Hot Rods The Ultimate Willys Gasser Thread

Maybe a Hudson? I think they were popular in roundy round racing back in the day.

 

The question was answered before but I’ll make another attempt.
This photo is from an article on Mac’s Motor City Garage website, it shows the Jeep Tornado 6 cylinder that had its genesis in the Jeep Hurricane flathead 6. A cast aluminum head was designed with hemispherical combustion chambers and a chain driven overhead cam. Valves were actuated by GM style stud mounted, stamped steel rocker arms with spherical pivots, the same as the Pontiac and Chevrolet.

 

Thanks Fordors for enlightening us.
I wonder if Willys engineering designed that head or was it an aftermarket affair? I ask because on another website devoted to six cylinders there has been much discussion about the need for a better head. But like my momma told me just before she fell off the Harley, "Sonny, when all is said and done, there'll be much more said than done."
An aftermarket head like that would have taken a lot of work, but that was not uncommon in the HAMB era.
Nowadays, not so much...

 

From the MMCG website- Achille Carlo Sampietro, a well versed engineer was brought in by Willys Motors and he was the designer of the head. He later was promoted to chief engineer at what became Kaiser Jeep.

 

Hello,

There are only a few photos of the very early 41 Willys Coupe from the Pittman-Edwards Team in 1958-59. Doug Peterson captured the street legal look of the early edition to qualify under the rules for hot rod builds, mufflers, working headlights/taillights, DMV licensed, in addition to a scatter shield. A car that can be driven on the streets to work, school and weekend enjoyment cruising around.

and, perhaps a set of real slicks for the dragstrip racing.

K.S. Pittman-John Edwards had their fast Willys Coupe at Lion’s Dragstrip by the time we arrived to start our journey. It was our first encounter with a Willys Coupe. A normal hot rod built for the street class and included whitewall tires to boot.

In the pits on a slightly moist day at Lion's Dragstrip. The Pittman-Edwards 41 Willys Coupe in the Lion's Dragstrip Pits. John Edwards was the other half of the winning Willys Coupe build.


From the first time we saw this red Willys Coupe in the pits, it was all we could do to admire the build and the results every time we were trying to do our thing in the A/Stock class.

The far left red blur taking off from the starting line...

Pittman-Edwards making a blasting run, while we were staging our 58 Impala for the next runs in our class time trials at Lion’s Dragstrip.

Jnaki

The first encounter allowed us to see how fast the top racers were going, what they were using for power and how their set up was built. We were totally impressed as we looked at the red Willys Coupe going through its changes to set the Standard 1320 records during this time period. Perhaps, it was an inclination of our future to come in our own build… YRMV


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