We've been making some progress on the 55. The windows are in and most of the interior is done. We also made some adapters to mount the electric water pump. We started with a big block pump. Then we took the legs off and changed them so that the part that usually goes to the block goes to the pump instead. That widened things out enough that we could make a couple of adapter plates out of thick aluminum. We had to drill the water passage on an angle through the adapter plate but it worked out fine.
I almost forgot about the tunnel ram. It's not done yet but it's coming along pretty well. We're making it out of steel because I can't weld aluminum very well. I used 1/4" thick 4" flat bar for the two runners that bolt to the heads. That's pretty heavy but I didn't want the welding to warp them too much. I'm also going to use 1/4" for the carb mounting surface, everything else is 16 gage. The total distance from the back of the valve to the plenum is a little less than 12" so it should boost the horsepower in the 5,400 to 6,400 range.
I think we're going to run the factory manifold that's already on the engine we're going to put in first. Then, once we've got the car dialed in we'll install the tunnel ram so that we can see how much difference it makes.
You're pro fabricators.
bang He hopes to finish it tomorrow. I'll post some pictures when he's done.
