Re: [AMC-list] 232 in an early American

[Frank Swygert <farna@xxxxxxx>]

What ever happened to good ol' practical Tom?? While you're talking crazy for a while though, I should point out that this has been done. Not in an American, but in a production car. The old Audi 5000 (later Audi 100?) -- the one's the doctor's and lawyer's wives were running through garages due to "unintended acceleration" (also known as "stupidity") -- had a similar setup. The five cylinder engine was set longitudinally in front of the front drive transaxle instead of transverse (sideways). I forget now if it had one or two radiators, but it (they?) were set to one side to keep the nose from being too long. So see if you can dig up an Audi radiator(s) out of the junk yard if you really want to try this. Got to admit it would be quite cool to look through the grille and see the front of the engine just an inch or two behind it with no radiator in between! Of course if you're talking about using the Navarro turbo motor in there, just pipe the water to the trunk and mount the 
radiator in the deck lid. You won't need a real trunk for a serious hot-rod anyway! 

---------------
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:56:29 -0800
From: tom jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>

I am NOT going to do this, but since I had the '63 Classic (1970 232) and
the '63 American ('63 195.6 ohv) nose to nose... I thought, 'OK, just how
hard *would* that swap be?'

Well...I'm not moving the transmission [else what's the point of this silly
venture], so the engine will just have to stick out front more. When all is
said and done, rear flange to harmonic balancer (OK damper) the 232 is only
3" longer. Right smack in the middle of the radiator core.

But what if there was no radiator... there? Then it fits fine!

So where could a radiator go... well... if there is no battery there (to the
trunk with it), you can *just* cut a 13" x 15" hole in the driver side inner
fender, and put a pricey custom 4+ row radiator and matching electric fan
and blow hot air into the wheel well!

It's not really THAT crazy. You'd need to fab up only motor mounts and the
cooling system. The rest literally bolts in. The '82 aluminum intake manual
*just* clears the inner fender.

Just one odd custom radiator.... A vanilla 1bbl 232ci would be a huge
improvement. Complete driveline compatibility too, no fiddling with gear
ratios or tire sizes.

I happen to have a spare ratty looking '61 American... and that Navarro
motor... and a T-14... heh heh. I've done stupider things. Not this year
though.

--
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Motors Cars" 
Magazine (AMC)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html
(free download available!)


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