Leaderboard

I have a couple good stories. FIrst, at one point in time I owned a 1964 W-200 Crew Cab with a slant six, and also a 1966 D-200 step-side, and finally a '73 Dart. The dog liked to ride in the back seat of the dart because the sound of the engine would lull her to sleep. She'd growl if you tried to move her LOL. The 2 trucks were both ex-Air Force, and I owned them in the 90s when they were plenty old, but neither burned any oil and they ran perfect. I used to work for a guy that always made fun of my Dodges (I also had a 68 Plymouth Sport Satelitte...poor man's Super Bee) with a 383 and a 4 speed with a Hurst shifter at the time) and finally one day I had enough of his **** so I called him out on his BS. I challenged him to a floorboards contest. He had a Ford truck, nearly new. I told him, we will each sit in each other's trucks and hold it to the boards until one of the engines blows up. Last man standing wins. Maybe it wasn't a smart move, but I told him if his truck engine outlasts my slant six I'd work for him for 1/2 pay for a whole year. If I win, he gives me a $5/hr raise. Yes, I actually said that. But I knew his Ford engine would never outlast my slant six. Hell, if I drained the oil out of my engine it still probably would've outlasted his. Anyway, he didn't think I was serious at first. Then he realized I was serious and told me that his truck was worth a lot more than mine, so he had more to lose. So I offered to put it up against the shop's Chevy S-10 which had one of those tough little 4 bangers in it, and the truck was a $500 junker anyway. He STILL wouldn't do it, and then he got pretty quiet after that. He never made fun of my Dodges again. Around the same time, my next door neighbor, whom was a big Chevy guy (and was about 20 years older than me) told me a story that I almost didn't believe, but I knew he wouldn't lie to me because he didn't like Mopars and would never go out of his way to talk a Mopar up or give credit to one. He told me one day back in the late 70s a friend of his had an old rusted out Dart from the 60s that he was gonna junk. But he wanted to have some fun and blow the motor up first. So he and some pals gathered around while the guy drained the oil out of the slant six. Then he started it up and wedged a stick between the gas pedal and the seat. He said it ran for 25 minutes wide open before it shut down, with no oil mind you. He said the next day they went out to the car for sh*ts and giggles and his friend thought he'd try cranking the engine over. It started up and ran. Turns out my boss in my previous story probably wasn't as naive to Mopar engines as I might have thought, otherwise the dumbass would've taken me up on my bet. Long live the slant six

Pete.....I for one am VERY pleased, impressed and appreciative of all your efforts and trust you continue to keep us informed...........thank you...Andy Douglas

2-1/2 ton truck 265 engines used the Sodium/ bronze guides set-up. I must have read that in the 1953 B4 dodge truck manual I stole from my high school! I rebuilt it as a truck engine.

"Venerable", Maybe a term better applied to describe some of our forum members rather then a /6 engine...LOL

Lots of conjecture, supposition,and scientific wild ass guessing going on. You say you studied the numbers and made some subtle changes and claim a 40% HP gain. Paint me skeptical. Where are the numbers? I have posted my mods and dyno numbers several times, I have seen a timing slip for another members car with similar modifications to mine from quarter mile drag racing. Not thinking that any one is going to build a full out land speed car to drive on the street, but don't you have any hard numbers? A 50% increase even with a supercharger isnt comparable to other factory cars when similarly equipped. Graham Paige 218. 95 HP to 124, Kaiser 226 118 HP to 140, Ford Thunderbird v8 215 HP to 245 HP. In these cases they are all in the 20/25 HP neighbor hood. To pick up another 20%, more radical modifications would have been called for. So maybe I am picking nits here, but any body wanting to spend money on a performance piece or pieces should be provided with instrumented,documented, and verified real world measurements of the results of the investment of time and money necessary to effect the changes. This does go a bit beyond the capabilities of most of the readers in this community. When some one tells me I need to drill through an internal engine casting, this makes me think I need the services of a machine shop, more than a trip to True Value to buy a nice new sharp bit and a tap or two, and factor in the added expense of engaging a qualified craftsman to performs the task. This isn't tour average shade tree head swap. I don't in any way want to disparage skills the fellows here who have the tools, experience, and where with all to do this installation, but this is likely to be beyond the scope of the average hobbiest mechanic in the old car hobby.

Don’t waste your time. I looked into a vacuum canister once, didn’t see a damn thing.

My slant spanks a lot of V-8's... I raced a 5.0 Mustang with a 5 speed at a quarter mile track. I won 2 out of three races on a dare and some $$$ and beer involved. I lost the time slips from this race, which was over 20 years ago! My 1969 2 door Valiant has a 8.75" rear end with 3.73 ratio from US Gear, over .500" lift camshaft(not going to give away the actual specifications), headers I built using Clifford and a vintage set of Edelbrock headers I found, a A833OD transmission, and a Holley 4 BBL. When I raced the car, I had a 465 CfM Holley. For the last decade, I stepped down to a 390 CFM 4 BBL. I think that the 390 is more efficient than the 465, at least according to my spark plugs. But the engine really screamed on the top end more with the 465.... I temporarily put 3.55 gears in the car for now too. The 3.73's are the way to go! So I will be putting them back in at some point. I have earned a lot of respect from naysayers over the years. And I want to see what I can do with a flathead next. So far, the flatheads that I have built have all been stock.... That will be changing soon...

In October 2016 I drove my 1965 Barracuda with a slant six , 904 automatic transmission, and a 2:76 rear end on Route 66 from Joliet IL to Santa Monica CA. The total trip from Michigan to California and back 5889 miles. I ran 60 to 70 MPH for most of the trip and got 21MPG average mileage. The slant six is a great motor.

I have always put a strong magnet in the bottom of the oil pan before reinstalling the pan.

Hi Pete, We think similar, I to enjoy the "wow" factor of someone putting some energy into modifying a flathead. I am so sick of the small block chevy being shoved into everything out there, that I care never to see one again. If your time and effort makes extra HP, I see that as a added bonus. Please keep sharing, I understand where Greg is coming from, but not all of us are that technical. I got lucky goofing around with a slant six, people laughed at me, criticized me, and you get the point. But every single one of those guys finally got their chance to run side by side. I never lost a race.... Yet... But it's fun for me, and if I lose, well it's just a slant six for crying out loud! LOL Please keep motoring Pete, I am enjoying your efforts. -Jack H.

1938-1951 Autolite Parts Catalog View File 1951 Edition Autolite Service and parts catalog - ignition and generator parts from 1938-1951. Submitter Lloyd Submitted 01/27/2018 Category Reference Information

I'm not quite sure what your point is... are we even talking about the same thing? F-heads, flatheads, blown, unblown? I'm simply sharing some fun projects that I thought would be of interest to L-6 Mopar enthusiasts. I'm not trying to sell you anything, never implied that it's a weekend bolt-on, or even that more than a few dozen people on the planet will find it of interest. The three 230 F-heads are simply running prototypes at this point, which is what's fun about it to me. It's entertaining to see the reactions at a car show and listen to folks guess what the powerplant is (lots of "diesel" guesses), or simply drive something that's truly one of a kind. As far as dyno numbers, Earl produced 271 RWHP on with his flathead 265, but that's injected on methanol so that's a different animal. We're currently making around 190 RWHP (net) with our 212" flathead '28 Dodge four banger, but that's with 5# of boost and on methanol as well, so we're not talking apples to apples there either... not to mention our town is at 4650' so that HP would need to be corrected as well. We've never dynoed it with the full (10#) of boost we run at the Salt but it is substantially more given the speed increases over the years as we've add boost. I do look forward to getting my Desoto on a dyno someday, hopefully this summer, if I ever get the blow-through Strombergs (fuel leakers) fully sorted. As far as comparing to other engines, I'm not aware of any production engines that had a F-head conversion AND a supercharger, so I'm not sure of the relevance there. Considering a '57 230 with 8:1 was rated at 132 HP gross at 3600 RPM, I don't think guesstimating that a one with the increased flow of a F-head and a few pounds of boost wouldn't be making 150+, but you're obviously a lot more anal about all of this than I am. Next time someone asks, I will just say I'm not sure. I'd love to see your modifications and dyno sheets. Where would I look? Cheers, Pete

I put a 72 slant six with 904 torqueflite and a 8 3/4 3.23 rear from a full size Dodge into a 50 Plymouth Club Coupe. I used a rear sump pan from a van. This would be back in 76 and I last ran that car about 1988 after many miles. I later swapped that 225 into a 68 Valiant and used that until about 2000. I think the engine had about 150 000 miles of use when I sold the Valiant. All my cars are now flathead powered, a 201, a 217, a 230 and two 251s. I am preparing a fresh 230 for a 52 Dodge D40 Kingsway Convertible. Although it looks like a Canadian car, this model was built in Detroit for export. Unfortunately the speedometer was missing so I do not know if it was in Kilometers. Every one is quite satisfactory. The 201 is no ball of fire in the 40 Plymouth coupe but as the car is all original with 73 000 miles and the engine has good compression, I am content to leave it alone even though I have to add a quart of oil in 250 miles. I built a stock 265 for a friend's 50 Plymouth and performance was impressive. He tore up two transmissions and a rear end which rarely happens otherwise. In my 50 and 51 Plymouths and my 52 Fargo, I have installed R10 overdrives . Each has a 3.9 ratio in the rear. The 40 also is 3.9 but the 35 has a 3.7. The 52 D40 came with overdrive and has a 4.3 ratio which I will likely change to 3.9. " Positive ground six volt six cylinder and a flat head is the norm around here "

your prying may have distorted the latch...usually in a stuck hood latch, it is dry from improper servicing since new...in cases of stuck before prying...one party will pull the release lever and the other party will lightly press the hood down to allow the retracting of the latch mechanism....a feat usually assisted by lubrication..

well, you halfway there......if you were to come to my house for work or use facilities....you best leave that ditch water at home, bring gifts of tools or shop supplies....

Wow, we all got sucked into that one!

I killed the 7 1/4" within a day, hence the reason I needed a 8.75". Then a week later, the 904 went... Then I found the 4 speed. Finding two different driveshafts in one week was the tough one for me! LOL. Would be even tougher now! At least in the early 1990's, junkyard's still had A Bodies in them. No more...

I know they will do that Jack. My cousin used to shut down 283 Chev’s with his, as well as several 318’s.

you can see my entire build here https://www.facebook.com/Whiskey-Wagon-Build-736850696462235/ Enjoy

Made a set of side mounts with 1.5" DOM tubing with poly inserts. Looks like this will work and easier than finding a stock front mount.

I've heard of folks doing that, @Frank Elder. Also heard of madnetic drain plugs. I wonder if I could afix a magnet to this drain plug. It's obvious someone repaired this pan at some point as the drain plug area has been brazed, but I don't know if it's original or not. Its huge though.... requires a 1 1/4" socket...! I could easily drill it out and press fit a strong "rare earth" magnet in it prior to reassembly....

Got the engine in on the mounts and frame trimmed for the headers.

Make sure you have an extinguisher handy, never know what a cat might do!

Ignore epoxy. Porting work.

digging through old photos...

sill/rocker beams in and seats out of the donor (and my helper)

You are right about it being a 332, in the over 50 years since it happened I had forgotten about that engine. In 79 I bought a new Dodge aspen with 225 engine. Other than looks, it in no way resembled the 61 engine. Those pre emission engines would run hard. The teacher was not trying to scare me, he wanted to know who it was. 427 had no trouble running down anything anywhere? Unless it was a blue Plymouth with a 43 on the door.

Have to duck out of the shop early today so time for one more job. The oil pan. It was rusty inside. It was rusty outside. The only thorough way I'll be able to get the rust and leftover goop out is to bead blast it, and if I bead blast it I'd better be prepared to clean it thoroughly. Don't need a left over bead sneaking into the fresh engine. So, I drilled out all the baffles. Brian looked thrilled and thanked me for the extra TIG work I'd created. I've never been accused of not being able to create work. Now that it's clean inside and out I'll just need him to plug weld all the brand new holes shut for me.

The assembled pistons rods and rings will be stored until I have the rms in hand.

The company offering an S10 conversion for older trucks (Dodge included) is Code54. There website is http://www.code504.com . They offer several options, including a package deal with power brakes. Not sure how much of the S10 has to be retained, and how much of the Pilothouse can be kept intact. You might have to use the S10 dash etc, which I would not care for. I have a 19 B!B woody wagon and at first they said the kit would not work. But after speaking to the owner, we agreed that it would work, but I might have to do some additional fitting, since my truck has a flat wood floor and not a pickup bed. Mike

Today's progress... pistons mounted to rods and rings installed. I'm awaiting that neoprene rear main seal so I can't finish the bottom end until it's in place. No worries. Plenty to do. I marked all my piston tops with an arrow pointing forward so that when I install I'm sure all the oil pee-holes are oriented correctly to lubricate the valvetrain. Installed double spiral locks in one side of the piston, oiled the contact surfaces up well with Torco engine assembly lube and slipped the pin in, then spun in two more spiral locks.

Uhhhhh,don't want to burst any bubbles,but he was trying to scare you,not outrun you.

Yes Sir it is a very nice place to grow up/live in. Just big enough to get almost everything you need and small enough a guy can get away and not see another person all day long.

I prefer the sound of a flattie over the /6

Oh oh your gonna need to make more of these to sell in here...

These? I found a few I few final holdouts on my desk drawer. Get me your address...

Great looking truck bifford! I don't think you'll upset anyone here on the forum, there's been plenty of S-10's done and no one's feeling were hurt. My Bonneville truck has a 96 Ford T-bird IRS and I still get to hang out with everyone here...lol. doogan, I think you're doing the right thing and finding a build that's finished ....better not to re-invent the wheel until you've build a few yourself. Member "buds truck" documented his build using a Dakota frame quite well. Do a search for his posts and maybe get a feel of what can be done. Maybe you'll catch something we missed....:) Hey bifford! We love build threads.....:D 48D

I installed this vacuum can on my car several years back. I can get 4-5 swipes after I shut my engine off.

I don't drive the convert in the rain, if I can avoid it. Have gotten caught out when rain began......well, so be it.....it got wet. My windshield leaks at the outer, lower corners.....water runs down the dash and onto your foot. Also gets onto the motor thru the grille and the openings in the hood where center trim attaches. I don't ever wash the car either.......just wipe off any dust, then wax. Been doing that ever since the new paint job several years ago. And, don't forget the Rain-X.