About “SS402”

I bought Monte from a fellow up in the 'tarheel' state a couple years ago, had it shipped down and it was love at first sight, just listening to it idling at my Mom's house sped up the blood racing thru my veins, the motor was living on the ragged edge and i accepted the fact that if it broke i would have it rebuilt and pour all my knowledge into it's new life..
the engine was making big power and ran like a raped ape, they always run their best right before they die..but i could tell it just wasn't happy, it's a connection in my mechanical mind.. the third time i drove it i was heading downtown just cruising around 65mph and suddenly very expensive engine sounds began to emanate from under the hood and blue smoke poured out the back..pulled over on the side of the interstate and called AAA, found a mobile mechanic to come out to the house and work on Monte..after pulling the plugs and intake manifold we realized that the intake valve in #3 cylinder had broke at the base of the stem..sure enough, pulled the heads and the valve was stuck sideways thru the piston...ouch.
off to the machine shop it went...for 4 months..all the valves were bent, one piston and rod was trashed, the crank was bent, front main bearing was spun and the block needed to be align-honed...mercy..i don't have anything nice to say about the tarheel machine shop that slapped this baby-rat together previous owner piston/valve clearance when they built the motor and i got stuck with the repair bill..it's all good because this way i knew what was in the motor and how it was put together, i dictated the entire build to the machine shop..
it wasn't enough that the cam has close to .600" lift and the 10.5:1CR pistons have a nice dome on them, no, the block had to be decked because one of the sleeves wasn't flush with the deck surface , the pistons are .015" out of the hole and we still got clearance issues with the valve/piston with the cam 'straight up' (Comp grinds 4 degrees advance into the cam so it must be installed @ zero), so we notched the pistons for valve clearance and used a .055" head gasket to supply the minimal .040" piston/head clearance, everything about the build screams
to say it runs good would be an understatement, the first few times i drove the car my hands were shaking when i got out, somebody get me a beer and a ..... quick..lol
driving it is a force to be reckoned with, I can't begin to tell you how brutally powerful this car is..since i'm disabled and can't walk i use hand-controls to drive the car, i wrap 4 fingers over the hand-control, grip the wheel with my thumb and shift it with my right hand..definately have to detune the tranny a tad, change it back to full-automatic with forward valve body instead of the full-manual reverse valve body as it is now.. it spends 99.9% of it's time on the street but it has the heart of a drag car, future plans include Brodix JJ270 heads, custom solid-roller cam, rear suspension mods and more exhaust work..
In the meantime it puts a .... eating grin on my face everytime i startup that fire-breathing 402BBC and take Monte for a little cruise ..