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Re: 52 dodge inline six
Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:24 am
by Geoff2
Why mess around trying to hop up a flat head that will never make much hp? Get a slant six if you want to stay with an inline engine.
Re: 52 dodge inline six
Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:35 am
by benno318
i built one for a guy with an old desoto, about a 48?? think it was around 218 ci or so... torquey old thing.
poor fella didnt know much about cars but saw this thing, fell in love with it, bought it and then learned about how much money it costs to build cars when you cant do any of it yourself.
the engine was fine until the bloke doing bodywork left it outside and uncovered with the front clip off it - water got into it and rusted a couple of the bores.
anyway he was talking about a few performance mods so i had a cam ground up, shaved the head to up the compression, ported the thing along with a rebore to get rid of the rust in the bores. whoever dismantled it did a great job of mixing up conrod caps and misplacing bolts etc.
we got it done, i did the first fire up for him and ran the cam in, eventually it wept a little from the rubber rear main seal (gasket set looked ancient so i wondered if the seal had shrunk/hardened) he thought i had fitted it poorly - it was a bolt on thing as i recall so pretty hard to get wrong - anyway he
sourced another and fitted it himself which made it ten times worse somehow. him and a mate replaced the worn carter 1 barrel with a 350 holley. not sure why they didnt find another 1 bbl.
he comes around one day and asks me to go for a drive with him, says it doesnt accelerate very well up hills. offers me the drive, i always decline as i like to see how they drive first. so off we go and near my old shop was a few really, really steep hills, like they type that are second gear in most 5 speed vehicles, and first gear in some! he gets it into top gear and its doing maybe 15-20mph and floors it, the poor old tank struggled up every hill at about 800rpm - old mate is used to his mercedes benz automatics and probably hasnt driven a manual in decades apart from this! i was surprised how well it did considering the lack of consideration by the driver. told him he was expecting too much of it and to drop it back a cog. sheeesh...
Re: 52 dodge inline six
Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:08 am
by PackardV8
We've got one in the shop just now. About as simple as an engine can be. Egge and Kanter still have most parts for them.
Re: 52 dodge inline six
Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 12:14 pm
by dynoflo
i did one 2 years ago. here is a web site that is fairly informative. p13-d24.com. if your going to rebuild it have head and block pressure tested. the one i did had a sleeve leak after being in hot tank 2 times to clean rust out. the guy i did it for was happy with it and drives it almost every day to work. the rear main has bolt in upper and lower seals which are prone to leak. his does but he knows about the problem and just deals with it. he wanted a pentronix diistributor module which will not work with his automatic tranny wiring. it will be fine with standard shift. good luck.
Re: 52 dodge inline six
Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 12:48 pm
by pdq67
benno318 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:35 am
i built one for a guy with an old desoto, about a 48?? think it was around 218 ci or so... torquey old thing.
poor fella didnt know much about cars but saw this thing, fell in love with it, bought it and then learned about how much money it costs to build cars when you cant do any of it yourself.
the engine was fine until the bloke doing bodywork left it outside and uncovered with the front clip off it - water got into it and rusted a couple of the bores.
anyway he was talking about a few performance mods so i had a cam ground up, shaved the head to up the compression, ported the thing along with a rebore to get rid of the rust in the bores. whoever dismantled it did a great job of mixing up conrod caps and misplacing bolts etc.
we got it done, i did the first fire up for him and ran the cam in, eventually it wept a little from the rubber rear main seal (gasket set looked ancient so i wondered if the seal had shrunk/hardened) he thought i had fitted it poorly - it was a bolt on thing as i recall so pretty hard to get wrong - anyway he
sourced another and fitted it himself which made it ten times worse somehow. him and a mate replaced the worn carter 1 barrel with a 350 holley. not sure why they didnt find another 1 bbl.
he comes around one day and asks me to go for a drive with him, says it doesnt accelerate very well up hills. offers me the drive, i always decline as i like to see how they drive first. so off we go and near my old shop was a few really, really steep hills, like they type that are second gear in most 5 speed vehicles, and first gear in some! he gets it into top gear and its doing maybe 15-20mph and floors it, the poor old tank struggled up every hill at about 800rpm - old mate is used to his mercedes benz automatics and probably hasnt driven a manual in decades apart from this! i was surprised how well it did considering the lack of consideration by the driver. told him he was expecting too much of it and to drop it back a cog. sheeesh...
FWIW, my old '48 Dodge coupe had a split hood on it that opened from the sides.
It would rain and water would get on it's flathead and cause wet start problems all the time.
I kept a can of starting ether just for this..
pdq67
Re: 52 dodge inline six
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 5:06 am
by enigma57
Re: 52 dodge inline six
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:28 pm
by engineguyBill
I think this flat head Chrysler six cylinder is the same as used in airport support vehicles such as baggage haulers, push-out tractors, etc., etc. There are literally millions of these engines still in use at airports all over the world.
As far as performance is concerned, the slant six engines are good base engines. Offenhauser offers a four barrel intake manifold; pistons and camshaft/valve train parts are readily available.