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Fluid drive transmission strength


Simsy

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20 minutes ago, Simsy said:

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Hi all , i would like to put a 230 Dodge Kew engine in my beautiful old 1948 Plymouth and couple it up to a fluid drive transmission . My question is , has anyone any ideas how strong the fluid drive tranny is , as i have had a couple of slight mods done to the 230 . eg ....bored to 250 ci fully balanced , full race cam , forged pistons , full race head and twin inlet manifold from you guys over there in EDGY land , electronic twin fuel injection  ,electronic dizzy  with a lil supercharger bolted on top . The fluid drive would be a perfect solution to an auto 4 speed , but i dont know how strong they are , keeping in mind i dont intend to drag it . Thank you in advance to anyone with any info at all , cheers Simsy . 

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Edited by Simsy
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What engine is in the car now?  Is the head 23 1/2 inches long or 25.  The American Dodge was a 23 1/2, as was the Plymouth, but the fluid drive assemblyis about 1 1/2 inches longer due to the added depth of the the FD unit.  The three speed transmission are the same other than the longer input shaft.  The Dodge wheelbase is longer which I think is why Plymouth never got the fluid drive.  I think you would need to move the frame cross member that carries the rear motor mounts, move the radiator to the front of the suport and maybe modify the front cross member  to clear the crank shaft pulley. Can it be done ? Maybe, is it a bolt in no.  Is the trans strong enough, no doubt.

 

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Simsy.....welcome aboard..........I have a question tho'.........as the yanks have no idea what a KEW engine is its best not to confuse them......what engine do you have?..........is it a 23" or 25" long engine...........the stock engine in the Oz P15's was the 3& 3/8th bore 218 cube 25" long engine, the 228 version of the 25" engine didn't arrive in Oz till the 1953 Oz mopars supposedly................if you have the 25" engine and have taken it to 250 cubes and seem to want an auto style gearbox have you thought about chasing a Chrysler Royal Torqueflite? as the 1957-62 Royals used the Torqueflites and maybe a possibility........anyway welcome aboard, I recognised the cars body shape...........lol.........Andy Douglas 

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Fluid drive is not a transmission. It is simply a fluid coupling between the engine and transmission. Several transmissions will bolt up to this fluid coupling including a standard 3 speed, 3 speed with overdrive, semi automatic that shifts between low and high range without having to move the gear selector. The fluid drive unit itself is pretty much bullet proof having been factory installed in several heavy Chrysler's, Desoto's, Dodges, and pickup trucks. Big benefit of the fluid drive is you can come to a complete stop without depressing the clutch. Then simply release the brake pedal and accelerate without shifting gears.

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8 hours ago, Simsy said:

Hi all , i would like to put a 230 Dodge Kew engine in my beautiful old 1948 Plymouth and couple it up to a fluid drive transmission . My question is , has anyone any ideas how strong the fluid drive tranny is , as i have had a couple of slight mods done to the 230 . eg ....bored to 250 ci fully balanced , full race cam , forged pistons , full race head and twin inlet manifold from you guys over there in EDGY land , electronic twin fuel injection  ,electronic dizzy  with a lil supercharger bolted on top . The fluid drive would be a perfect solution to an auto 4 speed , but i dont know how strong they are , keeping in mind i dont intend to drag it . Thank you in advance to anyone with any info at all , cheers Simsy . 

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So you have an M6 semi auto 4 spd now?

Going to  a 3 spd fluid drive is simple in that case.

It uses the same shifter linkage too.

230 to 250?

As mentioned is it a 23 or 25 inch engine. If the latter than its a 228 engine.

 

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The way I read the thread you are interested in mating a nicely modified engine to a semi automatic with fuild drive? Have you driven these cars with the semiautomatic? They are kind of dogs, interesting in they way, but no speed demons.

I am only familiar with the M4 vacamatic in my 41, can you get around the gear kick down, etc on the later M6 with 12 volt injection and electronic ignition?

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Well let's see if this yank has it correct.  At some point in history Great Britain in a protectionist snit applied inordinately high taxes and customs fees on vehicles imported into the country.  Being yanks and having previously dealt with His or Her magisty's tax men, Chrysler set up a plant in London, adjacent to the Royal botanical gardens in a section of the city called Kew. This facility received crates of parts an body and chassis, known as knockdowns and engine components, taxed at a much lower rate than complete vrehicles,and screwed them together to make complete vehicles to sell in Great Britain.  I believe to skirt high road taxes, which were based on horse power, the Kew engines were low compression and there for moderated the tax levied on the vehicles which was calculated by some archane mathematical formula developed by an old alchemist in some dank cellar at London Tower.

So those engines were called Kew engines,and were a poke in the eye from Walter P to HRM tax minister.

Am I close??

Edited by greg g
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Great re-cap Greg!

As to the OP's question, being that it is a fluid coupler, there will likely never be an L6 that produces enough HP/TQ to ever cause any damage to the unit. I am unsure what the upper rpm limit might be but it would be tied to the type of fluid, balance, heat, etc.

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Does your car presently have a  coupling fluid ?   Looking at the predominantly Plymouth body, I suspect not.  The modifications needed to put a FD in a Plymouth would far outweigh any dubious advantages.  There are kits available to put a more modern automatic  (the GM Turbo 350 for one) behind your 230.  

It seems to me the FD  whether it is attached to a standard 3 speed or the semi automatic would soak up a significant amount of your increased horsepower ,  Also the FD offers no torque multiplication so  off the line performance is not enhanced at all.   (note what Don said above,   FluidDrive is NOT a transmission )

The Plymouth in 1953 and 4  offered a unit called HYDrive which had a torque converter and performance was quite good but having read what someone who installed one in a standard 53 Plymouth went through including altering the floor pan , it is not something I would attempt.  Besides, you need a special  engine block with special oil passages to feed the torque converter.

I believe you will find information on this forum about  adapting a modern automatic.   The Powerflites which were used in Plymouth sixes from 54 to 59 are somewhat bulky and only the 54 and 55 could be lever controlled and none have a PARK position.

More questions than answers, so I wish you luck.        3 speed standard with overdrive would be my choice.

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O/k Greg.........you get the Cupie Doll....the story is that the order of these engines/parts/cars went thru the English KEW factory to Canada or the delivery paperwork indicated this so thats why and how this supposedly happened but from what I understand as the Canucks were part of the British Umpire as we were/are the 25" engines when they arrived here or were installed in the Oz cars have/had "KEW" stamped into the engine number pad on the engine and as a consequence all Oz use mopar sixes, both 23" and 25" including the increasingly uncommon 23" engine were generally incorrectly referred to as "KEW" engines even when the 23" was NOT and didn't have the "KEW" stamping..............the Fluid drive coupler was not commonly used here in Oz although it appears to have been the standard fitment into imported 1946-48 Dodge & DeSoto 4dr sedans sold here.............I only mentioned the use of the later torqueflites as to me here in Oz they would be easier to find than the Fluid Drive.............andyd     

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Hi all , your response  has blown me away , thank you to all for your input , a couple of things i forgot to mention were , the motor i have had built already  had a fluid drive bolted to it when i bought it . For curiosity i installed it into the Plymouth (miss daisy ) and after a bit if electrical brainstorming , i got it working perfectly . It seemed to change up and down very smoothly and i noticed no loss of power , hence my curiosity as to its strength. The motor in the car is a 25 inch and the tricked up motor is also 25 inch . p.s. , miss daisy gets a name change when i put the new motor in   , she will then be called ....Kracklin  Rosie ....... i believe Kracklin Rosie was a .....store bought woman ..( a whore ) ...and i think miss daisy is going to be like a whore to handle with her heart transplant . So Kracklin Rosie it will be . Just for intrest , i bought my Plymouth just 2 years ago , it had been in the same family since it was 2 years old , it had been in storage for 48 years when i bought it . In that time it had the motor totally rebuilt , it had never been started from the rebuild , it had a bare metal respray , a new radiator and the seats had been totally restored . All i have done to this car so far is put new white wall tyers on it and give it a polish . It was a true barn find and i pinch myself every day .....I paid $3000 for it ....TRUE.

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So Simsy.......if you have a 25" engine in the car and a hopped up 25" engine why do you want to put a 230 cube Dodge engine in it which is the smaller 23" engine?.................btw how will you go with the infamous South Oz registration rules?...............andyd 

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Hi Andy , i wanted to keep the original motor standard as i dont intend to run the hot engine in the car full time , and was advised by a very reputable flathead engine builder that a 230 was a better motor to play with as it has a larger dia bore than the existing motor , so can be taken out to 250 cubes , which it has , i am no expert by far but research i have done , i have found similar recomendations . As for the South Australian rego , it will be regd. with the standard motor in it , then i will swap it over and ....sssshhhhhh.   cheers mate .

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Simsy..........the 23" engine was 201/217 and 230 cubes with 3 & 1/4" being the largest bore for the 23" engine ..........the 25" engine was 218/228 and 250 cubes with the 2 smaller engines having 3&3/8th bore with the 250 cube engine having a 3& 7/16th bore..........the longer engine, the KEW has a larger bore in every case and I have not heard of a 23" engine being taken out to 250 cubes......how was this done?............the bore & stroke of the 23 and 25" engines are different and the crank, rods, pistons  do NOT interchange.......the 217/218  and 228/230 are not the same engines......who is your engine builder?....................andyd        

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7 hours ago, Plymouthy Adams said:

Cracklin Rosie of song fame was a bottle of wine...

"Cracklin' Rosie" is a bottle of wine. Diamond got the idea for the song from a folk story of an Indian tribe in Northern Canada who had more men than women. He told David Wild at Rolling Stone: "On Saturday nights when they go out, the guys all get their girl; the guys without girls get a bottle of Cracklin' Rosie, that's their girl for the weekend

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Hi Andy , i would love to call you and have a chat about a couple of things , as i said i am no expert and although i have a few toys and have had a steering wheel in my hand since i was about 8 years old , im 58 now , i grew up at the coast and had buggys all my life , the first being a cut down t model ford , then progressed to a 1936 plymouth that my brothers built , with a welded up diff , and being shortened 3 foot 6 , it was a beast to drive and i beat the hell out of it for 10 years or so and not once did it ever let me down , even after putting it over a 40 foot razorback sandhill and landing on its rhs at the bottom , it just suffered slightly bent roll bars for the rest of its life , that was once of 2 times i rolled it , and never hurt it , or me for that matter , i also have a shortened vw dune buggy , road regd. that i bought 40 years ago and its still in perfect condition . i have many Plymouth questions going around in circles in my head and would love the chance for a chat on the phone sometime if thats ok with you . The fella that built the engine is known as flathead mike , ( Mike Davidson ) from Victor Harbor S.A.  He has a website ....Flatattack ......he is mainly into Ford flathead v8 motors , im sure you would have heard of him , if not look up his website , he creates master pieces , that dont blow up .It cost me an arm and 2 legs , but im a very happy chappy . Kind regards . Simsy.

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