I am new to Hot Rodding and want to purchase a 1932 Ford Dearborn Deuce Roadster that has a 351W Blue Oval Intimidator Motor (400 HP) by Jon Barrett in it. I am a Shriner and want to join the Motor Division that goes to parades in communities in our state and participate as a way of thanks for supporting us when raise money for the Shrine Hospitals for children. The Shrine Hospitals spend $4 million a day in their hospitals helping burn and physically challenged children and the money goes directly from our paper sales to the hospitals and the kids. My concern if I purchase this vehicle: This car and engine will be at idle or under 10 mph and heat build up on this racing engine is going to be a problem. The question is, is there anything I can add or that can be added to the engine to help it keep cool? It does have a Vintage heat and air conditioning unit on it and what I believe to be a large capacity radiator with electric fan, but I am still wondering if there is more I can do to keep it cool and not overheat in this environment without going into on and off starting and build up such compression that I won't get it started or wear out the starter and kill the battery. It has a 3 piece hood and I will be running it with the sides off and just the hood portion, but here in the South we do a lot of Christmas parades and I will be running it with those sides on. My biggest fear is getting it in a parade and being in the line up and it starting to over heat and I have to pull out to the side of the road and miss the entire parade because of overheating. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated for this first time user. Thanks.
Take it for a slow test drive first, in any case a 400 hp racing engine is not ideal for a parade car.
Hi and welcome to the Hamb. Your question will get more attention on the larger boards. Keeping a high performance engine that's built to run hard and perform well under those conditions will be a challenge to keep cool under parade conditions. But There are a few tricks that can help. A fan that pulls the most cfm as possible, an auxiliary radiator or heater core mounted under the car. Be sure the charging system is up to the load. You'll need to be sure the tune is optimal for parade duty and that means it probably won't run optimal any other time. A parade tune and road tune if you will. There's a "waterless coolant" that increases the boiling point dramatically but that doesn't keep you cool it allow more heat till boil over. Adjusting the standard coolant from 50/50 water to 25/75 water increases the ability of the coolant to shed heat, but lowers your freeze protection from -58F to above 0*F - water wetter also helps. Just a few ideas.
i really think you are right and I'm seriously thinking of getting a builder around here and build myself one from scratch with a 302 Ford Crate engine and get a transmission cooler on it as well. Thanks
Sorry for the long post but I just had to get my story out when it comes to these high horse power racing situations and me taking it into such low rpm idling environments. I just won't be touring with clubs and getting the speeds up where the engine really lives and its all show for another reason. Thanks.
A quick reply to 31Vicky with a Hemi If I were to build one from scratch with a Ford Boss 302 crate engine and make sure all of the large fan blade; auxilary radiator heater core (not sure where to mount it under the car as you suggest); with a charging system maxed and up to load (not sure as a first time user what that means other than a high capacity alternator and what else would add to that); can you help describe on that engine above what a "parade tune" would be and then what I would have to do to bring it back to life as a "cruise around town tune". Really appreciate your thoughts on this. P.S. I'm not sure how to get this question out on "larger boards" since I'm new here. Please be easy on me. Thanks.
400 hp doesn't make it all that much of a race engine. its only a bit more than 1hp per cu in. maybe contact jon barrett engines and see how it was made.
Having the timing advance more on the idle vacuum signal and it might be a low amount of vacuum depending on the cam and engine. An adjustable can might do it ?? With out the vacuum signal the timing should be lower so that it will start easily when hot. Carb A little bit on the rich side and that can be mostly done with the idle adjustment screws. An occasional throttle blip along the route should clean it up if it starts loading up. a heat range or two different plugs may be in order. It's no secret that running the heater helps cool your engine, think of that as an auxiliary radiator, now adding another small core with a fan will help a lot. And yes the charging system would need to be up to tha challenge of extra loads.
Thanks ever so much and that's exactly what I am going to do. Now to the drawing boards and get the whole car laid out. Appreciate it.
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