charleyd

Did you ever hear the story of Tom Ruddy of Beverly Hills? here it is as I read in the 1952 edition of Hop-Up magazine, he had a 1950 Plymouth business coupe with a reputation, he created a real dent in Southern California racing circles , in close conjunction with Engles Machine Shop, to get maximum performance from his engine, the car was used for personal transportation and raced weekly at the local dragstrips. No lower end troubles developed even after a solid year of racing. Toms car was equipped with a specially adapted manifold using two Stromberg 81s .080" mill on a 1950 head giving well over 8:1 compression, and a reworked stock ignition. This amount of mill required flycutting the head to clear the valves. Cam was a 3/4 Engle "Special" grind. Gear ratio was 3.54:1 [stock]. A run at one Russetta Timing Lakes Meet in 1951 showed a true top speed of 103 mph the results attained by Toms car shows what can be done to your Plymouth to make it really perform.

that's a great story Tim,

I just had the head trued due to a blown head gasket im not sure how much was machined off but can find out pretty easy the head was warped I have another spare head the car has 32000 miles on it and fills pretty tight did compression check and had nice even compression after I changed the head gasket, I figured I should do something with the cam I am trying to keep it as original as possible as of right now it is all original and a beauty thank you very much for your input

where can I find info on beefing up a little more HP out of my 217 I would like to dress up the motor with a set of carbs and intake what size carbs would work best without having to change the cam or should I go ahead and put in a cam also? twin carbs sure look nice on them old flatheads

I own a 1952 concord business coupe