of have contingency plans if the car runs too hot.

I had documented my V8 Astre many moons ago, and way back when, a dude emailed me regarding cooling:

I have built V8 Vega’s for over 20 years now, first starting when the cars were almost new. I felt compelled to tell you the tendency of these cars to run hot is not inherent to the confines of the engine compartment or any other design flaw.The correct combination will yield temperatures in the 175° to 185° range on a typical 100° day and never more than 190° even while idling in 100° ambient temperatures. The solution is to block the thermostat bypass opening on the water pump and add (2) 1/8″ vent holes in the Robertshaw 330-160 (160°) thermostat. Additionally, 3 and 4 row radiators will not help to cool these engines because there is no room to place an adequate fan behind the radiator. The solution here is a 15″x21″ V8 Monza 2 Row Radiator with a constant-pitch Monza 7 Blade Engine Driven Fan resting inside a V6 Pontiac Sunbird Radiator Shroud. The only modification required when using these parts is the construction of a pair of drop brackets to lower the stock vega radiator mounting points 3″ overall. Everything else is a bolt-in affair. I thought I would also mention that many people overlook the success of the V8 Monza when trying to address their own cooling system problems. V8 Monza’s had a unique ‘short’ water pump with a high-flow impeller that differs from the standard GM Short (Early) Water Pump. V8 Monza’s also used a special water pump pulley that was over 2″ smaller in diameter than the crankshaft pulley to speed up coolant flow and cooling fan rpm. Another lesson to be learned from the V8 Monza is radiator surface area. So many V8 Vega’s I see suffer from overheating problems and in almost every case, a 3 or 4 row radiator is used with a very dense (14-16 fins per inch) fin count. While high fin counts do offer more contact area, they are also more restrictive to airflow and more susceptible to plugging with debris. The V8 Monza with A/C used a 2 row radiator with a very ‘loose’ fin count to promote airflow. The main reason for the thinner 2 row core was it allowed room to install a very large 7 blade (17″) fixed-pitch cooling fan. Most V8 Monza’s did not have a fan shroud and only those with ‘Heavy-Duty Cooling’ were so equipped. In short, many enthusiasts overlook these simple, proven techniques successfully employed by GM Engineers in the construction of the V8 Monza. V8 Monza V8 Vega Conversions I hope this information is helpful…Robert

I would imagine radiator technology has improved since the Vega's time as well...I've read about some of the newer aluminum radiators that are only two row, but still have superior cooling capacity.  A light coat of black paint and no one will be the wiser.

"I had documented my V8 Astre many moons ago, and way back when, a dude emailed me regarding cooling:"

Thanks for posting the emai—

We have the equivalent of a Monza V8 AC radiator for the car now, managed to avoid those tempting Chinese aluminum Ebay items. The Vette 327 comes stock with that same short water pump and smaller diameter pulley, mentioned, so we're ahead of the game there as well. Loads of talk about fussing with the thermostat to hold water in the radiator longer, and help cool it down, but we haven't found anything current on it. Seems like an old school trick that might be out of date with the modern thermostat and water wetter and such. 

We couldn't fit a 17" mechanical fan in the engine bay as it hit the anti sway bar and was too tall for the radiator, the 16' aluminum fixed blade is a better, more direct fit, and made of lighter aluminum so might rev up more easily and quickly with less stress on the water pump, but we have a 17" left over from another project just in case.

We have three fan shrouds, the small stock one from a four cylinder Monza, a larger, more encompassing one from an AC Vega, and a completely enclosed on from a Buick Grand National. We also have a Spal electric pusher fan as an, "OH my GOD, it pissing hot water everywhere !" last resort.

Still not exactly sure if what we have will do the trick, but we're very close to what your "friend" suggests in his email. Just some lucky choices I guess . . .