I have a 28 coupe on a 32 frame .I mounted the motor and tran 350/4l80 .But I only have a about 4 inches of ground clearance and and the motor seems to sit alittle low. Wondering what some of you guys used our made any advice is very much appreciated . I bought a recessed firewall now im thinking I dont need that .This is how the car is set up without the motor I dont have a current one right now .
I know the guy that built your car originally .a bunch of little funny trinkets in that thing.it had a big 500 or 472 Cadillac in it and the 400 trans. Iremember it running 13 sec at the track at one of the antique nationals spinning the tires pretty good. did the motor finally give up or are you just switching direction?
Do yourself a favour and raise the engine and transmission now just in case. You may later live to regret your decision that you didn't do it earlier on when you had the opportunity. There's a lot more work involved later when you rip the oil pan open, mounts, body work, exhaust, brackets etc. Don't forget to set up correct engine and pinion angle at the same time if you decide to go down that road.
Are you asking where to get taller motor mounts or what is involved in raising the engine/trans? You may have to make some custom mounts to your desired specs. As well as raising the trans tunnel. And like @mgtstumpy said, make sure you set your engine/pinion angle. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The photo you supplied shows pretty much nothing. The trick to neatly putting a SBC into a Model A on '32 rails is to start with the radiator in the stock '32 location and work your way back, using a short water pump conversion like Snow White. You will probably have to notch the gas tank for distributor clearance and may have to move the lower firewall back as well - they are separate pieces on the '28-'29. The Deuce rails give you an extra 2" of engine compartment length to work with so length is not really a serious issue. The oil pan on my '29 Model A beater (avatar) is exactly 4" from the pavement and has never been an issue...but I don't drive it like a 4-wheeler either. Tall speed bumps might cause a problem but not when taken slowly, otherwise no issues at all.
For your own piece of mind you should raise the motor. I'll give you an issue that happened to one of the local kids. He purchase a new VW Golf and slammed it to the ground. Everyone that saw the car said that it was way too low. Well, he hit a raised manhole cover and did so much damage that they totaled the car. Destroyed suspension parts and ripped the aluminum oil pan and other engine parts right out of the car. Not cool.
My dad bought from him in 2008 at the mooneyes show we went to lake hughes to pick it up it had a 472 in .The motor was pretty tired so a buddy wanted it and the turbo 400 was slipping . I remember being at the guys house sorry forgot his name but he had a nice roadster and was working on a lead sled . I only live about a hour or less over off 138
Six inches is my base rule for clearance , But I live in the country. Love the Old Timey color combination !
modern engines are designed with a 3.5 to 4 degree nose up angle, you'll find the carb base and transmission pan will be level when you set it at this angle (relative to the frame). I make it easy, and set the mounts so the transmission pan is parallel to the top of the frame rails. But you can set the engine however you think it should be--it will just look funky if you do it any other way. Set the pinion angle so the pinion yoke is "nose down" about one degree, relative to the engine/transmission centerline.
Would you start with trying to center it to the radiator if possible at 3 to 4 degrees for motor angle .The fire wall is out of my car now . Just trying to get as much info from someone with alot more experience than me .Thank you
If you are going to be driving in places like NYC where high manhole covers and deep pot holes are an issue, or taking your hot rod out in the plowed fields, a high engine placement is probably good advice. BUT...building a hot rod to be immune from all possible road hazards kinda takes the fun out of building a hot rod...especially one intended to be low and slinky in appearance. Keep in mind also that mounting the weight mass higher than necessary will detract from its cornering ability. So if you intend to drive your hot rod in a spirited fashion on anything other than straight highways keeping the center of gravity as low as prudently possible is a good idea. Study photos of the old AV8 hot rods and circle track cars from back in the day - not the newly minted ones - and you will see low engine mounting positions are nearly universal in spite of the roads being much worse than they are today. Those guys knew the fundamentals of making an old car handle well on windy roads...
I'm sure Jim will respond with really solid advice, but I think I'll add my 2 cents worth as well. The radiator is used as a benchmark for front-to-rear engine placement but not for engine height. The engine should be (in my opinion) as low as possible in the frame while at the same time giving reasonable ground clearance at the pan. With a SBC in a Model A, fan clearance at the lower radiator hose becomes an issue which is why I recommend a Snow White short water pump adapter. It not only shortens the overall engine length but also raises the fan center so that it corresponds more closely with the vertical center of the radiator. This allows a larger fan and adequate lower radiator hose clearance. Glad you are asking all these questions now, before you get to cutting and welding.
Thanks for the compliment but my beater is quite different from your project and much of the specifics won't help you very much. My car has a Model A frame that's been stretched 2 inches forward of the firewall. To avoid the "Pinocchio look" (which I hate with a passion!) I moved the stock radiator shell back 2 inches on the frame to regain the original Model A proportions. Firewall is notched for distributor clearance and I use a Snow White water pump adapter to make this all happen. As I mentioned before ground clearance at the pan is exactly 4 inches with no issues at all in over 10,000 miles of use as a daily beater.
Our roadster had the same clearance and approx miles on it...My son came home after a nite out saying he heard a noise in the engine and had to add some oil to get back home...started it and ouch, sure enough a bearing AND a cracked pan...Time to rebuild...S**t happens !
I have about 5 1/4" to the bottom of the lowest point of the oil pan in my A, thought the drain plug sits down maybe about another 3/4". Never any issues with clearance.
Setting the engine with the Carb mounting surface of the intake and the bottom of the pan "level' as Jim suggested earlier normally gets that 3 to 4 degrees of "engine angle. Just check the difference between the carb surface or air horn angle and the valve cover top angle and you see it. It's built in if you mount it with the carb level. Some of my experiences with the T bucket I built in the 70's say you want the bottom of the pan above the bottom of the axle and I'd go with that minimum six inches of pan clearance as my problem was the pan hitting speed bumps because the axle and tires were just far enough ahead of the bottom of the pan that the springs were compressed if I hit the speed bump at any speed. Two busted pans before I figured that out. Looking at the expanded photo from post 1 it looks like you can raise the engine a couple of inches real easy right now. I'd do as suggested before and set the radiator in place and install it so that it has the right radiator clearance but that should be easy if the radiator was set up for the Cad engine as you should have a lot of room to play with outside of distributor clearance. Personally I kind of like the green and black It makes it look like a guy took a pretty nice A coupe body, stuck it on a Deuce frame and chopped the top and then painted the top black after it was chopped. It might look better if it was painted green above the style line like a Model A restorer would have painted one. Make it look like you really did cut up a nice restored coupe.
When your hot rod is getting mocked up,,, At ride height and the amount of frame rake,,, You will probably have a nose down 3-4* frame, setting the engine with 3-4* nose up into that frame makes for a very goofy looking hot rod
My 2cts, I spoke to Jason Slover owner of Pete&Jakes about this, he said because the Model A coupes are so small, the driveshaft is going to be short. So he said they set up their builds with the rear and transmission should be within a degree of each other. Food for thought ???
The type of rear suspension might have more to do with how close you wan to set the centerlines to parallel. If the rear axle cannot "wind up", then it would be ok to have it parallel. With hairpins or radius rods, this is likely the case.
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