Project Austin street gasser.

[1946Austin]

Micraven hits it outa the park!

Vall, did you sell the 327 yet?

Yes, the phone rang off the hook as soon as it went on CL. It went away yesterday morning Bob.

[DanStokes]

I hauled my 327 off to the scrappers. Of course, it had a rod hangin' out the bottom........

Dan

[1946Austin]

I hauled my 327 off to the scrappers. Of course, it had a rod hangin' out the bottom........

Dan

Since I wasn't sure if the crank could be turned enough to accept any available bearing, I planned on scrapping most of this 327 also. But I figured maybe someone could use the block and some pieces, so I put it on CL, and surprised by all the phone calls I got. It paid for the 350 replacement engine, so it was better than scrap price, and I kept my nice heads too.

[Deaf Bob]

Heat holding ability without hurting it is 283-327 then 350's. But the differences is small..
Some guys swear by 283's and rev them to the moon..
I love my 327 in my 57. Have had 2 in it.. This one is balanced..
We use a 327 and a 350 for our built derby motors.. Of course the 350 has more hot rod parts while the 327 is just flat tops..

[1946Austin]

Heat holding ability without hurting it is 283-327 then 350's. But the differences is small..
Some guys swear by 283's and rev them to the moon..
I love my 327 in my 57. Have had 2 in it.. This one is balanced..
We use a 327 and a 350 for our built derby motors.. Of course the 350 has more hot rod parts while the 327 is just flat tops..

With my 64cc heads I'm going back with flat tops in the 350. The shop did the calculations and it will be just under 10:1 CR, which I need to use the Crower 280 cam. I love the shorter stroke of the 327, but didn't want to throw any more money into trying to save that engine. The 4 bolt 350 was just too good a deal to not go with it.

[1946Austin]

So here's the latest updates. The engine short block came back from the builder, and I have the lower end closed up and painted. Also have the heads cleaned up and painted.


Also going to go a different direction on the intake. The tunnel ram isn't going back on, and a Weiand cross ram will replace it. Picked up this cross ram that had been sitting for decades, and started cleaning and polishing it.


10 hrs. of sanding and polishing it resulted in this:


I added the crossover tube between plenums, as these old intakes had nothing to connect the intake side to side, so tuning could be tricky. With the large balance tube it will make it more street friendly, and easy to adjust idle, and off idle response. Also going away from the 450 Holleys that don't have an accelerator pump on their mechanical secondaries. After having such great luck with easily tuning my vacuum secondary Holleys on the Falcon, I'm going to a pair of new Holley 1850-C carbs for this setup.
I'll be mounting my Hilborn style scoop in the hood opening via two brackets so it will still bring fresh air in to the pair of round air cleaners I'll run on the cross ram carbs. Should be dropping the engine in either today or tomorrow.

[milner351]

LOVE IT

[SuperBuickGuy]

neato

[1946Austin]

Yeah, I like the looks, but it wasn't fun putting it on today! Got the trans bolted up, and torqued the heads down. Then spent at least two hours trying to get those 4 bolts started that sit under the plenum on each side! After battling them for two hours I finally chucked them up in a drill and held the tips to my grinder and ground a bevel on the ends. They went right in after that, and a ratcheting box wrench easily tightened them down.

[milner351]

Sometimes you have to make custom fasteners - nice work on getting it done - would button heads with allen head in the center work? I like to use those on boats where there's a chance of scratching something or someone with a typical hex head bolt. setting up the dual quad linkage on that beast should be an interesting challenge!

[1946Austin]

Sometimes you have to make custom fasteners - nice work on getting it done - would button heads with allen head in the center work? I like to use those on boats where there's a chance of scratching something or someone with a typical hex head bolt. setting up the dual quad linkage on that beast should be an interesting challenge!

Not but about 2" between the intake flange and the plenum, so once the bolt is dropped into the flange it leaves about 1" to get a wrench on, and I'm afraid an allen wrench or socket would never have gone in that narrow space.
I dropped the headers off at the media blaster today, and they gave them a quick strip with walnut shell. Hung them and repainted them with VHT ceramic base header paint.


Got a few more things hooked up on the motor, and found an old pair of Mr Gasket vintage finned aluminum valve covers on fleabay cheap. They'll need cleaning, and more polishing, but since they were polished, they should only take a little effort to bring them back. Engine looks dwarfed by the Weiand cross ram! I've got two 9" K&N filter units coming, which will almost touch each other when they're installed. I'll reuse the 1.5" air cleaner spacers to provide a better air flow angle over the air horns. The short filter assemblies tend to disrupt air flow to the primaries if you don't space the base up higher.

[milner351]

It's coming together nicely! Man the front of that frame is narrow!

[Deaf Bob]

It's coming together nicely! Man the front of that frame is narrow!

Whole thing is NARROW! He can hang his hand out the passenger side window without bending over! (well pretty darn close if not!)

[AFFORDILLAC]

Yeah...those inner four bolts look like a bitch, the passenger side bank sure gets jacked on its delivery, and now its polished? Jeeeeezzzz......is it for sale?

[1946Austin]

Whole thing is NARROW! He can hang his hand out the passenger side window without bending over! (well pretty darn close if not!)

Yep! I really can hang one arm out the driver's window, and wave out the passenger window at the same time! Makes it nice in the summer to roll the windows down without pulling over! I can reach both front and rear cranks from the driver's seat!