As many of you may know the UK made Hemi Engines in various sizes, Russ Carpenter used a Daimler Hemi in the 'Glacier Granade' dragster to great effect for many years. So just for a giggle I figured it would be fun to build the little hot rod arround one. Downside is that the motors are rather compact, even with a blower on the top the whole thing only stands 34 inchs tall to the top of the bug catcher. So the plan is to build a smaller car so the motor looks in proportion. The minimum size which two people could possibly fit was worked out by sitting under the dining room table, and then it was off to the workshop to rough out the shape in tube. The motor plate is bolted to the front and connectted back to the semi-trailing arm mounts by four short lengths of thick walled box, so even though there is very little section depth to anything resembling a trad chassis it's still very stiff in all the right directions with out serious wieght penalty. There are some changes I am probably going to make to the shape before attempting to 'skin' the body ( Aluminum or Glass ), but I have at least made a start. Ok it's a diffrent way of going about things, but the aim is very much the deeply channeled look without the problems of having the frame running so high through the bit you sit in that there is no room inside the cab, plus trying to keep the size and wieght to the absolute minimum. The Fake pickup bed at the rear is going house the Rad horizontally so air can be drawn in underneath and discharged through the lid, it will share the space with the fuel, battery, and anything else which needs hiding. Ok that's the plan, feel free to tell me it's crazy or inspired.
It's Crazily Inspired. Keep pics and progress going on this thread, I'm curious to see how it turns out.
I think it will be different but cool.... What type of rearend is in the frame and put up a picture of the motor....
Rear end is a 3.45 from a old Michelotti Triumph which was in the back garden. ( Trust an Italian to come up with cast aluminum arms, a friend claims casting aluminum is somekind of national past time out there, amazingly strong and so light you can hang them on one finger) Engine looks like this; Tips the scales at a little over 400 lbs, Which is only a little more than a nail head.
Blower is only a little Wade RO34, Running it slightly over driven to give required boost. Motor was in a trike for a while ( with the blower ! ) I have three of these Daimler Hemi's, two complete and nearly enough parts to build a third. They were designed by Edward Turner who also designed the Ariel Square Four and the Triumph Speed Twin motors, infact while there are diffrences the V8 is very much four Speed Twin motors on a comman crank rather than being a down sized copy of what Chrysler were doing. I still see Russ Carpenter at Marsdon Airfield on odd weekends, he is generally ok about chatting about how he gets 1000bhp out of his, so I figure if I feel I need more ponies out of this baby iron block there is help at hand. Aim is to keep the wieght down to 1200 lbs, so the current output will be more than enough.
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