i will be starting a new project soon and i have had great success ti gm inline 6 cylinders . i really like thee 230 i had in my 1932 hupmobile. i will be starting a 1929 es*** 3 window coupe. i just picked up a chevy van 292 tall deck rebuilt stock engine. what i want to know is : can i have the head shaved to up compression? is this ok to do or better way? will the push rods need to be shorter by shave amount? what cam should i use? brand? ( i want it very lumpy radical) is there any noisey cam/crank timing gears? anything else you can provide to make my buzzin 1/2 dozen experence any better. is closed is my old 32 hup. my es*** with be along these lines. thanks for any info. drew
The head can be milled to bump the compression. A machine shop would be a good sorce of what you can do in that department. You already have an adjustable valve train, so I wouldn't worry about the pushrod length. I can't tell you about the cam though. I would call a manufactorer of such things and get some free advise. Also inquire if your stock head can handle that much lift without more machine work and new valve train parts, such as valve springs and threaded in studs etc. As for loud timing gears I have no idea. Generally a truck engine has the "good" aluminum cam gear as stock. These are not that loud but will last longer than the stock fiber gear used in car engines. However if you are serious about power ask about putting in bigger valves when the head is in the shop for milling. Also "lump" port inserts. You will obviously want or need something other than the stock induction system, and exhaust manafold too. Check out inliners web site, they have lots of information on there about these engines, as well as a book by Leo S? something. It's considered to be the bible when hopping up this series of engines. Good luck.
Use a 194 cylinder head and the compression will really go up. Install bigger ( 1.6 exh & 1.94 intake should work) valves and rework the combustion chamber to unshroud the valves. Blend the bowls, install screw in studs for the rockers. Use roller rockers and get longer duration on the exhaust. If you think the car will weigh in the area of 3,000 lbs you could probably get in the area of 235 degrees duration at .050 lift but be careful...if the car gets a lot heavier it will be a slug at low speed and if you run power brakes the pedal will be a rock & the car will not want to stop. I would use a Cloyes matched cam gear set with the aluminum top gear.
the car should weigh about 2200 lbs. manual trans 30" tall rear tires and 9" rear.i can gear accordingly.
here are some good sounding 6's on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlH7vyHGwCI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQKvdHkfTms
wow, i thought i was the only one to have a 292 in a hudson! i am going back to the orig flathead someday though. are you sure you want to go that radical on the cam? might go a more middle of the road and get more drivability out of it. i got the 264 grind cam from clifford for one of the 292's i rebuilt. i think it's specs were based on the hud 308 cams anyway, so it was kind of a cool tie in. you have to get different pushrods for the high lift cam anyway, clifford said it would bend stock ones. i am agree on oversized valves and head work, but i am no guru. good luck hope you post picture of your project.
And of course: Inliners.org Hotrodinlines.com HRI is down right at the moment, but is when that gets sorted supports inline engines (4, 6, 8 ???).
thanks for the info. looks like i can have the head shaved to up the compression. put a hot cam in and git want i want. i just dont know how much to shave it.
I was going to say that cloyes used to sell straight cut timming gears I wasn't sure that they still do. Straight cut timming gears is a good idea not because of the noise but because helical cut gears eat up torque and you just can't beat more torque. There are a couple of companies that specialize in inline cams but I ad good luck with a crane cam when I had the inline in my '41 truck 35 or so years ago. Yopu might look into a crane cam. They should be able to give you an RPM range for said cam and you can go from there. I ran a single holley 4 bbl on mine and loved it, but my engine didn't show unless I opened the hood. Something I seldom for anyone but friends.
carcraft had a tech on turbocharging a inline 6 http://www.carcraft.com/techarticle...g_a_turbo_thrift_inline_six_engine/index.html
========= "Back in the day' - circa late-60's-early-'70's, I remember the 'hot trick" the local 'roundy-round' guys running 292's in their dirt-track stock cars used, was to get a 'small cc chamber' head from a 194 Chevy 6, mill it .040, do a bit of clean up work on the ports and add slightly cut-down 1.94 and 1.50 327 V8 valves. If you want some 'factory-style' cast-iron split exhaust manifolds, if you can find a pair, the stock 'split' manifolds from a 4-bbl 230 or 250 Pontiac OHC six will work on the Chevy 6 head. For an intake manifold there's probably better choices in the aftermarket, but OMC and Mercruiser used their own 2-1bbl, 1-2bbl and single-Q-jet-4bbl cast iron intake manifolds on their 230, 250 and 292 Chevy 6 marine conversions that would work on a car. Mart3406 ======================
Using a "194" head will raise compression, but that is about all the good it will do. Once you put larger valves in it, they will be shrouded by the smaller chamber and not flow enough air to produce power. Better off to use the existing head and mill it .030- .050 to raise compression. Tom
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