Limited Late Model Motor - Build Your Own Race Engine, Part Four

Before installing the fuel pump, you must first slide the fuel pump pushrod in place. We got ours from Bradley Auto Parts. One trick is to put high-pressure lube on the ends of the pushrod. This not only protects it during initial startup, but the lube helps the pushrod stick to the end of the fuel pump lobe on the camshaft so that the pushrod won't slide out while you are trying to install the fuel pump.

Unlike a standard fuel pump, this Professional Products unit has a piston that works on a parallel line with the fuel pump pushrod. This is one of the ways this pump can move more fuel with less parasitic drag on the engine.

Here it is installed on the engine. Professional Products even includes the bolts.

Before dropping in the distributor, make sure to liberally apply some sort of thick lubricant to the distributor gear.

These E3 plugs use a special tip that's supposed to help improve combustion efficiency. Most rulebooks make no mention of what type of spark plugs you can or can't use, so we're trying these out to see if they help make power.

Before installing your plugs, you should always apply a thin coat of anti-seize to keep them from galling inside the cylinder heads.

Most Limited Late Model-level classes require a stock-style distributor. For Chevrolets, this means an HEI that includes the coil inside the distributor cap. We're using a high-power race HEI from Moroso that should provide plenty of spark well in excess of 8,000 rpm-where stock HEI distributors just can't keep up. We're also using Moroso's plug wires, which are already cut to the correct length and marked one through eight to make everything just a bit easier. By the way, the standard firing order for a Chevy small-block is 1, 8, 4, 3, 6, 5, 7, and 2.

To avoid crossover, make sure no two wires are touching. One cheap way to do this is to create a loom with zip ties, as you see here.

Edelbrock's 2101 intake is designed for a four-barrel carburetor, and most classes at this level require a two-barrel Holley. To get it to fit, you will need an adaptor plate like this one from Bradley Auto Parts.

This is Holley's 500 cfm two-barrel. Holley has advanced the design so much that it should make good power right out of the box.