Are All /6 distributors the same ?
You tell'em Bill :burnout:
That is ALL just my own opinion... nothing more.
It took me YEARS to figure this thing out; I am a slow learner...:banghead:
I was never enthusiastic about supercharging or turbos and went the bulk of my long (74 years, so far) with most of my efforts at making cars run better, achieved by using the time-honored methods we all know and practice; bigger cam, more compression, more carburetion, more revs, and headers.
I slowly became aware that those methods, while effective to a certain extent on a slant six, didn't seeem to pay dividends in the e.t. department, like they should have been expected to.
It took me YEARS for this to sink in.
Then, one day, it dawned on me; this engine is a poor performer, normally-aspirated, because of the parts in inherited that left it an under-achiever in the breathing department... and no matter what was done with a thousand band-aids to try to remedy the situation with better headers, more efficient intake manifolding, and custom-ground cams, the
bottleneck-head was responsible for the poor cylinder-filling, and that didn't change, no matter what kind of hi-tech parts were bolted onto it.
As long as there was only the original-design head generally available for this engine (a head designed for the 170, a 33-percent smaller engine than the 225,) the die was cast... it was never going to breathe like it would have to, to make much over 1 hp per cubic inch, and 225 hp will give your 3,300-pound A-Body performance much like the Moparkid's '68 Dart.... low 14's at about 94mph. He has headers, slicks, a 4bbl, a cam and higher-than-stock compression. He MAY have a ported head with bigger-than-stock valves; not sure about that.
Wallace online computers says that it takes about 300 hp to push a 3,300-pound car into the twelves...
FABO member, Tom Wolfe, (Shaker223) took a 3,300-pound slant six Dart with about 100,000-miles on it, and removed the intake manifold, replacing it with a 4bbl-aftermarket manifold and Holley carb, and welded up a turbo inlet flange onto his stock manifold. He bought a stock turbocharger off a Buick Grand National in a nearby junkyard and bolted it onto his Dart's modified exhaust manifold.
Those are the only modifications he made.
After some preliminary tuning, he took the car to the drags strip, where it ran 12.95 @ 104mph...
Stock cam... stock valve train and springs, stock head and gearing...
Everything but the exhaust manifold and intake system was stock.
Here's the run: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPe_vHwZsF4"]Slant Six Turbo 1970 Dodge Dart 1/4 Mile pass - YouTube[/ame]
When I saw that he'd put 21 pounds of boost through that motor and had picked up about six seconds in e.t., I decided to take a closer look at what might be possible with forced induction and a slant six.
What I learned, after all these years, was that I had been oblivious to the benefits that a hairdryer could bring to the party, if a properly-prepared slant six were used as the host motor.
Its more-than-robust construction made it a natural candidate for high boost numbers, and all of a sudden, that strangulated cylinder head was no longer a performance-killing factor!
So, I decided to try out my theory in the real world. Me and my racing partner, Freddie, built out own.
What I have learned is that
1. There is a LOT to learn about this...
2. There is a LOT to learn about this...
and most important,
3. There is a LOT to learn about this!!!:banghead:
It is not easy... It is simple in the application, but there are tons of pitfalls, blind alleys, details, and questions that are not easy to answer at all.
For example, we blew a head gasket running just ten pounds pf boost, for no reason at all two weeks ago.
Now, we have decided that not O-Ringing the block initially, was a bad idea and it WILL get O-Rings before it goes back together.
More $$$$$$$$$$$$$
We have spent
countless hours trying to get the mixture "tuned" as regards the A/F ratio, so that detonation will not be a problem.
Unless you put together a Mega_Squirt system, or some other EFI fuel injector, don't expect to have a running, race-ready motor in a short time; it ain't gonna happen.
On the other hand, when this thing is "right" mixture-wise, even with only ten pounds of boost, it feels like a strong 340.
So, maybe we did SOMETHING right...
At any rate, I think that a 350 horsepower turbocharged slant six could be built with a Holley 350 or 500 2-bbl, and a Super Six manifold, using a Pishta-design J-pipe... but a Mike Jeffries (or, some other supplier,) ported head would be money well-spent on this motor.
A set of Wiseco forged pistons and K-1 rods would run the price up another thousand dollars, but the whole motor could be built for probably less than $3,500.00 and you'd have a motor that should go 100,000 miles with no problems.
And, push your A-Body into the twelves...
I don't think you can build a normally-aspirated slant six motor that will equal that performance for that kind of money...
You could probably do it cheaper with a V8, but a V8 that will push 330-pounds into the twelves is going to need some other parts in the mix, like a better cam than stock, deeper gears than stock and some aftermarjet parts in the intake/exhaust system.
It would be interesting to compare... :happy1:
Anyway, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!!!!!!:cheers:
