C6 Modellsport

Heh. You're getting completely the wrong impression. The only reason I'm hesitating is I'm waiting on my tax return to show up and square a few things away before I make a move. Where I'm sitting right now, if everything goes to plan, I'll have the car in my driveway before Valentine's and I'll be driving it to work before March. I'm not asking about this carb swap because I want someone to talk me out of the car. I'm asking about it because I [i]actually love the friggin thing and want to know if I can make it daily-able with what I already have on hand.[/i] I've already driven it, I've crawled underneath it, I already have a plan-of-attack for when I take delivery. The entire point of this thread is doing a little research into what parts can fit so I can streamline that plan. I can't really drive this thing to work if it's puking raw gas down its throat to the point it barely runs, after all, and if I can throw the YF on it I can get it on the road much quicker than if I have to order a rebuild kit and/or send the carb on it now for reman.

I'll try to nudge them down a li'l but I honestly don't see it being all that overpriced. The body's in better shape than the 2014 Challenger I'm driving now! Next to no rust under it, interior's mint, panel gaps are great, doors open and shut flawlessly, windows roll up/down perfectly...nothing wrong with the car structurally or mechanically. The only cosmetic blemish it has at all is on the front bumper, where some of the chrome has flaked off on the pass side. I can have the bumper rechromed at some point. The next lowest option is a '52 Chevrolet 2-door for 9 grand that's got chewy floors and a front seat that's held in by hopes and dreams. Next highest thing on my list is a 53 Ford Business Coupe at Streetside Classics' Charlotte, NC facility, and that car needs a little carb help too just from their video. They want 13,900 for it, and this Plymouth would do better with my RC plane hobby than the business coupe or the Chevrolet. My first choice is a Ford with the flathead V8, but honestly, the Plymouth I've found would be a better fit to what I'm doing than the Fords I've found and it's local to me so I won't have to deal with shipping or the inherent risks of buying sight-unseen. I've seen a video of the 53 Ford run, but I've actually driven the Plymouth already. And I'm quite confident this Plymouth would be an excellent classic daily. I used that speed because that's the quoted redline. Peak HP at 3,600, max 4,000, obviously it won't be spending its every waking moment screaming along at 4 grand all the time. Everywhere I need to go I can get to on roads that don't have a posted speed limit above 55, AKA well within the speed ranges this car/engine was originally designed for. And in the future I might have the rear end ratio altered so it can run 70-75mph without cooking the bottom end out of it, but that's long in the future. As for the mods I have planned, aside from a rear end ratio change: * Visit from the Vintage Air fairy. * Install an FM radio. * Install a dash cam * Make sure there's a working 12v socket somewhere under the dash for charging my phone, my glow driver, etc. * possibly a front disc conversion. I will drive it on the drums and evaluate brake fade, lining availability before I make a concrete decision on this, but it is on the table especially once I alter the diff ratio and start driving it on the interstate. FWIW the brakes on the car currently work without fault. * If it needs it, fit a 12v electric wiper motor. This year range was when carmakers were switching over from vacuum to electric and I'd rather not have vacuum wipers on a daily driver, so if it has them they'll get updated. That's it. All I plan to do to the car as far as modernization goes. I'll prolly even run it on Coker bias plies all the time, at least once the radials on it currently are worn out. I wouldn't doubt it needs an italian tuneup. I know it has sat for a while, because I was told as much....and the throttle jammed open on me during the test drive because of stiff pivot points! It's about 40 miles from my home, so I think the drive home would help clear its throat out. I'm well aware this car has a ton of maintenance items modern ones do not. Points need attention on the regular, thing's got more nipples under it than a nightclub's roof, brakes don't auto-adjust, valves don't auto-adjust, list goes on. I'm under no delusion that itt'l be as lazy as a modern car. But I'm fine with that. I.....actually kinda sorta want that. A nice lazy saturday afternoon blastin' the classic rock station on the radio while tinkerin' on the ol' pride'n'joy sounds like a good day to me. Wrap up the tinkering, shine up the baby moon caps, give it a wash and a wax, and ready for the next trip it be! It ain't like these things are all that complex or particularly difficult to work on, and maybe it's just me, but the fact that there's a zerk fitting on every joint gives me the sense that this thing will last longer than anything sold today so long as I get under there and lube it regularly. Matter of fact, if I buy this car, one of the first things I'm going to buy is the shop manual(I found one, along with a TON of other useful things, at oldmoparts.com), because that book will be the key to keeping it running right today, tomorrow, and well into the future.

I've no qualms about the flathead six itself. Great engine, it's part of why I'm looking for a car like this in the first place. And with the oil pressure/water temp readings I got on my test drive I'm confident there's nothing wrong inside that engine. Itt'l serve well as a daily driver for many many years to come. My goal with putting that newer carb on it is simply to use a carb I already have on hand to get the engine running well enough for me to drive the thing to work every day. It's not because I want more power(I know it's odd to hear in 2023 but 95hp is more than enough to get me a speeding ticket on any road I care to put myself on, so I'm happy with 95hp!), it's just because it costs me precisely $0.00 to bolt that Carter YF on there whereas it costs more than $0.00 to rebuild the carb currently on the car. I already have it on hand, so if I can just whack it on there and hit the road I'm good. Maybe itt'l just be on there as a temporary measure while I get the original carb rebuilt, maybe itt'l be on there permanently, but the end goal is simply to make it run better with what I already have on hand. Well, that, and I can also borrow the air cleaner from the ol' truck, which is a damn sight better than that stupid 3" round chrome dome that the previous owner put on it. Everyone here is in full agreement that the air cleaner HAS to go, myself included. Those 300s were choked off severely anyway. The carb on them is good for about 300cfm; they actually want nearly 500 and will nearly double in power if one swaps the YF out for a 475-525cfm 4bbl. Summit's handy dandy CFM calculator says a 230cid at 4,000RPM will want somewhere between 230-290cfm, so while the YF may be a [i]bit[/i] oversized, it shouldn't be so oversized that the engine runs poorly as a result.

Ye I've seen those in part stores. What I'd be going for. The YF on my 85 F150 has been more reliable than any EFI system I've ever touched and is a large part of why I flat refuse to buy anything with EFI ever again.

Ye 4-6 oil changes a year that'll be a money saver. and probably an engine saver; modern oil filters are way better than they used to be. Almost makes me wonder if the one on the engine now is worth draining, shining up, and selling as a display piece.

Yeah that breather HAS to go. I hate those things and I don't understand why people love them so much. I see them ALL THE TIME on older vehicles, too. Hell maybe that's the whole problem with this engine and simply putting a sensible air cleaner back on it will fits it haha. I would honsetly rather run without an air filter at all than run with one of those dinky little breathers, and I hate running one without an air cleaner too for obvious reasons. A 12-14" diameter 2" thick paper roundy should work a treat. Might be able to rob one out of a junkyard from something even. I'd be fine with the oil bath air cleaner if it still had it, but I'm also not in a hurry to go out of my way and track one down for a car that's gonna be a daily rather than a show car. I will take it to car shows from time to time and if I bump into one at a swap meet I might pick it up then, but it'd be getting a paper roundy of sufficient size first thing. Looks to me like someone butchered the auto choke module to connect a manual choke cable. Having a choke knob on the dash is what originally had me thinking it was a Ball and Ball in the first place.. Felt like the cable was moving something but entirely possible the hackjob manual choke conversion isn't moving the choke plate properly. FWIW the engine flooded outright when I first tried to start it because I pulled the choke out a bit first(Stone cold engine). Pushed it back in, held it about half throttle, spun it over, and once it cleared out it lit right off.

Ye I want mine to run like yours. The whole reason I'm interested in the carb swap is I already have the YF in my hand. I don't have to order anything. But I 'spose I can leave that YF for the 95 F150 I bought it for and go through whatever's already on the Plymouth. I'll be going through the whole electrical system anyway, so a full ignition workup is not a bad idea. The previous owner who 12 volted it did a very half assed job so there's no telling if they even bothered with a ballast resistor. No doubt the plugs are fouled, points probably not happy. I also plan on dailying whichever classic I get. Been a bucket list item of mine since I was just a wee lad knee high to a hubcap. Huh. Interesting. To be fair my first hand experience with Slant Sixes was looking at an 84 halfton Dodge pickup at a dealership that was priced twice what it was worth. Ran nice enough but guy wanted 7-8 k for a 3500 dollar truck in the early 2010s so we didn't really pursue it much.

Ye I'd have no qualms about rebuilding the carb on it if I have to, and indeed that has been my plan for a while until I realized I had that brand new YF lying idle. I'm mostly just asking because I already have a never-seen-fuel YF in my hand right now. As in, if it will mount to the intake, I can bolt it on as soon as I get the car home. That being said, there's no telling what's actually on that thing today. It's a 70 year old car and there's clear evidence of half-assery under that hood. It may also be mislabelled by the dealership that's selling it; it's on consignment at a BHPH lot along my path to work and the guy doesn't normally deal in classic cars so he may not know what he even has on his lot. FWIW there is a choke knob on the dash; whether it's factory or not I cannot tell you. https://imagescdn.dealercarsearch.com/Media/10070/19087483/637950499751959375.jpg https://imagescdn.dealercarsearch.com/Media/10070/19087483/637950499760922507.jpg Couple pics of the engine itself. https://imagescdn.dealercarsearch.com/Media/10070/19087483/637950499949459230.jpg https://imagescdn.dealercarsearch.com/Media/10070/19087483/637950499950914503.jpg Dataplates for the car, if that helps you help me figure out just what this thing is supposed to be/have. Price is good. They're asking 11,800 for it. Solid car structurally, good floorpans, rockers, frame all without rust problems, brakes work great, steering's great, thing drives mint aside from the carb issues, sloppy shift linkage and the iffy 12 volt conversion. If I decide to buy the car I might try to knock the price down to 10 in light of those issues, but if they're firm I don't feel like it'd be an overspend if I pay the full 11,800. Ye my 85 F150 has a system like that. EEC-IV feedback carb. First thing I did when I got that truck in 2007 was disconnect the metering rod solenoid and the engine ran 250% better. The brand new Carter YF I have on hand is for a slightly older model that predates EEC IV(I ordered for 73-81 and originally planned to fit it + points dizzy to a 96 F150 with a horribly ruined EFI system) and does not have those electronically adjustable metering rods. That's the one I'm thinking about fitting to this Plymouth if I buy it, since it's already in hand hand and won't cost me a penny to bolt on if it will fit the intake manifold. I'm not a sticker for numbers matching originality. I am in the 'grand scheme' of things...IE I have no plans to swap a different engine/trans into the car or convert it to floor shift or anything like that...but I'm not above swapping the current carb for a newer 1-barrel or 2-barrel if itt'l bolt onto the intake manifold already present especially if that carb makes future servicing and cold weather starting easier. If I can find a source for Carter YFs with manually externally adjustable main jets I'm buying three of them, one for my 85 F150, one for my 95 F150, and one for the Plymouth! 225 is a great motor in its own right and did an amazing job of replacing the flathead six as time progressed. If I were to ever swap an OHV engine into this car, a 225 would be first on the list I think. But IIRC they had 2-barrels on them from stock, which would make bolting one to the flathead six require either an adapter or some sort of aftermarket intake manifold.

One of my bucket list items has always been to daily drive a classic car, and I feel like I'm on the verge of pulling it off. I've got four cars in mind, and one of them is a beautiful survivor of a 1954 Plymouth Savoy that's more or less all original. I have actually test driven the car and fell in love almost immediately! So much more pleasant to drive than my '14 Challenger haha. Thing has great oil pressure(30-odd pounds while cranking steady 40 when it's running regardless of RPM!) and no untoward clatter so I'm confident the engine is in good nick internally, but there is a fly in the ointment. The carb is total junk. The previous owner 12 volted the car, yet it's still a right pain to get lit off. When it does light off, it takes a few moments for all six pots to come online, it runs like absolute crap requiring constant babying until it's built a little heat in itself. There's no accelerator pump left in it. It smells rich, it acts rich. It has no power. It's SSUUUUPER easy to flood it. Once it's warmed up it runs reasonably well(testament to the engine itself!), but there's definitely major carb issues on hand. If I end up buying this car I will have to remedy this. Just driving it the 40 miles from the dealer to my house would likely take half a tank of gas! Rebuilding the Ball and Ball still on it is an option, of course, but there's another option available to me that, if it will work, doesn't cost me a single penny. I am also a fond of bullnose Ford trucks with carburetted straight sixes in them and I just so happen to have a brand new Carter YF lying around I bought for one of those engines that's ready to go! And given I plan on dailying the car(Yes I can keep it off the freeway and still get everywhere I need to), that automatic choke will be useful. And of course any part shop in America has a carb kit on the shelf for a Carter YF because Ford used them on millions of engines for 40+ years many of which I still see in traffic all the time. Not so much the case with a Ball and Ball. As an added bonus, it's much easier for me to get a decent air filter housing for the YF; the previous owner replaced the oil bath air cleaner with one of those awful little 3" diameter paper roundies that's no good at all. Is the mounting flange the same between the two such that I could just bolt that YF onto the flathead six? As an aside, I don't plan on modifying the car very much at all. I'll tidy up the Billy Bob Bait, Tackle, and Auto Electrical 12v conversion so it's not a fire hazard, remedy the carb issues, tighten up the shift linkage(it finds all gears just fine but you can't feel a thing), and probably slide an FM radio into it somewhere 'cause I love my classic rock and the FM station in my area playing it kicks ass. A visit from the Vintage Air fairy probably is in order too. Front disc brakes are a TBD affair; I will evaluate it for brake fade and decide on that. The four drums on it now work a treat as is, thing stops great. Beyond that I don't plan on doing much of anything to it beyond the(admittedly high but that's what it takes to keep these cars running whether they get 20 miles a year or 20,000) maintenance itt'l need.