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Lifer wrote:Thanks for the guidance, MM. Don't know why I didn't follow the instructions in the first place.

Anyway, there's something "sinful" about that engine. Reciprocating, internal combustion engines just aint supposed to turn that many RPM. That exhaust header looked like it was about ready to melt, too! That thing just plain scares the crap outta me!

Aye Captain she's gonna blow!

made a jig to hold the blowers in alignment, then worked on the serp belt routing. Came up with a BEAUTIFUL routing that has over 180* of wrap on the drive and second blower, and 180* on the first blower, along with a single idler that will be loaded with an autotensioner arm. Simple, elegant, and should be effective. The "Vee" between the two blowers will also still give me a good spot to route the turbo inlet pipe in from the air cleaner on the fender. Now, I just have to design the manifolds that connec the blowers to the heads:

Been playing with multiple different mounting orientations and came up with the determination that my original plan of a 90* "V" would be the best. I made two 3/8" thick head plates. They need to be finished out yet, but they are close enough for now, and I welded spacers in to hold the distanc between the heads.



I then squared up the flanges to the blowers, and mocked up the plenums using foamboard:















I then cut the parts out of 1/8" steel plate, as the boost pressure could be as high as 20 PSI when I am done, and the long side by the valve cover has a surface area of about 65 square inches, and at 20 PSI there would 1300 lbs of force trying to bend that plate!

I tacked them all together, and then test fit on the engine. I need to break a few tacks and make some adjustments, but, it is 90% there.







I then bought the factory supercoupe jackshaft pulleys and mounts and tensioner from one of my coworkers, and he gave me an old belt to try the mockup with:





looks very promising. I might need a hair longer belt, but it is close.

then, a few pictures of the plenums without the blowers sitting on top:









I'm sure you are wondering how I plan to attahc the blowers. I'm going to drill holes through the mounting flange, and through the sidewals of the plenum boxes, and weld in compression sleeves. The bolts will pass through the sleeves, and thread into the blowers.

I'll mount my injectors down between the plenums, at a 90* angle to the inside wall. They will be nice and hidden, giving it a clean look. I'll also need to weld in a balance tube between the blowers to balance the vacuum signal between the banks. Finally, I'm going to make two plates, once the blowers are hard mounted to the plenums. One at the front, coming off the 4 bolts of the blower case closest to the V, and one across the back, to hold alignment between the blowers, and prevent them from spreading. Finally, I'll make a jackshaft bearing mount on the front to support one end of the jackshaft and autotensioner pulley, and a second mount on the front of the water pump for the other end with the cog belt. I printed off my hub plans, and dropped them off at a local machine shop, I should get a quote back on it sometime next week.

Josh wrote: I'm sure you are wondering how I plan to attahc the blowers.

Actually, I'm beginning to wonder where the block and rotating assembly failure points are... Or is this 400 a dummy block for building purposes and you've got another tricked out Mopar race block sitting in a corner with some Brodix blower heads and some unobtanium pistons and rods and such...

Seriously though, I consider my self a decent fabricator and a reasonably smart guy, but I will hands down offer up my "Oh wow!" to you. You've got some serious skills my friend.

Thanks Ray. The engine is bone stock, except for some mild tweaking of the head ports. I don't anticipate it to last for forever, but, I paid $500 for everything from the fan to teh rear output yoke on the T case when I got it. It should put up with 500-600 HP for a few years, so long as I dont run lean with it, jack the EGT's up too high, and frag a piston. The block, crank, and rods will take it. Anything north of 600 for any length of time will cause issues though.

I'm not sure what the limit of this setup is, probably somewhere around 1200-1400 HP, but, I'm only shooting for half of that to give me a factor of safety.

Most people have not driven a turbo car, but, for those that have, they know it's not necessarily all about peak power, but, the area under the curve. I could build a 2500 HP engine no problem, but, it would be undrivable on the street, due to it's lightswitch like power curve. When I had my turbo escort, I put on too large of a turbo, combined with a compression ratio lowered to 7.8:1, and it was miserable to drive. Either it would be on, or off. The next setup had a 9.5:1 compression, and only ran 1/2 the boost, but it was on a much mroe responsive turbo, so the car was more fun, and made almost the same power.

My goal here is to do something truly insane, while making it usable and drivable. I could run 10 PSI off the blowers, and 20 PSI off the turbos, and end up somewhere around 40 PSI, at the piston, the setup will do it, but, thats not my goal, my goal is moderate power, with drivability... and, when I pop the hood, to watch people's eyeballs bug out.

It's the reason I won't drive anything with a SBC in it... it's way, way to easy! My boss keeps telling me to go stick a GM LS2 in it with a cam and headers and be done with it... my response to that is... YAWN!!!!

Josh wrote: It's the reason I won't drive anything with a SBC in it... it's way, way to easy! My boss keeps telling me to go stick a GM LS2 in it with a cam and headers and be done with it... my response to that is... YAWN!!!!

That type of thinking I can appreciate! Precisely why I chose the 428 instead of the SBC for my build.

I'm fairly certain that you won't have any issues with making people eye's pop out of thier head!

Scored some parts for the rig. Got TWO Ramsey RE12000 Winches, brand new off a member on here (Thanks Kevin for the GREAT deal! Was great to meet you in person and talk shop!). Here is one, the other is in the garage.



The plan is to replace the front LU4 with one, and then make a trailer hitch mount to mount the second on the back. I also plan on making some hitch mounts that will bolt to the sides of the frame, just in front of the rear tires for this:




It is a folding crane. The small tube sticking up at the bottom will be a receiver where the winch will bolt on, then stick through the crane with a pin, then pin into the receiver on the truck, either in the back, or on the sides. This way, when I go junkyard hunting, I can pull stuff up to the side of the truck, and pick it up with the crane.

A hydraulic foot will be pinned into the bottom hole, and extend down to hold the weight of the crane off the truck frame. The boom will have an extension joint, and the sliding slip ring will adjust the mounting point for the cylinder that will raise and lower the boom, and I'll mount a small 2K lb winch on top near the swing joint to lift the load. The collar is designed to swivel, so it will swing round 360*. Best part is that it will fold down small enough to fit into the toolbox pocket in the bed!

Arm extended out:



arm extension folded in:

I had one of those Ramsey winches - only in the 6000lb capacity. Great winch - never could make it stop pulling, but it was mighty slow - the no load line speed was about 6 feet per minute. It takes along time to put 100' of cable back on the drum. But when you're stuck - you have nothing but time anyway!

Good score. And I like the porta-crane idea! As a thought - you could use the ram from a porta-power setup; keep it portable even. Then you could also have some hydraulic power for moving and spreading stuff in the salvage yard. Multipurpose makes things handy!

good idea on the Porta-Power Ray!

Sorry guys, keeping all the brackets, and the cases. You wouldnt want the set I have anyways, as they are home made jobbies, not the original stamped ones.

If anyone needs the main shaft, selector shaft, clutch, worm gear, etc all of that is avilable and in good shape... Just the bull gear got FUBAR.

finished mounting the front winch, on to the rear one. Here is the front however:

the carrier for the winch:







C channel brackets on the frame. This is how Dodge should have done it to start. It captures all 5 of the 1/2" bolts:





Old brackets over the new ones, you'll see why in a bit:





Roller fairlead is mounted to the carrier. I put it up high enough that it should feed straight out on the 4th and 3rd wraps, as I figure there will be very few times I spool out enough cable to get down to layers 1 and 2:



only downside to my mounting job... motor hangs down a bit. I might come back later and make a little skidplate for it:



still plenty of room to get the wire lugs on the motor studs. I plan on mounting the solenoids up on the firewall:



Mounted in, all 1/4" plate or tube:







and, here is the reason for the original brackets. I love the look of the original winch, but, since mine got trashed, I did the next best thing and made the original cases into covers, so the new one looks like the original. I bet 98% of the people who will ever look at it wont' even be able to tell it's not original. They are not finalized in their locations yet, just kinda sitting on top for now:







I am going to make covers that bolt to the insides of the cases to hide the original drum shaft holes:

That is a pretty spectacular "faux" braden winch!

Just food for thought - every winch I've ever seen has the cable spool onto the drum from the bottom - not the top. This would lead me to think that the fairlead is mounted way too high from the looks of your pictures, or is this a trick of the camera angle? Good idea on lining the fairlead up with the cable from the 3rd and 4th wraps.

I've often wondered why cables are wound on winches this way, and the best answer I ever got was that the cable going on the drum from the bottom does a better job pulling the truck up an obstacle (like a bank or log). The winch in theory rides up on top of the cable creating lift. With the cable being wound in from the top of the drum this lift isn't available, and the winch actually works harder for the same given load. I'm sure there is a better way to explain the theory, but I don't know the terms, so this will have to suffice.

Any thoughts?

Kick ass install though - well done!

Simple logic would seem to indicate that winding the cable on from the bottom side might provide a lifting effect, but in most cases it would merely be an illusion. In order to get any lift out of it, the end of the cable would have to be anchored significantly higher than the winch drum. Even then, the "lift" would be negligible at first and slowly increase as the vehicle drew closer to the anchor point.

Using a fairlead totally cancels out any "advantage." Either way, the cable would be directed to the center of the spool. [/u]

Lifer wrote:Simple logic would seem to indicate that winding the cable on from the bottom side might provide a lifting effect, but in most cases it would merely be an illusion. In order to get any lift out of it, the end of the cable would have to be anchored significantly higher than the winch drum. Even then, the "lift" would be negligible at first and slowly increase as the vehicle drew closer to the anchor point.

Using a fairlead totally cancels out any "advantage." Either way, the cable would be directed to the center of the spool. [/u]

I can appreciate that point - but when a vehicle is stuck in a hole its usually lower than the anchor point right?

Perhaps it has more to do with the gear train in a modern winch. Perhaps the gears are stronger when turned in one direction over the other. When powering in with the cable on the top of the drum, it turns in the opposite direction compared to winding it from the bottom. Perhaps a call to the winch manufacturer would be the best way to determine which way to wind the cable on the drum.

I only base this observation on every winch I've ever seen winds from the bottom. There must be some logic behind it.

Ray, you are correct, I do have the cable coming out backwards, but, the fairlead looked btter riding high, than low. If it ends up being a problem, I can always move it to the bottom. I would think it would work fine in either direction though, as it is a series wound motor, with a spur gear double reduction, and a worm drive on the drum, so the drive shouldnt really care which way it is turned under load.

[quote="Master Yota]I only base this observation on every winch I've ever seen winds from the bottom.[/quote]
That's interesting, especially since every winch I've ever seen winds from the top. The winch on our local service station's wrecker winds from the top, as did the blade winch on my dad's Caterpillar tractor, all the cable winches on the power shovel in the rock quarry where I worked, the winch on my brother-in-law's race car trailer, the hand-cranked winch on my boat trailer, the winch on the roll-back that brought my wife's car home when the trans went out on it and the "winches" on my favorite fishing poles. Physically, I can't see where it would make one whit of difference which way it wound on.