Back in the day that is the way it was done. An old 36 flathead Ford, Dual Exhaust with steelpacs, pennies in the heat risers and clouds of blowby coming up through the floorboards as we wound the shit out of it. Heaven! Us boys wuz like dogs shittin' in tall grass.
Wow, another trip down memory lane. My Dad did this on our Merc flattie in my 46 Ford. Thanx for this reminder, Cool ~sololobo~
1948 Ford with blocked heat risers with 1951 pennys heads up with Porter Steel Packs and 3" cans from Western Auto. Now... just how cool was that back in 1954 !!! You just had to be a teenager in the 50's to understand..
Forwarded that pic to a couple old timers who ran flatties at the drags back in the day. One sent me a long email reply, and the other called me up to reminisce about at length about doing that to flat Henry's and later big Olds motors with oil can lids. Said it didn't help power, but it sounded sharp when ya cracked the throttle.... He used to run through town in 2nd about 3700 RPM and watch all the windows in the storefonts wobble and dance!
I even had a rear seat speaker taken out of a old RCA radio wired up in the rear package tray with 4 or 5 lamp cords spliced together. Cutting edge for the day !! Now, boys that was traditional before I knew that traditional was COOL.
Cool to find out about the luck of turning them heads up and using the same year as the block. Now that's traditional! Did the same thing in my 55 Olds on a later Olds small block (without pennies)just for better exhaust balance and performance, but now I know why it sounds the way it does....................Thanks!
Don't try to use "late model" pennies since they are made of copper plated zinc and will melt and burn. I learned this while helping #1 son set up a science fair experiment. Burning zinc sure makes a nasty smoke/smell. I'm not sure when the the mint stopped making real copper pennies but using "traditionial" '51s should be no problem!
It was a 1951 thing with us, don't know why, just was. I never heard about the year of the block stuff. Must have been a West Coast thing. We were always about 2 years behind here in SMALL town Texas. Helped a local guy block his heat risers a while back and we like to have never found two 1951 Pennys !!!
Cool... I'll be going through my wheat pennies,and putting them in the classifieds as matched pairs now
I went with the more expensive conversion and used buffalo nickles... They were worn pretty smooth though.
Penises in the heat riser?!? Dude... don't do that. You'll get hurt! I mean, I love my car, but damn! <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/h5sOCEUpGZI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
With a hammer you could make a nickle fit in the gasket hole. A penny was a perfect fit in the block with some lite tapping with a small hammer. The FLAT RATE way was to a shim. Just loosen the intake and pry it up enough to slide the shim in. I have even done one side only to have some carb. heat. Cant remember my name sometimes but I remember this stuff...go figure !!!!
The Jalopy Journal
