Coming sooooon! Take a pill already, kats! Don't flip your wigs!

(That's the old beast over there... ORIGINAL 235 straight six with cast iron Fenton headers, Clifford cast aluminum intake, Holley 390 4bl Carb, 12 volt conversion. Pretty much set up the way someone with a little time and even less money would have done it in the 50's. No internal mods (yet) except the top end was rebuilt and shaved a hair in 1991. Not sure what that horn is off of, but it's noisy as hell and ain't from a 53 Chevy, that's the fact, jack!

Not really sure what the horses are on this plant. I think original specs showed it at around 120, but with the mods I'm sure it's a little more than that, kat! Still have to get everything tuned right but she roars when you floor it!

For more information on how to get V8 power out of your Straight 6, visit
Clifford Performance:
http://www.cliffordperformance.net/

The first time I saw a set-up like this was at a car show in Pleasantville, NJ when I was about 17. These guys had a couple of late 60's Camaros lined up, and they had 6's with 4 barrels, dual quads, and trip 1's. There was an old Dodge with the same crazy thing going on. I remember laughing at first, saying "Why the hell would anyone put a four barrel Holley on a six?" Of course I didn't let the guys with the cars hear me say that. Then my Dad told me how he used to race a 53 Chevy 2-door at Atco, with the original six, souped up a little. He didn't have the Clifford set-up, just some greaser-rigged whatever-it-was, probably set the distributor ahead to get it to go a little faster. But he told me about the guys that would put combos like that on Dodges, Chevys, Chryslers...even Buick Straight 8's with multiple carbs.

So when I got a little older, and bought this Chevy, I looked into it...low and behold, kids, Clifford was pushing V8 Power out of six bangers all the way back to the 50's. So that's when I decided to go nuts...and of course did it as cheap as I could...found the cast aluminum intake on ebay for $170, got the carb (new) on ebay for $285, got the Fenton headers and duals from National Chevy (http://www.nationalchevyassoc.com), and bought the intake adapter plate direct from Clifford. Believe me when I say I was surprised as hell when it actually started up and ran!

A Note on the Engine and carb setup:

It took a long time to get the 4-barrel Holley set right. The car just wouldn't run right. It woudl miss, backfire, hesitate when you step on the gas. I tried different things with the floats, idle screws, timing, you name it. New plugs, wires, points...anything I could do to make it run better and still wasn't right. It would stall at lights and jerk like crazy at low speeds.

Since all the mechanics I knew had either moved away or passed away, I was on my own to figure this all out. Finally, one day while going over the Holley manual, I noticed something that neither I nor any of the other people I consulted on this job noticed before: Fuel pressure. And it was so obvious, and so damned stupid that none of us caught it. The Holley 390 requires 6-7 lbs of fuel pressure. The original fuel pump pumps 3.5. Like I said, obvious and dumb, right! I installed a Holley electric fuel pump and fuel regulator, and after re-setting the carb and timing, I finally got that old Stovepipe Six to run like hell. Smooth idle at 900 RPM, doesn't stall anymore, starts faster, and takes off like a bat outta hell now.. Another lesson learned.