Are any of you considering building an "efficent" hot-rod?

Just picked up a ranger 2.3 rebuilt w/5000 miles 5spd and rear end for $350 can we say effeicency here we come!!!!

 

You make a Yankee skinflint blush!
Paid $350 for a 5 spd alone!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVQtK04lig


I think this would be good on gas if ya kept your foot out of it, Plus it has to be fun to drive!!!!

 

You didn't even add that the guy is throwing in everything else you could want but the body......too bad ya gotta move to Redding where you don't know anybody to help build it and drink your beers!!!

 

got a little fun car planned. probably gonna make someone mad, but... toyota pickup frame (the older ones with four wheel leaf springs), drop tube front axle, fiat 4 banger and 5 speed (twin overhead cam, reminds you of an offy without the BS of the gm quad fours), saving for a deuce or late T body, corvette rack and pinion, bench seat from dodge pickup, and still in the market for a rear end. rescue parts, hack, weld, drive, enjoy~

 

I'd rather spend more disposable income for original vintage tin than the original vintage drivetrain... isn't that what's really important after all? Is a flathead, an auburn dash and a banjo rearend in a fiberglass or repopped body cooler than a perserved or restored all original tin car from the nose to the decklid hiding a modern drivetrain?

personally i would choose the latter... some of us can afford to have it both ways... some of us... not exactly.

 

Like I keep saying keeping it effeicent starts with what you pay for the parts too. If I could build a hemi for $300 and borrow someones credit card I would drive that to the roundup but since that ain't gonna happen this just might work.

 

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I am running a .040 283, Comp Cams 260H, power pack heads, Edelbrock Performer manifold w/ Edelbrock 1405/6 600 CFM, headers, a T-5 and 3.73 gears in my '58 Chevy pickup and it averages 21 highway MPG with A/C at 70-75 mph. I check my mileage over several trips and tanks full of gas to arrive at the figures. I have jetted the carb down to solve a rich running issue.

Fuel economy is a good part driver as well as tuning your engine. I can drive the truck in a way that it gets 4-6 mph less very easily but it doesn't make sense. I used drive 12K to 15K annually in the truck and tend to drive my cars / rods year round.

I have a '90 Nissan pickup with a fuel injected 2.5 and a automatic O/D that gets 26-28. I saw somewhere on line where a guy did some cleaning, polishing and other modifications to the valve cover and some other pieces which made it look a lot less imported. My 2.5 is a real torque monster in the pickup and I have given thought to pulling it out and putting it into a small hood on roadster.

I am currently finishing up a '50 Fordor for my youngest son and we opted for a Chevy 5.7 TBI (220) with a 700R4. I am even using the computer and expect it to run in the low 20+ mpg area. I will check it out once the car is on the road. He is going to use the Ford as his daily driver year round and we wanted to be able to pick up repair parts locally even on weekends...

 

i would have to say that i am not thinking of efficiency since i am building a 454 for my '53 chevy truck although my '62 tempest does have the original 195 ci in it

 

yea i've seen people who have built crazy manifolds with a bunch of them before.they can be angled,since you rotate the fuel bowl apart from the carb. saw a v8 powerd bike some nut in england built with like sixteen of the buggers.

 

They also build a roadster version of the Smart car - not too shabby for a commuter...

...but it ain't no hot rod.

 

heres a thread on found on here with them on a dragster around 64, http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2636233
looking for a pic of mine,i know you guys don't like import shit,but the manifold is cool,and a nice manifold could be made for an american engine also. they can be made to look nice on a hot rod as well. l

 

heres the pic,these could be made to look nice on a traditional rod also.

 

Efficiency does not come into the picture when building a Blown Flathead Mopar motor. I will be using a large quantity of hydro-carbon fuel to make a few horsepower. The only green in the car will be paint color.

N B R
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Wanted: speed equipment for a Geo Metro 3 banger motor.

 

I've been doing a lot of work with fiberglass composites and resins lately working in the boat yard. Real cool stuff... light as heck! Check out lost foam molding for a fast way of building stuff.

If you have a painted bumper, pop a fiberglass copy and bolt it on, or just ditch them completely.

The other thing... grab a bunch of holesaws and go to anything that isn't needed for the strength of the car, ventilate it. Swiss cheese!

Its all about power to weight when it comes to having fun!

 

4 of those would be more than respectable,can.t figure out where the Yorkshire pudding tray fits on

 

Over here we call 'em muffin trays or cupcake trays, Cupcake...

 

haha,good way to organize AN fittings,but my wife stole it,so back to the mason jars.

 

I just stumbled upon this and thought I might add something. I'm building a '40 Ford RPU and decided to go the fuel economy route but also wanted horsepower. I have picked up a 4.2 liter all aluminum inline 6 and tranny out of a 2004 GMC Envoy. It is pretty compact, lightweight and puts out 280hp in stock form. My wife has this same year Envoy and she gets 23mpg city and 30mpg highway. Wife the lighter weight of the '40 it should get good fuel mileage but go like stink. I'm working on the electronics to bypass the dual oxygen sensors but it should sound sweet with a dual collector header and short pipes. What do you think?

 

My dad had the Chevy version of the 4.2 liter for a while- couldn't get over the fact that it had 280HP... same as the '57 Belair conv't he had when he was younger (it was Harbor Blue, bought it new- the salesman talked him out of the new fuel injection because it would take an extra month for the order, the bugs weren't worked out of the injection yet, and the 280HP 2x4 carters would run faster in the 1/4 mile).

 

sounds good, have only had one I6 but liked it a lot. If trying to make the stock ECU work doesn't pan out, you could get a Megasquirt, it can be user programmed to work with just about anything and there is a huge user community at http://www.msefi.com/index.php and elsewhere...

 

A roadster with a Zetec or Ecotec would be pretty awesome. The have some pretty neat side draft carb setups for those motors and some nice spaghetti bowl headers. Sure it's a big aluminum chunk but that shouldn't stop you from dressing it up nice and getting some power out of it.

Traditional?.....who cares!

 

I'M sure if they had alunimum block 6 bangers that put out 280 ponys out of the box they would found thier way into many a hot rod.

 

LOTS of RWD conversion stuff and speed parts available for Zetecs as they are used in Lotus Seven clones, have one in mine and love it, plenty of power (175hp) for a 1300 lb car and get about 23-25 mpg driving it fairly hard....225 hp is possible w/ cams and a shaved head. Dual Weber setups are common, but many have throttle bodies designed to fit the same manifolds and they look kinda like Webers. Would probably work great in a light Track T....
Duratecs are being used now too, 40 lbs. lighter and 300 cc bigger (2.3 vs. 2.0 L)

 

Yup, just pulled an 80,000 mile 260 with 3 speed/overdrive out of a 63 Fairlane, going in my phantom rpu
I just gotta have a v8

 

If you are looking for info on the 4.2L Vortec I6, there are a few people doing that swap on Inliners.org.

 

you have to think though, 280hp is fairly easy to get out of a 4.3 V6, and thats on 15 year old engines.....with modern technology, i see it being very possible for the 4.2 I6 to be putting out 280....

there is also an I5 version of this engine that is supposed to give 4 cylinder economy, but near 6 cylinder power...i want to see that one in a rod just because it would be different

 

are you talking about the dual o2 sensors as in before and after the converter?
or it has one for each three cyl.? if the latter you need to keep your o2 sensors for it to run in closed loop, if it runs in open loop all the time,there goes your fuel economy out the window,as well as some horsepower. these would still be in the tradition of the hot rod,due to the fact you are putting a lighweight high horsepower motor in a light car. it's all power to weight. as far as the sensors,just get some weld on 02 bungs and weld them in near the header outlets. they will work the same. those sensors are really important on these high horsepower smaller engines. they run lean to save fuel economy those sensors warn the computer if the mixture is too lean preventing burning a hole in a piston. they are under a lot of stress is all,but with careful computer control,they are able to squeeze a lot of horsepower out of small displacement numbers. i'm sure if these engines were avaiable 15 years ago,they would already be in lots of rods. 280 horsepower is nothing to laugh at. a lot of people are scared of the wiring issues is another reason they probably aren't in a lot of rods yet too. i'm sure painless has something to make it work in about anything. the higher gas goes,the more attractive these high horsepower 6 cyl engines will look.

 

Is an overhead cam engine more efficient that an in-block? Twin cams more efficient that single cams?

Given equal displacement, is an engine with fewer cylinders more efficient than one with more?

Higher compression engines more efficient than lower?

Any other characteristics that make an engine more efficient?

Thanks,

gary

 

280 hp uses the same amount of fuel whether it's coming from a I6 or a V8. It takes a specific amount of fuel and a specific amount of air to produce a specific output of horsepower. We all know engines are air pumps. a 280 hp I6 will consume just as much fuel as a 280 hp V8 when both are producing 280 hp.