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The Engine
When deciding on what engine we were going to use in this project we wanted something that would rev freely and develop horsepower at a high rpm. Since the car is so light it wouldn't need a lot of torque to get it moving. The original plan was to build a 327ci but we had a hard time finding a good block. What inadvertently presented itself was a 265ci that was originally built as a drag motor to be stuffed into a first-generation Datsun pick-up truck.
In order to perform engine maintenance easily it was decided that the engine and cradle should be able to be lowered without removing anything from the engine or chassis. Block up the car, undo the back cradle bolts, release the wiring harness, release the throttle cable, undo exhaust donuts and the engine drops down several inches.
The engine was torn down and sent off to the engine builders. It was bored over 60/1000 making it a 4.4 Litre and fitted with new pistons and rings giving us 10:25 to 1 compression. A hole was drilled into an oil gallery to allow fitting of the line to the remote oil filter. At the same time the engine was being built we ordered the conversion kit from V-8 Archie,
The internally balanced engine was delivered from the builder and we were now ready to start the engine conversion. The block and heads were painted. An Edelbrock intake manifold and Hedman Headers were fitted to the block.
The engine was mated to its new Centerforce flywheel, the new Centerforce dual friction clutch was mounted and the transaxle bolted on. Engine and transaxle were then fitted back onto the cradle. Once the engine was on the cradle with the headers in place we saw the backside header needed modification. We cut the collector and re-welded it on a different angle so the exhaust pipe would clear the drive axle.