May I remind everyone that the original topic of this thread was, essentially, "why do I catch flak from everybody for wanting to build a slant six". I propose that we steer the conversation back to that and away from this nitrous chevy bench racing nonsense or move on. Personally, I would be inpressed to see anyone running nines with a slant 6. As a matter of fact, I'm impressed when I see a /6 go 15's or even 16's

And v8440, please come off the "somebody's callin' me a liar" stuff. I haven't called you anything, and I don't dispute what you have seen, just your assessment of those things, which is totally subjective. You apparently believe that I'm totally full of $#!+ for what I say, and I am not the least bit offended. The Alabama jokes are purely in jest. Let's move this discussion back to slant sixes...

"DW"

_________________

If it ain't broke, fix it!

People are always going to ridicule you when you go with non standard engine choices (it happens to 2.3T guys, slant guys, Caddy 500 guys, etc). If you're confident that the engine you're building is a good engine, then screw what anyone else thinks. The best way to stop ridicule is just to stop talking to those who ridicule you, especially about your engine or anything related to it. Then, work furiously towards upgrading your engine and making some power. When you've got all your ducks in a row, go out there and destroy some people. Guaranteed, 95% of the people will shut up then. The ones who continue to criticize afterwards are the morons who'll never learn.

A good example of this is my old turbo Thunderbird. When I first got it, it was a bone stock automatic car. Automatic TurboCoupes aren't exactly the fastest thing in the world stock, I'll be the first to admit (I ran an 18.3 at the track- OUCH). I had several good friends who went on a $#!+-talking fiasco for months and months about how slow it was. To make matters worse I ran against my buddy's 305 Camaro for fun and lost, and then he started talking trash worse than anyone else.

I got tired of all their $#!+ talking so I stopped hanging with these people, and started working on my car. I started gathering up parts and swapped it to a 5-speed, and put a 3" exhaust on it with straight-thru muffler and a dump. It came with a 3.73 Trac-Loc rear, as well! Before, the car wouldn't even chirp 'em if you punched it, now it would roast em both through three gears. I took one of my $#!+ talking friends for a ride in it and he was pretty humbled. He hates Fords but now he couldn't stop talking about how awesome this car ran, and sounded.

I then proceeded to blow the doors off several others including that POS 305 Camaro and all the trash talking pretty much ceased.

You've got to be on your game. As long as your engine is running and kicking ass, you'll be admired, but as soon as it starts going down for repairs or isn't running so good, the vultures will eat you alive.

Now yer talkin'...

Hey, 500 Caddies are cool, too. I'm putting a bone stock one in a '70 Dodge 3/4 ton "work truck" with a 4.10 gear. Think it'll have some low RPM torque?

"DW"

Anyways, back to the /6, my bad

_________________

If it ain't broke, fix it!

Really? What was this?
To me, it's pretty simple. I say I have seen something repeatedly, and you say what I just quoted above. Seems like you're disputing what I saw to me. I don't think you're full of it overall, but I do take issue when someone tries to tell me I'M full of it, or didn't see what I did in fact see. That seems suspiciously like I'm being called a liar, and I don't think I'm stretching real far to view it that way. As for what I was originally saying, it's NOT subjective: I've either seen it or I haven't. Some things are subjective, but this particular one is not. If you weren't calling me out, it sure seemed like it. Just read what you wrote and try to see how it looks from the other person's perspective.

_________________
Everyone driving slower than me is a moron. Everyone driving faster than me is an idiot. With all these morons and idiots on the road, I can't get anywhere!

And on the subject of cadillac motors, I was walking around in a junkyard a few months ago, and I happened to notice a mid 70's ford truck with its hood open. The funny thing was that it had the distributor in front leaning to the left. I said something like "wow, they put a buick motor in there, I wonder if it's a 455?" Then I noticed that the sparkplugs weren't angled the way they are on a buick motor, and that's when it dawned on me-it's a cadillac motor! It's still there as far as I know. I don't know for sure which exact motor it was, but it looked just like the 472 I used to have in a hearse, so I'd imagine it was either that or a 500, since they're the same engine family.

_________________
Everyone driving slower than me is a moron. Everyone driving faster than me is an idiot. With all these morons and idiots on the road, I can't get anywhere!

It will always be harder to build an "odd-ball" engine or combination and many will take shots at you for doing so.
As already said, you will have the last laugh if the combo runs well and stays together.

Trouble with having a "mainstream engine" that runs well and stays together is that every expects it to do that, so you don't get many "kados" when it does, even when it's super fast.
DD

Yep, the 472 and 500 can't be told apart from the outside, in fact they have the exact same casting numbers and everything. The only foolproof way to tell is to check the stroke; a 472 has a 4.060" stroke, where the 500's strokes is 1/4" longer at 4.306".

Dennis: You ought to be able to pull down a house with that thing! I've got a 472 sittin on my porch, disassembled, ready to be put back together and put in something. I found it resting under the hood of an old Cutlass in the junkyard. I'm seriously thinking about swapping the motor into my daily driver, an 84 Silverado w/ a tired 305. The motor still runs good but it's got 180K miles and I run the hell out of it.

I'll do some mild port work to the heads, paint the engine dark Cadillac Blue with a Performer intake, Demon carb, and Chevy BB headers w/ 2.5" exhaust. I can pull the TCI Turbo 400 tranny out of my LeMans, fabricate some motor mounts (God, it's NICE to finally have a shop to work in..), and swap that bad boy out. The ricers (and Mustang boys) won't know what hit them. The only decision left to make is, what am I going to do about a rear end so I can put some slicks on there?

The 8.5" 10 bolt rearend that came in your truck will take a surprising amount of punishment. Case in point: the turbo buick guys routinely beat the shiznit out of theirs, which is also an 8.5" 10 bolt. Cars in the 10's with mostly stock rearends are very common. If it breaks, you could fairly easily find a truck 12 bolt and put it in. Truck 12 bolts aren't as strong as passenger car 12 bolts because the pinion shaft tapers down to a smaller diameter in the truck rearends than it does in the car axles, but it's still quite strong.

_________________
Everyone driving slower than me is a moron. Everyone driving faster than me is an idiot. With all these morons and idiots on the road, I can't get anywhere!

Two notes, V8440:

First, I presume this was an omission, but your first post where you mentioned an "average redneck" being able to put a 350 in the 9's with minor work neglected to mention nitrous. I presume this was an oversight on your part.

Second, the "average redneck" who ports the heads on a 350, throws on a carb/manifold combo, a cam, and exhaust work, usually won't end up anywhere close to 9's. Seems the average guy who does something like that is more likely to end up in the 14 second range. They're more likely to run 16's than 9's. You'd really, really need to know what you're doing to put a combo like that down the quarter mile in under 10 seconds. An exceptional redneck can pull that off... an average Joe doesn't have anywhere near the tuning skills needed.

But back to the original question of why to build a slant six: My reason is that I have never, ever, seen a '60s car with forced induction on a six cylinder motor show up at any car show I have attended. I simply have an overly developed sense of "different."

_________________
"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

I call that a joke. Sorry you took it as an assault on your integrity Your stance seems to be that you've seen it, therefore it is simple and cheap. The simple and cheap is the subjective part. It's your opinion (and shiftless's, too lets not forget) which you are entitled to, just as I am free to call you on that opinion and say I disagree based on what I have seen and know. I accepted the assertion that you saw it from the start. Now can we get off of this?

"DW"

_________________

If it ain't broke, fix it!

Actually, I'm not the person who first posted about this. A few posts down, you'll see where I add nitrous into the discussion. I said something to the effect that surely nobody would begrudge the use of nitrous under these circumstances. So, I was basically the guy un-neglecting nitrous in the discussion. Your basic point is right though-nitrous would have to automatically be part of the equation under those circumstances, and probably a LOT of it. Like 350 hp of it. My examples of the cars I've seen run 9's on shoestring budgets vary from the original poster's example in one real way-the use of aftermarket cylinder heads. Not very expensive heads, something like a used and ported set of World Products Sportsman II's, or a set of used and ported Brodix Track I's. Neither are very expensive used. You put a bunch of compression on it, run VP 116, spray the hell out of it, and make sure you have a good roller cam setup. That's some of the high points, not all of the combo. The average redneck porting a set of smog heads by hand at home is probably not going to get these results, but the average redneck running an $800 set of used ported aftermarket heads on a dome piston motor with a bunch of nitrous and a good nitrous cam probably will, given that the chassis it up to it. Look around and check other magazines-you may be surprised what internally stock LS1 F-bodies and mustangs are doing. If you haven't seen it already, you'll probably get that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you see what those cars (particularly mustangs) are doing with turbo setups, still running stone stock motors. I mean original camshaft-stock. You think someone running a junky 350 into the 9's is amazing? Try a mustang with a turbo and the aforementioned stock motor running LOW 10's and driving to the track with A/C, cruise, power everything, and good gas mileage.

My point in all that is that the status quo has been advancing rather quickly lately. It has trickled down to the point that rednecks with 350's and some ingenuity can do plenty more than they could just 8 or 10 years ago.

_________________
Everyone driving slower than me is a moron. Everyone driving faster than me is an idiot. With all these morons and idiots on the road, I can't get anywhere!

Ok, makes much more sense to me now. I said simple and cheap because I consider stock bottom ends (except for truly cheap TRW pistons) with a set of used ported sub-$1000 heads to be simple and cheap. Those are the parts that I've seen run high 9's and faster. If you don't consider that simple and cheap, then I can't imagine what you would. In any case, I now understand better what you meant.

_________________
Everyone driving slower than me is a moron. Everyone driving faster than me is an idiot. With all these morons and idiots on the road, I can't get anywhere!

...all this talk of rednecks and 350 shivvies is reminding me (and hopefully others) why I want to build slant sixes in the first place. If any redneck can do it, I don't want it!!!!!

"DW"

_________________

If it ain't broke, fix it!

There is no way my car can a 9 sec quarter mile, short of falling off a cliff. I run "street sportsman" with my 170 cube 66Cuda. It sure feels good, when a 64 chevy with a blown 350, only gives me 2 tenths head start, or after I beat a 5.0 mustang on a heads up run, people come over to see if I have a big block or a small block, and see a slant. I have built and raced 9 sec cars, but have more fun with the slant.

_________________
Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

Charlie: Agreed! 350s and 5-ohs are easy to find and build, but when you make good power with them, people yawn. They've seen it before. But when you kick someone's ass, and they look under your hood and see a four or six cylinder (or a Caddy motor), people really start to talk. It's a really great feeling to be different.

v8840: So you think my stock rear will hold up to some 10.5" slicks and 600 ft-lbs? If that's the case, I'll rebuild it and put a locker in it, since the money won't be wasted.