Hi flathead49, and welcome to the forum.
I can understand that you may have difficulties in finding the required info right away, there is so much of it! This is a VERY active forum!

I will suggest you start by browsing the Articles that can be reached from the Home page, a lot of qustions will be answered there:
http://www.slantsix.org/articles/articles.htm

The next step would be:
Matrix for engine build combinations

And if you're ready for a really deep dive into the matter, by following some of Doc Dutra's engine builds:
Best of Doctor Dodge

At the top of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) in the engine section, there are some tips on how to find things, I hope they will assist you.
TRICKS to using the Search Feature

Olaf

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Aspenized

so what is your location ?,,
you will get the best help-advice at this site,, if local to the US,, you also will get opportunities to bracket with the best

There's a lot there to digest...

A good way to approach this is asking the question: what are you wanting out of the car and build? Good mpg for daily driver and regular bracket racing? Just bracket racing and you trailer it to the track? Want to pull down a 12 second 1/4 mile ET?

Question #1 is pretty easy and can be achieved with a 9:1 Static CR and a smaller cam.

You can ultimately scrape off and 1/8" off the head and deck on a 60's 225 if looking toward 12:1 SCR (and you can easily fit a .540 lift cam after those cuts), which will head toward the a trailer car in question #2....and more mods to the car to keep you safe....

Overboring doesn't do much for the 225 unless you are building an extreme engine....with the 1.70/1.44 valves you have plenty of room with the .040 and .060 overbores, the trick will be the combustion chamber alignment to the bore and your head prep (porting and bowl blending is where you will spend lots of time).

If you decide to run a "hot" engine, a few things will suddenly become evident: Good Brakes will become mandatory and 10" drums are a bare minimum, the A904 will need a little work, and unless the 7.25" has a suregrip in it, you will need to get a better axle (8.25, 8.75,8.... that being said if you run a larger cam and more compression you may be looking at changing gears to be kinder.

Remember once you decide on the build and purpose, there is lots to be gained on a custom distributor curve.

Good luck on the build, ask lots of questions, do lots of reading...

The SL6 is a "tough nut" when assembled correctly so no worry there. Spend a little time deburring / opening-up & radiousing all the block & crankshaft oil passages, to be sure that the bottom end bearings get lot's of oil flow. Use a "known quality oil pump drive gear and inspect the mesh to the cam's drive gear, much like setting-up a rearend ring & pinion gear set.

The 904 is also a strong unit but for drag strip work, you may want to look at getting a little more stall speed out of the converter. ( the stock converter will "flash" to around 1800 RPM)

The 7 1/4 rear is a problem area and it will not last long behind a strong SL6 and "crisp" shifting 904.
Get your 8 3/4 parts together... you are going to need them!
DD

Glad to see you are fairly local, and there are regular races at Woodburn for inline and slant six, and plenty of good guys to boot.

Do you have the stats on your cam? That will help determine where to head for compression ratio and build options. Luckily Oregon Cam Grinding in Vancouver really has been good to our crowd and they have a good selection of lobes they can regrind on a good stock stick for you for a real good price. In your light car, even a moderate build can put you right up there with a 360 car..something in the 10:1 range with a 3/4 cam would do it pretty easily....

First step is to build a fun car and see what the slant's quirks are, then build the next step from there....

It was great to see OCG Grinds for cams and it looks like they did this one. Here's the stats. Let me know if there's a better grind or if it will do for now.

Mechanical
Grind #: 280
Duration at .050: 230 Int, 232 Exh
Duration at .020: 268 Int, 268 Exh
Lobe separation: 112
Lob Center: 105 Int, 116 Exh
Lob Lift: 292 Int, 296 Exh
Advertised lift: 438 Int, 444 Exh

We race at Woodburn mostly in the Top Eliminator class.

Andrew

That cam is fairly similar to the old Isky Cam...Running it on the calculator it looks like shooting for a 9.5-9.7 SCR and setting to a 105-106 intake lobe centerline would net the very desired 8:1 DCR, allowing you to run on regular pump gas and be pretty fun with good rear gears as well, the poor 7.25 won't last very long after the first couple of launches.... (based this on a deck height of about .123, a 48 cc chamber, and the use of a Victor Reinz head gasket...)

It will also be fairly torquey and with more time into tuning and figuring out the distributor curve it should give pretty fair mileage, if you can keep your foot out of it...

Thanks for the info on this build. I should have the valve seats cut for the larger valves tonight. While I'm waiting on the block that's at the machine shop I can do a little porting on the head. I've done plenty of Flatheads and know them pretty well but not this engine. Any thing special I should pay attention to with to?

I don't know that they're necessary but I really like running conical/beehive valve springs. Anyone here set-up an engine with them?

Thanks again,

Andrew

I have used "beehive" springs on a number of SL6 builds & the biggest challenge is finding spring retainers for the SL6 3/8 valve stem / keeper.

As with all replacement valve spring / retainers sets,( and good cylinder head rebuilding in general) you should check / adjust your spring pressures to match the cam & intended use of the engine.
DD

Just an update on the 225 build. The valve seats have been cut to accommodate the larger valves and I did a light port job. I personally think some people get carried away with porting and think that bigger is better, generally I found that not to be the case, at least with Ford Flathead engines.

The combustion chamber measured 58 cc's and the piston to deck clearance measures 0.193" so they appear to be stock. The machine shop tossed the cam bearings that we planned on re-using so I had to order a set today. Once we get those we'll clay to check the piston to valve clearance and determine how much we want to shave off. After we machine the block and head we'll send it off for a 0.060 overbore.

We haven't decided what carb to go with yet and we might play on a dyno and test a few out. I haven't dyno'd an engine before so it should be fun. As far as the engine parts are concerned for this car I only need to purchase a harmonic dampner, ARP head stud kit, double roller timing chain (at least I'd like to) and a carb since we'll be borrowing a few to test with.

Bummer we can't upload pictures directly to this forum. Does anyone have a recommendation on a photo sharing site?

Andrew
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But you CAN put pictures on this site! It is very easy, really. Click the red text below.

How to put piuctures in your posts on this site

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

OK, Here's an image from my facebook page. I did it a bit differently that the instructions

Andrew

<img src="https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t31.0-8/10869753_899171773426474_1848143976371949882_o.jpg" />

<img src="https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/t31.0-8/10869769_899171780093140_1227856565353337870_o.jpg" />

<img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t31.0-8/10904120_910015922342059_3785388757462670017_o.jpg" />

That's like Fopar's "Six Pack to Go" Dart.... gonna be a good bracket car to start with lots of mods to add later down the road...

FYI, there was a craigslist 8 1/4" A-body rear with unknown ratio in Portland for a very good price, so if you were going to swap up on the cheap to LBP and disc brakes later that's a good start.