In the process of building my sedan I have put more engines variations that I should have what do you think?
Any time I talk to the old timers, they tell me about how bad*** Olds mills and Caddy mills were in the pre-SBC era of hot rodding. Hemis were there too, but they were heavy and more expensive to build, which is still true today. The Olds mill is the more period correct choice, not to mention they run great. Oldsmobiles were the hot ticket on the street then, and they were in a yacht of a car. That rocket should have no problems looking great and throwing down hard when the occasion calls for it.
olds will give you the best power to weight. hemi is cool but too damm heavy for the power they make.
If you go with 4 two's you will have to change your name I agree about the hemi being heavy - but the coolness.
Whatever you do, I think you should go with an OHV motor, my personal favorite Early OHV motors are as follows. 1.Olds 2.Nailhead 3.Caddy But you've gotten your hands on some cool **** for that Hemi, like the high comp Jahns pistons, and the 6 and 4 carb intakes.
In purely stock form, early caddy OHV V8s made more power per cubic inch than the Olds' mills. Plus you've got a displacement advantage with an early caddy over an Olds, at least until the 60s. The Hemis can make more absolute power, but there is the weight issue. I say run a Cad. Right now, they're the most rarely seen of the early OHV motors, so a cad would add a uniqueness factor. With 4 carbs, if you're good at fabbing **** up, you could have each barrell run one cylinder. Could be pretty awesome.
Like a set of poor-man Webers... Also I didn't notice that the poll didn't include a Caddy motor. Didn't actually look at the poll, just responded to others posts. Still I vote Caddy if you can get your hands on one.
I'm leaning towards a Flatty solely for my love of them, but I did have a blown chevy in at first and just couldn't sleep at night then I put the Hemi in it and then I got curious about how a flatty would look so thats what's in there now, They were all adapted to a 39 Buick trans.
Does that trans have a torque tube coming out the back? If so, what rear end are you running? If not, how did you adapt it not to have a torque tube?
The trans is setup to adapt to the ford torquetube with the later trans mount drilled and tapped into the back of the case, the front shaft of the trans is changed to an early ford as well not sure why they would do that but I bought it that way several years ago at the La Roadster show. The rear is a quickchange.
Also to adapt the early buick trans to not run the torquetube you use the Olds tailshaft like on a Lasalle box.
A little O/T, but I'll ask anyway. I would start a different thread, but this is really my only question. So in a hypothetical sense, if one were running an old Buick w/ the straight 8 and wanted to run a later trans (maybe an overdrive), but keep the Buick rear (why I don't know, but I'm dealing in hypothetics here), could a later trans be adapted to the buick torque tube? Obviously, you can do anything given enough time and money, but realistically speaking is it possible? Back on topic, run the Cad.
With the right machine work and adapting I suppose you could get a torquetube to mount to a lot of different transmissions but keep in mind you will most likely end up shortening your driveshaft and torquetube as well.
Cruisin around one night in my folks' 55 Olds super 88.. Challenged a guy with a 55 dodge 2 door to a race and he spanked me really bad. I shoulda known I was in for trouble when I spotted his cheater slicks and he wouldn't open the hood. I gotta vote for the 331 MoPar
Thanks for the torque tube info. In regards to the motor, what is your ultimate goal? Obviously if you wanted to go fast, any of the motors mentioned aren't necessarily your best bet. You can probably go faster with a sbc, but we'll disregard that for now. My guess is you want something that sets you apart from the crowd and has a halfway decent parts supply and capability for some occasional snarky burnouts. I mean we all love striping the pavement from time to time. If that is your goal, you can't go wrong with any of the motors you mentioned. The flattie probably has the best parts support, followed by the Hemis, the Olds, and the Caddies. Any of these will set you apart from the sbc crowd, but as cool as they are, hopped flatties are becoming the goto answer for someone who doesn't want a sbc (not without reason). Nailheads, too, but I won;t get into that. With the new Hemis now, everybody seems to want old ones, so I'm sure we're going to be seeing more and more of those at the shows. The Olds is a great trad. choice and look awesome in full Oldsmobile dress, but I'm starting to see alot of them, too. That leaves us with the Caddy. You'll see them occasionally, but for whatever reason, they're just not as common, which in my mind is always a good reason to choose one. But I wouldn't give up on some oddballs, too. For eyepopping cool factor, what about a Caddy flathead or a Hudson Hornet six or a jimmy six or a studebaker 289 (maybe even supercharged! ) or a Packard V8 (some of them even came with manuals) or a Lincoln Y-block or a Buick or Packard or Pontiac or Olds straight 8 (need a long hood for that, though)? And that's just a short list or engines I can think off the top of my head. Most don't have speed parts, Hudsons and Jimmy excepted. But don't underestimate the ability of some funky motorvation to really make a rod. Think like the old school guys did way back when. Find an engine with plenty of power stock and do something with it. We don't all need to run common mills...
Good post - lots of thought! The goal drives the decision. Maybe the better question to ask is to what time frame are you attracted to...A '48-ish rod would be a flattie, an early 50's rod would be a Fordillac, mid 50's an Olds or a Hemi. Do keep in mind that they're all good - and with current metallurgical technology and 50+ years of development, you can build any one of them to run within a length or two of the other. For example, Motor City Speed is due out any day with a wet-sleeved 8BA four bolt center main block that will take up to a 327 cubic inch displacement; my calcs show 260-275 HP. That's full-house Caddy territory, and the weight differential is enough to offset the xtra HP you can squeeze outta the hemi.
I remember one day in high school driving home at the end of the day being p***ed on the freeway by a 51-2 Hudson Hornet doing maybe 75-80. It was a damn clean coupe with duals coming out the back, a little bit lower than stock. The roar coming from those pipes sounded like no V8 I'd ever heard, so I can only ***ume he was running the the old 308 Hudson 6. I'll tell you, my gl***packed 83 Olds 88 (though admittedly a bit of slug) had a hell of a time catching up to get a better look and listen. The more I think about it, the more I think a rod with a Hudson Hornet 6 would be pretty effing cool. I've never seen one, and with the light weight of a little roadster or early coupe, I'm sure a properly prepared Hudson would surprise a V8 or 2, just like they did in Hudsons back in the day.
As we go slightly OT: The factory hotrod Hudson motor was the 7-X, bigger valves, different cam; was the motor of choice in the early NASCAR days. 210 HP if I recall right - before whats-his-name of the Fabulous Hudson Hornet fame (I can't friggin' believe I forgot) got ahold of it and tuned another 40+ HP outta it. Real long stroke motor; torque curve like Kansas. While a Hornet mill would run out real nice, they ain't a pretty all naked in the sunlight like an Olds, a Hemi or a flattie V8.
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