[ParatrooperAlex]

hey, i will be restoring a 48 plymouth. ive already decided to take the car down to the frame and rust proof everything, so the car will most defiintaly be coming apart.

i cant decide what to do for a drive train though. i want to avoid cutting up the frame or doing an s-10 swap. i also dont want to use the original flathead 6. after searching through the boards ive seen the 318 mentioned alot. will this motor drop in into the car? if not, how extensive will the mods be (ordering new mounts, custom mounts, ect). also, whats a good rearend and tranny w/ overdrive to use with a 318?

[65fish]

The 318 is a reliable engine. You can make some good horsepower. If you can find a 9 inch ford or a 8.75 mopar rear that would be cool. The 9 inch is more plentiful than the mopar one, you can find them on most trucks and vans. The trans, look for a 85-88 I think car. They had the three wire od trans that you can lock up like the 700r4.
I don't know much about what mounts to use. Street Rodder mag has alot of vendors that might answer your questions. Keep it all mopar. Don't infect it with agent orange.

[home brew]

There are two Mopar 318 blocks. The "wide block" or "A" engine which was built from 1957 to 1966. In 1967 Mopar started to build the small block 318 "LA" engines. This block was also built in 273, 340 and 360 cubic inch versions.

You may want to consider one of the bigger cubic inch blocks like the 360 for its increased torque to get you street rod moving quicker.

[ParatrooperAlex]

well, really im just looking for a good cruiser engine. a 318 would suit my needs just fine. i already get my need for speed in my 80 camaro.

really, im just looking for somthing that will get me up to about 80 on the highway with decent RPMs, and somthing that wont be too hard to drop in.

[charger528]

how about finding a wrecked 90S truck and getting engine ,drive train ,all the harnesses and computer.

i think it would be cool you no fuel injection,overdrive and decent gas milage.

hey maybe pull the ac while your at it.

just a thought.

BILL

[ParatrooperAlex]

thats what i was thinking of doing, but i still cant find any info on installing the engine. like, will it even fit between the stock frame rails? i'll make motor mounts if i have to, but i dunno if even that will work at this point.

any info on engines working with the stock frame would be appreciated.

[powerrodsmike]

Whichever motor you choose will require some custom fabrication work on either the firewall, frame, exhaust, or steering.


Those '40s plymouths were real narrow in the frame area, as they only had to clear an inline 6.

But it is possible to fit an 8.

I installed a 350 chevy and th350 in a 48 plymouth for a guy. He wanted to keep everything stock except for the motor/trans.

The stock steering box is in a bad place, mounted high on the frame, , almost right under the center exhaust ports and the space available at front crossmember is rather narrow.

I did get the motor installed, without cutting the firewall or floor. There was a place in the trans tunnel that needed some massaging with a BFG..

I used a readymade motormount crossmember from speedway motors.
The motor had to be moved towards the passenger side about 2", this got us the necessary room to clear the steering box. I did have to trim the inner fenders to clear the exhaust manifolds.

The only weird and unsatisfactory part of the job was in the exhaust. No header or exhaust manifold that I tried would get past the steering box and column....except one.

The motor position and steering required the exhaust on the LH to exit at the front of the motor, in front of the steering box, so I used a stock 55 chevy exhaust manifold, that exited straight down , just under the #1 exhaust port. Very low performance, restrictive manifold..( the car is a lowrider/cruiser..and the guy didn't seem to care if his performance suffered some. anything was better than the flathead.)
We also considered turning the exhaust manifolds upside down, and running the drivers side headpipe over towards the passenger side , to dump out as a pair .....That would have looked dumb as crap.

A set of custom headers could have been fabbed up as well, Sanderson quoted us about 1000.00 and we would have brought the car up to them.


The other alternatives were to move the motor back or up about 6"..That would have required firewall and floor mods, but the steering box would not have been a problem.

Or we could have put a different steering box, with a new steering column, (or cut down the old one and modify the end to accept a u joints), and steering shaft that had a couple of u joints to get around the side of a regular exhaust setup. I did not explore this avenue because it would have been costly and to do it right would have required a bunch of fab work..


You may have to do some similar work to use a smallblock Chrysler, but IIRC, the chrysler is wider than the Chebby, and may require some more thinking to get things fitted.

A good friend of mine went down this road with a 41 Plymouth, (almost the same car, frame wise.) he finally said screw this, and put a fatman frame stub under the car. He got better brakes and steering and a bunch of clearance...(then he put a Ford 6 cylinder in the car...people do the strangest things)


Somewhere I have a couple of pics of the 350 installation., I'll see if I can find them.


HTH, mikey

[home brew]

I don't know how this guy did it but can you say "blown Hemi"?

[powerrodsmike]

Home Brew, (always finds the good pics ) I can see a Ujoint in that pic, if you look at the firewall just below the voltage regulator. I wonder if they put a clip?

Here is the pics I took of that 48.(and see that it was really a 47 instead )..Sorry there weren't more, better pics, but you can see the steering box and manifold I was talking about.

Later, mikey

[wjalex4]

We have a 1948 Plymouth Deluxe that we want to put on a modern chassis to make a daily driver. I am not adverse to leaving the chassis and simply updating components, but the car has been in a barn forever and I am concerned about the condition of the undercarriage, suspension, etc.

I met a fella at a car show a while back (didn't get his name of location... didn't seem too interested in supplying those details), and he ha s 1948 Plymouth Deluxe 4-door and he said it was on an S-10 chassis. Does anyone know of a website or some getting started info that we could use for such a project? I can cut and weld and bang and twist, so I think with decent instructions my son and I could do this job.

Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

Walter - Ashville, Alabama

[68RATVT]

Try these guys for Mopar swap kits, call them, very helpfull. www.engine-swaps.com

[home brew]

powerrodsmike - took those pics at the Super Run this summer.

[ParatrooperAlex]

thanks for all the great info and pictures guys, i really appreicate it.

like mentioned above, i wanna keep everything original except the motor and engine. ive even been thinking about puttin in a v6 with EFI. it would stay along the lines of the orginal 6 cyclinder, but give some technology and horsepower.

[65fish]

If you want to go injected, Maybe a clifford manifold will fit and then take the throttle body out of a 3.8 gm car with the injectors. Have the manifold fitted for injectors and use a megasquirt system to control it?

[speedydeedy]

We put an s10 clip in a 40 dodge.Frame lined up good but had to shorten wheel base a little for steering box to clear front sheet metal.The fire wall is angled so I staightened it and used the power brake set up including pedal and bracket and steering column from the s10.