Ok,here`s my take,I`ve always been a small block user,had them raced them and loved them,even found cheap ways to make more power,if I had a car with a slant,I took it out tried to put it in the corner,but because of this wierd lean thing they never stayed long cause they kept tipping over,gangly things I thought.
I have had a few given to me recently,and had a thought,thats dangerous,what if I could use one of these things everyone loves to hate? parts are usually pretty plentiful,and usually cheap or free,just what I need.
Enter my wife`s driver a 65 barracuda,when I got it years ago,it was in several baskets,buckets and boxes,just a shell,no doors, hood,even the front suspension K-frame were gone,but it came with a small trailer with parts from at least 4 different barracudas,paid 400 bux,and I started putting things together, naturally it needed a V-8
and a torqueflite, had an 8 1/4" rear,so what if it has 2.45 gears,it is just a driver right,so I put A/C on it,took most parts off her last driver a studebaker with a small Mopar v-8.
The wife was happy and all was well,but several years passed and the 318 roller was getting tired,had a little main rattle in the morning,but still ran fine.
My plan was to put a slant in place of the 318,heck I even had the A/C bracket,so I wouldn`t even have to recover the freon,I built a little 904 using leter A999 stuff even the low gearset,and I kept the lock up,for gas economy,and I had another 8 1/4" with 3.21 and a sure grip,I just kept piling up parts on one side of the garage,so I could do the swap as easy as possible.
then the time came to make the swap,I told the wife she might not be pleased as we were going to put a much less powerful engine in her car,but it would have A/C and a cd player,so she was on board for the swap.
I never got it,I never saw what others did in these funny looking engines,Inever had one that impressed me,so what could change? well I did add the super six option, and when I got the engine it didn`t have a lot of miles,but the cam got water on it and was not useable,I looked and couldn`t find a used one so I called summit,they had an erson cam smallest one they had,so I put it in ,that`s it no milling ,porting nothing,even ran single exhaust,w a 2" pipe,ok so Ihad a small used flowmaster laying around so I welded it on,tailpipe and all,Got it fired,and no leaks everything worked perfect,so far and I went off for a test drive,had to adjust throttle pressure,I like it set tight,and I drove on.
when there was a little area to test to see if throttle pressure was good,I took off normal and hit the gas pedal to the floor,I never had a slant run this well,I know its hard to believe,I`m a v-8 guy but this thing feels like it pulls harder than the 318 that was in here,must be my imagination,cause you know that don`t happen,any ways now I get it,I get the weird leany thing,I think I`ll do another one,it is true we did go from 2.45 to 3.21 but come on a slant.it even pulls good on the highway when you kick it down it to second,and the wife is pleased,lets face it if we want to go fast,we have 2 race cars,just jump in one of those,why make a race car for the street,you can never use it,but this I can use, very decent power for little investment,kinda makes me wonder... if we put a set of headers on...nah better leave it alone,
