[covertopps]

My partner and I have an idea of doing a resto mod on a 1963 Dodge Polara 500 convertible. We have a 1962 413 with a typical Cater 4bbl for the day. We have a set of long rams and are thinking of doing a twin turbo, one for each long ram. Obviously the engine would need to be worked on first. We are trying to get the details in our heads but just not sure if it is workable. Any ideas out there?

 

[dana44]

Anything is possible. I would suggest forged pistons for starters, and starting with lower boost. A turbo on each of the two long horn rams should produce a good amount of power, hope the rest of the car can handle the power potential.

 

[Sir Moses Wellington]

With the longrams, isn't that effectively supposed to create a tunnel ram effect to the point that it effectively supercharges it mechanically? This is something I heard a while back and I'm wondering if that's true, and if true, how that would effect the tubocharging.

 

[dana44]

Yes, the long rams to produce a sonic ram effect, which at higher rpm packs the intake runners with a greater charge to increase power. Pretty mild on the bottom end of the rpm band, but get her up to the 3000rpm range and above and it essentially increases the intake charge with the longer runners. Take a turbo to the runners, like a through carb setup, and it will work like a long tube intake, probably able to reduce the turbo lag for the most part, make it work real well overall.

 

[Sir Moses Wellington]

Hmm, so he would effectively like to select some smaller or mid-sized turbos to help pull in the bottom end and then the boost on top of the tunnel rams should help even more? Sounds decent to me, if that works out. But I guess it really depends on what he wants to use it for, an actual truck or drag racing. If it's an actual truck, might want to use big turbos.

 

[ImperialCrown]

If this is for street, another consideration would be if the engine would be using pump gas. If it already has say, a 10.5:1 compression ratio, it would require expensive premium gas and a lot of it. Adding turbo boost may cause damaging detonation even with expensive 'racing' fuels. Dished pistons with 8.5:1 compression might better handle a turbo.
Around here there are only a couple of places for racing fuel that range from $12-$17 per gallon. Affordable for low-consumption, recreational machines like motorbikes and snowmobiles, but it sure can take the fun out of driving an old car for a day.

 

[dana44]

No, he doesn't need premium gas, since he has to get good pistons, go with dished pistons. Remember, 87 octane can handle around 15:1 compression without pinging, it is the combustion chamber and hotspots within the combustion chamber which will cause the pinging. If it doesn't ping at idle, it is a matter combustion control and spark advance curve to prevent it. You are still going to make more power with the added forced induction, even with a reduced or slower advance curve. So what he will need to do is calculate the needed dish piston in forged or hypertec to get an even 8:1, edge the combustion chambers (these should be closed chamber heads, edges need to be rounded, valves need to have sharp edges removed, too), and yes, control that advance curve. The computer controlled cars reduce advance when boost kicks in, same with NOs systems, same thing here, right? Helpls save the engine from higher temps this way, and, one advantage is, add higher octane increases power, but he can run around with 87 octane without a problem, save a bit of money and not have a problem if he gets stuck somewhere with cheap (quality) gas. And yes, two small turbos, one for each side, and the intake is right there, and the carb is right there, and yes, it would be pretty cool and compact, not so much ducting all over the place to hide the engine.

 

[Sir Moses Wellington]

I hope he's going to be running a new aluminum radiator and a decent sized intercooler with this combo, I can see this getting rather warm otherwise.

 

[dana44]

Yeah, I don't know a ton about turbo setups, but it is a lot more than just slapping turbos on an engine. There is quite a bit of engineering needed to do this right. Point is, it can be done and it can be pretty cool at the same time. Being a 413 he doesn't need a whole lot of boost to make her push an easy 650-700hp and make her difficult to run on the street.

 

[awyseguy]

I often thought that would be an awesome under hood sight.. except I always pictured it fuel injection as well.. Mount a throttle body to each long ram. Would it balance or confuse it to use the exhaust of one bank to feed the turbo for the opposing bank; or would the exhaust HAVE to drive the turbo for the corresponding intake?

 

[dana44]

Electronicaly controlling the engine would be a good idea, given it can offset many of the through carb problems a turbo engine has, but don't give up on a carb engine too fast, they can be a lot of fun, electronics can be just as difficult. I think it would be easier to balance the engine with two small turbos than one big one and crossing over. Since the engine design and intake design dictates the engine will basically be two four cylinder engines since the intake does not pressurize equally, perhaps a turbo feed crossover tube would be something to think about. At the same time, one bank could be shut off and essentially have a 4 cylinder engine when wanted, but that doesn't work really, the intake runners are set up differently than with a regular dual plane intake, so disregard that idea.

 

[covertopps]

Hmmmm, good ideas guys. I will give you a bit of background. I restore and flip Chrysler cars. Up to now they have all been faithfull recreations of the originals right down to the date coded parts. That works pretty well and the cars that I/we do are mostly the basket cases that others have given up on. My partner that I do cars with picked up a 1963 Dodge Polara 5oo convertible. The car it typical of what we would normaly tackle. A lot missing, a lot of sheet metal replacement like floors trunk lower quarters so on and so forth. After looking at the car we realized very quickly that a faithfull rotisserie restoration will not pull very good money. It would probably be a break even or a loss. Rather than ditching the car we started to think of different ideas. A 5.7 Hemi came up, but it doesn't have a wow factor. A vintage 426 has been done a few times and Hemi cars right now are on the downside of the market. I have had a set of long rams for a while now. I had been looking for a 300 or soimething to use them on. We started to think of using them on the Polara but a few problems pop up quickly. The Polara doesn't take the long rams without mods to the engine compartment. If we have to retro the engine compartment we thought we might as well try a resto mod ala Foose. Our issue right off the bat was the location of the turbo setup if we decided to go that route. We did figure on a set of Hyper style KB pistons, or forged Ross or Diamonds. Not really looking for crazy power, more like a WOW factor when you pop the stock hood. We need to start with the possibilities first, to see if it is even workable. As far as I know, no one has ever done this to a long ram set up and I am trying to figure out how the turbo will work with the natural sonic properties of the long rams. Right now it sounds like a really cool idea, but that doesn't mean it's worth it. This would be a streetable car, not any kind of drag car.

 

[awyseguy]

I think think twin turbo with dual TBI units would be serious wow factor.. Left bank exhaust to turbo to Right bank turbo to long ram and vice versa..

 

[ImperialCrown]

There is a lot of science involved and probably a lot of 'trial and error' (hopefully none fatal) either.
A kit would ease the conversion. Engine bay room may not be enough for twin-turbo, even in a full-size Chrysler.
Steve Morris video: http://youtu.be/4dcxe6lkugs

 

[dana44]

Being it is not for all out power, remember what Corvette did a few years back with turbos? Can't remember who it was, LIngenfelter or someone, but they actually moved the turbos down and out of the way because of room issues, back of the wheels if I remembe correctly, so room was not an issue. Smaller turbos without an intercooler would work up to 7psi boost, located out of the way but a pretty chrome tube running from somewhere out of the way to the twin carbs. It would keep it clean and cool looking at the same time, and yes, EFI could be a plus if you went that way, hide the injectors under the intake manifold for cleanliness, pointing upwards, under the runners and hidden above the valley pans, use the stock carbs as throttle bodies (there is a guy that does this for classics, he plugs every single orafice in the carb and installs a throttle position sensor to the carb and AIS into the intake for idle control, Mopar Muscle did an article on a 392 dual carb intake about 8 years ago). It would be clean and a one-off car. Good choice on the pistons, might want to do a roller cam upgrade, too. might do better with the EFI if you go that route.

 

[awyseguy]

Dana.. Nice touch with converting the carbs to throttle bodies..as well as hiding the injectors.. but even hiding them would entail actually putting injector bungs into the long tube manifold.. I thought of that; but was afraid to suggest in case he actually did it..
Will the big block manifold fit if flipped; or would possibly some shorty headers work better?

 

[dana44]

That's one that would have to be checked, flipping the exhaust manifolds, but I don't think it would work, the dumps would be right under the intake manifold. I would think drilling the bungs and tapping them on the underside would be something that could be hidden enough to, if a person wanted, simply put a screw plug in if he went back to carb and got rid of EFI. I think it would still hide plugs enough one would never know they were ever there. Being cast iron, can't weld them very well (special rod and someone that knows how to do it), so drill, tap and epoxy to seal should do it. I am not a big fan of seeing classic engines that were not originally EFI with the fuel rails and bungs sticking up, so I am more prone to figure a way to hide them. Back to the turbos and exhaust, given it is for a little more fun and not all out power, hide the turbos out of the way instead of trying to get them shorter runs, do the longer runners and kind of live with it. Figure if the air is being compressed and run through an intercooler, by eliminating the intercooler and the tubes being shorter than all that, with lower boost it should be pretty responsive.

 

[covertopps]

Sorry guys I have been gone for a few days at the Mecum Auction in Kissimmee. For the exhaust we were thinking of custom headers. We have a good friend who is great with Hot Rod stuff and he does amazing stuff with headers. We have been thinking of small turbos probably toward the front of the engine and criss cross the tubes to the carbs, but is has to be clean looking, and thats a tough one to get around. One thing we do have is a full front clip from a donor car with a full dress 383. This was a 4 door car and cut off just behind the windshield. Full dash, widshield, and about half of the front floor. So there is a good place to lay things out before going to the actual car. After going to Mecum for three and a half days and seeing over 1000 cars I can say there is nothing like that, at least at their show. I guess this is more about bling and pop under the hood. Of course the car would get proper updrades like front disc brakes, some fairly large wheels (maybe 17") to fill up the fenders. The color will be triple black, with a full rotisserie restoration. The dashboards in the 63 Polaras are pretty cool looking. The grill is something you either love or hate, but the profile of the car is great. We would probably lower it just a bit, to give it a longer look. We are still picking away at it, and I am greatful for the tips and ideas. There was a 426 fuel injected Hemi station wagon (NewYorker) at Kissimmee. 1977? woody wagon, clean, really nice interior, great looking car. the bid went to 13,000.00 with a massive Hemi under the hood. Needless to say it didn't sell. That was a waste of time, money, and talent. Wrong thing to do with a huge 70's wagon. That is why we are trying to get this right before jumping in. It sounds cool, it falls in the resto Mod catagory which can be good, but it is an unknown, and thats scarey. lol.

 

[dana44]

When one starts talking about turbos, they expect to see giant numbers and a large intercooler up front. There does get to be a point when too much for the street becomes scary for most people, so the volume of potential buyers goes down. We have gotten to the age of liking fuel injection systems over carburetors, I do like the hiding of the injectors as I noted earlier, heck, there is also a system with the cross ram dual plane 426 Hemi intake where the injectors are actually plumbed on the inside of the intake since it is kind of a big box from valve cover to valve cover ( I think it is the Hemi Super Stock intake), so everything is still hidden and the carbs are simply turned into throttle bodies (plug all the orafices and install an IAC into the manifold for idle purposes) and to me this is pretty cool. From the outside one cannot tell the difference between a 413 and a 440 until you look at the pad stamp, but that isn't a deal killer if it is a 413, just numbers there. Back to the turbos in the front, yeah, they look cool, but no intercooler, lots just say, huh, an add-on, not a lot of power, so goes the opposite of too much power for the street, so it is almost a half wash of too much, or half-arsed. Moving up to an overdrive four or five speed auto or manual transmission can be a plus for a custom, and not a hard addition, aftermarket has figured out the ability to make them work without a computer so that is nice. Lowering the front ends is very easy with the torsion bars, I like the front suspension to be within half an inch of the lower control arm rubber bumper. Makes them sit down on the highway better, an quickens the lean during turning and it doesn't require special suspension parts, so that is a cheap correction, heavier torsion bars are a plus, too, especially with the RB block.

 

[covertopps]

I think the torsion bars might need to be upgraded to a larger size. The early convertibles were fairly heavy beasts as I have been told. We are trying to stay away from to many obvious mods. The car has a great look all by itself so if we get goofy with wheels that are to big, or to much bling, that can turn people off. We have a 1963 413 that came from a NewYorker so it is a stout motor to begin with. A 440 is so much easier to get stuff for but the 413 has a following, but m,ostly from much older folks. It's all guesswork. We know that triple black is a good way to go, we know that a full rotisserie is the way to go, we know that upgrades especially for braking is the way to go. Exhaust could help the car if it is a bit flashy but not trashy. Maybe a couple of slash cut rectangles just in front of each rear wheel. We will definately stay with the pushbutton transmission. Time to get out a sketch pad and draw up some ideas.