Josephine, a "Moparistic" -55 sedan

[Mike Van Veghten]

I like the upper box, good thinken

Mike

[Champion V8]

Thanx Mike! Gonna make it nicer later on...

[Jeff Rice]

Coming along quite nicely!

[Champion V8]

Thanx Jeff, it's hard in cold weather & a barn...
I cheated a bit with some black paint on the air directing box & then I started to bend some pipes for grille, that bending wasn't easy:

z55 a.JPG

z55 b.JPG

I've been thinking... a bit... about my idea about Josephine & why I'm even here in this group... it has become more of a custom project than the street racer I planned, for whatever reasons.
I'm thinking that it might be nice to make some horse power, exhaust & intake is easily good enough already so I would like to go for a hotter camshaft. But what kind? & as I only have a Edelbrock 500 now that seems perfect for this 318 that's original on the inside, maybe it won't be with a hot cam?
So for sometime in the future; does anyone here have any ideas about nicer cams for MoPar small block?

[Champion V8]

I also think I wanna have the front to go more straight down a bit & then bend in later / lower, but how I'm gonna get that done is still a mystery...
The way it is now:

z46.jpg

[Champion V8]

Back in designing thoughts... I might make the middle piece less wide & less v-shaped & I think I'll make a new separate (but welded on) middle piece that'll go lower down. Maybe.
Less v-shaped would look like something similar to this:

HuvTestR.JPG

[Mike Van Veghten]

Yeah, follows the curve of the hood center better.
Works with either design.

Mike

[r1lark]

Hmm.......personally I like this one better, but it's not my car :

[Champion V8]

I made a mallet but in real life the wider lower center don't look as good as the way it is now. But I still wanna have the front fall more down compared to the slanted way it is now. I'm thinking I'll buy a Volvo PV (544 in the US) hood & split it, it would make a better low part. There's a lot of those around for low prices, looks like this:

pv.jpg

[Champion V8]

Suddenly there aint many hoods for sale nearby so I'll wait with rebuilding the front.
I've made both upper-inner parts, the passenger side I showed in the previous post, I just haven't yet found the concentration to fasten them.
Today was a snow free day(!) for a quite long period for being this far south, took a pic of Josephine just as I came home:

z55 2023mars16.JPG

[Champion V8]

Slowly does it, grille on its way... With the lower / outer piping I also have to find some kinda mesh...

z55 2023mars17.JPG

[Champion V8]

Finally I managed to get the rad hoses on Nils's car done by first putting on short pieces on the radiator pipes for the bigger hoses to go over, not totally done yet & the dynamo is still missing:
(I wanna find a way to test it without the dynamo so any advise is welcome!)

Øx 2023mars17.JPG

[Mike Van Veghten]

Test it, you mean water wise ?
Just measure the distance around the water pump pulley and the crank pulley, and get a short belt.

Loosen the water pump pulley so it sits off-center, then put the short belt on, and retighten the upper pulley.
You...may...have to remove the water pump pulley to get the belt on. This was done all the time on (no alternator / dynamo) race cars back in the day.

Mike

[Champion V8]

Ah, ofcourse Mike! Sometimes my memories are on vacation...
Anyway, I just found another issue; the engine is from a Lark so the thermostat pipe points upwards so there aint enough space with the hood closed + it would make the same problem as I just had with Josephine as the hose top bend comes higher than the engine. I've put out some requests on the scandinavian facebook group & now I'm waiting. I have material to make one myself but then it needs a milling mashine for the thermostat to sit up-in & that's not near here...

[Mike Van Veghten]

Ha, I think that I may have a couple pf the short, straight out housings...but you know the shipping !

If you can't find one near home, I'll go out and check to see what I have, and we'll talk.

Mike