John Ross
04-18-2011, 09:28 AM
I started looking for a suitable car to build into a street racer, and at the same time I was researching WWII aviation for my term paper. I came across a reference to the Germans experimenting with injecting Nitrous Oxide (NO) into aircraft engines for better high altitude performance. The Germans during that period were always trying crazy stuff, not the least of which was the Komet Me163 rocket plane, a production military fighter aircraft with less than eight minutes(!) of fuel supply and that also had a nasty tendency to blow up.
The sources I was referred to regarding these Nitrous injection experiments were all in German, so after I got copies of the texts I had to find an engineer-type whose native language was German. I found a Swiss man on loan to one of the local universities, and he was a big help. He seemed amused at a 15-year-old’s rabid interest in an obscure and ultimately impractical aviation experiment. The main thing I took from this research was the importance of getting the correct amount of additional gasoline introduced into the engine for the amount of nitrous oxide being supplied. Too little additional gasoline (or too much nitrous) would cause the engine to run way lean under full power and destroy the motor.
My Chemistry teacher at the time was amused at my sudden interest in stoichiometric ratios and similar molecular issues.
Things were coming together on several levels. I found a 1965 Chevy II sport coupe with a 300 HP 327 engine, Powerglide 2-speed automatic, and 12-bolt rearend (GM’s strongest) that I was ultimately able to buy for $325 because the engine had a rod knock and the owner knew that it wouldn’t be drivable at all pretty soon. Another gun and racing buddy named Jerry helped me look the car over and get it back to his welding shop in Jefferson County, near our summer place. I was still only 15 and couldn’t legally drive on public roads.
Boemler Chevrolet in Arnold, MO (where Dad had bought his Corvette) sold me an L88 427 engine new in the crate for $1180. This was the aluminum head bad boy motor with 12.25:1 compression, new “open chamber” cylinder head design, and all race-quality internals. GM had offered the all-iron 396 big-block motor (same externally as the 427) in Chevy IIs (now called Novas) from 1968 to 1970, so there were factory motor mounts to facilitate the engine swap. We pulled the intake manifold off and port-matched the intake runners to the heads, then pulled the heads and took them to Ron Winterhoff of Ron’s Porting Service for him to give us more flow.
I hadn’t yet decided what transmission to use yet. I was leaning towards a TH400 automatic as I didn’t want missed shifts to ever be an issue on a car I intended to make money with. Torque converter technology in those days was nothing like it is now, however, and a 4-speed had the advantage if your shifting was perfect.
Then a local drag racer at Pevely’s I-55 Dragway started parting out his Biscayne drag race car during a divorce. Someone else had already bought the engine, and he had a B&M Clutch-Turbo trans setup for sale. The Clutch-Turbo was a 60’s development to get the launch control of a clutch and the absolute shifting reliability of an automatic. It was made by machining off the torque converter housing of a Turbo 400 automatic and replacing the converter with a clutch and bellhousing, using an adapter plate and a custom input shaft that had three fingers driving off the clutch disc that kept the automatic’s pump pumping whenever the engine was running. You started the engine with the clutch pedal pushed in and the lever in First, let the clutch out to start moving, then moved to lever to 2 and then 3 at full throttle without touching the clutch pedal again.
Here’s a picture so you can see what I’m talking about if you've never heard of one of these hybrids. Not visible is an additional hole cut in the bottom of the bellhousing to use a feeler gauge and set the proper clearance for the clutch disc with everything mounted in the car.
http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn302/JohnRoss_07/ClutchTurbo2.jpg
More later...
The sources I was referred to regarding these Nitrous injection experiments were all in German, so after I got copies of the texts I had to find an engineer-type whose native language was German. I found a Swiss man on loan to one of the local universities, and he was a big help. He seemed amused at a 15-year-old’s rabid interest in an obscure and ultimately impractical aviation experiment. The main thing I took from this research was the importance of getting the correct amount of additional gasoline introduced into the engine for the amount of nitrous oxide being supplied. Too little additional gasoline (or too much nitrous) would cause the engine to run way lean under full power and destroy the motor.
My Chemistry teacher at the time was amused at my sudden interest in stoichiometric ratios and similar molecular issues.
Things were coming together on several levels. I found a 1965 Chevy II sport coupe with a 300 HP 327 engine, Powerglide 2-speed automatic, and 12-bolt rearend (GM’s strongest) that I was ultimately able to buy for $325 because the engine had a rod knock and the owner knew that it wouldn’t be drivable at all pretty soon. Another gun and racing buddy named Jerry helped me look the car over and get it back to his welding shop in Jefferson County, near our summer place. I was still only 15 and couldn’t legally drive on public roads.
Boemler Chevrolet in Arnold, MO (where Dad had bought his Corvette) sold me an L88 427 engine new in the crate for $1180. This was the aluminum head bad boy motor with 12.25:1 compression, new “open chamber” cylinder head design, and all race-quality internals. GM had offered the all-iron 396 big-block motor (same externally as the 427) in Chevy IIs (now called Novas) from 1968 to 1970, so there were factory motor mounts to facilitate the engine swap. We pulled the intake manifold off and port-matched the intake runners to the heads, then pulled the heads and took them to Ron Winterhoff of Ron’s Porting Service for him to give us more flow.
I hadn’t yet decided what transmission to use yet. I was leaning towards a TH400 automatic as I didn’t want missed shifts to ever be an issue on a car I intended to make money with. Torque converter technology in those days was nothing like it is now, however, and a 4-speed had the advantage if your shifting was perfect.
Then a local drag racer at Pevely’s I-55 Dragway started parting out his Biscayne drag race car during a divorce. Someone else had already bought the engine, and he had a B&M Clutch-Turbo trans setup for sale. The Clutch-Turbo was a 60’s development to get the launch control of a clutch and the absolute shifting reliability of an automatic. It was made by machining off the torque converter housing of a Turbo 400 automatic and replacing the converter with a clutch and bellhousing, using an adapter plate and a custom input shaft that had three fingers driving off the clutch disc that kept the automatic’s pump pumping whenever the engine was running. You started the engine with the clutch pedal pushed in and the lever in First, let the clutch out to start moving, then moved to lever to 2 and then 3 at full throttle without touching the clutch pedal again.
Here’s a picture so you can see what I’m talking about if you've never heard of one of these hybrids. Not visible is an additional hole cut in the bottom of the bellhousing to use a feeler gauge and set the proper clearance for the clutch disc with everything mounted in the car.
http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn302/JohnRoss_07/ClutchTurbo2.jpg
More later...