1946 Ford Coupe project

I've been involved with many forms of racing most of my life. Started with Motocross, moved onto Kart racing, now into building street rods as a hobby. Built a 1948 Anglia from the ground up for my first real build. Sold it, to radical for the street, to slow for the track :) Family grew made the decision to sell easier. Now I'm deep into another build, 1946 Ford Coupe, tube chassis, 496 BB. Being involved with a Nostalgia Nitro front engine rail has got the need for speed boiling once again. Looking forward to working with my new PT200DX!!!!

Without pictures... didn't happen :)

Let's see some shots! I miss working on cars and trucks sometimes, kinda got the itch right after I traded my 72 GMC last year. It had sat for near two years without being touched and a trade for an old ironhead sporty came up almost as a joke, next thing I knew, truck was gone and I was back to bikes only.

Here are a couple shots.

Tire fitment.
Attachment 8834

Door bars
Attachment 8833

Once teh chassis work is done, the next phase is re-paint. The paint is 25+ years old, still in great shape but that color went out in teh 80's.

It will be black with bright red leather interior, all the stock trim and bumpers. Also building a 496 BB. I thought this build would be faster than when I built my Anglia, but isn't turning out that way.

The Anglia was my first ground up build.

Attachment 8835

Here's the shot of teh trunck area.
Attachment 8836

Very nice. Keep the project pictures coming. Looks like an expensive hobby, but that is a cool looking ride. I kill the dup picture for you.

Attachment 9125Attachment 9126Some additional progress images.
Some days it feel like I don't get anything accomplished.

Waiting for the CK 130 amp torch to arrive and get more practice time on the 200DX, really love that machine.

I too enjoy the hobby of cars and you have very nice ones. The 496 is a good choice. My girlfriends father just had a 496 BB built with roller rockers, mild cam, 9.0:1 wedge pistons and some other small goodies. Motor put down 611hp and pretty high TQ but I don't remember the numbers exactly. It wasn't dropped into a car like yours but rather a 73 chevelle. I am looking forward to seeing some more from your projects.

Are you running chromoly tubes in the chassis?
What are your plans with the body?

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Originally Posted by Spike

Are you running chromoly tubes in the chassis?
What are your plans with the body?

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All of the round tube is chrome moly.

The body is going to stay as stock as possible, with all the factory trim.


Plans are to repaint in black base coat/clear coat. The body fortunately is very straight.


I've been visiting the chevelle sites, a ton of information on 496 BB builds.

496 bbc... Nice.
Is it a new one or a punched out 454? You can make some serious power out of those things, especially if you're going the forced induction route. they're still pretty reliable as long as you don't loose your head when designing and building them. I've known people with 1000-1100HP 496s that could still drive them on the street.

My girlfriends dads is built to run on the street. I believe there is more than one way to build the 496.. Don't all 496's start out as a 454. This one I speak of was a punch 454 with a stroker crank to get to 496.

OP: Do you have more details of the motor build?

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Originally Posted by Jason

My girlfriends dads is built to run on the street. I believe there is more than one way to build the 496.. Don't all 496's start out as a 454. This one I speak of was a punch 454 with a stroker crank to get to 496.

OP: Do you have more details of the motor build?

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if you make the 496 yourself its a punched out 454, but GM sells a performance 496 block straight out of the box.

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Originally Posted by Spike

496 bbc... Nice.
Is it a new one or a punched out 454? You can make some serious power out of those things, especially if you're going the forced induction route. they're still pretty reliable as long as you don't loose your head when designing and building them. I've known people with 1000-1100HP 496s that could still drive them on the street.

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I started out with a 454.

So far, the block has been hone lined, and bored 50 over.

Will bore to final 60 over when I get the pistons and rods.


I bought a new Linatti crank.

The plan is to go mild and pump gas friendly. The goal is to have it streetable, with limited strip time.

The guy doing the machine work has dropped the ball and hasn't touched it in years. Wasn't an issue (until now) as I was working on the chassis.

Now that the chassis is getting very close to being finished, I need the motor for the next phase of the build.

Never had a Big Block in a car, all small blocks, I've been told once you go big block, you won't mess with a small block anymore.

The plan for the build is to have a super straight black stock appearing body, with a pro stock style chassis and a ground pounder motor.

Interior is going to be red leather with red carpet, gloss black cage and dash with white face Auto Meter comp gauges.

Thought about going fuel injected, but will need to learn more on that. So for now, it will be a 850 holley on a edelbrock airgap manifold, 3.5 inch full length exhaust.

I can picture it in my head, and hear it in my mind, just need to get it done :)

Sounds like it is going to be built similar to the motor I was referencing. The nice thing about the 496 is the large TQ numbers that follow with it.

This well be a good build to follow, I think. :)

on a car that's going to have a lot of tuning done to it, and lots of part swapping, a carburetor is about the easiest way to go. Its a lots easier and cheaper to swap some jets and adjust your idle mix than to have some one write a custom fuel map for you every time you swap parts. and if you're planning on making some big dyno numbers, the price for those high flow fuel rails and injector setups get to be more expensive than the best carburetors.
The downside is that carburetors are picky. And can be a bear in cold or foul weather.

You can make your own fuel rail if you're good with your welder. A length of 1 inch tube with some smaller tubes welded into it makes a fine fuel rail for super high flow rate. Just need a lathe to turn the stand-offs to the right internal diameter for whatever fuel injectors you're using. We made a few of our own in college for the SAE car.

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Originally Posted by Spike

on a car that's going to have a lot of tuning done to it, and lots of part swapping, a carburetor is about the easiest way to go. Its a lots easier and cheaper to swap some jets and adjust your idle mix than to have some one write a custom fuel map for you every time you swap parts. and if you're planning on making some big dyno numbers, the price for those high flow fuel rails and injector setups get to be more expensive than the best carburetors.
The downside is that carburetors are picky. And can be a bear in cold or foul weather.

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Easy is relative. It all depends on what you are doing yourself or having others do. Typing a number into a computer to adjust a fuel curve, compared to removing a float bowl and swapping out a jet, not to mention having to go buy said jet if you don't have it. So cost and labor is relative. If you do almost everything yourself it is just how much you value your own time. If you send out all your work, it's how much someone else values their time. ;)
Also many changes that would require re-jetting a carb, will be automatically compensated for by a good fuel injection system.
But yes in building from scratch, FI will cost more than a carb, no doubt about it.
My favorite quote on that is one attributed to Russ Collins; "Speed is just a question of money. How fast can your wallet go?"

Rambozo,

yes, that is a great quote.

I enjoy the build process, once the build portions are done, I get lazy:)

One of my biggest problems are my own expectations of my work. I hang out with the very best fabricators, watch what Troy and Chip do and the level of the quality they achieve.

I push for the same level and usually end up frustrated that I'm not even close to their abilities. Granted, I don't have their list of equipment, or the talented members on their team.

I feel we all push to do our absolute best, but understand at some point, the project needs to move forward or it will never be completed. I've started over with so many pieces that didn't pass my quality check, each time making it marginally better. Mistakes are what we learn from. I know my work won't be to the pro level, as long as I'm comfortable saying "I did it" that has been my gauge lately. Being a perfectionist is a downer :)

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Originally Posted by Rambozo

Easy is relative. It all depends on what you are doing yourself or having others do. Typing a number into a computer to adjust a fuel curve, compared to removing a float bowl and swapping out a jet, not to mention having to go buy said jet if you don't have it. So cost and labor is relative. If you do almost everything yourself it is just how much you value your own time. If you send out all your work, it's how much someone else values their time. ;)
Also many changes that would require re-jetting a carb, will be automatically compensated for by a good fuel injection system.
But yes in building from scratch, FI will cost more than a carb, no doubt about it.
My favorite quote on that is one attributed to Russ Collins; "Speed is just a question of money. How fast can your wallet go?"

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The main cost of adjusting a carb is jets and time. The main cost of adjusting FI is a dyno. You can figure out the right jets on a carb by installing them and taking it for a ride, reading the plugs, and just the smell of the exhaust. I would imagine you could get a carb to 95% correct without equipment except new jets and some time. Tuning a fuel injection system almost requires a dyno. Hitting every box in a fuel/throttle curve, even with a simple 10 step map would be almost impossible on the street, and definitely not legal. So getting a carb to run well takes a weekend, a case of beer, and maybe 100 bucks in jets. Hooking up a FI car just to see whats its doing takes about 25 grand to buy a dyno.

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Originally Posted by agent4573

The main cost of adjusting a carb is jets and time. The main cost of adjusting FI is a dyno. You can figure out the right jets on a carb by installing them and taking it for a ride, reading the plugs, and just the smell of the exhaust. I would imagine you could get a carb to 95% correct without equipment except new jets and some time. Tuning a fuel injection system almost requires a dyno. Hitting every box in a fuel/throttle curve, even with a simple 10 step map would be almost impossible on the street, and definitely not legal. So getting a carb to run well takes a weekend, a case of beer, and maybe 100 bucks in jets. Hooking up a FI car just to see whats its doing takes about 25 grand to buy a dyno.

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You can get a good base tune on the street and you could probably get a tune worth keeping with the proper logging setup but maintaining the environment of legal will be an issue as you change the higher end of the curves. You can however get a base tune on the street and then pay for some dyno time allowing you to dial in the tune. There are even standalone management systems that will get a base tune just by you driving it on the street. These may not be the best but it could be a starting point.

You don't necessarily "need" a dyno to tune your fuel map. You can record a full run on the street at full throttle, you just need your buddy to sit in the passenger seat with the laptop plugged into the car's computer to record the a/f ratio. Then you can tweak the fuel map and do it again.
the cost of the computer connectors and the reprogramming software is not cheap, either... And requires a lot of knowledge and technical know how to create a fuel map.

My limited knowledge with Fuel Injection has me leaning toward a carb set-up. From what I've heard from engine builders, if I choose to go FI at a later date, the mild engine combination I'm building should work with the FI, maybe a milder cam if I choose to go that route. I was looking at the MSD FI, looks to be a pretty straight forward plug-n-play unit. I also know FI requires attention with the pump and return lines to the tank. My focus now is getting the chassis completed and the car back on the ground.

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Originally Posted by Spike

You don't necessarily "need" a dyno to tune your fuel map. You can record a full run on the street at full throttle, you just need your buddy to sit in the passenger seat with the laptop plugged into the car's computer to record the a/f ratio. Then you can tweak the fuel map and do it again.
the cost of the computer connectors and the reprogramming software is not cheap, either... And requires a lot of knowledge and technical know how to create a fuel map.

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Yeah, you can do full throttle runs and tune that curve, but what about the 90% throttle runs? Or the 80%, 70% all the way down? On a carb, once you get the right size main jet with a full power run, the carb takes care of most of the tuning at all other throttle positions. Depending on the carb, you normally have 5 adjustments to make and the carb takes care of everything else; Float height, needle height, pilot size, main size, mixture screw. A simple FI system will have at least 10 RPM slots and 10 throttle positions to program. Thats 100 adjustments you have to make, which doesn't count any cold start enrichments, MAP sensor enrichments or any other inputs you're using to tune. You can easily do the WOT runs on the street and tune that, and you can probably do the no load conditions in your driveway, but everything in between is going to be a royal pain in the ###.

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Originally Posted by agent4573

Yeah, you can do full throttle runs and tune that curve, but what about the 90% throttle runs? Or the 80%, 70% all the way down? On a carb, once you get the right size main jet with a full power run, the carb takes care of most of the tuning at all other throttle positions. Depending on the carb, you normally have 5 adjustments to make and the carb takes care of everything else; Float height, needle height, pilot size, main size, mixture screw. A simple FI system will have at least 10 RPM slots and 10 throttle positions to program. Thats 100 adjustments you have to make, which doesn't count any cold start enrichments, MAP sensor enrichments or any other inputs you're using to tune. You can easily do the WOT runs on the street and tune that, and you can probably do the no load conditions in your driveway, but everything in between is going to be a royal pain in the ###.

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You can do just like a carb and plot a lot of those data points from a mathematical model and not actual testing data. You can even pull down the curves from a lot of popular carburetors as one way to get a baseline. But to be honest even a carb will only be close without some dyno time and for a lot of places the carb will be off and there is very little you can do to fix it (short of major modifications). Carbs do not keep the air fuel ratio ideal everywhere, they are always a compromise. Also so far you have only been talking about open loop FI. If you close the loop, the system can make a lot of these adjustments on the fly. FI gives you more control than a carb, but only if you desire to use it at that level. Some systems are brain dead easy to setup while others are insanely complex. BTW: there are plenty of carbs with a lot more adjustments than that, and FI with a lot less. Good FI will always perform better than good carbs, if the rules allow them. Not that I don't like carbs, I worked in a shop that set a world record and took an AHRA championship with carbs. But we also spent a lot of dyno time getting them dialed in to the best they could be. There is a reason that FI has largely replaced carbs everywhere. Hell, there are EFI lawnmowers out there. There are many types of FI, so you can't really make assumptions about all of them.