DeTomaso Mailing List: May 99, Message #200

dear doug,        i did not purchase the blue thunder from m.a.p.(MARINO PINA)
   i think i have his last name right, i tried to but he was out at the 
time,so i got the reportably new(USED) manifold west of the mississippi,but 
not west of the rockies i would prefer not to get any more  detailed as to 
the vendor as i may be forced to get something more there.    as for the help 
i have recieved from marino at m.a.p. he has helped me greatly, as it turned 
out we took his advise in building the motor, do not have it in car or 
running yet but he says it is close to the way he built one of his engines 
and it has worked out great for him.  we tryed the port plates, marino sells 
them,but discovered after looking at them they seem like a sealing nightmare, 
so i took his advise and purchased the alum. tongue's he sells.      after 
some filing and die grinding the tongue's were j.b.welded(STEEL STRONG EPOXY) 
inside the blue thunder and them after drying the tounges and manifold were 
given a die grinding to smoth out the transition.  i went with a pair of 
"quenced heads" with smaller ports so there was some work inking the manifold 
and heads  to make shure all transitions from 2v heads to 4v manifold with 
tounges in place were SMOOTH. this type of setup is supposed to improve low 
end faults in the HUGE ports in the 4v heads.  we allso milled the deck and 
heads to a tolerence of somewhere around 40 thousands ??? i may have this 
number wrong , marino can help with this,and am running forged TRW flat top 
pistons.   this combination leads to a lot of squeeze(compression) but the 
small chambers and tight head/deck clearance is suppost to eliminate the 
areas where detonation can happen, meaning the beast should run on other than 
super high octaine.      i have purchased other items from m.a.p all to my 
satisfaction . as a side to this, since i had a total redo on my hands and 
not wanting to do this again, i have replaced just about every damn thing i 
can, including any sheet metal that may be marginal(i live in the great white 
north where every thing turns to rust) since i could see evidence of some 
rust under  one rocker panel that  to me said replace them both, after 
hearing storys from fellow owners as to the poor quality of the aftermarket 
pieces.  the rocker i got from marino were correct in all the bends and 
curves in both directions. they were a tough instalation,however we were able 
to install them as to need only small  spots of filler to fix mostly damage 
that happened in shipping                           good luck
                                      hope i did not ramble on
                                          dean