Hello...my name is Adam and I have been on the HAMB for a while now and have been neglectful of my '28 coupe with a 'lil banger under the bonnet...so many of you have probably not seen me around. Well, long story short, the car is too nice to hack up so I want to modify the motor, stance, wheels, and brakes(last) to make it stay with traffic. I did a search and there is SO much info that I thought I would just see what you think of my ideas: -1935 wheels with 700's in the rear and 475's up front -2.5" lowering springs, front and rear -Winfield(or similar) high compression head -Riley super-dual intake with 2 97's jetted and set to work for the banger -maybe 12v conversion -Early juice brakes *Do I need to run a fuel pump for the intake setup I am using? I have seen in a few other posts that gravity seemed to suffice. *Manual vs. hydraulic brakes? Many seem to stand by the manuals with cast iron drums. The motor was rebuilt and has 700 miles on it. It has sleeved cylinders, balanced crank, and lightened flywheel. I am going to keep plugging through these old and archived banger meeting posts...and will keep you updated with my own. I am also working on a '35 5W coupe...nowhere near completion. Thanks for all the 4-banger inspiration, and the informative posts. Adam Santa Cruz, CA
Adam- I would go with stock brakes, but with a set of Flat Head Ted's brake parts- won't make crappy brakes good, but will make good brakes work like hydraulics. Also don't over carburate, Two 81's are more than enough. Motre than that and you are ruining the range that you spend 80% of the time driving to get a little more top end (10%) Herb
Thanks for the info...I would rather stick with the mechanicals. I like the looks of the dual setup...even if they are way toned down. I know, seems dumb, probably. May just go with a single. *Anyone know if someone makes a cool lakes-style header for the 4, or am I going to have to make one myself?
Adam, Charlie Yapp has a dual manifold that will work great with one carb blocked off. You can have it both ways.
The thing about over carberation is excess venturi area. A Stromberg 97 has larger "butterflies" than a Stromberg 81. Two 81's are a better fit for a 200 cubic inch flathead, than two of the much larger 97's, regardless of how you jet them. It's also a matter of the weight ratios of fully laden swallows.
Indeed. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
Why not run the dual 97 set up with progresive linkage so that you run off one on the low end and the second kicks in at the top end when you can use the extra carb. Then it would be like a small 4 barrel. I made my lakes pipe from a SBC kit I got at Speedway.
It seems that someone is always asking about the difference in Strombergs as to use on "A" or "B" engines. I think for best all around daily use a single down draft would work quite well. Back in the "Day" no one cared about the technical side, such as how many CFM's, most ran 97's because they were the most plentiful and they just bolted them on and they usually stumbled a little off the line. Most that have used them will tell you 97's gave more top end. 81's were always hard to find as they were used on the V8 60. This type of carburetor will usually meter the fuel as required by the air velocity so jet changes should be in small increments. One old formula was to divide the displacement by the throttle area. I haven't seen it for years but I believe a hot street engine or circle track car would require a number of 50, all out land speed would require a number around 40. Another one was 1" throttle bore for every 50"'s of displacement. So an"A" at 200 " would require 4" of throttle bore. Of course this would be for a radical engine. I once bought a dual manifold with 2 94's on it, when I took the carbs off they each had only 1 butterfly and had a freeze plug in the other throttle bore under the shaft. Guy sold them cheap because he said they didn't run very fast. A Stromberg 81 will flow 135 average a Stromberg 97 will flow 150 average. A 200 Cu inch engine turning 3000 RPM operating at 100 percent efficiency would require 174 CFM according to a chart by Jere Jobe in S O S S a few years back so the average 4 barrel engine using other than 2 81's really shouldn't work. This is based on the idea that an engine is the same as a air pump and can only move so much air. Based on the above information, my 2 port with 2 Winfield "BB"'s is not very efficient with it's 4 +" of throttle area as compared to a pair of Strombergs with their 3.3 "'s of throttle area but it is fast! More trivia
But there's more involved than pumping air and it works precisely because there's more to it. The theoretical max airflow is a great starting point. Realize that carbs are flowed at a certain pressure differential (4bbl = 1.5"Hg & 2bbl = 3.0"Hg) - within this are subsets of folks who flow them wet vs dry (this is why the Edelbrock 500 is about the same as the Holley 390). You can put a 1150 Dominator on a 2.3 liter pinto that's only capable of pulling 350 CFM and guess what - the 1150 will only flow what the pinto can pull. The problem become venturi efficiency - since venturis work on vacuum (pressure differential) and require velocity to develop it, a large carb results in a slower column of air moving past the venturi = less pressure differential = inefficient fuel atomization & draw. Now a 200" engine turning 3500 RPM as a max - probably wont' be able to make the best use of big carbs...
Back in the early 90's Dick Riley wrote an article describing the problems and modifications he went through to make a 390 Holley work on a "B" engine with a Vulcan 6 to 1 compression Al. flathead, "B" cam and .060 overbore. It was in the volume #4 issue 1 of the S O S S magazine.
Wow cool post! Good to see banger stuff. I agree with guy a few post up.. its a bug that bites ya. I'm building car w a banger, just want to make it ok for the highway without winding it up too much. Also IO do not want to put a mitchell o/d/ ( plus I can't afford it) cuz its a late 30's early forties style hi-boy and wold only look right with the tourque tube showing. Thats just my opinion. Keep em' pics comin"
Hey Adam. I'm running a rebuilt A motor, sleeved back to stock, lightened flywheel, Thomas Head, (inside like a winfield) and dual 81's jetted back to stock. Running my car on gravity feed. It works great, but only AFTER it warms up for about 5 minutes. (put the choke on to start, and feather it out as it warms up) Won't drive well at all when it's cold. I'm still running mechanical brakes, but plan to upgrade to hydrolic when I drop my axle in the next month or two. And.. I was born in Santa Cruz! So, looks like a lot of similarities. (check out the video I posted near the top of this thread to see my dual 81s running and driving.)
My "B" engine has a lightened flywheel, counter balanced crank, winfield head and SU-1R cam with a Burns intake and two 81's. It seems to run very well in our engine stand, wraps up nice and does not smoke black smoke. Have not got it in the car yet, so only time will tell. For what it's worth, I have seen a banger on the HAMB before with a tri-power on a banger
4 B Nick, There is an option for overdrive and closed driveline. It's cheeper then the Mitchell too. Read this thread: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=256226
Oh man really nice man!!! good job! Yeah I'm using a early v8 tranny and 3:27 rear end gears which I got from this old man I know w/ 17 inch rims and tires/ 28 inch diameter. I'm sure the adapter ya made and jeep tranny works better. The least expensive way for myself. As for motor I will probably spend the most money on that.I would feel a little more comfortable with insert bearings and all that good stuff especially if you are hoppin' up the motor. I plan on using this B head and cam with lightened flywheel I got, 2 strombergs, and this neat Wico distributor,not mag ,I got . I wanted to still run mechanical brakes but I drive to LA everyday from my house and the traffic really encouraged me to at least use early juice brakes. Old man in the club I'm in ran the dry lakes in the 30's and said it should be fine. pretty much the same setup he had then. I had a banger a few years ago and threw a rod comin' back home from la roadster show. I thought I'd never go back but hey look at me now! Well hey again great job on the machining of your adapter!!!!
Cool, Sounds like you've got a good handle on your build. I'm running an aluminum flywheel and love it. Throtle respose is incredable. I'm running 39-48 juice brakes in LA trafic and they work great.
Last night I took the engine up to Nervous Bob. We stripped the bottom end off the engine to have a quick look. First I'll point out that I Blue Hylomar'd the sump gasket and it's always leaked like hell. When we came to try and get the sump pan off it was stuck solid and took a lot of chipping and levering to get it off so Blue Hylomar gets my thumbs down of disapproval. It's crap. I've used it on the waterworks in the past and it was fine but oil gets past it. The first comment Bob made was the bores were in good condition and visually they are. The step at the top of the bore where the ring wears up to was really minimal as I'd observed before. We took the big end off and the cap side of it was in ok condition but was worn. The rod side of it was knacked completely. My daily abuse has done it no good and smashed up all the white metal. Check out this for a bit of damage: No wonder the oil pressure was dropping off ;D Apparently that's quite normal and these engines are so bulletproof they will run like that with near zero oil pressure for thousands of miles until eventually the damage cracks out to the edge and the oil stops going round the engine! There's no oil filter in this engine so all the metallic sludge from that sits in the bottom of the sump! I could see damage up the sides of the white metal surface on one of the other rods and they all had loads of end float so it's a new bottom end time. The rods can be re-metalled and the crank will be ground. Up at the top end Bob also mentioned the pistons were in very good condition and was surprised they weren't new when I put them in. Normally the rings wear away the piston and become loose. Mine showed no signs of that, again, what I had observed before when I did the build. What I didn't know was this, here's the top piston ring: Looked fine to me, no scorching, gaps were a bit wide when in the bores but I assumed that was because it's an old timey engine. Close up: On a new ring the word 'Top' sits right in the middle of the ring. Here you can see it's worn right down to the top of the T!!! I think we found the oil problems! It's about 1mm of wear on the thickness of the ring. So the decision was made not to rebore it. I've got him to give it a good long hone and fit a new set of rings. New oversize pistons are expensive at £120 plus VAT and would only take it out to 1220cc from 1172cc so it's not as if it would be a massive gain in size. Because it's not being bored the valves don't need to come out so I also decided not to get the block skimmed down. It's all good. It keeps the original flavour of the project which was budget power the old way. The rods are going to be expensive but it'll be peace of mind and it'll hold good oil pressure. I was worrying about the cost of the petrol getting up to him but it was a worthwhile trip and it's saved me a packet in not doing un-necessary work.
When I had a banger in last car I put a few medium sized magnets to catch some of that metal at the bottom but I guess it was too late. Threw a rod. Well actually I think it was a bad babbitt job. My uncle looked it over and my babbitt liked chipped away ike above pic. He said it could have been poured cold and thats what could happened as well.
Babbit chipping or flaking can also be caused by poor trinning of the surfaces prior to pouring the babbit. The Magnet is a good idea. I put one in my drain plug so that I can check / clean it every time I change oil.
Finally got the engine! WHOOHOO! Looks great. Looking to port and polish the intakes and exhaust at some point. Bored .60 over "B" Rods Counterweighted C crank (turned down to fit the A journals) Babbit bearings (no inserts this time around...bummer) Ford V8 Clutch and pressure plate Lightened flywheel (44 lbs.) New Stipe 340 cam New aluminum pistons Hardened valve seats Stainless valves Winfield harmonic balancer front pulley ----- Will be getting.... Winfield 7:1 comp. head Dual Winfield SR downdraft carbs Early version of Lakes Headers (ala some '1934-36 tirque tube drive shafts) Model B or Early Mallory dual point dizzy Port and polish intake and exhaust Heavy Ford flathead valve springs Better oiling system (mildly pressurized) Modified A trans hooked up to it Picking up the chassis parts from the blaster next thursday or friday, or so I'm told,...we'll see?? Painting some chassis parts next week...picking up the body too. Big thanks go to Jimmy, Bob Parke, Carl and my wonderful reason for living the gal who keeps me grounded and steadfast in this project,..my wife! She doesn't loose her mind too much when I order more parts!! HA!
i cant believe it!!!!! i figured we'd be seeing the 100th anniversary of the model-A before you had this motor done! now get it together...my little B has got its eye on you! ....by the way.....you married a square .......
HA!, LOL,...no comment!! Hmm,...well you have more cash and time than I do,....I'm a bit fearful!! HA! Yeah, she used to get teased a lot,...its a freakish box-headed family trait,...skips a generation,....guess she didn't escape it!
I have a 36 driveshaft cut in 2 on my lakes modified. The tubular drive shaft has the same taper on both ends. I have 2 more driveshafts stashed.
Coal Town Kid ...Early version of Lakes Headers (ala some '1934-36 tirque tube drive shafts) Driveshaft ? or torque tube? is this a 4 into1 header exiting under car or out over frame? any photos Thanks
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