Part 4 – The Plymouth gets trailered to AoK headquarters and is parked beside the “World’s Fastest Dinasour” & “Calling In Favors”

Well the Plymouth wasn’t home long and pictures were shared with my friends and the ideas and discussion of what the plans were for her.

In what I will call the round table discussion with George and Rob Asche we kicked around the idea of building a race engine that would still be streetable. We had just finished off the Velociraptor or the Worlds Fastest Dinosaur engine, and well we did have some spare parts.... tee hee

When we were in the design of the dragster project, Dad had called in some favors from some of his drag racing friends and colleagues and we were able to get several sets of Venolia Forged top fuel pistons made, complete with HardTuf coating on them. Those and sets of custom Plasma Moly Gapless rings actually cost more than the 1949 Plymouth was new ! Actually a lot more come to think of it !

So with the pistons and rings at up to .125 over bore and a 1952 Dodge 265 Truck Engine, the start of the project was in hand. I loaded up the Plymouth in my enclosed car trailer, and headed south/east to AoK Headquarters, where the Plymouth was tucked into bed beside the Rear Engine Dragster.

George and Rob pulled down the truck engine and the legendary and in my opinion the best Flathead Mopar Engine builder alive started the build process. Here are some of the highlights.

The engine after hot tanked and checked for cracks and defect, was decked with about .20 removed from it. The block was bored and new custom valve seats and valves installed. The crank quick was perfectly balanced from Chrysler back in the day, was prepared with a few racing tricks, and nos 265 rods were balanced to the gram. Clevite 77 Bearings were secured, as was a brand new brass water tube. Not that the water tube being brass had a lot of a performance impact, but it was a rare part that had long ago been set aside for a special project. I will also attach a picture of the oil pump beside am OEM stock oil pump. It has been built, and I say built because it was NOS when we tore it apart and made a few mods to it ! Its all about getting some oil flow to an engine which we expect will touch north of 6,000 rpm !

A 1956 dodge 265 truck head was prepared, shaved .80, and modifications made to cc the head to 70cc’s. In the end the engine is about 10.5 to 1 compression ratio. A new custom cam with 435 lift was prepared for the project. This of course is a lot less lift and a lot less compression than is in the rear engine dragster but it isn't exactly streetable !

When the engine was in the discussion phase I really wanted to have a George Asche custom made triple from a stock intake used. That was really for sentimental purposes, but I got over-ruled, lol and of course an AoK triple carb intake was used for the project.

George prepared 3 carter ball and ball carbs – model E9K1 which were original equipment for the 1956 Dodge 4 ton truck with factory dual carbs as stock equipment. These carbs are stock 1 11/16” throttle bore and 1 11/32 Venturis. Interestingly it was this throttle bore and venturi size that Lee Petty used in his 1949 Plymouth. Mind you he used 1 and well, we have 3 for this engine !

When finished these fully matched carbs sported over sized Grose Jets. Sadly Ansel Grose of Stoneham, Middlesex, Massachusetts who made the worlds best carb jets is no longer with is, and so far it does not look like anyone has taken over the business. Too bad, because his jets were unreal and the Kingsbury and Asche stashes of them is definitely pretty limited.

While George and my brothers (Rob and George III) were busy on the engine, I was on the prowl to try and put together the ability to put air-conditioning on the car. We found a dual belt pulley from a past project and using 6061T6 aircraft gear grade aluminum had dual belt pulleys made for both the crankshaft and water pump pulleys.

Now I am sure your now thinking, air conditioning, how are you doing that with 6 volts..

Well the truth is for a number of reasons, we decided to change to a 12 volt system. Brighter lights, a better wiper system etc etc.

Which of course brings up one of my many Christmas presents from George. Lol.. Hidden away from plain sight would be an upgrade from a vacuum wiper system, from a late 1940’s Chrysler George completely rebuilt an electric wiper system for the car.

By now I am sure you can see this “build a high performance flathead” project got a little wider scope.

“Brother Rob” would specially build the high amp 12 volt alternator for the project. Something he and George III do regularly as they have for the last decade or so taken over the Family Business – Asche Mechanic and Asche Mechanical Distributors.

If you want some starter, generator or automotive electrical component rebuilt, they are definitely the boys for the job. Some time I will do a blog entry on their diamond in the rough business.

I believe “Brother George” actually built the starter for the car for the project. I will attach a few pictures of the engine as it was built, and may have to put up a few other parts just to get the pictures up.

I think we were about the fall of 2013 when the engine was complete and was set aside, actually I believe right beside the dragster, as if it was a spare engine.

Somewhere along the way I acquired a 1953 Chrysler Windsor with a 265 ci motor, and while it wasn’t the motor we wanted for this project it did yield some donor parts. The rear end gear set or Pumpkin, which was a 3:54 ratio was a far more “highway friendly” set of gears than what came with the Plymouth. As well Chrysler’s being a much heavier car had bigger brakes, so the thought of much more power and speed, naturally shifted into the need to upgrade the brakes. So the Plymouth brake system was converted to Chrysler 12” brakes and that also required different rims to handle the bigger drums.

Again George and Rob would be the master behind the project and restored all of the parts, as well as brass sleeved the master cylinder (poor man power brakes) .

While that was taking place, down in George’s work shop a specially prepared 1952-56 Borg Warner R10 over drive was prepared. The top secret 1940 cluster and 2^nd speed gear set was used for the project. I call it top secret because it’s a not widely known fact that the 1940 only gears give you a much faster 2^nd gear. It was a trick used by one Lee Petty back in 1949 and does indeed make a huge difference. The r10 can be set up as 6 or 12 volt, this one obviously being 12 volt.

Shortly after the piece of art, that would be the overdrive was completed it was coupled up to the engine.

But not before we pulled out another mopar secret; that being the pressure plate and clutch setup of a 1956 plymouth and went to Fort Wayne Clutch for the project. Now AoK doesn’t do anything 1 off very often, so a dozen of these special heavier spring clutch and pressure plate system were made and the 1^st of which was put into the plymouth, along with another secret, a custom modified flywheel which provides the perfect balance for a high performance engine.

The Plymouth's new heart was put in, and you can see the engine here on Youtube as it was fired up. While everyone wanted me to do the honors, I couldn’t take that smile away from Rob and you can see him fire it up as George smiles in he back ground and of course I am running the video.

The picture of her shortly after rolling out of the garage, still had the hood off and looking like it was ready to go to the drag strip.

The rims were all prep’s and powder coated red as was a number of pretty famous Mopar Stock cars in the 50’s. Thanks to Lorenzo Martinez of Hubcaps.com they restored a set of 1949 full hubcaps to NOS condition. I cant say enough of their work, it was absolutely unreal

The steering wheel which had cracked over time needed attention, and here is another AoK secret. . Koch’s steering wheel restoration took car of the restoration of the steering wheel and it came back better than NOS !

http://www.kochssteeringwheels.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=3&idproduct=4

Another neat part that obviously didn’t come with the zero-optioned car was its clock. In one of those urban myth stories my Dad had been following up a lead about a 1949 Plymouth that was specially built for the man who would be the Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.

Well 2 years ago, one of Dad’s friends called me from Saskatoon Saskatchewan, where Diefenbaker is buried and told me that he had located the 1949 Plymouth my Dad was looking for. It was located near Neustadt, Ontario which ironically is where Diefenbaker was born. Neustadt is super close to where I live so out I went to check it out. It is in the heart of a German Mennonite and the black 1949 Plymouth was living behind a barn of an Mennonite family who make old style wooden windows. They have no electricity in their house or telephone and have an old d21 Allis Chalmers tractor with the wheels off sitting on blocks, running a big generator to run the power for the window plant.

When I inquired about the car, the owner said to me that it was John Diefenbaker’s 1^st wife’s and he had actually tried to give it to a couple of museums over the years. Sadly the car had the front suspension rusted out, the engine seized. Now you would think with such a story, and little proof in hand of the story that the price of the car would be out of sight. No sir. The price was pegged at what the car weighed and the price of scrap !

So home came the 1949 Plymouth, and while many I am sure are rolling in their graves, the 1949 clock was pulled from the car, gone over and will find its way into my Aunt Thelma’s Plymouth. Aunt Thelma was a big Diefenbaker fan and I thought it was a fitting and appropriate upgrade for the old girl.

The car with temporary dual exhaust on it was taken out for a couple of test runs. OMG talk about a car that can smoke tires.

I think that is where the project sits at the moment . Still to come is a brand new end to end stainless steel dual exhaust system with a pair of specially made polished stainless steel mufflers courtesy of another friend.

As well, while the car has few miles , never saw winter and I doubt it saw rain very often, a lot of the chrome was done over pot metal on those cars and so a great deal of the pieces need to be replace or rechromed. The pursuit of air-conditioning is still ongoing with that challenge right now being I can’t find a small enough unit to fit under the dash… grrrr..

As well Rob in looking really close at the wiring, a lot of it is old and brittle, so he is busy rewiring the car in a lot of places. I call it a labor of love that you couldn’t even ask your Brother to do, but he is a man on a mission !

In the future, I may freshen up the interior and touch up things here and there.

As things progress or change I will try and update the blog, and who knows we may test it out to see if it is faster than the average Echo ! lol