Introduction from the upper midwest

[Mike Bunch]

Keep us informed on your great find a NOS Body in White.

David

It is definitely a Ford body in white. We have the Ford shipping reciept and the number is in the sequence with known cars shipped in 1970. It has been stitch welded every 4 inches on every seam and has a full cage, suspension and motor plates. It seems like this car just was lost in the shuffle between teams and builders and ford politics. I was told that Ed Terry may have been building a car when ford gave him a turn key Maverick built by Holman and Moody. No one left around remembers what that car was or how far along he had got. Mr. Paul thinks this is probably his car based on the dates and the car.

Mike

 

[Mike Bunch]

Mike -

So what did you find inside the 351?

- Paul of MO

I'll post up here - Hope you don't mind.

Did not expect 2 ford and 6 oldsmobile rods inside. Number 1 journals are stock stroke and the the others are not even close. Guessing tech inspectors checked the easiest hole to get to?

The port plates on the heads have some sort of asbestos gasket between them that has come apart. The compresion ratio calculated to 14 to 1 with the heads on it and was only 12 to 1 with the other heads you gave me.

Did you cast the tunnel ram yourself? It says Weiand on it and has a number on it but it is not that intake and it looks a little rough. We bought one just to compair what you did to it and it is not the same intake. Yours is more like a sheet metal intake inside with straight shot runners and no curves or radius's. What was the other tops for? does not fit holly.

The valves are insanely light - not even sure what they are made of. We nearly killed us taking them apart with well over 200 pounds of seat preasure closed. Plus the odd overlapping keepers and 2 part retainers had us confused. The stem diameter is much larger than a stock valve but they have the ford logo on them.

The inside of the distributor was coroded but had 4 little plastic and brass gears and a lever instead of points. The 2 gears rotate the brass parts make contact for a certain period of time but do not have to open or close just rotate. Each pair handles one half of the spark plugs. the whole distributor rotates for the advance. What looked like the manual tach drive actually moves the distrib and is controlled by the throttle cable or lever off of the carbs not sure we did not get carbs with it.

The cam specs were unexpectedly tame - just over .7 on both the intake and exhaust. we have not put iton a wheel to see the centeline and durations yet.

It looks like the valve covers and back of the block are plumbed for a electric vacume pump? The tubes go down to a bracket with nothing in it.

The rod caps have very fat stubby rod bolts and oversized nuts with some sort of epoxy on the threads. We got them apart and found that the rod bolt hole was sleaved and the clearance between the bolt and the sleave was very tight. To put them back together we are going to have to press the rod cap onto the sleave and then press the rod bolt into the sleave from above and then install the nuts all while the crank is in the block. Hints?

The rest is just sweet - everything nicely rounded off and polished. Lots of massaged bits and peices here and there. Holes opened up and chamfered with others welded up or plugged. Has an internal oil line in the lifter valley for the mains fed directly from the oil pump.

Everything else looks rreally nice for setting for so long. We will wait to hear from Mr. Paul before we put it back together.

Mike.

 

[Paul of MO]

Mike -

I do not know about the rods - things get mixed up ya know. We needed to make a small block that could run with a big block and needed cubic inches. Found cubic inches with out the weight penalty. It was never ran so it never got caught - others did the same thing and did get caught. They are Chrysler rods not Oldsmobile.

There were ways back then to get 110 to 115 octane or more and burn cold enough to run 14 to 1 without blowing up an engine. It was never ran so it never got caught - others did the same thing and did get caught or blew up.

We made a tunnel ram that would work at 9,000 rpm and up. Had it cast with the name and part number that others were using just to confuse people. The other top is for a pair of Kendig box carbs.

The valves are hollow Ford 427's titanium 85 gram blanks that we re-sized and heat and cold cycled for strength - we baked them in an oven for days and then stored them in liquid nitrogen for days to eliminate any stress risers. Never had a valve fail.

We bought that distributor from its builder and he made it just for us. It was stable to 14,000 rpm - we had dual high voltage coils set up to look like one. The distributor was at full advance at 3,000 rpm. The cable moved with carb linkage. I am certain that it was the only one ever made. It was also used 8mm wires that we had marked with 6mm labels.

The rod caps were made to stay on in excess of 12,000 rpm and be light enough to spin to 12,000 rpm. We had a fixture to press the cap onto the sleeves and then to press the rod bolt into the cap. It was an interference fit with the sleeve. The bolts were rolled not cut and the rod nuts were a special moly that was machined tight for the threads and had to be put on heated. No real hints other than to use other rods now that you have those apart. You will want to change out the pistons anyway for a more normally placed top ring. The pistons in it have almost no top ring land.

We experimented with pulling a vacuum in the block and it did create HP - it also caused the oil to foam along with other issues. This was going to be a real world test of this concept. The mesh screen in the oil pan is not a windage tray but is there to stop the oil from filling with tiny bubbles in the low pressure caused by the pump. It seemed to work on the dyno - about 65 more hp with the pump on than with it off.

There is nothing between the plates and the head other than epoxy. I do not know what you are referring to.

We were looking to get 900 hp at 10,000 rpm and came every close to it on the dyno using special gasses and fuel. We got 750 hp from the engine as you have it now at 9500 rpm using 2 650 Doms.

I have pictures of it being built in my Florida shop but can not seem to find them but I have several other places still to look.

Thanks for refreshing these memories for me.

- Paul of MO

 

[tony-muscle]

Keep it going guys.... these are awesome stories to read.

1971 M-code Mach 1

 

[droptop73]

Welcome from west Michigan!

 

[caspianwendell]

Welcome from Arkansas