Building one of the world's most absurd commercial chassis hearses (a turbo build thread)

[Psychoholic]

@48Austin those are in fact CadCo rockers! They are made by Harland Sharp. Pretty damned sturdy units, way better than I was expecting.

So I'm on the search for a set of forged low-compression pistons I can run with the 76 cc heads, I'll do a set of H-beam rods probably of standard length (unless I can figure out what length I can run without needing even more machine work than just going 30 over and a line bore), a main halo and all the appropriate ARP studs everywhere.

 

[gordon]

I am using 7.0" H beam rods from an Olds performance place. I think the guys name was Dick Miller In Mississippi. He has a batch made for him to fit the 425 Olds engine and keeps them in stock. Molner makes the rods but you buy them from Dick Miller Racing(I will verify that name tomorrow , I don't always trust my memory ) since they are not a standard item from Molner Rods. I bought them because they fit the Cadillac 2.5" rod journal . No turning down to Chrysler size or making wider crank journals or narrowing the big end on the rods. The only down side is they are made for .980" pins. There is enough meat in the pin bushing to easily hone them for fit with .990" chevy size pins. That is how I am doing it. As soon as my custom pistons are here I will share with the guys here how they turned out. The rods were reasonable cost , the pistons typical price for custom and done to my specs$$$$$$$ . I am shooting for 9.8:1 comp. ratio.

 

[Darius]

I am using 7.0" H beam rods from an Olds performance place. I think the guys name was Dick Miller In Mississippi. ... As soon as my custom pistons are here I will share with the guys here how they turned out. The rods were reasonable cost , the pistons typical price for custom and done to my specs$$$$$$$ . I am shooting for 9.8:1 comp. ratio.

We certainly “pay to play” don’t we.

bro. “Only complaining a little,” d

 

[gordon]

My memory was working OK , I got the rods from Dick Miller racing , the rods are Molner Technologies H-beam rods made for Dick Miller racing to fit 425 Olds engines. I paid $699.00 for them. Dick Miller has two locations one is in Kentucky and the other just across the state line in Mississippi. Most times you will call and have to wait for them to call you back. I do not think you can buy these from Molner Tech . Seems they are batch made for Dick Miller. The website and catalogue I have show the rod as a Parabolic I beam design (which I prefer for blown applications) similar to what you get from Oliver Rods. Oliver is a super nice($$$$) rod. The picture is inaccurate , the rods that you get are actually very well made H beam rods From Molner Technologies with ARP 2000 bolts. Contact # for Dick Miller racing is 6 6 2 2 3 3 23 01. Just for the record 7.0" CtoC , Big end for 2.5" journals, and bushed pin ends for .980" which I will hone to fit .990" pins. (more common BBC size). I almost went for some Chrysler sized H beam rods that would have meant machining the crank and narrowing a bit the big end of the rods also. Lot more time and $$$$. These Rods I got get me a longer rod length(personal preference) and hang on an unmodified Cadillac crank. I was going to have to get custom pistons anyway so this is a win win for my combo. Hope this helps some of you guys.

 

[Psychoholic]

Had some downtime yesterday at the shop while waiting on some customer orders in the powder coating oven (we do powder coating now - hit me up if you need stuff!) so I decided it was time to get started porting my intake. The little vacuum adapter I drew up and 3d printed worked like a champion so the chips were minimal.

I am in the process of buying 3.31 acres to build a forever shop on. We close on the property on Wednesday, building has been ordered, contractors lined up, etc and my #1 requirement was that I am driving my car to the new shop. I probably won't have the turbo or 4L80E in yet but I can at least get the fuel injection finished.

 

[Psychoholic]

OT: This is what the building is going to look like (it's green, like my car). It's a 50 x 100 x 18 'cold formed steel' building with a 15 x 50 mezzanine with 8' under and 9' above it. We'll have 3 roll up doors and 3 personnel doors. We're building a 15 x 20 office on the mezzanine and putting a bathroom under it. The right side will be for working on cars and the left will be the metal shop. All the powder coating stuff goes towards the front.

 

[mario]

That is a gearhead's wet dream. Congrats...
Ciao,
Mario

 

[48Austin]

Had some downtime yesterday at the shop while waiting on some customer orders in the powder coating oven (we do powder coating now - hit me up if you need stuff!) so I decided it was time to get started porting my intake. The little vacuum adapter I drew up and 3d printed worked like a champion so the chips were minimal.

I am in the process of buying 3.31 acres to build a forever shop on. We close on the property on Wednesday, building has been ordered, contractors lined up, etc and my #1 requirement was that I am driving my car to the new shop. I probably won't have the turbo or 4L80E in yet but I can at least get the fuel injection finished.

I was thinnin' on doin' the same thin with my intake. But I dun thin it really needs it. Considering my car only weighs 2100 lbs. Maybe a Teensy bit more with the heft of the Cad and cage.

 

[Psychoholic]

That is a gearhead's wet dream. Congrats...
Ciao,
Mario

Thanks! We outgrew our current shop the day we moved into it and honestly this wasn't part of my 2021 fiscal plan but the deal was REALLY good and I'm surrounded by proper car folks. Literally every property around us are car guys with big ass shops and wild cars/trucks/bikes/dragsters and a ridiculous amount of old military trucks.

I was thinnin' on doin' the same thin with my intake. But I dun thin it really needs it. Considering my car only weighs 2100 lbs. Maybe a Teensy bit more with the heft of the Cad and cage.

Those intakes come with an unnaturally small port on them so you can port them to fit either the Bulldog heads or stockers (I think). Part of me wonders now if they used one in stock form when they dyno'd it with Courtney on Richard Holdener's channel? If I didn't know better I'd almost think you were saying 'nah, it makes plenty of power already'

 

[48Austin]

Thanks! We outgrew our current shop the day we moved into it and honestly this wasn't part of my 2021 fiscal plan but the deal was REALLY good and I'm surrounded by proper car folks. Literally every property around us are car guys with big ass shops and wild cars/trucks/bikes/dragsters and a ridiculous amount of old military trucks.


Those intakes come with an unnaturally small port on them so you can port them to fit either the Bulldog heads or stockers (I think). Part of me wonders now if they used one in stock form when they dyno'd it with Courtney on Richard Holdener's channel? If I didn't know better I'd almost think you were saying 'nah, it makes plenty of power already'

Should be able to be hogged out to "Boogie Man" size. And then some. But for my teensy car, I don't think I need it. As for Holdener's engine, If the heads were ported the intake matched.

 

[5one9]

Do you already have the intake?

 

[Darius]

In the “for what it’s worth column” I don’t believe there was any port matching with the Holdener engine. Every other “non stock” change was noted but my old ears heard nothing about matching heads and intake.

YMMV,

bro. d

 

[48Austin]

Do you already have the intake?

Who, Me?

 

[5one9]

Who, Me?

Chess.

 

[48Austin]

Have manifold. Boogie Man tunnel ram. Just need to ke blower plate.

 

[Darius]

“Where da holes is,” he asked plaintively.

 

[5one9]

Surely the port openings in that thing are more reasonable by comparison to the sorry state that the stock MTS manifold is. Here is mine in original vs. ported state.

 

[48Austin]

Surely the port openings in that thing are more reasonable by comparison to the sorry state that the stock MTS manifold is. Here is mine in original vs. ported state.
View attachment 25813

The port siz on the "Boogie Man" heads and intake are also very small. The idea was to let you hog them out to the needed size.

 

[48Austin]

“Where da holes is,” he asked plaintively.

Don't have pix of the port size right now. Working on it. But the MTS manifold looks exactly like the "Boogie Man" single. Maybe the same caster with a different plug for the name. I'm guessing PMI is the caster.

 

[Psychoholic]

Sorry for my absence! Things have been pretty damn busy with the shop actually making money and the process on the new shop. First, let me give you guys an update on the new shop. About 3 weeks ago the clearing/grading guys showed up and started going NUTS. We have cleared everything and the concrete guy is supposed to come out tomorrow to set the forms for the foundation. We are currently enjoying a 'stop work order' because of a rip in the silt fence but here are some pics of the process up to this point:

Thisland · Sep 17, 2021 – May 15, 2022

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To give a sense of scale of how long that freaking driveway is (it's 560' from the street to the front door of the shop) I put a GoPro on my truck and drove down

Now, back to Morticia.

Had a few minutes of downtime yesterday (again, making stuff for customers) so we decided to actually work on MY car for the first time in months. I ordered a trigger wheel from DIYAutoTune (fine purveyors of the MegaSquirt I'm using), we put it on the mill and cut out the middle so it'd fit over the middle of the balancer. Sandblasted both in the booth and then welded them together. Using a Bosch hall effect sensor and tapping a hole in my timing marker I got with my smog pump delete kit

Next up we took an old points style distributor, took everything out of it but the shaft and housing, tapped a hole in the bottom of it and installed another hall sensor. We needed something with a sharp edge so we started machining a trigger arm out of a piece of 3/4" x 1.25" stock I had laying around.

We have essentially 2 months before we move into the new shop (hopefully) and the plan is that I do NOT want to trailer my car over. I have donated a fair number of parts to another '72 hearse in the shop so I'm at a point of no return with getting her running on the fuel injection system. We're not doing the turbo or serpentine belt system at this shop but we can get her drivable this way.

Major stuff to do now:

Finish cam position sensor from previous distributor
Attach fuel rail hold downs (already cut some aluminum tabs on the plasma, just need to drill and tap the rails and then weld the tabs onto the intake)
Install new high pressure fuel pump
Wire the computer (which will involve also wiring in all the new sensors and LS coil packs too)
Install new radiator and electric fans

The computer is going to be BY FAR the most tricky part