440 6-Pack Stroker - Build Underway

[tan top]

thats a nice build strong torque number

[dstryr]

Congrats!  Nice numbers and I'm glad it worked out so well for you.

[firefighter3931]

Dang....sweet build Mike !  ON the later runs did they pull it higher ? Just wondering what it's doing at 5500 rpm. Torque Monster ; small heads, small cam, large displacement, dual plane intake manifold and 1 3/4 in headers make this what it is. 

This will be a whole lot of fun on the street... 



Ron

[Musicman]

Thanks Everyone... Your comments are very much appreciated

Dang....sweet build Mike !  ON the later runs did they pull it higher ? Just wondering what it's doing at 5500 rpm.

Ron

Ron... Thanks for the Kudos!
No they tried very hard not pull it over 5000... at least not on purpose. It was real difficult for them to control the rpm's once those secondaries kicked in. It would race up really fast at that point, so they had to jump off the accelerator real quick just to keep it from running over 6000. It would just run out of breath at that speed anyway with the unported heads and the small cam.

I can't wait to get this thing under the hood Unfortunately, I am going to be stuck down south for quite a while, so progress will be slow for a while.

Mike

[Musicman]

Ron, this would be a better build for that 5500 rpm range ... it's the same engine with ported heads, a Lunati 60304 cam, and a 2" header.

[Musicman]

Well, I played around with my new engine a bit last weekend while I was home in CT...

After doing the Dyno work on the engine, I stripped it and brought it down into my basement shop.



This weekend I started doing some of the front end work on the engine, installing the Power Steering Pump, Alternator, Water Pump, Thermostat and belts.
In the end, I went with an electric water pump verses a mechanical so my original crank pulley (seen in image above) and belts are no longer of any use to me and will be sold if anyone is interested. I'm also going to be swapping out my brand new 60 amp dual field alternator for a 100 amp unit, so if anyone is interested in that as well, it will be up for grabs.

Anyway... using an electric water pump forced me to use a crank pulley with (2) 6.5" diameter pulleys verses the normal crank pulley with a 6.5" pulley for the Water Pmp/ Alt., and a 7.25" for the PS Pump. I contacted one of the sellers on e-Rape located in VT, and he had one with the dual 6.5's laying around, so I got lucky there. It's not shiny new like everything else on the engine, but what can you do... beggars can't be to choosy. Both belts are the exact same size now as well, so that helps to keep things simple.



I also restamped my block as a 440 HP unit...

[Musicman]

I also set up the carburetors...

Following the Barry Grant literature for the Six Shooter has you putting the linkage together with the front & rear linkage bar mounted at the base of the carburetors as illustrated below. The runners on a big block intake sit very high making it impossible to connect the linkage in this way without first raising the carburetors about a 1/4" for good clearance... at least that's what I found. And even if you do get it connected, how are you going to hook up your throttle cable and kick-down linkage? This has been the one big burning question on everyone's mind since they were first introduced to the Mopar community.



Lokar came up with a mod that allowed the small block user to adapt their cable system to the six shooters, but never came up with anything for the big block user.



I looked around at some of the cable systems out there from Lokar, Bouchillon, etc., and came up with a way to hook these things together in such a way that pretty much any cable system could be used on them using these few parts available at most any local hardware store.



Using these parts allows you to attach the front & rear linkage at the top of the carburetors, as opposed to the bottom where the linkage gets in the way. Just slip the nylon spacer in the hole as a guide and put a fender washer on either side to hold it in place. A simple solution, but sometimes the simplest things get overlooked.





Since I will be using the Lokar System, this is how it all went together. The kink in the upper linkage bar is not necessary... I put that there because the guys at the Dyno shop were uncomfortable with the existing clearance from the center carburetors linkage at WOT. There was enough clearance there, but I put a little kink in it to make them feel better... after all, it doesn't hurt anything since the bar is adjustable at both ends. The return spring isn't necessary either (and I may remove it), but I added it here anyway since it came with the Lokar kit.





Quick shot of the other side showing the Electric Choke and the sight glasses for the float bowls.




I used the Bouchillon Adapter for the Dyno work... it made it easy to hook to the shops Dyno...

[Musicman]

Next up... Build it or Buy it... this is what it's going to be...

[firefighter3931]

Nice work on the linkage fabrication Mike ! 

That SMR shortie O/D trans looks very nice 

What about an air cleaner assembly for the BG 6-pack setup ?




Ron

[Musicman]

Hi Ron

Thanks for the kind words

As far as the air cleaner is concerned... I have a stock Mopar unit in my shop, brand new... this will work just fine but I would have to make one small mod to the base plate at the fuel log connection, and I'd rather not do that to a nice shiny new Mopar piece... not if I have other alternatives, which I do.

There are a few other options open to me, but this is the set that I currently plan to use... their produced by O'Brien Truckers... and only $175 for the whole kit. I might have to modify the hole cut in my hood a little to use them, but since it's under the hood scoop anyway... who's gonna notice or care. I think this would be a better alternative to modifying a perfectly good Mopar 6-Pack filter assembly, don't you? Plus they have that cool old school look about them.



I have to get moving on the tranny next... I was thinking about building my own to save a few bucks, but at the moment that's not looking like a practical alternative. I might come out a few bucks ahead for sure, but would it be enough to make it worth my while?... probably not. We'll see, one day at a time...

[firefighter3931]

Yep, those air cleaners are sweet !!! 

I would use those over a factory air cleaner any day of the week....hands down ! 

There's no point in hiding those beautiful carbs underneath a factory air cleaner assembly....ya got it, so flaunt it 



Ron

[Musicman]

Home for the weekend, so I went down to my shop and played with the engine a little more...

I mounted my new Air Filters... took that unnecessary Kinkage out of my Linkage, and removed the big return spring as well...

The air filter system had an interesting twist, interesting to me anyway... They are made in lower Mass. by Dennis O'Brien of O'brien Truckers. Dennis is more of a Hotrod guy, so when you mention Mopar he starts talking about Chrysler/Dodge engines like the 331,392,241,325 etc.. Dennis knows more stuff about carburetor and intake systems etc, than I care to learn, but then... this is his job and his business to know all the trivial stuff that most folks don't.
Anyway... I learned him something yesterday that he didn't know... Dennis makes air filters special just for Mopar 6-Pack systems, in fact he has 2 or 3 different systems he sells, depending on which style of the original Holley's you have. He also sells filter packages for the Barry Grant Six Shooters that I have... but what Dennis didn't know until yesterday was that Barry Grant does not make an intake manifold for Mopar BB & RB engines.
Why does this matter?... As we all know, the original Edelbrock intake for Mopar 6-Packs uses (3) UNEVENLY spaced carburetors... but Barry Grant intakes use an even spacing like Chevy, Ford, etc... so if your making a Six Shooter Air Filter package for a Mopar, which uses the original Eddy intake, you have to account for the odd spacing or your filters will be unevenly spaced.

Dennis is now making a new mold for the BG Six Shooters to match the Mopar/Eddy intake... He was really surprised (and grateful) to learn this, because no one had called him on it before... as for Me... I kinda like the look of the uneven spacing, so I'm going to keep it that way.

Dennis makes a lot of cool stuff, but I told him he has to get with the times and put up a proper web page for his products... he's still working out of an old 5 X 7 catalog from the 70's... He's gonna work on that
Nice stuff though... real heavy duty

[dstryr]

Mike, Is your motor in a car now?  I don't remember seeing pics or a post about it.

[Bigun426]

WOW ,THAT SHOT TUMBLER DOES A REALLY NICE JOB OF CLEANING THE BLOCK!!

I'm thinking it was probably shot peened (a particular size and type of material applied under a specific pressure) to stress relieve the block that machining it could have created.