Projects '23 Ford Roadster build aka The Incredible Hulk

stopped raining long enough for the roads to dry enough to drive it around a bit.
surprised at how close the air/fuel ratios were.
I had been adjusting rods, jets and squirters in the Edelbrock 1406's by seat of the pants
and reading the plugs.
after warm up to about 180°-185° it idles at about 700 rpm with a ratio around 13:1
low speed cruise around 13.5:1
stab the throttle it goes to about 12:1
high speed cruise about 14:1
vacuum at idle is about 19"
I need to take another look at vacuum at other speeds and loads but when cruising and then quickly floored vacuum pretty much goes to zero (maybe 5"?) but pulls smooth and strong.
I will wait for better weather to tune further.

 

Your builds always impress me @Paul. Simple. Well laid out. I know a lot of thought goes into making it look this easy!

 

thanks @Hitchhiker Matt,
'watched your "hot garbage" video this morning,
nice relaxing presentation,
very refreshing.
looking forward to more.

 

just subbed to charlie's channel. every dog channel should have a few hot rods thrown in.

 

This whole thread & build is motivational. I'm impressed with the carb tuning. I guess I'm just an under-achiever but in my shop if it just runs I'm happy.

Once this one is massaged to your liking, and it seems like it should be close now, what's next?

Lynn

 

thanks Lynn,
might be nice to actually finish one,
paint and real upholstery would be nice.
maybe just keep and improve on this one for a while.

 

Looks like a good choice for a keeper. Give her some paint an upholstery and enjoy driving for a while. You have a great little hotrod there, have some fun with it.

 

Thanks! I appreciate that Paul!

 

rain let up so I broke out the old gopro and recorded a typical run with the air fuel ratio gauge. A/F on left and vacuum on right in two gauge panel under dash.
lives mostly in the 12-14:1 range with as lean as 16:1 on moderately hard acceleration and as rich as 10:1 on deceleration.
not exactly ideal but it's getting close

 

Love that transmission wine, nothing like rowing the gears in a hot rod! Looked a bit chilly Paul.

 

Took me a week a little bit at a time but I just read it all from start to finish, great job and please continue with updates.

 

Any new news @Paul ? Or just enjoying it?

 

it's become quite reliable,
last Saturday I tagged along with the Coffin's car club for their poker run.
met the club rendezvous in Edmonds, about an hour and a half North of Puyallup,
caught a ferry to the Olympic peninsula and worked our way North for a couple hours.
I left the group mid afternoon and drove South about two hours to home.
It was good to see the Coffin group, several HAMB members in them.
the scenery was amazing, the weather was perfect
and the car behaved itself flawlessly for the 184 mile round trip.

 

Epic! I miss exploring up there!

 

That is one BEAUTIFUL car!

 

Love to see it!

 

a nothing update;
I like the smooth chrome valve covers with the Golden Rocket decals but..
'can never leave well enough alone.
so I pulled out a few alternate choices,
Edelbrock, ok but would look better polished.
Fenton, ok but would look better on an earlier engine.
chrome dimpled, ok but.. not this time.
so I settled on this NOS pair of Moon covers.
they are taller and wider than the chrome covers, makes the engine look bigger.
I like that.

 

Tough to decide with so many solid options.

 

in the short two years it's been on the road the car has only about 4k miles on it, overall it's been very reliable.
one issue though is that I have bottomed out hard enough and often enough that the problem needs to be addressed.
I built the car with a full spring pack front and rear.
it had just enough ground clearance but gave a harsh ride.
I removed two leaves at each end and that softened the ride enough but lowered the car about an inch.
I like the lower look but now ground clearance was too low.
I thought I'd drive it like that for a while and see if I could live with it.
nope..

so yesterday I modified the rare but damaged pan.
here is that process:

with the car at rest I taped a sharpie to a 2x4 on edge and marked a line at 3-3/4" from ground.
or I should say I failed at creating a good mark on the oily pan with the old worn out sharpie but got a good visual reference.





put the car in the air.
with an eye towards safety I place a steel post under the lift


looks like it occasionally hits the drain plug with a major scrub on the leading edge of the pan taking the worst of it.
you ( I ) can just make out a bit of the sharpie line..



drop the pan
here you can see there is no easy way to raise the pick up to drastically chop the pan
but I can flatten the bottom of the pan and relocate the drain plug
that will give me roughly an inch more ground clearance, right at the 3-3/4" measured.
the camera angle of measurements is a bit skewed, the bottom of the pick up is right at 7-3/4"
and the bottom of the pan with gasket in place will be right at 8" deep
giving me 1/4" clearance between the two



time to slice and dice



a little bit of hammer and dolly and tack a piece of same thickness .045 steel in the big hole with the old tig welder



and weld it all up



here you can see how much the bottom of the pan was raised
not a lot but it should make a difference



I made a small skid pad of 1/8" plate for the leading edge and welded that in place



slopped some paint on the bare metal
bolted it and everything else in place
off the lift with a fresh oil change
(I've been using Valvoline VR1 high zinc with a WIX filter in all my Olds engines)
slipped a 2x4 under the pan to check height and it's right at the expected 3-3/4"
I still may add a shim at the spring pads, even 1/4" might make me feel better..

 

Nice work! I thought I was setting mine up low at 6". Lol. Your level of craftsmanship is always inspiring!

 

God I love this thing.

 

Very clean and in a car that probably has an inch and a half of suspension travel that’s a huge amount of clearance gained. Bet it does the trick!

 

Since it's so close to the same height maybe you could also make a new 4 bolt plate for the the lower flywheel cover out of some high density black plastic. You could counter bore the 4 bolt holes and make it so that at least on flat ground that hit a half inch of so before your oil pan.

 

Nice fix Paul. Now go find a speed bump and report back
PS..you using vr1 20w50 or 10w30?

 

as soon as the rain lets up I'll do that!
with warmer weather on the way I put 20-50 in this time

 

Finally got to see this in person when you had it parked directly across from the Puyallup fairgrounds entry gate at the Early Bird Swap meet. Very cool!

 

finally got around to putting in a more permanent radiator over flow.
I ran with none for a while, then before the Estranged Drags last year I put a temporary catch "can" on, a plastic pop bottle.. yeah I know, not exactly legal.. the other day Mike of This Old Hotrod posted pictures of his solution.
so of course I liked it, like all his solutions and promptly copied it.

 

Plagiarism, in our world the greatest form of compliment! So I can do the same, what is the base mount from?

 

it's from an old cup style column mounted tach

 

Thanks. I bet there's one somewhere in the piles of parts and paraphernalia in my garage...