morepower":3ffslqj4 said:
Very cool and it seems the install is pretty straightforward. Are you using a special pressurized carb? Did Paxton make a complete kit for the Ford six back then?
Hi Morepower
The install to the engine would be pretty straight forward....if I used the complete kit (which I couldn't get) and installed to a stock engine as intended by Paxton. (I have full instructions, hand drawn & typed on type writer!) It gives details for recurving your distributor (done in those days with a Sun distributor machine I guess). It has curves for manual or auto. Also shows you how to boost reference the stock fuel pump (very important) and a lot on miscellaneous plumbing.
Other easy mods include details on how to move the radiator outside the apron as the pulleys encroach on stock radiator space (I think I read that right, they are at my mates place at the moment)
It had a dual vee solid pulley included (one little vee for stock accessories and one large vee for blower) This pulley replaced the harmonic balancer, so there is no damping and also I reckon this would mess with the balancing of crank assembly. That's another reason I machined my own pulleys. My crank pulley is spigoted into a harmonic balancer (by spigoted I mean I machined the balancer slight cast recess bore on centre hub not the outer rim bit, which is the damped bit. I machined to true it up to the keyed bore then faced square. The pulley is located in this with say 1/2 a thou clearance. It is driven by the 3 tapped holes normally used to pull the balancer off the crank. I installed some grade 12.9 soc head cap screws there as they are heaps strong. This way the toothed pulley id driven of the centre boss of the balancer, the outer bit is free to damp as usual. The whole crank assy was then dynamically balanced as one lot.
Anyway back to the standard kit (i recall) was meant to take you from 96bhp to something like 150bhp at 10psi. They were sold as 5 psi for road use and 10 psi for competition use. I believe in road use the blower lasted about 100,000 miles before it needed a rebuild. I have geared mine to 10psi. My static CR is 8.5 to 1. The cam is a typical turbo or supercharger grind, fairly mild I recall. My aim was to build lots of torque all through the rev range. Should run out to 5200 or there abouts.
I found my unit on a Studebaker blog (i have other weird interests besides this ford six stuff). Struck up some convo with a retired Dutch guy who lived at South Bend (home of the Studie, where he worked his whole life until they closed.) He had the motherlode of Studie bits. He somehow realised I had a Dutch background (i must talk too much on blogs...cant you tell?) and thats how he struck up the convo talking about the motherland. Anyway after a lot of chatting I learnt how Studie bought out Paxton and Paxton was McCulloch. He told me how the SN60 was Paxtons first bash at it but it was essentially a McCulloch VS57 (VS as in variable speed) but without the VS bit (hence more reliable).
Well if this wasn't interesting enough he told me how Craig Conely at Paradise Wheels is the Paxton man and he reckons he had a aftermarket kit for early Falcon. That's how I got this one. I don't know if he has any more falcon accessories (I think I got the last) but he can certainly rig up an SN60 I beleive as he has all the NOS parts/castings and he has the patterns. (Well he did about a year or so ago.) Nice helpful guy I found.
Now don't confuse any of this with the Paxton SN89. I think Vortech got the Paxton name, the SN89 is much later (but similar size & style to mine I guess) But Vortech didn't want the old product line I beleive, so I think somehow Craig picked it up, but hey ask him not me
The stock kit also had a pressurised housing for the stock carb (no mods to carb I guess other than rejetting) I skipped that step because I have used a brand new 350 Holley. This has been mounted at right angles to normal (I modded by head by welding on a 16mm thick lasercut plate the shape of the Holley base) and then a 40mm milling cutter plunged down thru into cast log to make a nice big oval slot parallel to engine for the Holley butterflies to sit above. A bit of radiusing of some edges to smooth pass into the log sorted this out. It is a mod I picked up on this forum, a few guys here have done a nice job of this and report normal behaviour of Holley on cornering. I like the mod because basically you have one holley barrel heading to 123 and the other to 456. For me it seemed worth the extra effort rather than bolting a 2V to 1V adaptor to the stock log. This mod would not work well with a 2V progressive carb (such as downdraft webber) but the 350 isn't progressive in that both barrels upon up simultaneously.
I originally started out with a brand new Offenhauser tripower for early head (round log not hex log, still in packet) Found 3 early 1V Holleys (1905's??? the ones that came out on first Falcon's with the glass floatbowls, my centre one is off a 223 and the end "secondary" ones are off a 170) I really l the look of these on the tripower. Finding the carbs was not easy until I rang 1800 HOLLEY or 130 HOLLEY or some such number (go figure) and they had them in stock! So as you can gather I am into the old school look. So you can imagine how excited I was when I found an old school blower to suit old school engine.
Now to original question, yes the carb is rebuilt for blow thru. This is well documented on how to make a 4V Holley blow thru. A number of businesses over there do it as their day to day (probably some here also) But as soon as I mentioned Holley 350 I think some of them thought I was a waste of space (some cooky dutch wierdo from down under...well they'd be right) but I figure my money is as good as the next guys. Finally found some guys at Long Island, SD Concepts. Those guys prepped the Holley. They asked heaps of questions about my engine, which in the end I built in consulatation with them (cam/comp/chambers etc.) They took ages to start (they have a lot of jobs in the line...thats usually a good sign) but did the job quickly once started. I am happy with the end result very nice indeed.
It was easier for them to buy a brand new Holley prep and send to oz. Hence the Holley is the current "centre float" design. I beleive this style came out in 1967 (maybe earlier, that's the earliest picture or mention I can find in any books) But I really wanted the older school looking "side float" design which I think came out in 1957. It would fit with the early hop up theme better. But it was just too hard to find a good one in my timeframe & get it to them. Anyway I am trying to only use parts from first Falcon release to say 1967 to keep it "ol'school".
The biggest hassle for me so far has been mounting a much larger radiator outside the apron (rather than Paxtons method of relocating the stock one.) It gets very hot where I live. The original Falcon cooling was marginal as stock for most of Australia. I have a custom made aluminium radiator by Norm at Aussie Dessert Coolers, painted black to hide it a bit. This thing is massive and has messed up all the bonnet latching so I am fabbing custom ones up from modded XW Falcon. We made it with side tanks instead of top & bottom tanks but it still takes up a lot of room. I have modded various latch bits and they will look good but I am on the last 2% of this build and it seems to take forever. I am in about 2 & 1/2 years (this was a bare metal resto.) I have not fired the engine yet as am boost referencing my pump at work and also need to sort out dizzy (will look stock from outside minus vac advance, inside will be optic or inductive chopper) with electronic module hidden. This is the only modern part in car....but it will be concealed....I just can't be bothered with points (that would be too ol'school?)
The car from the outside is completely stock, except for it is slightly lowered and has a twin 2&1/4" exhaust as the only give away...and oh yes maybe some induction noise
I haven't blogged it much as I have been really busy building it....oh yes & earning the money to pay for it. I have had a lot of help, a lot from friends and a lot paid for, but I do that to keep the momentum up. I want to finish it now, enjoy it & get on with the next project.