1948 Chev coupe "Mabel"

[GFaRT]

It's a braided stainless flex joint. Most auto supply houses will sell them. A lot of the newer cars will use them, especially front wheel drive cars where the engine rocks back and forth. I got these from Rock Auto.
Braided flex joint from Rock Auto

Just ahead of the flex joints you'll see butt joint band clamps, as the pipes separate there. Yet to be done are anchor plates welded to the pipes and bolted to the transmission mount bolts. This along with the flex joints is to alleviate stress on the turbo housings.
Butt joint band clamp

I am not planning to have any mufflers, unless it turns out to be too loud. If I need mufflers I'll cut out a section of the straight pipe ahead of the rear suspension for them. I'm hoping the turbos will muffle the exhaust to a reasonable level. A friend has a single turbo on his pickup with no muffler and you wouldn't know it didn't have a muffler. The pipes are 2-1/2 OD. I thought that 2" or 2-1/4" would be fine, but some guy on the Ford six forum insisted that it was a mistake to go any less than 2-1/2 or 3", so 2-1/2 it is. I think it's overkill.

 

[JohnnyBgood]

Hmmm...thanks for the info and links...might come in handy.....Rock auto??.?Are they in Canada?..Braided flex-joint from rock auto......butt joint band clamp....sounds like a couple of punk rock groups...hahaha...I’m here all day....hahahahah....

 

[GFaRT]

I put the chassis on the ground with some wheels just to get an idea of how it's sitting so far. the rear is too low, but I have shims and air lift bags to go in the springs that aren't there in these photos. I do want a bit of a tail dragger look, but not so low that driving it is impractical.

Finished laying out the tail pipes to dump down ahead of the bumper. And got the driveshaft made up by Coast Powertrain using my old slip yoke and flange yoke, but the rest is new.

And anchored the downpipes to the bell housing bolts so that they are not just hanging off the turbos.

Rear bumper shown with '54 Chev bumperettes and license bar.

 

[Rusty Olds]

Nice stuff John. I’ll be interested to see the stance that you end up with.

 

[GFaRT]

Got a little off track on the project and did a bit of work on my intake system. I picked up a spare intake plenum for the six and a single throat throttle body from a 5.0l HO at Pick-N-Pull. I want the single throat TB to simplify the plumbing from the turbo intercooler so I don't have to make a Y pipe to the original two throat TB. I opened up the plenum entry and made an adapter plate out of two pieces of 3/8 aluminum. One piece of 3/4 plate would be better, but I didn't have any in the shop but did have 3/8. This arrangement probably would not be so good for naturally aspirated, but with boost it should work okay.

Got the motor ready to send off to my friend who offered to go through it and see what it needs. I'm expecting new hypereutectic pistons, ARP rod bolts, hi volume oil pump and aluminum cam gear kit.

Several of us here are in the Inliners International Club and my friend is trying to get me to go to a cruise in Minden NV (near Carson City) next June. So hope to have it running next spring with the bodywork as is.

Stripped 'er down to bare frame for final welding, cleaning and paint.

/

 

[GFaRT]

Saga of a six (sometimes lady luck shines her light on you)

So, I bought a twenty year old $700 donor truck to get an engine for my project. As the truck was a runner, I could test drive and evaluate the engine before buying it. The seller admitted that the rad had a leak that he addressed with Bar's Leaks. Okay, so the test drive around the block went okay, but for the steering pump being so loud that you could hardly hear anything else. The plan was to drive it home 250 miles over the Hope Princeton Hwy. As I got up to Allison mountain pass it boiled over big time. I put more water in it and limped along a few miles, but it kept overheating so I called a tow truck to take it the rest of the way home (125 miles) as I would have had another climb over Sunday Summit. When home, I found that the coolant was not circulating at all. So when dismantling the truck I took the bottom tank off the rad to discover that the core was totally plugged with Bar's Leaks. The engine also was a replacement engine from, I assume, an auto wrecker, so I have no Idea how many miles it had on it.

Fast forward to last week, my engine guru friend took the engine to go through it to see what it needed in anticipation of turbocharging it. I expect a relatively mild turbo job with a stock spec engine and 8 psi boost, give or take. Although Ford 300 sixes generally have a good reputation for durability, I also read on the internet that they are susceptible to cracks in the combustion chambers and piston skirts. So after the overheating, I'm expecting bad news, maybe a cracked head, needs a rebore and crank grind etc.. Well it turns out all the news is good. It's a standard bore only worn half a thou, the crank is standard and no damage, the cam and lifters good, the head did not show any cracks when checked with dye penetrant and the head has been worked on before as it has the valve guides sleeved. Looks like no machine work required, just a light hone to restore the cross hatch and it should be good. I'm a happy camper!

So to cope with the turbo we're going for new Speed Pro hypereutectic pistons, new timing set with aluminum cam gear, high volume oil pump, ARP rod bolts and head studs and new rod and main bearings. I'll also clean up the ports and combustion chambers to remove potential hot spots, unshroud the valves and lower the CR a bit.

 

[ratrig]

Good news indeed . I too was considering turbocharging an IL6 for a project. I like the concept. Ill be watching

 

[GFaRT]

Update – This is likely of little use to anyone other than those crazy enough to try a Ford 300 six as a hotrod engine.

A few little things on the engine mods. First a do-over of the thermactor plugs in the exhaust ports. I had earlier just cut off the AIR nozzle tubes and welded the old fittings shut. But that looked pretty ugly. So I made new plugs that drop into the port followed by threaded plugs to hold them in. The threads in the head are 9/16 – 18 NF so I went looking for that size set screws without any luck at reasonable price, so I wound up using #6 ORB hydraulic port plugs and cutting the heads down in the lathe so they would screw down into the port. A #6 JIC cap was used to hold the plugs in the lathe chuck. Looks much cleaner now.

Then another do-over on the throttle body adapter. When I was up in Kelowna I went to Metal Supermarket and picked up a chunk of 3/4” thick aluminum to make a one piece adapter to replace the one I made fron two pieces of 3/8” sandwiched together.

The wastegate actuator for the front turbo interfered with the suspension spring tower, so had to be re-located. I was able to turn the actuator and the wastegate arm around 180*. I then made a mounting plate that anchors it to the motor mount bracket.

As described earlier, I am using a front exhaust manifold on the rear three cylinders instead of the normal rear manifold. This is to facilitate mounting the twin turbos. The mounting of the manifold is the same at cylinders 5 & 6 as 2 & 3 but cylinder 4 mounting is quite different from cylinder 1. So I cut off the front mount ear for cylinder 1 and milled a couple of flat spots to allow clamping at the top of #4. Also made two clamping bushings to clamp at the new flat spots. Then at the bottom of #4 I drilled and tapped a new hole in the head for an extra stud that is locked and sealed (water jacket) with high temp red Loc-tite. The lower two holes are so close together that I have to use a socket head capscrew in one for wrench clearance.

 

[Rusty Olds]

Nice to see some thinking outside the box, well done.

 

[Fopar]

Good old Hot Rod engineering. Nice work.

 

[Taggart29]

I love your idea of a twin turbo 300 six, it’s just simply awesome hahaha.
I once saw a 29 “A” with a tiny blower on the old banger!

 

[enjenjo]

Be careful using GM wheels on a Ford front end. The bolt pattern is oh so slightly different GM is 114mm, and Ford is 114.7mm , or 4.5"

 

[ratrig]

Im certainly following this one, great work!

 

[GFaRT]

Be careful using GM wheels on a Ford front end. The bolt pattern is oh so slightly different GM is 114mm, and Ford is 114.7mm , or 4.5"

Earlier here I show Buick wheels that I intended to use. Front BC is 4-1/2" Crown Vic and rear is 4-1/4" '93 T-bird. I was going to either re-drill the rear hubs and disks for 4-1/2 or the wheels for 4-1/4. However more recently I found this set of dual pattern wheels that are 4-1/2 & 4-1/4 and they should take snap on wheel covers too. They are 16" x 6-1/2" so should work well with
205/70R16 tires.

However I must confess that I am halfway through the third winter of using those Buick wheels with my winter tires on my Grand Marquis daily driver with no issues. I don't recommend this but even so it's worked. Now when I convert 114 mm to inches I get 4.488" so only a 12 thou or 6 thou on radius discrepancy.

 

[enjenjo]

I'll confess to doing the same thing with Buick wheels in an emergency. I just wanted you to be aware that there is a difference

 

[JohnnyBgood]

Damn fat fingers...somehow did this twice..

 

[JohnnyBgood]

However more recently I found this set of dual pattern wheels that are 4-1/2 & 4-1/4 and they should take snap on wheel covers too. They are 16" x 6-1/2" .

What vehicle are theses rims from?

 

[GFaRT]

What vehicle are theses rims from?

They're aftermarket wheels for snow tires. I got them second hand, but I think they came from Les Schwab Tire Service in Omak Washington, just south of here. These wheels don't accommodate dog dish or baby moon caps, but look like they will take snap on wheel covers like full Moon discs if available. I will probably go with the Dzus fastened type.

16 x 6.00 Wheel at Summit Racing or Walmart also lists them under the same P/N.
16 x 6.50 Wheel at Summit Racing dual pattern 4.25 / 4.50 BC

 

[JohnnyBgood]

Any updates?

 

[GFaRT]

Bin draggin' my ass on this over the winter, so not much to report. But just got back from a month in Australia visiting our daughter not far from Adelaide. I couldn't resist getting a spiffy intake manifold from Aussiespeed and a piece of fuel rail extrusion from EFI Hardware in Melbourne while we were there. Cost was reasonable as our $ is worth more and I could save the freight by bringing it home in the suitcase.

May also adapt the GMC rocker cover I got from Alaska Gasser here a while ago just to mess up a few more heads.