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Once at Richies engine shop we
started to help do all that we could just to get everything up and
running. Although the dyno had ran many engines before , Rich had never
ran a flathead and many things needed to be done. The little engine
looked right at home hanging out on the engine plate where many killer
injected alcohol sprint car engines had hung before!
The engine was mounted on the custom
engine plate Bob Bendtson had made for me and the engine was coupled to
the crank with the adapter Tuck next door had made just for this
project. Everything so good so far. Rich had plumbed the water and we
assisted plumbing the fuel lines. Rich usually uses only alcohol and we
had to flush the lines, switch to the fuel cell and add the other fuel
pump to the system. WOW what a set up everything about the operation is
controlled by the console from start to finish.
When I brought in the headers from our
truck, problem one was seen, the headers wouldn’t work as they hit the
engine plate. Holy smokes we now needed a set of flathead headers and it
looked like they needed to be custom! Walt and I quickly drove over to
Tom's knowing he had some flathead stuff hid in the attic up stairs at
his shop, while Rich ran over to RPM at Raceway to get a fuel pressure
regulator.
Tom had a couple sets and we stopped
at Speedway Auto parts for a couple boxes of hose clamps to hopefully
fill our list. Back at the shop we clamped all the hoses, filled the
temp controlled water tank and the engine with water. Installed the fuel
pressure regulator and finished the plumbing job.
Ed Starr (the magneto wizard) showed
up and we decided we would stop for lunch, off to the Billy club for
four of there world famous “Spanish burgers”, a couple gallons of ice
tea and back to work. (no booze as we are workin')
Looking at the headers it appeared
they needed about a six inch extension on each of the tubes and Rich
just sat down and started making them from scratch and some bends he had
laying under the band saw. WOW what a shop!!.
Ed jumped in and helped finish the
headers using our extra engine on the welding table. Looks like this
will work.
Once the tubes were back on the dyno engine, final checks were made,
carb floats was set, fuel pressure was adjusted and I added fuel to the
fuel cell (with fuel from shop).
(I have since concluded the fuel was a problem being very old) |
