Reverse Flow Small block Chevrolet.

[droptop62]

Has anybody ever heard of or seen a Reverse flow engine.
I was at the World of Wheels Car show yesterday in Minneapolis.
And among all the high dollar restored muscle cars and Hot Rods was a group of Rat Rods. Toward the end of the display was a roadster that was made out of a coupe and pretty rough and crude like most of the rat rods. But sitting between the framrails was a small block chev with pipes coming out of the exhaust ports with single carbuerators on each one. A home made manifold where the intake should be with eight pipes come out straight up into the air. In the front of the block where you would normally see the water pump was a distributor of some sort with plug wires running to cylinders and plugs. So now the exhaust side of the engine is now used for intake, and the normal intake is now set up for exhaust. I wish now that I had a camera, or now that I think about it, I wish I would have remembered that my wifes cell phone has a camera in it.

Has anybody else seen a reverse flow engine before?

 

[doc396]

i have seen pictures of mid-engine race cars of the 60's. i think they were ford J-cars or chapperell (hope i spelled that right), you know something like that. or like a "indy" car engine? seems like it would take a lot of port mods to make it flow BETTER backwards. doc396

 

[threeimpalas]

The '92-97 LT1 is considered a "reverse flow" engine, but that's in regards to the way the coolant runs through the engine. It also uses a "distributor" that's driven off timing cover, as well as a water pump driven off the front of the cam.

The reversed exhaust/intake is someone's home-made change. It's something you'll find once in a while on old Bonneville and other race cars from decades gone past. I've mostly seen it done on the Flathead. Pretty uncommon on the SBC.

 

[tripowerguy]

Back in 1958 I saw a dragster with a nailhead Buick setup with carbs on the exhaust ports and the exhaust where the carbs were. It didn't run worth a flip and after seeing them mess with it for about 3 or 4 weeks it disappeared. I did see a Chevy powered dragster with 2 large welding bottles laying down in front of the engine run at Lions. The bottles were plumbed into Hilborn injectors taking the place of a supercharger. It went like stink but Mickey Thompson who ran Lions wouldn't let them run anymore because he said it was to dangerous to have 2 cylinders with 2000 lbs of air going down the track at 200mph.:eek: Roy