I think that there's one thing missing in the argument - brain washing! I don't mean espionage type stuff, just the ordinary, everyday type of persuasion that becomes the truth to the person that hears it often enough, especially if it comes from someone they look up to. The guy with the fastest car around used to be that person, and a lot of younger guys got their love of a particular engine by what he drove and what he said. Also, it's interesting to think how the state of engineering and mechanical knowledge had an impact on the cars built by the manufacturers and how that impacted the perceptions of the public. A big percentage of us are partial to the pre WWII cars for a lot of reasons (just being different is one big reason), but it seems that most of us are partial to the types of engines that first came about in the 1950s (with the exception of the flathead Ford). In the 50s, gas was cheap, the economy was doing well, and everybody loved new, more powerful cars. (Remember "Lower, Wider, more Powerful"?) The manufacturers discovered the cost and weight savings of casting engine blocks in a V configuration and went with it big time. Their advertising and racing successes are still conditioning the way we think today. You may not have building cars in the 50s, but probably some on who you looked up to was, and their opinions may still have an impact on you today. They say that inline engines are more inherently balanced, they do sound different from the V engines, but to me your preference is your business. Let's just enjoy the variety. Larry
Hi. We are seeing two worlds of thought on todays cars & trucks. From my avitar you can see i drive a 46 chevy coupe & the only engine avalible on it new at that time period was the 216 inline 6. Then in the early 50's those of us driving these Chevies began to modify & or change out the engine entirely. We changed the rear end ratio from 4.11 to 3.55 for better fuel economy and less rpm's at hwy speed for the daily quick change drivers as most folks could not afford both a street & strip car. For strip only cars many left the original 4.11 or they purchased a two speed Columbia or Haldibran rear end to have the best of both worlds. Those who wanted more HP did things like dual carbs & exhaust, hotter cams, bore cylinders with higher comp pistons, valve & intake work. These simple changes made them fast dudes & they held their own on the street & strip. Been there & done that as I grew up with these cars & engines as I got my drivers license in 53. The above is exactly what I am doing on this car other than I will still use flat top pistons to maintain it as a daily driver street rod of the period of the early to mid 50's & to spend my remaining time driving what I loved & drove in my early years. As the car world made big changes to the overhead valve v8"s many began using these larger engines instead for more updated engines but not always more speed & mostly using the thining that more must surely be better & computers must be better than knowing how to work on something. Is some cases that was true but in many it was not. Jumping ahead from that time of the early 50's to now there is a growing trend to go back to the old inline engines for many car owners whether they will just make daily drivers or take them to the strip or to car shows. My version of how I am setting my 46 up is installing a slightly larger model year inline 235 Chevy six bored to 0.060 & outfitted in the style of the old style street rod. Anybody can throw a V8 in with no problems as the conversion kits are readily avalible. But as I plan to use my car as both a daily driver & a car show entrant my will stand out as very different from the huge selection of old cars in the show with their Chevy v8's & automatics. I can assure you that for almost all of the show visitors other than kids my car gets great comments about NOT having a V8 & modern running gear. The choice of the 235, 261, 290 Chevy inline sixes allows bolt in fits for engines with better crank bearings & oil pressure systems. Everything else we do is the same as making changes to the original 216 engines. It even takes someone very knolegable in these engines to even detect a change in engine size has been made as the exterior of the above size engines is about 99% the same. With its dual carbs, chrome & aluminum & polished engine components on my six under the hood while maintaining a completely stock looking interior & exterior to most it stands tall against all the many V8 equipped cars in the show. With a change to a 12 volt system it allows brighter head & tail lamps for safer nightime driving while still maintaining that stock exterior car look. The only visible exterior changes seen are the 2 small chrome exhaust tips slightly protuding from undr the rear bumper next to the bumper guards. This is by far the style I love & prefer. In car shows in my part of the world it will also be huge eye candy for judges & visitors as I will likely be the only entrant in the restored Street Rod class not showing a V8 & auto transmission with my 6 cylinder engine & 3 on the tree. Less is much better for me. To each his own but I have exactly what i want. Jimmie
OT car here, but in 74, I bought a brand new, "fleet" style, 74 Nova, with a 250 six, and 3-speed on the column, to replace my 72 Nova SS 350, 4-speed, thinking "gas mileage". Well, the six got worse mileage than the V-8! Just to be different, I built the six; 194 milled head on the 250 block, cam and kit, Clifford intake and headers, 2 barrel Holley, Mallory dual point with a Judson coil, and a Borg Warner T-10 4 speed. I used a factory dual exhaust for the six also; it was free flowing, but quiet, and sounded good when you got into it. The car would beat V-8's, and surprise the car owners when I showed them the six; I really mean surprise them! It also got better mileage built up than stock. But, it also had problems with loosening flywheels and clutch wear due to torsional vibrations inherent with the six. I eventually did a V-8/automatic swap so I could flat tow my bracket car. Now, every time I read an article or a thread about building a six, I want to do it again. And, one of my cars has a stock six in it, and it's tempting. Unless you've actually done a six, or know someone who has, I don't think you can understand the draw to them. Kind of like, I don't understand the loyalty guys have to their flat-head V-8 Fords, but I respect them for being different, and making them work in today's world of fuel injection, coil pack ignitions, and factory headers. To each their own. I respect all the "six offenders", "sixual deviants",and "six maniacs" out there. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.
If you're racing that is correct -- the bigger the better! If you're building an economy car, the opposite is true. The six in most cases is a good compromise. Good low speed power, but it can be built to rev in many cases also. Better to build a long stroker for torque though. Almost all US I-6 engines have a longer stroke than bore for that low speed pulling power. Many of the European I-6s (BMW, I think even the last of the Volvos) are built to rev like most US V-8s -- larger bore than stroke.
Most sixes only have a torsional vibration around 6000 rpm, so you were really turning that thing up! Any overworked engine will deliver poor gas mileage. Because you replaced the V-8 SS with the six I'm going to assume you were on the six pretty hard most of the time trying to get it to perform. That will kill mileage, of course! Those six Novas were designed for grandma, if you didn't drive kinda like her the results were pretty dismal... as you discovered! Had to wak it up a bit to suit your driving style, but it worked!
My all time favourite photo. You know my experience has been a bit different. A local store and lock owner and longtime member of the Belleville Road Angels Car Club came to see me one day. He had a very nice 39 Chev coupe with a small block and 350 turbo installed. It was a 307 with a 4bbl and while not a killer is not a slouch either. He told me he had noticed that when at curises or shows people would get with in about 10 feet glance at "yet another SBC" and walk on never giving it second look. Since I did a few hot sixes of all persuasions would I do one for his coupe. We settled on a 250 as it is a nice straight forward build. I won't go into the details here but it was a decent but really not expensive build although money was never an issue. He installed it with a set of Tom Stovebolt twin carbs and twin exhaust. Here is what he told me. "Before with the v8 I could barely squawk the tires. Now I get rubber in all three gears. I checked the mileage and I am getting 25 MPG (Imperial or Canadian gallon). In fact of the 25 or so that went to the Oshawa car show last weekend from Belleville I was the only one who did not need fuel on the whole trip. With the 307 I would have had to stop both ways. Now when I have the hood open people stop to talk and are interested in the car." his words not mine. don
My only problem with the 6 cylinder sound is that your average inliner or even a V six with glass packs sounds like a Piper Cub to me. I may have already mentioned this but in the event that I have not: That said I have heard some 6s that sounded plenty healthy (at least one that belongs to HAMBer) and have had opportunity to meet a couple that were scary fast. The scariest was a bored and de-stroked Ford 300, with Hilborn's and a Joe Hunt vertex and running on race gas. It ran econo-rail class and used to show up once in a while when I was tuning for Netz in the '70s. We all actually used to leave the pit to watch it stage. It would just evaporate when the light went green. I think that econo-rail was a relative term.
firigorder1 pretty much any engine that any of us who are stuck on traditional would want to own is heavy and out dated. Hell I have a shrine in my basement to an olds 394 that out weighs my hawg, the tranny that bolts to the old beasty probably outweighs your LSR bike. An engine needs to be what the builder wants to run, I will normally try and talk anyone out of an inline Chevy and can come up with a lot of good practical reasons not to run one, but the end of the day I cannot say that it is not a traditional mill in the strictest sense.
I saw this car at HAMB drags a couple years back and it's amazing how quiet it is. You mostly hear the turbo and then the WHOOSH as it goes by. Extremely unassuming to say the least. You really don't expect to put down a 9 sec. pass from just looking at it. It is all business!
If you had ever heard Ray Rojas cruise by my house at dark thirty headed out to the view point with his gal snuggled in beside him in his 51 Chevy Hardtop with the split manifold and dual glass packs you would fully understand. One of the sweetest sounding sixes that ever turned a wheel on pavement. that was back when sweet sounding pipes trumped loud exhaust with no character though.
Why indeed. I honestly don't know. I ran 216's and 235's back in school, got a Toad slant soon as I could afford a cheap used one, and have run slants since. I've always liked straight sixes and boxers, and have run both my whole automotive life. I guess the best reason I can come up with is that I enjoy, and take a bit of pride in improving things that aren't readily "purchasably" improvable. I've never liked someone asking "Where'd ya buy that, I want one.", I like it when it's obvious that it was made, not bought. I'm not manic about it, just prefer it if I have the option. My present stuff's in my sig links, so there's no point in wasting Ryan's bandwidth on pictures here.
Why an inliner? Because the 151 iron duke 4-cylinder can be made into a high revving screamer. Very popular circle track engine. Lots of aftermarket hi-performance parts available. Quite happy with how my highly modded 151 performs. Oh, wait, you were thinking 6-cyl Yeah, I like my 250 too. Always get comments at shows when my hood is up. - "had one of those in my work truck and it ran forever" - 'can't kill those things" - etc ... and they sound great with the split header. Three pulses per pipe instead of four. Plus sbc are dreadfully boring.
In the mid 70's when I was building my '37 Chev coupe , I wanted something different for an engine. Seems everyone was using SBC's, I thought about a twincam Jag engine, but I really wanted something that I could easlly work on , this brought me to the '67 Pontiac OHC Sprint engine I finally put in the '37. I never looked back, that was the best choice I could have ever made. I loved the sound, plus it would run with many a SBC from light to light. I would love to find that car and own it one more time. ......................... Jack
Thanks Mav! My motor was just completed by Larry's Power in CT. these are the same guys that built Santtuci's hybrid head 292. Motor is on the dyno as week speak and the first pull was 290 HP! with no tweaking.
After hearing how she use to beat up on a few v8's "in the day" from dad and since she's lived there under the same ol' hood 62 years .......It's earned the right to stay.
TRUE! Dreadfully boring is an understatement.....a great classic with 350/350 - I just walk away.....
It's easy repeating what has been done by most folks for decades...the American V8. To me, taking the road less traveled is more interesting. My current project is on a tight "Use what I have" budget, otherwise I'd likely be building around an inline. The only 2 non-inlines on my short list are near the bottom.
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