Projects Attic Anglia

How about flat black and gold instead?

 

Flat black is cooool. Its traditional. But I already have a flamed flat black hot rod so I want to do something else. Besides, flat colors seem to be all the rage with non-trad supercar cults. Myeh.

 

So true...this one was red back in the day...

 

As Anglia chop-tops go, that one looks pretty well done too.

 

I'm back on the Attic Anglia project only for a brief time. The engine for this car is coming from another donor car - this Anglia. This week the engine gets pulled from my son's Anglia and replaced by a much stouter 303 ci Ford six. That leaves me with a complete, running 243 ci six for my little beast. The 303 is a real stump puller, what with a 4" stroke but the 243 likes to rev to the moon with a cam and head work and a stroke of only 3.18". Very fun to drive.
Some of my Loose Screw buddies will help me swap engines.

 

I love Anglia's but aren't they foreign cars

 

The design of the Anglia was a collaborative effort between US and UK Ford studios.

Much like Fiat Topolinos, Simcas, and even a few Messerschmidts and Austins, cars with a foreign lineage that were early on embraced by American rodders are very much in the traditional vein of American Hot Rodding. Many were turned into Gassers and Comp Coupes.

... if that is what you are alluding to?

 

I sold a 409 / 425 complete to a friend of mine,he put it in a 49 Anglia thaat had been running an sbc...took me for a ride in it ....stood it up about 30 deg ....way cool but pretty scary......sold it to him for$250....1972

 

WHEEEeee!!! What funnn!

 

The engine swap is wrapping up. The big 303 c.i. six slipped in place with no major issues. I look forward to shaking SuperDave's '48 Anglia down with the 390 Holley and Offy intake. Additional wiring work needs to be done. Many of the components are in place - lighting, fan, gauges, etc. They just need to have the wiring strung to them. In the mean time the 243 c.i. six will get outfitted with my home built tri-power and tinkered with on the engine stand to get the tune up close when it comes time to load it into the Attic Anglia chassis. The test stand points distributor will get replaced with a small cap DuraSpark distributor probably triggered by a GM HEI module. That will look like a traditional points distributor but with the reliability of a modern system. (I do not like the look of the big aftermarket HEI large cap distributors and the quality of some is suspect.) The HEI module will get hidden on a heat sink inside the car, along with a spare back-up HEI module adjacent to the active one.

When the "help" Bat Signal goes out I am thankful that my hoodlum hot rodder friends show up to help. In addition to assisting in the heavy work it gives them a chance to get out their classic rides. [I told the A owner all we'd have to do was chop a big hole in his award winning car's firewall to get that 240 in there LOL. He was not convinced.]

 

It looks like it is MEANT to be there!
Very nice

 

Looks good. My dad had an Anglia project for a short while back about 1966-67 sitting behind the garage. He sold it, don’t know what became of it, but it was just north of you in Trenton MI.

 

Thanks 31A. I know there are a few of them in the area. In the past I've had a chance to buy a completed one w/ SBC from a co-worker who got disgusted when someone shot at it. Regrettably I passed due to lack of finances. I also found a Prefect ex-race car in decrepit condition nearby in somebody's back yard. Passed on that. The blue one came from another co-worker and the Attic Anglia came from a friend of another co-worker in Canton. Before putting the front clip on I took my neighbor for a ride and it is noticeably quicker off the line from the 240 that was in there. I'm expecting 13 second e.t.s.
I've got my fingers crossed on the 3 x 1 Carters on the 243 motor. I hope it will work OK and not be too much carb. I will get it started on the test stand and try to dial it in a little better before putting it in storage until needed. Of course there is not a lot that can be done without subjecting it to G loads. I'll try to get it to idle well and get the accelerator pumps close.

 

UPDATE: This evening My buddy George and I took our cars out to the drags. I took my son's Anglia with the new 303 ci motor, having swapped out the previous 243 ci six. This is as pure of an apples-to-apples comparison of the two engines - the 243 vs a 303 - as I could imagine. The Attic Anglia will be getting the 243 motor.
Both engines have a mild performance cam upgrade. Same 1.6 roller rockers and 1.94 intake valves. The same Offy 360 and the same Holley 390 were used. The same EFI exhausts were used as well as the same front dress, same transmission, same 3000 RPM stall converter, same 9" rear with a 3.08:1 open (non-posi) pig. Same 235/70/R14 street tires. The track scales were not operational tonight. I estimate car & driver weight to be about 23 - 2500 lbs.

To recap, the best e.t. with the 243 engine was 14.875 @ 90.91 shifting 1-2 @ 5300; 2-3 @ 5500.
With the 303 tonight's first-time best performance was 13.366 @ 97.64 in DRIVE, auto-upshifting at 4200 and going through the lights at 4400 RPM. Traction with the open 3.08 was severely limited. Anything over 1400 launch RPM brought on instant tire frying. By gingerly and slowly applying throttle as the car gained speed more of the 303's awesome torque was available.

In summary, I had expected the 303 to gain a second over the 243, based on the performance of a similar 305 ci six in my Willys coupe. In fact it gained 1-1/2 seconds even though traction was severely limited. I feel if the car had posi-traction with a gear in the high 3s on a good track it will run in the 12 second range, especially after it sees some more break-in time on the motor.
Also encouraging was the fact that this head still had press-in studs and so far they are working with the increased lift and roller rocker arms.
On-track photo copy is courtesy of Mike-The-Photo-Guy.

 

Gotta love that big 6 torque. Street slicks & less air in rear tires would help.

 

UPDATE:
Son David is in town (for the national track cycling championships this weekend). This crisp Fall morning was a good time for The Big Reveal of the new 303 six in his Anglia. I was glad to see he was truly surprised to see the engine in and running. He took it for a quick ride. We listened as he opened it up several blocks away, burning through first gear, breaking the tires loose in second and chirping them on the 2-3 upshift. [I wish I had his innate driving skills.]
He mentioned his '69 OT Ranchero has 3.73 gears in it and they would be good in this car. Likewise the Ranchero would benefit from a 3.08 Anglia gear swap as the 3.73 is too much gear for cruising with the auto trans.
Gotta get back on the AA project soon.
Enjoy

 

I had to inteject this:
Super Dave and his team mate won the Masters Madison U.S. National Championship last weekend. Not a lot of car stuff got done this week as a result. He is going to check to see if his Ranchero also has 28-spline axles so he can swap out the third members with his Anglia for a win/win drivetrain wise when he returns to California.

 

I just saw that you took the Anglia to the track. That is a YOOOGE improvement!
I have no doubt you guys will see a 12 second time slip after a bit of tweakin'!
Very nice!

 

Thanks Mike. Your pickup / flatbed is looking real spiffy too.
unique.

 

How I plan to make the AA rocker panels.

There is one aspect of the Anglia body design that I do not like.
THE ROCKER PANELS
Look closely at all the Anglias. At least all of the ones that kept the rocker panels under the doors. [Some builders eliminated the rocker panels completely.] The door has a raised sweeping character crease that ends midway along the lower edge. The rocker panel should have a corresponding crease to look right to me.
Additionally, the front fender has a bead along the lower edge that ends halfway around the back of the fender.

Very early Anglias had running boards. They bolted to the front fender and the rear fender and the rocker panel. They were eliminated, but the rocker panels were not revised to include a crease to match the door. Because the bead ends half way around the front fender it is common to find cracks where the bead ends. On SuperDave's '48 car we rebuilt the front fenders and rolled a bead around the bottom of the front fender.
I will do that on the Attic Anglia, as well as adding a crease to the rocker panel to match the door. I did not do that to SD's '48 and its always bothered me.


Dig the "One Holer" grill.

 

On a different forum I advocated using this Dynomax 2-in, 2-out stainless steel muffler for a six, for low restriction, low noise. I want to use one on this build. So I built a cardboard facsimilie to see how I could package it under the AA chassis. I cannot snuggle it up under the floor if it is laid flat inside the frame rails. My only other option is to turn it edgewise into an over/under situation. That is not optimal, since it is 9.75" wide (tall). It will hang below the frame by five inches. That is not good, but since I plan to channel the body over the frame by six inches it may not be a deal breaker. The muffler may hang down but not much lower than the exhaust pipes themselves. The channel job will give me a low stance without compromising suspension travel and harshness and still allow sufficient ground clearance to the exhaust system. But if I have to snake the side-by-side exhaust pipes into an over/under situation to get into and out of the muffler that is additional fabricating with reduced efficiency. It may just be easier to Y the exhaust pipes into a single muffler. I think I'll keep looking for a better fit solution.

 

Since the 2 x 2 muffler will not package easily I am going to hedge my bets and go a different direction, by making a 2-into-1 merge collector which will allow me to use a smaller muffler. Dual exhausts coming from the engine will merge into a single in / single out muffler. To that end I made up a merge collector pattern and a couple of wood plugs to roll a collector from .060" stainless steel.

 

Frenchtown,
You are a glutton for punishment aren't you? I recently rolled a stainless .060" cone. 1 7/8" in, 3" out, and 16" long.

What a job! This was after reading your post about making a cone for your 'Big Car'.
All this because I already had 1 7/8" .060 tube for the primaries. 18 ga. would have been a bunch simpler.
I'm not smart that way.

I now need to make a 3"- 4" cone. since I already have the 16 ga. material, I'm going to use it. There goes another 2 days of my life that I'll never get back!

 

LOL!
I hope you have a set of slip rolls that will roll the cone for you. I could not fit the part for the big car into my slip rolls, but this little one should be a lot easier.
One thing is for sure - at .060", it should be a lifetime part.
Good luck with your project.

 

I cheated a bit by starting with a chunk of tubing. Still a b*#@h!

 

I formed the cone and welded it. The next step will be mounting it in a fixture in the hydraulic press to press two increasingly acute creases into the cone 180 degrees apart which will roughly form the big end into the shape of a figure 8. From there two 2" stub pipes will get welded into it which will enable the two head pipes to merge into one 2.25"outlet pipe.

 

I had to neck down the outlet end slightly to get it to fit snuggly into the 2.25" plug. Instead of using a 2.25" system, I may decide to go with a 2.5" exhaust system, in which case I'll reshape the collector outlet by flareing it outward slightly, instead of inward. It just depends on what kinds of deals I can find on exhaust tubing.

When I did my '46 pickup w/ a V8 I bought a pile of thick-wall polished SS Mustang GT stinger pipes at a swap meet, chopped them up and fashioned them into a complete stainless exhaust system for pennies on the dollar. Maybe look for a similar deal to move this project along.

 

The collector is formed. I started a separate thread on how I made it.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/make-your-own-header-collector-s.1315177/

I think I'll use 2 1/2" tail pipe instead of the 2 .25. There are more muffler choices in the 2.5" diameter, and if I ever upgrade from a 243 to a 305 ci engine I'll probably want the bigger pipe for the bigger displacement motor.

 

I made a couple of stub pipes. They will join the original six dual exhausts (with some mods to fit the tube chassis) to the collector. I made a simple template jig to hold the stub pipes at 3" on center, same as the head pipes.

 

I had hoped to continue making progress on this car lately. Unfortunately, life has interferred once again.

Another passion of mine is cycling. Last week I participated in a half-marathon time trial.
Crashed.
Cuts. Bruises. Two cracked ribs. Broken hip. This puts an end to my cycling season, my drag racing season, and slows me down on any progress on the champ car build and the Anglia builds.

Stay tuned - I'll be back...