Technical 1950 or 51 "sports car"...what engine?

Now THAT idea really has some merit! I was just discussing late fifties Ranger engined sprint cars with a local vintage sprint car racer the other day, there was an article in Hot Rod in 1960 about a couple racers from the Seattle area building them, and they were very successful. These motors only weighed around 350lbs, and laid in thier side with a dry sump the frontal area and center of gravity would be low.

 

I am officially wearing my NOMEX racing suit so FLAME AWAY........



Quad 4.

 

I'll post the article on the sprint cars tomorrow, I think Metalshapes has the answer here. I might even "know a guy, who knows a guy" for a motor...

 

Funny you should say that, the vintage sprint car guy I was talking to is building a midget with a Hilborn injected Z-tec...

 

I have seen a few quad 4's that could double as an "exotic" Offy mill. Light weight, high winding and they go pretty good!

Or wait 40 years until the quad 4 is "traditional"...............

 

A 1949-53 Buick 263 straight 8. Insert bearings on the crank and rods. Light weight( for its day) casting of the block. Same size as the earlier 248 but much shorter and lighter than the 320. Will rev and pull hard. A s10 5spd will bolt to the bell housing.

T Fritz

 

An Alfa works well, and its old.

 

I am going off the wall here and non U.S. with the Armstrong Siddeley 346 3.4 litre hemi head pushrod straight six - redolent of the prewar Talbot Lago which inspired Zora to create the Ardun - Zora owned and raced a Talbot Lago....

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSEhb2BtbdM

 

I was waiting to see when you stepped into this Weasel- nice call on the Talbot Lago !

 

A flywheel, clutch, bellhousing etc. would all have to be fabricated to use a automotive 3/4 speed trans.

 

I'm a little bit familiar with the Ranger from years back, and I realize it has some racing pedigree. I'm just not feeling the whole air-cooled thing for the body shape I have in mind.

Normally I'd be all over a Quad 4 or similar...I also have a BMW V12 that looks a LOT like an early race/aircraft engine once it's stripped down. Although it goes against my nature, I'm really trying to keep this one "period correct"...where it shows.

 

This is what Frank Kurtis (Kurtis-Kraft) used for power in his one-off sportscar.





Then, in 1949 when he began building and producing the Kurtis Sport, he used the "new" V-8 Ford flathead.


When he sold the company and all the tooling to "MadMan" Muntz in 1950, Earl stretched the wheelbase and used the Cadillac 331 engine in his "Jet" because of the financial deal he made with General Motors that he didn't have to pay for them until the car was actually sold.
When he started using the "Cadillac" name in his advertisements, GM pulled the plug on him. The Jet then used the Lincoln flathead engine through mid-1952, with a few high-performance minded folks optioning for the new Chrysler hemi engine.



Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to show what a very limited American "sports" car manufacturer actually used from 1948-1952.

 

Thanks, Ed. The stovebolt is one engine that is still on the short list... The Muntz Jet is one of the models I'm using for inspiration, although this build will be a LOT further "out there".

 

If you're gonna use a domestic six, pick whichever one has the best bottom end, destroke it to <= 3 liters, and hang a period Roots blower on it. Wouldn't be out of the techniques of the period to do a new head for it, either. What would it cost to tool a period-looking housing for a late-model Eaton TVS blower?

A 2-liter Riley six with a blower, or reengineered a bit like the prewar ERAs (I think I'd auction BOTH of my testicles for an ERA, might be easier just to go get a real job...) would be a spectacular choice, especially considering what the cheaters in Brit vintage-racing are able to get out of the things, but not too likely something a domestic brand would have used in the early '50s. The BMW 328/Bristol/AC Ace six (the one Shelby replaced in the Ace with the 260 Ford for the first Cobras) being another one in the same vein.

If what you're trying to do is build a crypto-Allard, then it's early Cad or early Olds.

IMO the Muntz Jet was another one of those cars like the first 'Vette where all it proved was that US automakers didn't 'get' sports cars. Like the Kaiser Darrin.

 

Hell this threads worth my 50 bucks, great topic, great discussion.....Kool stuff guys!!!

 

Actually, it will have a period (type) centrifugal supercharger. Think Miller Indy car...

 

You and I are both mixing our metaphors, so to speak.

I've got a late '30s Brooklands-sort-of-thing halfway between design and construction, started cutting metal on the front suspension and jig pieces for the (flat 2x5 underslung, think 93%-scale Napier-Railton) frame and the spring-mounting pieces for the rear, I have no idea what I'm going to do for a body but I'll get the frame and running gear in place first. '37 Chevy Dubonnet pods in front, exposed lower floating cantilever leafsprings and a torque arm in back. But...I can't reasonably come up with a big thumping sort of little-bit-smaller-than-a-Napier-Lion aero-engine for it that's *anywhere* in budget so at least initially it's gonna be wearing a 390 Ford or maybe a 454 Chevy I've got in storage. I'm kinda thinking of hanging a couple small turbos on the 390 and keeping the hood closed.

You're going postwar sports-racer, but the centrifugal blowers were mostly a speedway-car thing, and mostly prewar; I can't think of ANY postwar sports-racer that ran a centrifugal blower, and you're gonna have to work to get driveable throttle response on something like that, especially if you don't sneak in EFI.

 

You need a Hall-Scott out of an old bus...LOL.
You're absolutely right about the centrifugal being more of an older Indy thing, but it wasn't too many years later (after 51) that Ford and Stude came out with the factory Paxton etc. supercharged cars, so I feel comfortable in that window. Besides, the centrifugal is a key element in the build theme.

 

The Novis used centrifugal superchargers from 1946-1966

 

I have daydreamed about a similar deal with a Buick straight 8 with four SU's with spun velocity stacks protruding through an expanded metal mesh panel in the hood side panel, and a combover header bellowing into a 4" pipe with a Brooklands can high on the passenger side, 18" Rudge-Whitworth wire knockoffs, folding Brooklands screens, ect.
A Hall-Scott would fit nicely into that picture as well!! Keith, if you are lurking this thread, and thought I was impractical before, well, now you know just how impractical I can REALLY get...

 

Supercharged Kaiser L head 226ci six....

 

Just thought I would throw this up here. Little older in flavour...

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Yup, I need one of these...

 

Oh, I wish the camera would have followed him down the street...

 

Theres a short in car video as well, but the sound quality is bad, too much wind noise. Yea, that thing makes me giggle like a school girl. You know how they used to paint a little 3"x4" Union Jack on the cowl of the Bentleys? I was thinking if I built something like this, it would have to be replaced with a Jolly Rodger.

Why is it that every time I think about this, I hear the Monty Python theme in my head??

 

So I'm set on an inline...probably a 6 but I cannot get the Buick 8 to go away. The 8 would change the whole dynamic and size of the car, but I can't make up my mind that it's a BAD thing.

I really like the intake and exhaust arrangement of the Nash Ambassador engine, but they seem to be pretty hard to come by. The Chevy, while not the ideal choice, might be the obvious answer.

 

http://oldyeller2.com/history.html

From hot rodding to sports cars----

 

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IMO, the Buick would work for more of a late twenties/thirties Brooklands flavoured deal, but its just too tall to comfortably fit into a early fifties style sports car look. I just cant see how you can fit it into any body thats going to have an early fifties sports special look.

 

Built in '53 and '54 with a '53 Cadillac 331:

 

Yeah, exactly. But I'm not going to the effort and - particularly - the expense of coming up with something like that until the vehicle's mechanically complete enough that I know it's all gonna fit/work.

Right now I've got a bunch of 30-31" diameter 3/4in plywood discs drilled 6x5.5 (and a couple 5x4.5 for temporary use with the existing Ford 9" axle shafts) to use for mockup purposes, it'll roll around the floor well enough.

I need to do some research on the splined knockoff hubs...if someone had a CAD model that could be adapted to the tapered-roller replacement races for the 909001 and 909002 bearings...

But I'll shut up about my stuff now, this isn't my thread.