The Relic
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 6:00 pm
So- following a bit of guessing, I've decided to create a build thread and put a couple of you our of your misery!
Tony, I'm hoping you aren't upset enough to delete this thread, as it's not a V8... but a straight 8, but given it has a longer history and twice as many spark plugs as you lot I'm hoping for some grandfather rights!!
So, the engine is a 1932 Nash straight 8, capacity around 5l. It has the longest crank in the world, 9 main bearings which is excellent, twin plugs per cylinder, single cam in side of block, with some massive pushrods and rockers. Aluminium rods and pistons, which are really light but I think I will replace them as I'll be running some boost and at 82 years old, might not be at their prime any more. On the downside it has shared inlet and shared exhaust ports, but it's not going to be a racer anyway.
The blower is a (possibly) 50's Godfrey military blower, so not ideal for a performance auto application, but fine for me. Huge and low boost. Won it on ebay about 4 years ago for £60 and had no idea what to use it for, until I was doodling one day about 3 years ago and came up with this:
Then I found out about the old straight 8's and instantly wanted one, so found the Nash, and the V8 series idea was replaced with the straight 8 one.
Here's a pic of the lump and the blower, next to a 1275 mini engine
The engine itself has not turned in years and years, I bought it as "seized" but it was actually completely free, apart from the black sludge oil inside, and a lot of flaky rusty stuff behind one cover, it seems in very good nick! I'm just starting to strip it down, I plan to thoroughly clean it up, and replace the internals with more modern equivalents, though with the bore at only 82mm (ish) I can't use the cheap Chevy V8 parts I wanted to, which is a bit of a bummer. If anyone has ideas of what pistons around the 82.5-83mm diameter I can find that will be relatively cheap, and well made I'm all ears!! Considering milling my own conrods and rockers...
Here's a couple more pics of the lump and the filthy bottom end!
Finally a pic of the Landy, I've been working on it a bit, replaced the leaf springs, fitted Disco disk braked axles (24 spline), been repairing the bulkhead etc etc.
Huge thanks to Kiwicar for the advice and ideas already! Including suggesting that a row of 2" SU carbs would feed it well, so I found 2 pairs and will be making up an inlet manifold to fit all 4 carbs. Will have to modify them to work under boost as well, but that should be pretty straightforward.
Cheers guys,
Tony, I'm hoping you aren't upset enough to delete this thread, as it's not a V8... but a straight 8, but given it has a longer history and twice as many spark plugs as you lot I'm hoping for some grandfather rights!!
So, the engine is a 1932 Nash straight 8, capacity around 5l. It has the longest crank in the world, 9 main bearings which is excellent, twin plugs per cylinder, single cam in side of block, with some massive pushrods and rockers. Aluminium rods and pistons, which are really light but I think I will replace them as I'll be running some boost and at 82 years old, might not be at their prime any more. On the downside it has shared inlet and shared exhaust ports, but it's not going to be a racer anyway.
The blower is a (possibly) 50's Godfrey military blower, so not ideal for a performance auto application, but fine for me. Huge and low boost. Won it on ebay about 4 years ago for £60 and had no idea what to use it for, until I was doodling one day about 3 years ago and came up with this:
Then I found out about the old straight 8's and instantly wanted one, so found the Nash, and the V8 series idea was replaced with the straight 8 one.
Here's a pic of the lump and the blower, next to a 1275 mini engine
The engine itself has not turned in years and years, I bought it as "seized" but it was actually completely free, apart from the black sludge oil inside, and a lot of flaky rusty stuff behind one cover, it seems in very good nick! I'm just starting to strip it down, I plan to thoroughly clean it up, and replace the internals with more modern equivalents, though with the bore at only 82mm (ish) I can't use the cheap Chevy V8 parts I wanted to, which is a bit of a bummer. If anyone has ideas of what pistons around the 82.5-83mm diameter I can find that will be relatively cheap, and well made I'm all ears!! Considering milling my own conrods and rockers...
Here's a couple more pics of the lump and the filthy bottom end!
Finally a pic of the Landy, I've been working on it a bit, replaced the leaf springs, fitted Disco disk braked axles (24 spline), been repairing the bulkhead etc etc.
Huge thanks to Kiwicar for the advice and ideas already! Including suggesting that a row of 2" SU carbs would feed it well, so I found 2 pairs and will be making up an inlet manifold to fit all 4 carbs. Will have to modify them to work under boost as well, but that should be pretty straightforward.
Cheers guys,
