Foolin' with 4 Jugs...The April 2012 Banger Meet

Might be best to ask Rich Fox about that one

Ports stacked vertically ..... isnt that a Y-block?

 

Put them togeather and they look like this

 

Everything I know so far about PBs I have leaned by talking to Rich Fox, he is the "bad company" I refer to. But seriously a great person and an even greater hot rodder. Or maybe equal in both areas?

The engine is a 1932 Plymouth PB.

The head is a rather pricey aluminum reproduction of a ford y-block head with greatly improved flow characteristics. At least according to the manufacturer. Rich had his head ported with liquid abrasive. I thought that if one was to follow in Rich's footsteps and run a PB the aluminum head would be a direction that would have to be looked into. Why do it if not pushing the idea farther along?

Here is the link, head by John Mummert

http://www.ford-y-block.com/

A pair of heads for your Y-block run just over $2000, I don'y know if they will sell one or what the cost would be.

When I pop the head and check out the engine it may turn out that I will run a diferent head. I have some of my own ideas about running a OHV on a early banger.

I have been helping Rich Fox out with getting his Dodge together. At various points we just talk about various engines and ideas. Like the Stude head Modification I have been working on. Or his Plymouth PB that he ran at Bonneville which ran a ford Y-block head. I had been trying to talk him into running an overhead valve head on the Dodge after the Morton & Brett head and that lead to talking about the Plymouth PB OHV conversion and how it differed from the Dodge OHV conversion.

Here are two PB's at the speedway museum that represent Rich's record setting engines. They have some of his parts bolted on. The one with the blue head is the Y-Block OHV conversion version. I am certain Rich has posted here about these engines before.



The PB I bought was on the Hamb for sale a while back and I then found it on a different site still for sale and I made them an offer that they accepted. They had taken the trans off but then the guy who was going to buy it flaked so I for a few dollars more I kept it all together.

I think the engine would run as is

About the PB. Through me according to Rich.

Full pressure oil
Counter weights that unbolt
Modern style inserts
2" rod journals

On Rich's PB he ran billet connecting rods and Arias pistons. The rod bearings were Chevy.

According to Rich the OHV conversion and setting up the engine was much more straight forward on the Plymouth than it has been on the Dodge.

I am not sure what I will do with it yet but I saw the post above by Norsonauto so I thought I would share the latest addition to my "pile"

 

Here is some pictures of the "headers" on Rich's dodge engine

Copper in place to protect the valve cover



I cut and tacked the first pipe. Then I cut a second pipe and trimmed it a little at a time till it fit. Once it fit I mrked it with a grease pencil and cut out a hole with the plasma cutter



Hole cut and back on the engine



Tacked together, oh and I guess the down pipe is tacked on also



Turnout tacked on





After cutting and gradually fitting the last pipe from the third exhaust port, again it was traced with a grease pencil and cut out with the plasma cutter. You will have to take my word about the in between stuff because I took no pictures while I was cutting & trimming.



Tacked in place. Rich is going to have the headers finish welded by a pro. The coated black

 

Zenndog this is what I like about yours and Riches posts plenty of detail gets the mind going

 

Zenon is much more of a picture taker than me. I just like to post a small Dodge picture every now and then to make the Ford guys jealous. PS the picture of the Plymouths at the Speedway Museum. The flathead engine is my engine top to bottom. The OHV conversion has some of my parts on it and some of theirs.I understand the person who has my old OHV Ply has agreed to sell it to Speedway "someday".

 

Rich I get the impression you are more into doing it than talking about it. grins

 

Rich likes to "do" for sure. That is what is great about helping him out.

I try to take pics but I still miss a lot. I aim for quantity and sort it out at the end of the day. Often I miss pics of the part of the day I though was most interesting and I am thinking.....how did I miss that?

Something like this Dodge engine may never be done again, and for sure not the way Rich has done it, just thought there should be some sort of record.

 

Glad that you feel that way, Zen!

Herb

 

I think Zenor is wrong. I predict that between the Montana Dodge Boys and my car a resurgence of interest in Dodge Bros. engines will have people looking at Fords and asking "What's that?"

 

Most of my car guy friends say that now Rich
Ron

 

Maybe Rich, But I still think your Dodge engine is going to be somewhat unique, even in a world possibly filled with Dodge 4 bangers.

I think more guys will just buy girdles for their fords, now that all V4/V4F bets are off.

I am looking forward to running in the RFTA

 

No brag, just fact!

 

I had pics of banger stuff including various Fords and some of your motor at a club meeting the other day and I heard exactly that.

Before I could answer the "What's that" , some "knowall" said its a Model A motor with a late model head.
"But it's different" was answered with , "Oh I hadn't noticed , probably a B or a C then....they are all the same inside".
I told them it IS different for a start it has five mains...to which I got

" Oh , it's one of those new aftermarket motors then?" " Fake vintage, not really pre 49 afterall "

I gave up!! Told them what it was aftrerwards and one of them told me there are three or four of those motors going begging , at his father in laws.
I am in, if they are real.

 

Well Rich asked what motor I had in mind. Well, at the Portland swap meet I stumbles on a cylinder head. Twenties vintage ohv 4 banger. The intakes are 2 inch and the exhaust are 1 3/4 inches. Judging from the gasket outline on the head the bore must be about four inches. I mean this thing has to be huge.
I've been chasing around trying to find information on this motor and finally I locate a guy that has several of them......and he'll sell them. So I take off up a bunch of winding country roads north of Portland.

 

Well my Dodge is 4 X 4.350. Which is around 217 inches as i remember. I think Fords as run at SCTA are 4 X 4. We need more pictures and info. Please.

 

Don't stop now, Norm!!!

 

Looks like that says Buick

 

Well, as Paul Harvey would say. Here is "the rest of the story". The head is off a '24 Buick. Big car, right? Here is the cylinder part of the block. The crankcase is separate. Check out the combustion chamber. The bore is 3.375 in. and the stroke is 4.75 in. =170 cu. in. Too bad nice head. Sorry about the picture quality. Norm

 

Hmmm, you could sleeve the daylights outa that and have some REAL fun !

 

Heres what i was putsing on today, its hamber j-stovebolt's B powered A chassis, he was having some tuning and set up issues and didnt know where to turn, we were in contact about something else and he mentioned his chassis, i told him i kinda know what im doing so id tackle it for him.

Motor seems to be basically a stock B with a milled head, and has a Evans intake and 2x97s, it has the FS ignition electronic distributor in it with mechanical advance,and a header by lakeheaders.com, he dropped it off and said he had a heck of a time starting it and had a huge stumble.

I always start with the basica, i went over the wiring set up, went over the plug wires, plug cap, and also make sure the intake is tight and no leaks, well i noticed some cheesy hold down spready tabs made of angle iron and new that they needed to be upgrade, so i made some out of some DOM tubing, i basicaly notch them the same thickness as the intake and they seem to work fine, after putting those on and retightening the intake down it started alot easier so i was figuring it had a vacuum leak. then it was onto the stumble, it idles great but misses and sputters and wont rev real easy, so i started closing the choke and the more closed i put it the better it would run, so i checked the jets, 33s! seemed alot too small, i looked on the hamb and talked to Chris and seems like the consensus is abouut 40s, well i didnt have any 40s, so for testing purposes only i basically split the difference and put a 46 on one side and left the 33 on the other, its an open plenum intake so it really doesnt effect that mucha dn i plan on ordering up some 39 40 and 41 jets to play with for the fine tuning. i went and turned the key and it started up great and revved up nice and smooth, so now i went about setting the timing, it was close cause it started up fine, i basically power time all my stuff, i so i held the rpms up to make sure the dist was at full advance and put the distributor in the spot where it ran best. now time for a test drive down the driveway. took it for a spin and it runs great and has really good power for a banger, i have my little temp gun and was checking all the temps as i drove it around and the temps all look really good.

And now its back to Josh, hes going to order up the jets and ill go down and do the final jet changes and tuning in a few weeks or so.

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JEFF

 

How about the crank and the bottom end. Is the crank drilled for oil?

Does it have counter weights.

So there is a plate between the cylinders and the head?
Makes it easy to raise the compression.

Is it an adapter plate?

 

Yeah. Does that thing with the big holes in it come off or is the block counterbored offset? More pictures. Lots more pictures please.

 

zenndog
I looked over as much as I could in the time I had. The cylinder bank in the picture is quite tall because of the stroke and the "combustion chamber". The lower "plate" is part of the cylinder bank and the upper part of the casting has cooling passages similar to the Chev 4. The crankcase doesn't seem to be overly "strong" in the area where the two join. I didn't have a crank to look at (they were inside other engines) and the bottom side down in the pile. I was running out of time but left the door open for a return visit.
I wish I would have had more time and could have looked at the main webs and crank. I'm sure I'll think on it some more. I may even make a return visit. But, I think it's not going to fly. Thats too bad because I'd like to see a few more bangers enter the fray. Of coarse the owner was telling me about a Plymouth banger down the road.......
Norm

 

Sorry rich. I didn't realize how bad the angle of the picture was. The "big holes" are counter sunk into the cylinder bank and it bolts to to the crankcase. It's all one piece. If you could legally replace the cylinder bank and if the main webs would support a good shorter stroke crank and if...........
It may be worth another look. This time I'll take a camera.
Norm

 

Plymouth bangers can be cool.

 

Norson-I guess it all depends on what the guy is asking for the engines and what you want to do with them. I got my Plymouth for a price I felt I couldn't pass up. As I said above I think the motor I have would fire as it sits with some new gas and a little cleaning. I spent $160 dollars, no brainer in my opinion. I might feel the same way about one or two of those engines you are picturing if they are complete. How much does he want for them? How complete are they? It might be cool for a hot rod, doesn't have to go to Bonneville. Think of it as preservation if nothing else, there will be no hot-rodding if all the rusty engines go to the scrapyards and then to China. Every thing has different levels. I have a model T "Tub" that I might just throw the Plymouth in. I think it would be cool.

 

Zenndog
I see your point on it being different, but it would be almost like putting a "hit and miss" motor in a rail. He offered me one for $300 minus the head and I have a number of "collector" motors currently taking up floor space.
Late chevy 4s, buick V6, 300 buick, several 215 buicks, '28 chev 4s, Model As & Bs and only one sbc. I have no intention of building anything for the salt. I just want to exercise a part of my brain that has been dormant for a very long time.

 

Nice Bantam

Yeah 300 for a possible paper weight without the head is steep. In my opinion.

 

Very Clean.