A Motor Question

New 3/11/05

Say you were purchasing a 2200# 1952 Allard J2X replica chassis. A correct car had a 312 CID 150 HP caddy OHV V8, hot stuff in it's day because it made twice the HP of the flat head ford.

Latter cars had the original (331 CID?) mopar hemi.

I could put in any engine I wanted, maybe a Caddy STS DOHC but it would be "wrong" for the period but at least in the caddy family. I could put in a 500 CID caddy, it's the same block. Or a chebby 454, but it, like the 500 CID caddy would be overkill.

Maybe a small block crate motor? Mustang 5.0L or Crane SB chebby? (~400 HP)

I think the V-12 caddy was a flathead, that would be kool, but slow.

Even a V6 SHO motor?

I think any big block would be a gas hog & over kill. Maybe unsafe. Fun to drive, no fun to own.

A hot crate motor, small block chebby or ford may be about right but not unique.

A V6, not enough inches or HP.

Old tech or new tech? Iron block with carbs or go DOHC alloy V8?

What would you want to put in?

Buford

The Northstar engine would be pretty neat, although my first inclination is always the smallblock Chevy because that is what I grew up on.

I found this on the northstar, http://www.babcox.com/editorial/us/us100232.htm

Not very favorable.

Nice thing about 1950 technology is I can change the 8 plugs myself in less than 8 hours.

A 383 Edelbrock or Jasper chebby motor would cost half as much as northstar and make about 130 more HP.

No one can rebuild a northstar, can't get parts.

Buford

I had a Triumph TR7 with the twin side drafts. Never could get it perfect.

Also realized the cowl hood has "the lump" going in the wrong direction for 8 carbs..... :)

Paul

Soup can photos for Ron

For a flat head

For an early hemi

four strombergs with roots blower for a flat head

Buford

Sure, they may look good, but reference Paul's comments about "taking a week to synchronize them".

Carbs look good on cars sitting at cruise nights, but as C&D commented many years ago about the Pantera (I'm paraphrasing here): "It's a car that is better appreciated from the curb than it is from the driver's seat".

You can go for looks....or you can go for trouble-free performance. One of the reasons for the superior performance of today's cars over the old musclecars is the EFI system.

It's like sitting down at a Windows 3.1 machine after using XP. You don't realize just how crappy things were in the past.

Ron Porter

Ron,

If I remember right, the Pantera was made about the time that emissions had every manufacturer doing back flips to make carburetors work.

On older cars without the emissions junk, there is nothing at all wrong with a carburetor. Of course some are better than others, and carbs wear out in locations like the accelerator pump, but then fuel injectors also go bad.

But I have never had any real problems with any of the carbureted old cars I have had. Tri-power Pontiac, once you get the right jets for the intended purpose (street or drags) they are zero maintenance items.

An AFB is a superb carb, and the new Edelbrock versions are even better.

Yes, I agree, fuel injection is better in so many ways, but on a non-emissions car where originality is wanted, a vintage carb is very low maintenance, and works just fine.

When my '1966 Grand Prix at 4100 pounds (same as my 300C) would get 20 mpg on the highway with regular gears, not the super tall highway gears. Put an OD on the tranny and it would get a couple more. The Hemi does make more HP and get 2-3 more mpg, but again, we should get SOMETHING for 40 years of progress.

Nothing prettier to me than a cross ram Mopar, or old hemi. Tri-power Pontiac or SD 421 with two AFB's. 409 with two AFB's is also a thing to behold. How about a six pack Mopar or Ford 6 barrel on a 406? Dual quads on a 427 is heaven.

NONE of these would garner anywhere near the interest with modern fuel injection even if they probably would make more HP and run better.

I know hundreds of people that not only LOOK good at cruise nights with carbs, but have had years of trouble free miles.

Don Mallinson

It is not so much the reliability of carbs, as the inability to deliver the right amount of fuel to maintain stoich at each RPM and throttle setting. IMO open loop designs like a carb are inferior to a closed loop system like fuel injection with feedback from 02 sensors and fast computers to control them like started SHOing up in the '90's..

Carbs invariably run lean sometimes during engine operation and rich at other times.

For pure WOT performance carbs are fine.

Jim

There are a lot of good-looking EFI setups on street rods, also.

Read what I said, you are basically agreeing with me. For an old retro setup, leave the carbs on.

If I were doing a current retro restoration, or a kit car, I would never use carbs. In looking back, it's almost surprising that they even worked as well as they did. They are the "buggy whips" of the 20th century.

Ron Porter
(who was a Holley carb guru back in the '70s.....I threw away probably the equivalent of $5K (in today's $$$) of Holley stuff back in the '80s).

Ron,

I *was* agreeing with you. Don't go paranoid on me.

;-)

That sums it up . Boring ! Use a 408 Windsor w/a nostalgic Weber carbed intake . Chevy V-8 engines are only good for cars that do not get driven . They break when you abuse them . The Windsors are bullet proof . Hell a stock 351 Cleveland CJ w/4bbl quenched chamber heads would be a great choice and IMHO looks better and beefier than any engine and utilizes 302 bell housing pattern and 302 motor mounts . Makes my Granada run 12s w/a small cam , 454 Chevy rocker arms , and Demon carb . I have one ready to rebuild if interested . All of the machine work is complete .

B.King 13

Secondaries kicking in???

A REAL carb has secondaries that open under your control, not at the whim of something else. Long ago I had a modded 283 Chevy- FI heads, mechanical lifter cam, headers, 12:1 pistons, the new Edelbrock Tarantula intake, and I put a Holley 850 double-pumper on it. The engine loved every bit of it.

Before that we inherited an old roadster for a short while. It had a Chevy V8 but I don't remember if it was a 283 or 327. It had 3- 2 barrels but they were connected in parallel so when you hit the throttle they ALL opened up at the same time. The accelerator pumps were a little weak and at idle if you hit the throttle too hard it would stall the engine- too much air and not enough gas.

If I was building a hotrod these days and intended to drive it much I would probably go with FI due to all of the advantages.

> Some of the newer hot rodders have gone to fuel injection. I'd hate to > mess with carbs though they look cool and I like it when the > secondaries kick in.

> Ron Porter (who was a Holley carb guru back in the '70s.....I threw away probably the equivalent of $5K (in today's $$$) of Holley stuff back in the '80s).

I can hear Eric sobbing all the way over here.

Larry Eck

Wow that was black magic to figure out an 850 double pumper if you'd never worked with one before.

Jim

They've never been a problem for me, however some Chevy V8's now come with the distributor in the front.

> My issue > with using a Chevy in anything is having the distributor on the back of the > engine.....PITA.

I tossed a boat load of Q'jet stuff. Gave it away with the T/A I sold.

Condolences to Eric. I bet a lot of silverbacks have the same regrets.

Ron,

I had no plans to commute in this car. It's a nostalgia rod. One could buy 4 new Hondas for the same price.

I was a senior at Penn State, Rochester Products sent a crew to a campus job fair.

When they learned that I had the 10 digit serial number of my Q'Jet memorized they offered me job on the spot.

---------------

My brother has a fetish for wooden clocks, (wooden gears and escape mechanism) anyone can make a clock out of metal, not a digital clock in his house. One never knows when a clock will chime in his home, and with all his clocks something is always chiming.

-----------------

To know & understand carbs is to love them, they are all a labor of love of a mad scientist somewhere.

Tim

fun stuff,
Buford

My big PC fubared the CPU last night, I lost the Email on that hard disk until I replace the CPU, If I missed your contribution to this thread I am sorry.

Buford

As usual, my posts don't get read through. For retrofitting on old cars sure, carbs work as do ignitions with points in them, to keep things original.

I specifically stated that for a new retro rod, or a kit car, or any other engine swap, EFI is the way to go.

My AMX project was done in 1973. To do that today, it would have the new stuff.

I'm not going to dig through the Holley and Summit stuff, but I'll bet a complete Holey Stealth ram EFI setup isn't that much more pricey than a new carb & manifold. When you factor in the better tuneability and precision of the EFI, for my money it's well worth it.

Ron Porter

I would so put a late model engine in that car.

If there's room for a V-10, it's just as easy to put one in there as it is anything else. You can have any transmission you'd like and talk about torque... A V-10 makes 300ft-lbs at 1600 and peaks at about 3500 at 345ft-lbs. It's a single feed drive system, so the alternator is tucked in the valley between the cylinder heads, the A/C is tucked up tight to the block on the passenger's side, the P/S pump is tucked up tight on the driver's side. It's a nice little package to work with. It's about 150lbs lighter than a Big Block and about 1 1/2You can have an E4OD trans (4spd, OD w/lockup) or a 5speed Cobra. Either way, it's a breeze. The wiring harnesses we use are custom built. I can burry the wiring out of sight to give it a smooth look under the hood, but everything attaches to the Ford PCM. Makes for a smooth install and ease of tuning.

It's up to you, but I don't plan to ever use another push rod engine in anything.

Doug Lewis

The next part of our business is Hybrid Muscle. Take an old car, make it look like it did when it rolled off the line, but take all late model technology and stuff a late model engine under the hood.

Case in point, we took an old 1979 F-150 and stuffed a '96 4.6L Mustang motor and trans in it. It took 2 1/2 years, but it runs like a champ.

Got the next project "in chassis" now. 1970 Cougar. Gonna get a 6.8L Triton V-10 truck engine. 5sp trans, rack-n-pinion steering, 13" Cobra brakes, 8.8" rear w/3.73 gears, late model Mustang wheels, Rocaro seats, Autometer gauges and a killer paint job. This thing is 315hp and 345 ft-lbs outta the box. Should be plenty and still get 20mpg.

We can take any motor and put it in any car. For example, we can take a 2000 model Cobra engine/trans from Ford Racing Parts for $6K and stuff it into anything that will fit it, add $1500 worth of wiring harness and computer tuning and make it run.

How does 320hp sound?

Doug Lewis
Ford Performance Specialists Inc.
Atlanta Georgia (770) 949-7191

>>Gonna get a 6.8L Triton V-10 truck engine. 5sp trans, rack-n-pinion steering,

> wonder what that engine weighs? What is the red line, cam options that are less truck like?

> Tim

Fully dressed 6.8L engine weighs about 200# less than a fully dressed big block. Red line around 6000, no cam options. Makes 300fl-lbs from 1600 all the way over to about 5000.

What else would you want?

Doug Lewis

I love my 6.8l V-10 with 4.56 gears in 14,000 lbs of motor home. I imagine it would get the job done in a hot rod. Some cams to shift that peak torque power to peak torque might be in order.

My V-10 doesn't sound good to my ear though. For me a hot rod=v8 of some sort.

Jim

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