Posted by Matt Wilson on Thursday, January 16, 2003 at 7:32PM :
In Reply to: 230 engine rebuild posted by John Foster on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 at 9:25PM :
I got a camshaft from VPW, including heavy duty springs. I'm not sure off the top of my head what the lift and duration are, but I might have those specs at home, if you are interested. Their camshaft helps the engine breathe better at the higher rpms, whereas the stock camshaft was better at lower rpm's. I believe I can tell some difference between the old camshaft and the new one (i.e., the engine seems to have a little less grunt at the low-end rpm range now that I have the hi-po cam in it). Of course, some of that may be due to the fact that the engine is not yet broken in.
There are other sources for camshafts, like Edgy Cams. They are on the www.p15-d24.com website under "Links".
As for VPW's other performance parts, I believe some of their stuff was coming from a Mr. Phillips in Washington state, who no longer seems to be in business. He used to make his own headers, heads and other stuff. I used to talk to him occasionally, but over the last couple of years, he has been almost inaccessible, and the last few times I called him, he always had some story about how he was having a lot of difficulty getting his parts manufactured, and he never seemed to make any progress. I finally gave up, and when I called VPW, they said they do not have a lot of the parts that are shown in their catalog anymore. They can still get you the camshaft, though.
You can get a dual-carb aluminum intake manifold from various sources, who in turn, get them from Offenhauser. Yes, believe it or not, Offy still makes these intakes for the Dodge flathead 6's. The most reasonable price I have found was from a place in California, called Vintage Hot Rod Parts. They sold mine to me for $190. I have not yet installed mine, so I can't comment on how well it works.
You can send your exhaust manifold to a number of people who can "split" it to make it into two manifolds of three cylinders each, thereby allowing for a dual-exhaust setup. I believe Vintage Hot Rod Parts does this work, and if not, they can probably tell you who does. Again, I have not done this myself yet, as I have been away on business quite a lot the last few months, and other things have come up, as well.
You can also mill the head to raise compression. I milled mine about 0.090" and that increased compression from stock 6.7:1 to about 8.25:1. I've read that you should avoid getting above 8:1, because you can end up with frequent head gasket failure. I have the 8.25:1 head installed on my engine, but it's hard to say whether or not I gained anything. I'm sure there is a benefit there, but again, my engine is not even broken in yet. You can also mill the head too much from the standpoint that you will lose volumetric efficiency. In other words, the combustion chamber is so small, that not enough air-fuel mix gets into the cylinder, so you end up losing power that way, even though your compression is high. From what I've read, 8:1 should not cause a problem with that, though.
You can also buy an aluminum high-compression head from Edgy Cams, I believe. It's not cheap, though.
Another thing you can do is increase the strength of your spark by installing an electronic ignition system. Pertronix and Crane Cams both have these setups, and everyone I've read about has been quite happy with these products. The Crane setup is just a generic, "one size fits all" type of kit. I'm not sure about the Pertronix. Crane charged about $100. Again, I have not installed mine, due to lack of time, and other issues.
If you are tearing your engine apart, it is highly recommended that you get your crankshaft, flywheel, pressure plate, rods and pistons balanced. This will add many miles of life to your engine. Any good machine shop can do this.
I wish I had more first-hand experience with all of these nice goodies, to tell you how well they work, but for now, most of these mods are just in my head, and only a few are in my truck.
A word of caution, if you plan to really hot-rod your engine, and rev it up a lot, then you should be aware that there are some oiling system mods that need to be made. I've read about guys who have done these mods, and have really put their engines through the wringer, with no problems. On the other hand, other folks haven't taken such precautions and have abused their Dodge flathead engines, and they've paid for it in the end, through thrown rods mostly. Dodge flathead 6's don't like high-rpm driving unless you make the right preparations. I can describe a few of these that I've read about, if you are interested. Again, I haven't tried them myself, but I've read about other people's techniques enough times that I think they are probably true.
As GTK suggested, you should get on www.p15-d24.com. There are a couple of guys there who are hot-rodding Dodge flathead engines just like ours, and they probably know a good deal more about it than I do.
Good luck!
Matt
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