Major update to the build Ladies and Gentleman. Instead of the 1950 Mercury V8 flathead as originally planned, I have decided on installing the engine / trans combo you see in Post #170. I'll re-attach a picture here. Scroll back and you can see many pictures of the whole assembly. There are a whole host of difficulties that need to be figured out, along with size and space constraints, and more parts to purchase that I have to deal with in order to install a 650 pound flathead V8 into a 22 inch wide tank. Minus 4-5 inches for frame rail width, that leaves 17-18 inches of clearance to stuff that bad boy in this tank. The smaller and skinnier Model A engine and trans combo will result in a much cleaner finish for this lakester, everything is already assembled and refurbished, and it's ready for install. While it has less power, it weighs half as much. Using the Model A engine (while not as cool and probably disappointing to some) will be much better for this particular tank, and will greatly accelerate build completion time. I believe it will be a good fit, literally and figuratively and allow myself more space to install other components because this F5 Tigershark tank is TIGHT. This engine / trans combo is visually appealing, complete and ready for installation, and i'll also be able to gain a smaller, more streamlined finished exterior product than with the V8 flathead which was also important to me. The build will be more streamlined aerodynamically than it could ever be with the Flathead V8. It will still be a badass build, but maybe down the road, I'll plan on installing that V8 Flathead into a P38 Lakester build. Maybe we'll have a round 2 later on! The Model A engine and trans combo is in a separate location from the lakester (not bad, about 10 miles away), so I'll have to relocate it before I can begin with this new direction. Overall, this will make for a MUCH easier build process and net a MUCH quicker completion date for the lakester as a whole. The belly tank is scheduled to be displayed in the Ocean City, Maryland Convention Center for Endless Summer Cruisin' in October 2025. Time's-a-tickin!
You have made a wise decision, it's not final as you can still go another route later. Mine has a Willys Jeep engine at 134cid (only because i'm a Willys guy) but the size has made it easier to build. I could fit a SB Chev in mine. JW
Not too much of an update here, but I finally found some weekend free-time, and made some forward progress to the build yesterday, Sunday Jan 26th. With some help, I relocated the engine and trans. The lakester and its newly decided on power train are re-united once again. I had the engine / trans tucked away in storage in a shed. Now that they are together, I can continue plugging away at the lakester and can start figuring out the hard mounting location for the engine and trans. Happy to get this move out of the way.
The Jalopy Journal
