Posted by casebro on Tuesday, December 12, 2000 at 21:10:11:
In Reply to: 230 performance mods posted by Ed C. on Tuesday, December 12, 2000 at 19:15:00:
back in '82 (while I worked at the Dyno shop)
in my spare time I built my own set of headers, intake (stomberg 2bbl), dual exhaust.It made almost a 50% improvement in H.P. to ground- from 45 before up to 65 after.Shows what good breathing can do for any engine. It looked like spaghetti under the hood,but it sounded like a hi-performance porshe, with 3 cylinders exhasting out each side.
Without access to a tubing bender your best bet would be to try to find the dual carb, dual exhaust manifolds from a later, heavier truck or maybe after market hi-po components from the sixties.
Don't expect 60's V8 perfomance from an engine that was designed in the twenties.
Some of the inherent weaknesses in the flat head are:
low compression.
huge amount of combustion chamber surface area (about double that of an overhead valve engine,hard to keep fuel vaporised,also "dirty")
long stroke-(tough to rev high,though the source of low end torqe,my idles at 50rpm)
offset rods (will flex under high load)
poor water circulation (noticed how many get to knocking in #6? have you changed your water distribution tube lately?)
poor intake design (only three tubes for 6 cylinders)
Siamesed cylinders (pairs are only 3/8 in apart,not allowing water between cylinders,also bad for headgasket life)
Wonder why they get such poor gas mileage??
GEEZ, WHAT AN OBSOLETE DESIGN- the only things it lacks is an updraft carb and poppet
intake valves to be totaly neanderthal!!
I can't wait to get mine (41 command car)back on the road!!