My Street Version Port Injection for the '55

[PlainBrownR2]

Yes, R3 headers have been around for a long, long time. Dave Thibeault, Jon Myers, Phil Harris, etc, would sell those. If you want to make up some of your own, they also sell the header flange blanks, which are just the flanges with the square ports. The blanks are what I would be using, as there are no turbo headers available for a Stude V8.

[PlainBrownR2]

Well, I said I'd make mention of a hood project for later, I guess this would be later!
For the past few weeks, I've been building up a supply of fiberglass cloth(we're up to about 3 layers for the edges, 5-6 for the nose) to try my hand at building a mold of the hood. The objective revolves around dissipating heat, and providing fresh air to a pair of my Spectre cone filters that would be attached to the inlets of the turbos. Well, this is what I had in mind:



The objective is not so much to save on weight, but like the fuel injection and the turbos, to create a custom piece for the car. It'd also bring in fresh air through the NACA ducts in the front of the hood, and vent the heat from the cowl induction. That part of the project would also finish the air pickup, since I'm running around without the filters at the moment. In this application though, the cowl induction would have a secondary role, since there isn't a large round paper filter under that cowl, and the vehicle is not carbureted. The scoop back there would be a way to vent the heat out when it got hot, and the air was still(say like if I was stuck in traffic). This situation is one that I know all too well with the Lark, stuck in traffic in 90 degree weather with all that heat, and no place to go! The Lark wasn't all that bad once I put in the big fan, shroud, and recored the radiator, but good Lord did it still like to get warm! I know a few of you have hoods like this for sale, but I'd like to try my hand at working with fiberglass. This was a bucket list item of mine, right under carbon fiber. I may also need these skills for whatever the day comes when I need to redo the finish on my fiberglass fenders for the Lark, so it could be defined as a win-win.

So far, I've amassed a stockpile of cloth, a little leftover resin, some hardener, and some Great Stuff expanding foam for the structural ribs underneath. I'm still short on resin, brushes, tinfoil, and maybe a jar of Vaseline to spread over the "plug". As far as progress after that, I'll keep y'all posted ........

[PlainBrownR2]

I pulled my Ebay ANL fuse and its holder out of the car today. For the past couple days, I was having trouble getting the car to roll over, even with a rebrushed and replaced starter. The car was having starter issues, and kept blowing its 300 amp fuse, so on a whim, I took the battery cable and wired it directly to the battery as it was wired in the Studebaker shop manuals. I started the car, and not more than a 1/4 of a turn, and away it would go where before it would just crank and crank and crank, and eventually would blow the fuse. I figured the holder is behaving like a resistor, and its not providing the required amperage to the starter. The subsequent cranking would heat up every one of my connections, and since these systems are only as strong as the weakest link, the fuse would sense something was amiss when it was not, and it'd blow. While taking it out, one of the thin aluminum terminals that connects to the battery cable literally broke off of the housing on the fuse holder, so that further substantiated that this might have been a problem area ever since it went in the car.

In short, it more than likely takes more than 300 amps to turn these 6V starters over, and if you buy one of these to use in the starting system(this was made for a high end stereo), it needs to be stoutly constructed!

[PlainBrownR2]

Chuffing along before it became too cold, I installed my cone filters on the '55. I had bought these things two Christmases ago, so it was about time that they ended up on the car. There were two of them that were needed, because there are two turbos, which meant two inlets to put something in front of them(makes sense right?) . Anyway, after finding some places on the engine, I first fashioned a sort of shelf or box to hold the air filter. The bracket was also an adapter to a smaller hose behind it, which fed into the inlet on the turbo. The first one looked good, but needed to be cut down a bit, so I can get to the spark plugs with a wrench.....







After I got rightie in, it was now leftie's turn. I built its bracket in the same fashion, and installed it to the rail that attaches my coil packs. Space was tight for the hoses for both, but I managed to get them on......





You'll notice that the symmetry is off on the air filters. There was some compromise needed here, because a very important alternator is occupying the same space that the air filter should be in, so this was the next best solution....



How does it run? Well, quite well. I thought the heat from the pipes would have problems with the inlet hose, but after a spin in the yard, it doesn't bother it, so it's probably pretty good.

After repairing my driver's side horn, on to bigger and better things!!

[Corley]

Are you having fun yet? Seems to me you are having more fun than a barrel of monkeys with that Studie!! Good on you!!

[PlainBrownR2]

Well, if anything, if I'm not having fun, it is keeping me busy!!

[PlainBrownR2]

While my '55 is currently indisposed for a rear shock replacement, I decided to hop on getting my fiberglass hood project underway. The steps so far are pretty simple.

First we remove hood........


Then we cover open hole with a waterproof barrier.......




Soon after, we set hood on something solid, and cover it in tinfoil. After covering it in tinfoil we then pop it in the oven for 300 degrees for 45 minutes.



Nah, not really. The tinfoil is used as a wedge to keep the fiberglass resin from bonding with the hood. PVA is also a good choice, as well as carnuba wax. Anything to allow the "plug" to separate from the copied part.

I wanted a cowl induction scoop integrated into the mold with a minimum(or maximum) 4 inch rise, so I used some styrofoam blocks and cardboard forms to smooth out the transition. This is where I stopped for today as well....

[Corley]

You making a mold or just trying to copy the shape? Seems like a tinfoil mold release will make it pretty rough/crinkly. I'd probably just shoot it with a mold release wax.

[bezhawk]

Don't forget that the resin in the fiberglass will "melt" the styrofoam blocks.

[Corley]

Don't forget that the resin in the fiberglass will "melt" the styrofoam blocks.

This is true, but you can also use that to your advantage on certain FG parts. Cover the styrofoam really well with something that the resin can't get through, then after it is all set, you can melt the styrofoam out leaving a big cavity. This is great for parts where you would not normally be able to remove a mold, due to physical limitations. This does not appear to apply in your case however, as you should be able to remove things with ease.

[PlainBrownR2]

Yep, or so I read, that styrofoam reacts to the chemicals in the resin. We're hoping that this will be a one time use only, where when it hardens, and I can just punch out the blocks. The way this will work is, I'll lay the fiberglass on top of it, and then smooth out the topside if necessary. The tinfoil is pretty thin, so its job is to conform to the shape of the hood. If there's any crinkles, they will be on the underside of the hood. Hopefully with the number of layers that I planned out, the crinkles in the tinfoil won't show through to the topside.

[Corley]

You DO know that making the top side smooth is going to be one horrible ordeal, right? You better make it pretty thick, because you will be doing a lot of grinding, sanding, blocking, etc. This is why people use molds...

[Noxnabaker]

Now WAIT A MINUTE... I thought you already HAD a fibre-glass hood & was only making the scoop on it... Hmmm... This sure changes the thoughts & words on the Racing site...

[PlainBrownR2]

Oh no! I'm going for all the marbles and making up a new hood from fiberglass with a scoop integrated into it! What's on the Racing site is a rehash of the same project over here!

[Noxnabaker]

Yeah I know it's the same stuff, but I thought you were gonna build a scoop on a fibreglass hood you already had...