Thread: FFR 33 Ford Hot Rod

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Cruising action back in July

Been out of town a lot lately. Downside of that is missing the Hot Rod. First order of business when returning from a trip is to heat cycle her and pump up the oil pressure.

Country Road fun

Mild pass with Holley EFI Handheld in view

Labor Day Cruising

Worked on the louvered engine panel skirts today. Don tweked them for final fitting, still need to tuck and nip them in a few places. Got one side mounted and fitted. Looking to finish next week hopefully.

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Finished the Hood Panels today. The are mounted, fitted, and aligned. Next stop is to the paint and body shop.

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Stretching her legs on a backroad. It was really hard to get that fly to stand still while I glued his feet to the windshield.

Did some drone fpootage from Dennis Cruz of Drone's Point of View. Enjoy

Now that was different!

Here are some more shots from the session

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More shots from our session

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Out Cruising on Saturday. Ran into a very nice Camaro SS

So, after a ton of work I finally got the Hot Rod on the Dyno Monday. I watch way too much YouTube and Facebook so I had a number in mind. The new engine just felt like a beast compared to the old engine. My oldage memory recalled a 320 number on the old engine and I recalled that as horsepower with a larger torque reading. The new Holley Sniper had greatly improved drivability over the old carburator setup. I engaged John Gilliland to put a tune on the Sniper, we were running the basic Snip self learned tune on the new engine until Monday. The tune itself goes into dozens if not hundreds of areas of the engine, fuel, spark, and air combination at the entire range of engine speed, temperature, air density, and a number of other variables the new Sniper has provided sensors to measure.

The first few pulls were well below 300 HP to the Wheels with Torque in the 320-330 range. That set the baseline. John went to work changing the timing and fueling, improving the driveability incredibly. Still the numbers only came up into the 320-330 wheel horsepower range though the torque did manage the mid 330's. Studying the pulls and John's seat of the pants intuition, we determined the Wheels were not hooking up to the dyno at all. After the tweaking, which included the fat guy sitting in the trunk, we did a final that netted right at 343 rear wheel horsepower and 358 foot pounds of torque. It was a general improvement in the numbers. But I was somewhat disappointed as my expectations were higher. I really had no idea of how good these results were.

First, going into the session I had no idea what the redline for the new motor was. We saw a clear falloff at 6200 RPM so that is where we set it.

Second the engine suffered an overheating problem with the old setup, often reaching 240 degrees on hot Texas days. On the trip out before the tune we averaged 190-195 degrees, showing a remarkable improvement over the previous engine.

With the tune adjustments to idle and cruising timing, on the return the temps dropped to below 170, meaning I need to up the thermostat. The car cruises at about 185 degrees now as opposed to 192 prior to the tune.

Also on the way out I averaged 9 miles per gallon. On the way back with the new tune we averaged 14.5 miles per gallon figuring a near 30% increase in economy while cruising. Of course when my foot gets involed that gets worse sometimes.

My exhaust was designed for a 190 horsepower sbc crate engine with 2" collectors and tubing. The headers are 1 3/4 tubing. I need 2.5 to 2.75 inch headers with 3-3.5 inch collectors and 2.5 inch exhaust piping. Just my opinion

I installed an adjustable 4 Link system a few years ago and have never really gotten that effectively dialed in. I am old and don't bend so well. I don't have access to a rack to take the 4 link adjustable settings and properly set up the pinion angle. That may well have been a lot of the problem with the traction, though light weight needs to own some of it. I need to pay attention to that.

Overall drivability is excellent after the tune. John did a great job. Holley Sniper provide an okay daily driver safe solution and the learning keeps the finicky fuel tables up but the touch of a tuner smoothing out the timing and fueling transitions is a big improvement. In the photos below there are three sheets, two from the old engine done in 2016 and 2017 and the third is from the latest session. All in all a 50-55 rwhp gain and a 36 rwtq gain. over the 2017 session and an 81 rwhp gain over the 2016 session. Video is kind of long, unless you just like the noise

I would not be disappointed with those numbers. Given you lose about 20% through the drive train, you probably have around 400-415 hp at the flywheel. Any more hp and torque in a light car like yours won't gain you much other than bragging rights because you won't be able to plant it and you'll simply wind up with more wheel spin. IMO, your headers and exhaust are sized appropriately for your engine. You can also lose some performance by going to large on your headers and exhaust. It sounds like you have it dialed in rather nicely.