308 V12 conversion begins

yup, easy. The holes are clearance holes so they only have to be close on location. The sharpie line you see went to the band saw a couple hours ago and off came the corner. It's welded and waiting for machining now, I had to stop to do my christmas calls. I think the cover needs about 4-6 more hours. Then the cam covers.

 

Art,
It goes fast because I'm pretty sure I've got OCD and just work on it a lot

Jerry was the man back in the day. What I found was he understood business though....he developed a port and everyone with that engine got the same thing regardless of what you were building. Jerry also like constant diameter ports which I’ve since learned are really not the best way to go, time marches on I guess.

 

I gave the cover a good look over today and it looks like ferrari blasted it with something course, sand probably. They ground parting line and flash all over the place and them blasted the whole thing to make it look uniform. That’s an option.

I don’t know anything about tumbling I’ll have to look into that.


I'll probably end up doing a semi-polish becasue I want it to look QV stock, but I kind of like the red TR cam covers so I could just keep right on spraying

 

Thanks.

I'm hoping to do another test fit in the car in about a week before I get going on the trans adapting. I'm going to try and rough everything in before doing much finish work on anything.

Mark

 

After a little digging it looks like a vibratory machine would be the way to go....but to buy one big enough is a tad pricey, $2100 was the best I found. I guess I could make something for a few hundred dollars....or I could sand.....

 

Oh come on, it's not that bad.

I pretty much finished the 1st side of the timing cover tonight. I need to add some radius work, but I didn’t have the cutter I wanted to use. Then I gave is a quick hit with the sander for Tillman to hide the welds
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Now that I'm almost done with the cover

the biggest problem I have with belts is at my normal 3-5k per year it'll be 20 years before I hit the mileage, but the belt still need to be changed every 5 years. The chain on the other hand will last 100k miles regardless of how many years it takes me to get there.

Space is also a problem. The chain spaces about an inch I think.....plus I'm almost done setting up for it.....

 

The casging is pretty low quality, very rough. I don't thing beam blasting would be nearly enough to blend the smooth machined areas into the rough cast area. It looks like the factory did some grinding to clea things up then sandblasted the whole thing to blend it. I Think I'm going to sand it the whole thing down to about a 400 grit and call it done. That won't take more than a few hours and it will give a nice uniform look.

I've got what I think is a good plan for the camcovers too now. I'm going to weld the top of the chain cover to the cam cover as I said earlier. Then I'll paint the the u-shapes piece formed by the chain cover and the 2 raises cam ares on the cam cover and leave the center part bare aluminum making it look very similar to the 400 engine or the earlier 4 cam engines. That will get me red on the can covers without so much red that I can't paint the air block red like it should be on a QV. I think the plug wires can run down the center of the cam cover to keep everything tucked in and neat.

 

I've used that stuff before, but hadn't thought of it for this. After I get the cover sanded to a point that is can be scotch-brited I'll give it a go.

No pictures today. I started the second side of the cover, got the corners cut out and plated welded in on the front. I need to figure out how I'm going to do the back where the head sticks into it a bit and not screw-up where the chain tensioner sits.....

I bunch of material showed up yesterday, some plate for the back of the cover, bar stock for the mods I'm planning to the cam covers, the bar stock to make the trans adapter rails (next week maybe), the 4150 steel for the new head studs, and some new line for the tig torch to replace the ones I damaged, cut and repaired several times during the whole block welding fiasco that’s just a bad memory now...and on that note, 10 more lbs of welding rod.

I need to get the big stuff done quick….my mother-in-law who has been staying with us to help with the baby will be leaving in 3 weeks and I don't kow when or if she'll be coming back. So time to spend in the shop will be much harder to come by. I think I also found my next project (that will make this one look perfectly normal and simple and of course includes another v12), so this one has to get done.
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That was years and years ago....like about 1988 I think. I got it running but sold it before finishing the body work, I don't have your skill with metal it turns out. Anyway, a guy came to look at an ultralite plane I had for sale and left with the plane and the fiadillac.

Very scary car, the eldorado drivetrain put too little weight on the front wheels, it really needed a 200-300lb front bumper. It turned up on ebay a few years ago looking exatctly like it did when I sold it, here's the description that went with the add:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/12159/message/1061589497/saved+for+posterity

If I had it to do again, it would get a different trans....I almost used a porsche trans and a SBC and it would have been better that way. Even better would be a 308/328 drivetrain, that would be an awsome car,particularly for autocrosses and such, but too similar to the 308 in concept but in a less good kind of way to make me want to pull the trigger and do it.

The Fiat Topolino on the other hand is a front engine car so it's a whole different animal and I think they look pretty good once they are streched 2 or 3 feet. When I originally bought the 308 I was actually looking for an old hotrod but didn't come across anything that really did it for me. I didn't have a place to build one at the time, so I changed directions and bought the 308 which I just love, butI'd still like a hotrod and done have a place to build one now. A topolino with a chrom-moly space frame, 4 wheel independant suspension, a 400/412 (.....or maybe 456/550 engine if the budget will allow) would be pretty cool.
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Oh man! It was beautiful before, and it’s looking better this time! Had I know your plans I would have asked thatr you cut the fenders off neat and ship them over, I could use wider tires

As far as “legal” goes, my project technically has a few issues too…….

 

That is a very good point.

 

I could and I might becasue it's easy but I would prefer a more OEM look.