Part I

Project '55

We have Motivation

While we getting ourselves squared away to attack this new project, we will provide some photos of our newest bullet and the motivation for Project '55. This one sports 496 cubic inches along with some very nice internal hardware.

I am looking for easy, easy 11-second timeslips on this one. And with that many cubes on tap, that should be a snap. Okay, I know, this is a street car, reasonable gearing, okay mileage, and the street manners that it requires. This is not being built as a racecar, but I cannot help the influence that my lifetime of hanging around racecars and racing them is going to have on this puppy!

Having said that, I have thought about this engine several times and considered changing the cam to something a bit more serious, looked at the oil pan and thought a nice aftermarket unit would be sweet. So far I have resisited the temptation of doing any of those things. And hopefully, the engine will get bolted into the car, before I have a chance to re-think my plan.

My choice for an intake manifold will be a ported no-name 4500 carb base unit that I picked up a few years ago for my dragster. Since I am not looking to make every absolute horsepower this intake will work just fine. When doing the strip thing on a Friday night, we'll sport a 1050, 4500 series carb and the rest of the time it will have a 800+ 4150 unit that should help with mileage and keep it clean on the street.

Another issue is that of the waterpump. Today, I am all about using electric pumps as I feel like that they have come a long way and do the job. Plus, the installation always ends up being a lot cleaner and you don’t have to worry about throwing that silly belt and overheating the whole mess. We will of course have a small belt turning the alternator, but with the setup we use there shouldn’t be any problems in that area. Again, there’s going to be a lot of influence from my racecars in the parts that I pick and direction that I take on this project. You might not agree with all of my selections, but that's what makes hot rodding so cool.