I was wondering if anyone here has built a Dodge 230 engine and had it put on the Dyno to see what horsepower their capable of? If so, what was done? How extensive is it too get more horsepower out of it? I know the bolt on stuff but what about the internal parts? Thanks for any and all info.
I know that for what they are they are a solid engine. I've played with one in bumping the compression and getting the cam reground, making a set of headers up etc however never had the effort to take one to a greater level. They are good torque engines - not so great on revs - they will grunt a load along all day long
Flathead Dodge horsepower per dollar is among the most expensive kind to buy. Aftermarket parts are rare and expensive. Even after a lot of work, it won't breath well normally aspirated. Having said that, after forty years of development, the Harley-Davidson KR-750 made 60 horsepower out of 45 cubic inches. This series of booklets tells how they did it http://victorylibrary.com/45PER.htm Thus on an unlimited development budget, your Dodge could make 300 horsepower. If I were building a flathead for street horsepower, a turbocharger would be the only way to go; that goes a long way toward overcoming the flathead's asthma. They're cheap to buy these days. The intake and exhaust on the same side make mounting and plumbing cheap and easy. Plenty of room in the engine compartment. If you want to get really serious, also get an intercooler at the U-Pik. jack vines
Thanks guy's for your info. I haven't been to this site before, I wished I had, probably could have got a lot of good information before I did what I did. I hired one of the local old schooler's in Healdsburg Ca. to build it for me, that turned out to be a disaster. Ended up pulling the engine and pretty much building it myself with the help of a couple machine shops. I thought about supercharging but the customer said no.. I just wanted to know if anyone else out there has built one and if so what was the outcome. My final result's were: 155.5 hp @ 4100 rpm and 231.9 ft. lbs. torque @ 2500 rpm, seems to run really good so far..
I have a slightly moded 56 230 Plymouth engine i my coupe. I took .050 off the head and deck, went .030 ove on teh pistons, dual carbs and freed up exhaust. On a chassis dyno it ran 127 hp at the rear wheels at 3280 RPM. Which was 64MPH on the Speedo. The stock engine was rated at 125 at the flywheel at 3600.
155HP from a streetable 230 is pretty sensational. You do not state exactly what year you started with but most were around 100 HP (103 in 1950) up to a max of 132 in 1957 with high compression and 2 barrel carb. You may be impressed with the performance on the street. The old flatheads with their long stroke, broad powerband and high torque at low to medium RPMs "punch above their weight" in everyday driving. Especially in traffic and on hills. Not so much in top speed. In other words, you can have a very satisfactory motor in spite of being "only" 155 HP.
Started with a 1942 T214 230 cu. in. engine. I drove it about a week ago and it really performed well, I was hoping for more HP, but not sure what else to do aside from supercharging it. I think we'll drive it for awhile and see how it performs. I getting ready to take it out and put 500 to 1000 miles on it to make sure everything holds up. Boy, horsepower is expensive.... The guy who did the Dyno said they had a 230 on the Dyno a couple years back, a stock one and it turned only 73 hp @ 3380 RPM. I have yet to find anyone who has put one on a Dyno and talk to them. It's pretty incredible to see and hear it. I have a short video of my motor on the Dyno from about a month ago but not sure if it can be posted here, nor do I know how to put it on. Can one post a video or pictures? How?
If you go poking around at the inliners.org site you'll find a guy and his dad who use these engines in tractor pulls, turning 6000 rpms!! I forget his name but wont be hard to find. He has documented a lot of info on these engines. One thing that seems to be a requirement for any serious engine is to increase the oil flow to #5 and #6 journals by cross-drilling the crank. The transmissions and rear end ratios are very limiting too. A T5 and later rear will do wonders for even a stocker. My 55 Plymouth from a few years ago was rated at 117hp in stock form.
This guy- Earl Edgerton- is right in your neighborhood and has had a Mopar flatty up to 135mph on the salt: http://www.edgyspeedshop.com/index2.html I thought there was more footage of it, but this is all I could find: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipX4XuWrNFM
Thanks again. Yes, I know of "EDGY" I have his Aluminum head on my engine. Cool thing about his head is I had a composite head gasket with copper fire rings made and they work, nothing out on the market fit the head and the block perfectly, tried them all. I'm headed to the site now.
Try to forget the "low" HP numbers and drive it. Does it have enough power for the driving you do? If so, forget the HP. As I pointed out before, on a long stroke flathead, developed HP is only half the story. You may find you have all the power you need, and on long hills you are passing modern cars that supposedly have more HP and without all the gear shifting. As far as the supercharger goes, for certain technical reasons a flathead responds well to supercharging. In the 30s Graham, Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg all had centrifugal superchargers. Graham used a supercharged six to replace their eight, Auburn used a supercharged 8 to replace a 12, Cord and Duesenberg only had 8 cyl engines to start with. The point is back then they could get 25% more HP just by adding the blower which was cheaper than making a whole new car. A Paxton blower will add 40% to your engine, just be sure you don't go overboard on compression and blower pressure. 7.5:1 compression and 5 to 7 PSI work great on the street with no major mods.
I have never had one on the dyno but I have done a few for Muskoka boats. Used to get old cam reground through a contact at Crane Cams who I am sure is now gone to the great machine shop in the sky. I used to bump compression with a head plane. Do a super multi angle valve job. These marine versions came with twin carbs. They were very good working motors when tweaked so. Horsepower is a mathematical way of comparing engines. It is torque X RPM/5252. If your engine never sees 5000 RPM for instance the figure will be low even if it is a stump puller.. I quite frankly have no time for Dyno HP. All to often i see engines supposedly putting out 600 HP on the dyno running 12s at the dragstrip. If they were really 600 HP they would be running 10s in a door slammer and 8s in a rail or altered. If I was doing a flatty 6 I would try and see if I could beat the Ford V8s . That would be enuf for me. There are some folks running them in HA/GRs. I wonder how they are doing? Don
That's really good. The 232 torque is usuable at that RPM. I have a 265 flathead. An older man who builds Mopar flathads told me last week that one of his customers used a turbocharger on a Dodge flathead, said it ran very well. I'd like to see long term results with a daily driver with a turbo, 4 pounds boost.
I saw a Dodge pickup at the James Dean Show a few years ago, he had adapted the turbo and carb off a Ford 2.3 turbo coupe. He said it turned the 218 into a 318!
Much as I love McCulloch, Paxton, Novi and Andy, that "add 40% to your engine" was just his advertising BS. I've seen many of them on the dyno and the drag strip. The usual figure is closer to 20-25%. An example is the unsupercharged '64 Studebaker R1 289" V8 made 240 horsepower and the Paxton supercharged R2 made 289 horsepower. That's a 20.4% increase. Your results and opinions may vary. As I mentioned earlier, on a flathead inliner, turbo would be far and away my weapon of choice. jack vines
I hope whoever built your engine improved the rod journal oiling, as that was the weak link in those engines (at least in the early ones). The military M37's were notorious for taking the rod bearings out if you drove them over 45 mph, which of course everybody did.
In '54 Kaiser offered McCulloch on a 226 inch Continental flathead six. This link claims a 30 percent increase in power. I've seen the Eaton superchargers for Ford and GM motors in salvage yards, but turbos are more common. I would want to increase usable torque, not RPMs. The oiling system is the weakness of these motors yet a man who has worked with these motors for more than 60 years told me that he's never had that problem as he always checks the oil level and keeps an eye on the oil pressure gauge. He claims that he has had a 230 to 5,500 RPM, that is also the number that is mentioned in Don Bunn's truck restoration book. http://vs57.y-block.info/kaiser.htm
Somebody check my math here. Increasing 22 hp is only an 18.6% increase. A 30% increase of 118 hp would be 35.4hp or 153.4 horsepower. Once again, a turbocharger is the best way to do that. Today's turbo engines have an essentially flat torque curve from 1,800 RPMs on to redline. A properly sized turbo is the nearest thing to a magic wand for making horsepower and torque. jack vines
To me the turbo makes sense. Just a little more guts in the mid range is fine. There aren't many speed parts for these motors and what there is costs a lot. A small turbo ought to do well. I doubt that it would cost like building an early Hemi. A turbo might be off topic as it was not traditional, other than traditional race cars. The downside of turbos on these motors is that most of the documentation is anecdotal and hearsay. What I've seen of my 265 is its plenty strong, given that 150 HP would be fine as I want some extra usable torque at cruising speeds. Some of the hearsay is that the backpressure from a turbo would cause exhaust valve failure on a flathead. Has anyone heard that? The Mopar water distribution tube is supposed to help with cooling the exhaust valves. Compared to traditional flathead hop up techniques I think the turbo would be more driveable with mostly stock internals and camshaft, would have smooth idle. I'm more of a follower, waiting to see a good report.
Back in 08 I was chatting with a couple of mopar engineers at the Plymouth club national meet in Detroit. they had a 49 Plymouth and were discussing ways to get a bit more performance using basically stock or after market parts. We talked about the modifications made to some of the engines at the show and the possibility of Turbo charging one. The low compression of the stock motor lends it self to being turbo'ed, but the turbo them begs the question of blow through or suck through fuel distribution. We know the compressed fuel air mixes tend to get hot and loose efficiency, and trying to pressurize an old float style carb has its own set of problems. The discussion turned to throttle body fuel injection from a similar displacement engine, and a small turbo from a car (the 2.5 liter turbo'd mopar 4 bangers came up) as did something from an older S 10. these would give you the ability to blow through the throttle body with a simple O2 sensor and ecu. This would need a conversion to 12v and electric fuel pump but is probably the most realistic method of achieving turbo charging. Remeber severa manufacturers supercharged their basically stock flat head 6's Graham-Paige did it in the 30's and took thier 90/100 hp engine to 115. and Kaiser used a supercharger on thier 118 hp continantal 6 to 140 HP. Both these engines gained this with around 7 lbs of boost. Kaise rwas a blow through with a hat over the carb and the Graham pulled the charge through the carb. The blower had plumbing lines for coolant to keep the compressed charge a bit cooler.
Graham and Kaiser had less boost than that. Kaiser had McCulloch cut their pressure to 4 pounds from the stock 5 in the interest of long term reliability. One road tester was disappointed that the car drove exactly like a stocker, except for the added power. He was looking forward to some noise or drama but there was none. McCulloch claimed a 40% boost in rear wheel HP which is possible on 5 PSI.
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