Frankenstien Engine for Junk Car race

[Clay C]

[Clay C]

I also have this thing?? I can't believe this turd runs with all the junk I've used to get it running. Easiest would be just to buy the Petronix 2 system but I am already technically way over the money limit imposed by the race organizers....and honestly its kinda fun making all of this work with all the crap I have laying around. 

[Zed Head]

That's a GM HEI module.  If it hasn't been damaged from poor connections it should work with the 76 distributor.  The red wire from the pickup coil connects to W and the green wire connects to G.  B connects to switched battery, and C connects to coil negative.  Of course the coil positive needs switched battery too, typically they're both connected to B on the HEI module.

The final connection is the ground through the mounting grommets.  Those are most important, that's where all of the coil current goes.

There are several instructions in the download area about it.

[Clay C]

Perfect! The more hodge-podge the better! Thank you sir

[SteveJ]

Let me know if you need any help/advice on wiring. I'm not that far from you.

[Clay C]

Thanks Steve, If i manage to screw things up royally (which is a good possibility) I will take you up on that.  I may just stick with the points....honestly I don't know if one is better than the other for my situation. It only has to run for about 14 hours over the course of 2 consecutive days. Only other experience I have with points was my 64' Fairlane, I don't remember having to screw with them that often. 

It wont hurt to slap it on with that Gm thing and give it a try.

[SteveJ]

9 minutes ago, Clay C said:

Thanks Steve, If i manage to screw things up royally (which is a good possibility) I will take you up on that.  I may just stick with the points....honestly I don't know if one is better than the other for my situation. It only has to run for about 14 hours over the course of 2 consecutive days. Only other experience I have with points was my 64' Fairlane, I don't remember having to screw with them that often. 

It wont hurt to slap it on with that Gm thing and give it a try.

Two things to keep in mind with the HEI:

1. Ground it well.
2. Use a heat sink with conductive paste for longevity.

After that, you set the timing and go. You can bypass the ballast resistor with the HEI, theoretically getting a hotter spark.

With the points, you have to set the gap and dwell. It's not a big deal as long as you have a good dwell meter, but those are harder to come by any more.

[Clay C]

Finished up the race. It was an absolute total disaster leading up to around 2 hours into the 1st day of the race….but after much toiling we got the car to run well enough to get on the track. Finished 140+laps and it didn’t break which is a smallish victory I guess. 
 

We were probably the slowest on track after a horrible choice by my team mate to run a single barrel ford carb on a goofy homemade intake plenum. Great off the start but after half way through 3rd gear there wasn’t much there. Actually won an award for essentially being the “best worst car” which was pretty cool. 
 

Question for all you guys is if you are running stock internals and everything else including exhaust manifold is there anything that would work any better than the twin SU’s? My argument with my team (although I couldn’t back it up with facts) was running some dumb arse carb setup or dumping more fuel in this engine isn’t going to get you anything and probably will just make things worse. 
 

I do plan on making modifications on this car and doing this again. There’s a pretty strict budget on what you can spend on race prep. I could cheat a little and overbore, do some head work but even then I think the SU’s would still be all I would need. 
 

can someone confirm?

[Clay C]

To put it more simply, with the exception of some major engine upgrades which are against the rules, is there any benefit to using anything other than the SU’s. 
 

Would it be able to take advantage of anything more?

[Zed Head]

The four barrel conversion is probably easier to tune and might be more heat resistant.  They've been around quite a while you can probably find them on eBay or CL.  You could even a 2 barrel adapter on it.

https://www.thezstore.com/category/498/four-barrel-conversion

[Patcon]

SUs can do an aweful lot.

An AFR might help alot to know what your fueling looks like. More fuel isn't going to help without more air to burn it.

[Jeff G 78]

Find some SU's.  The car will be slow with a stock engine, but that doesn't mean that it's a lost cause.  I built a ~200 hp engine that looked essentially stock and I did it on a budget.  I started with a ZX F54 engine and then shaved the head, tweaked the chain guides and modified the cam gear to get the timing right with the shorter crank-to-cam distance.  Nobody will ever measure the head thickness or care even if they did.  Add a cam and you will have the basis for a decent power gain. Again, there are so few Datsun endurance racers, nobody would have a clue what the cam specs even are.  You can run the stock exhaust manifold if you must, or you can pick up a rusty old used header.

Another invisible mod that's not expensive is a lightened stock flywheel.  Top End Performance used to and likely still does lighten your flywheel.  

These simple mods along with some fine tuning of the cars and ignition will get your car some much-needed power.