The Virginia Muscle Car
George's Cars of the 60/70s |
|
(53 Merc, 55 Chevy)
My high school 12 grade car was that 53 Merc w/ 54 Olds 324 inch engine, w/ 280degree Cam,
6 carb , AL flywheel, dual Coil (2 coils & 2 points) dist., 3.70 diff. and 3 sp trans.
After 1st year college, I had engine rebuilt at Sykes Machine in Alex. (used his
reground cam), bored 1/8 to 348-in AND custom ported, and with later year (w/ larger
valves) Olds heads (bought from wash post custom car parts add - were hand ported, not
commercially made).
Then put engine in 55 Chev 2-dr w/ 4sp Olds hydro-matic trans (was the hot trans then
- think/recall B&M Trans); had 4.56! diff. Engine mounted 12 in (~ 10% wheel base)
back - adjusted dist. thru glove box. (not much of a firewall!) Had Angela bucket
seats, bare metal floor, battery behind passenger seat, Sun tach sheet--metal screwed
to dash, 2" gauges in vertical flat part of dash. Car did ~ 30 mph @ 6k rpm in first
gear, and with throttle linkage to trans shift pressure lever set high, car would leap
when 1-2 shift and 2-3 shift. Once raced a Chev from rolling start on Shirley hwy S.
at Shirlington. On shift 2-3, just leaped past the chev; hardly a contest. I sold car
about 1 yr later to unknown (to me) friend of cousin (knew a good deal - rebuilt
engine w/ maybe < 5k miles)
Now back to this manifold (similar to the one pictured above). Olds stock heads had
~ 1/2 in divider between pairs of
intake ports. My ported heads had this divider ground down to knife edge. My original
6 carb log manifold (bought new) had this 1/2 in divider on the intake ports. I
removed the divider to better fit the modified heads. Now - look at the pic of manifold
intake port - no divider and can see faint remainder of divider. What are the odds
that this is the same manifold-carb setup I once owned? It is for 49-58 Olds with
custom ported heads (i.e no divider) How many 6 carb 54 Olds engines w/ custom ported
heads w/o divider were there? kinda unique.
More to this story later about car fire/explosion when carb drain plug came loose and
insurance co. looked at car.) ~George
|
|