Hi...
At the local swap meet this morning, I found 7 Hot
Rod magazines from the 50s and 60s. Ten bucks for
all of them.
The May, 1955 issue has a neat story titled "Soup
That Chev!". Written by Racer Brown, it's about how
to hot rod the new Chevy truck 6 cylinder 261
engine. They bought a new engine from the dealer
for $349, and proceeded to put it on the dyno, and
increase the power with the "normal" modifications.
They added a Corvette dual exhaust manifold (one
piece casting) which cost $18 at the dealer. Also,
a dual carb intake, with two 1 bbl Stromberg carbs.
These mods gave a 22 horsepower increase. Then they
milled and ported the head, for another 11 hp. A
"3/4 race" cam netted another 10 hp. Boring it an
eighth of an inch (and upping the compression by
half a point) added 8 more hp, and putting in a
really wild cam, and a triple carb setup, got the
power up to 197 hp at 4500 rpm. The last two mods
get on the ragged edge of streetability, as the cam
is pretty wild, and the intake is not heated.
There's also a bit of discussion of cams and
lifters, as well as distributor gears. Chevy
changed the cam material in the early 50s, going
from steel to cast iron, and the lifters went from
chilled iron to hardenable iron. If you mix the
types, it will wipe out the cam and lifters! The
distributor gear material also needs to match the
camshaft material.
Neat reading. Maybe my son Gary will want to hop up
his 235, it sounds like fun! and safer than a 400 hp
big block :)
Jim F
59s in AZ
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
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