Well almost there. As of tonight the car has no suspension, no interior, no drivetrain and now glass. I made a really nice "dolly" for the car today. I used mostly 2x4 with some 2x6 as well. I will take some pictures of it later. It basically consists of two boxes that mate to the spots on the frame where the A-arms used to attach. A box was built to span both a-arm brackets for the front and the back. After I was finished I was able to hang from the structure without damage. I used construction adhesive and screws for the job. Screws hold better then nails. And with adhesive it makes a pretty solid structure. I finished the boxes by putting casters on each. Two swivel caster for the front and two static casters for the rear. The caster I got were too small so I will have to go find some large ones. It's too hard to push the body around with the little casters.
On other fronts I was able to trade a guy a 2-stroke dirt bike I have in exchange for porting and polishing my new A3 heads. The heads should come in on monday or tuesday. The guy that is porting and polishing them is an Alfa-Romeo specialist so he is used to porting aluminium heads.
A glass company removed my glass for me, they charged me $100 to remove the windshield, rear window and both small side windows. I still need to remove the door windows. After removal of the rear window we broke it, I will need to look into getting a new one.
I also purchased the Dyno2000 desktop engine simulator from Mr. Gasket. It is a nice program that calculates your hp and torque ratings based on cam profile, head flow, bore/stroke, and several other parameters. The really fun part though is that it has a tester in it that allows you to take a specification like intake lift and specify a range that you want to test over and how large the steps are that you want to iterate over. You can iterate over 8 different parameters in one run. So you can easily determine your best cam profile for your engine based on your rpm limits and usability ranges.
I was able to dial in my 408 stroker to about 531 hp, that is with the A3 heads as the come from Ford. After porting they heads should allow more hp but I will have to get them tested after porting to get the exact numbers. If any of you are still reading my log and want me to run you engine numbers for you I would be glad to do it, just drop me an email.
Leave a comment