Blown bangers (Model A/B)

As Beef said.... Tuning nightmare.




Keven

 

^ Try fitting that one under the hood of a model A.

 

Rich, the solution in my dad's mind was the two-up-two-down crank simply because it's a tangible mechanical "fix" that should get the job done. But knowing us, this kind of project would take a long time to implement plus the cost of coming up with such an animal would probably be beyond our diminutive backyard racer's budget.

Luckily, I work in the industry now and as luck would have it I'm currently spending all my time with stand alone engine management systems (efi). My solution is a sequential injection system that only delivers fuel into the intake when the intake valve is open. It's the "dwell" time between intake valve openings that creates the rich/lean problem. By eliminating the constant injection of fuel and having discrete, timed injection events, we should be able to have equal air/fuel ratios in every cylinder... or at least that's what we're hoping for.

So yeah, we're cheating with efi and no one really want to have to use it but we're going to. We're doing all our testing and tuning with our regular 3 main motor in the roadster because it has a manual transmission and we can tune on the ch***is dyno I have access to at work. Once we get the fueling sorted without the turbo we might run the car once at El Mirage (illegally) for our proof of concept. Once we know everything is kosher we'll switch over to our new 5 main motor, add the turbo, re-tune, drop the package into Creel's lakester and then go run for reals. The last step in the plan is to drop the same package into the new streamliner that we're building. We weren't the first flathead banger over 200 mph but we're hoping to be the next one.

Rich, do you happen to remember Bob Haselwerdt? He and my dad partened for a while in the early 90's. Bob's answer to making a 392 Chrysler run in the E cl*** was to run it as a 5 cylinder. Talk about something dis***embling itself.... it rattled like none other but he managed a 193 mph p*** at El Mirage. Pretty decent for a 5 banger.

 

I think Bobby ran into an excess heat problem too with his 2 port exhaust. It'd only get worse with a turbo. Adding a turbo on there is like corking up the exhaust. All that heat and pressure is bad for 80 year old cast iron and I don't know if thermal coatings alone would be enough.

Water injection actually won't work well because it's being constantly injected so you'll experience the same rich-lean condition. Once cylinder will get a whole bunch of water and run cooler and the other will only get a little bit and it'll run hotter. You'd have to do sequential water injection but having sequential fuel injection should mean that you don't need the water injection in the first place.

 

I am interested enough that if you did decide to try the two up two down crank/cam I might help out with half the money for the crank and cam to at last find out what happens. You hear all these old stories and they are not allways true.

 

No objections from this guy.....seriously if your interested let me know

 

I live on the wrong side of the U.S......

 

This A with the Cragar OH conversion isn't blown but it eats it's fair share of a lot larger c.i.d. engines on Sunday's.
Normbc9

 

got to love spam on a thread about boosted flatheads
tk

 

Rich,

Wasn't looking for a handout- just excited to see that someone else was seriously looking into the idea !

I'm amazed that we don't see more copies of Winfield's design, especially considering the era he built it in and the success he had. I'm not sure how it would work for the Chevrolet block/Olds 3 port head, but it would be fun to try !!!

PS- I picked up that early Dodge engine and will get the ID numbers off of it- it was pretty rough, but if there are any parts that you want/need from it, they're yours for the shipping!

 

oldskoolflyer13,

I'll be in the Fayettville area later this week if you want to meet up and talk bangers! My father-in-law lives pretty close to the Lowe's that was wiped out by the tornado that came through.

 

Be interested to hear what you think about the Dodge Bros. Yeah it has 5 mains, but that's not the only thing that counts. I would rather try the Two up two down in a Ford block. Somebody Else's Ford block. Or maybe a Dodge. That Chevy seems delicate, compared th the Dodge. And the two & two is going to want to move around.

 

Rich,

I like the Dodge, but it's a MONSTER!

I agree that the '28 Chevy block is on the delicate side (especially the three diff sizes of mains), but Spurgin & Giovanine (or Rufi, or Hallock, or whoever really built that engine) used a Ford B crank and wound it up pretty high! Guess I need to keep looking for a pre '27 block that doesn't have the distributor hole through the center main web and see what can be done with it!

Now, to keep this on track, considering the fact that Austin was supercharging their little 4, there must be something out there for our bangers, like the Judson or Pepco that's a little more affordable?

 

This is a cheap alternative. It is a centrifugal blower off of a Watercraft. You can get them for a couple hundred off of Ebay.

 

Niklas, Nice job on the blower . The vw generator was a great idea since it has keyed shafts at both ends. How much boost do you run ?

 

The Sanford Lowes was almost a scene from The Wizard of Oz....just a little messier. I'll PM ya

 

Now that I know how much a billet 5 main **** crank costs I'm guessing that this two-up-two-down crank would cost $3500-$4000.

We'd be willing to test it if someone wanted to pay for the project. All of our funds are already tied up in the billet 5 main bottom end we're going to run.

 

Thanks, i dont now how much boost its put out but i run 10 procent overdrive.
Its working fine with blower on à flathead, they have problem breeding.
À blown flathead its much cooler then à turbo feed or à new head convert.
I built the car to be à pre war car, when you use à turbo or somthing new the Old feeling washes of, its better then to build on à another engine if it isint cl*** for racing 4bangers.
The money it cost to build à 4banger to high hp is in my world to costly.
My engine didint cost à lot but it runs great and its holding up good and its looks pretty good. The tourqe its puts out is fantastisk. Then the sound from the engine and blower on high rpm are cl*** for it self.

 

You can use à Volvo marin blower as weel, if you look at My vids on youtube ( search g***ermannen) i built à Volvo 4banger with à Volvo marine blower as weel.
I dont now how to link the vids from youtube on my iPad.
Someone els mybe can link it to you guys.

 

All this talk about the Winfield crank is interesting--but

The reasoning behind it was to get uniform induction into all cylinders.

After spending a lifetime spent welding and machining, I think that I am qualified to say that I would far sooner window a Ford block and weld 4 new intake ports in than machine a new crank (and have it ground and balanced) and a new cam (and have it ground). And the welded block won't vibrate any more than stock. So what is the great fascination with the 2 up 2 down?

On an allied note, Has anyone ever put a divider into the siamesed port ? Not talking about the cast iron things that were sold "back in the day" to stick in the center exhaust ports of Ford flathead V8's, but a thin divider cut to fit into a siamesed intake, with perhaps the outboard end extending into the intake manifold, and shaped or bent to favor the second cylinder induction. Two things would work against this- first, the reduction in area through the outboard part of the port, and second, there would be a low velocity area right under the valve seat, a place where high velocity is wanted. I keep wondering if a small "rudder" could be put inside the port where it widens out to go to the two valves, to slightly impede the first charge and leave more for the second cylinder.

What caused my thinking about this was an experience that I had a few years back. A friend, and lifetime auto mechanic, bought a John Deere model D tractor, and restored it. The D is a 501CID twin cylinder, with a 1 up 1 down crank- so it fires once, and 180* later fires again- then goes 1 1/2 revolutions before the first cylinder fires again. This was an early production of a D, about the 3rd or 4th year that they were made. When it was back together, it only idled on one cylinder, but with more speed and some load ran fine on two. Friend thought at first it was mag problems, but three different rebuilt mags made no difference. When he would take it to shows, he would demonstrate this to JD "experts" and they told him that all the early ones acted that way, but the later twins (of which there were countless made) idled and pulled on two. He asked what was different on the later ones that corrected the problem, but the usual answer was a shrug and "that's just the way they were". After a year of this he was disgusted that he was unable to get it to run "right", and asked me to take a look at it. I checked all the things that he had checked countless times himself to no avail, plus I marked the flywheel and compared valve opening periods between the two cylinders. Swapped plugs and wires over. Checked compression in both cylinders (3.75-1 WOW!). Nothing. Took carb off--and there was the answer-- the first cylinder was getting what little charge was necessary to sustain idle, leaving nothing for the second cylinder. Later models, they divided the port with a central par***ion.

Thoughts?

Herb

 

Glad to see you found the thread Herb- and since I'm in TOTALLY over my head on this thread, I'm looking forward to other's thoughts on your idea

 

Niklas, can you post some pics of the coupster engine and the volvo engine? Im trying to get ideas...any help would be great. The coupster....sounded awesome. If you cant post pics on here, would you consider emailing some to me?

 

For building a little street blown banger on a "A" block (without a overhead conversion for now) and I guess around 2-3psi...ish what would be the best for the following:

1) Compression level? Should a higher compression better flowing head be used over the stock? Recommendations?

2) Camshaft?

3) Oiling system?

 

You may be interested in recently received spy photos from my world wide operatives. I am not at liberty to say anything else at this time.

 

Ye Gods!
That thing looks like it ought to have tons of fore and aft vertical vibration--or side to side IF they can balance to 100% (not likely without mercury or Mallory metal--even then?)


Herb

 

whats the difference in weigth between that and a stock config crank. i would imagine it would be pretty hard on the center main
tk

 

There is some iron flinging around there. But somebody is trying to find out whats what. And that's good. Better than us talking about it. I am glad he is doing it and look forward to the results. And I don't know how close the crank is to finished in these pictures. There may be lots of chips still in that thing.

 

That is going to be fun!!!!!!! I hope who ever is doing this will be filming the first start up.

The crank looks almost finished to me. The journal have been ground and the oil p***ages are drilled.

Keep us updated please !!!!!

.

 

I didn't get lots of information with these pictures. Follows:

Since I took the photos he has reduced the bulk of the thick webs and added
bolt on weights to aid balancing. The pattern has since been changed to take
this into account. The 2up2down crank has not been run yet but is slated for
a Chev headed Model T block. He already runs a Speedster with a Chev 4 on
Model T conversion with (regular) standard crank (changes).

Mick has also patterned a 1934 Ford B crank. Another Model T enthusiast has
since altered that pattern to suit a Model T and had it cast and machined
and now runs it successfully in his Model T engine.
So this is a work in progress. From apparently a hot bed of activity in Ford, Chevy and Willys camps. Very interesting. RF