Chrysler Straight 8 in Cali

I am in the bay area. I have a chrysler flathead straight 8 engine (with the boat anchor M6 semi-auto still attached that nobody seems to like very much) somewhere in los angeles, hoping to get it up to SF in a few months put together an aluminum-bodied speedster around it eventually.

Also in my garage is a mostly finished rolling chassis of a cyclekart* (1920s style grand prix racer, but ~50% scale). As soon as that is done the plan is to put together the chassis for the chrysler-powered speedster, but with a less fiddly transmission.

Unsurprisingly, this is pretty much the only place on the planet people actually talk specifically about the 323.5 chrysler straight 8, so here I am. Also shout out to Keith's Garage on youtube; while his inline 6 isn't exactly the same, shares a lot of the same design heritage, has been hugely helpful in understanding the lump.

*cyclekartclub.com - my build thread https://www.cyclekartclub.com/forum/cyclekart-tech-forum.2/1921-ballot-3-8-build.71973/

 

Welcome to the fun and frivolity we call the Jalopy Journal. Enjoy your HAMBtime.....Don.

 

You might also find some conversation on the L8 over at www.p15-d24.com

 

Welcome

 

Engine has been in storage in so cal. Arrived today. Apparently the exhaust manifold likes to crack on these, I haven't closely inspected it yet, but appears to be intact. I was able to give it a 1/16 turn by hand with the plugs in so I think it'll be a runner here in not too long. The guy who pulled it out sent me a pic of the dashboard indicating 99k miles so it'll probably need some work at some point.

This is the first time I've personally laid eyes on it. A buddy in socal picked it up and I've only gotten a handful of pics until today. Also came with the radiator + driveshaft, fan that attaches to the water pump, OH and it came with an O.G. Mopar SPARE HEAD GASKET. It's the size of an airplane wing.

Side note those 1000 lb furniture dollys at harbor freight, they will hold and roll one of these, but only just barely. The center of balance with everything attached is right at the flywheel.

Next steps:

• Welding up a (crude) custom stand for it with correct weight rated casters
• It sat out the L.A. tropical storm last fall under a tarp, theres a small amount of water in the oil. The slightest haze. Change the oil
• Crank it over by hand 2-3 times
• Buy a battery
• Spark
• Air
• Fuel

I've never done anything like this so feel free to butt in with advice. There's a number of other 323 I8 threads here which I've read but always open to additional advice.

Probably next week I'll put some ATF fluid in each cylinder through the spark plug holes and just let it soak in preparation. Probably won't have time to get to anything beside the new custom stand + new oil + crank for a while

The plan is to get a bell housing adapter from the only guy on the planet that sells them, an aluminum bell housing, and I have the compatible AX15 (jeep wrangler) transmission sitting in the background on it's own dolly already. The 2 speed + overdrive relic of a semi-automatic transmission is... neat, but as the great Indiana Jones once said, that belongs in a museum. The AX15 apparently is not terrible, has actual parts availability, and is ~70lbs aluminum vs ~250 lbs cast iron.

Tentatively thinking about building a Brooklands style speedster out of it. If anyone in norcal has something that looks generally like an old Lagonda or Riley grill I'd be interested.

 

Welcome to the HAMB from Illinois.

 

Over sized sockets arrived and got the engine turned over by hand with no issues. So we're off to a good start

 

Ordered, I think, the correct bell housing for the only mtx adapter on the planet for this thing. The adapter converts Chrysler straight 8, to, apparently, mid 80s to late 90s Dodge Dakota, which when this adapter was designed was relatively plentiful. Paid an alarming amount for the bell housing but so it goes, especially if I'm not willing to hike down to my nearest pick and pull.

Ordered and cut the steel for the semi permanent stand, and casters.

The plan is to wheel this out into the driveway, cap/cover the sensitive bits, hit it with the HF pressure washer, spray it down with Super Clean in the purple bottle (already ordered), rinse, repeat.

Once 85-99% of the grossest stuff is knocked off I'll build/mount it on the stand, paint the block gloss fire engine red, paint the head and easily removable accessories satin black, and see if i can get it to turn over

There's a two part module wired into the distributor with electrical tape, curiously labeled Toyota, I'm guessing this was an attempt at electronic ignition.

Engine has a full flow oil filter but there's no return pipe coming off it, not sure what that's about, someone said it's a full flow filter so maybe it just routes back into the block or something.

Also cracked all the bolts (9/16) on the bell housing attaching to the block, they came off with only about 30-40 ft lbs I was expecting worse.

I keep looking at those head bolts and wondering what it would look like if I swapped them out with studs and capped them off with chrome (or black?) acorn nuts

There's a bunch of what looks like vacuum advance stuff and also some kind of cold start auto choke provisioning, probably going to yank that off ASAP and put cover plates over those holes.