Ford 100e Aquaplane manifold

[tortron]

Hi guys,
Havnt posted in quite a while, moved house a few times and lost interest, so my 51 has been in storage for the last 3 years.
Am getting stuck back into it and am near having it on the road again.

Before i put it in storage i had made up some basic twin carb manifolds, unfortunately someone stole them!

fast forward 3 years to today.
I had seen some mention of the ford aquaplane manifolds and how similar the engines are with the minor. i couldnt find any real info about how similar they are, or if the manifolds were direct bolt on however. So i ordered a set.

The ford 100e sidevalve has the same port spacing as the sidevalve minor
it looks like the ford uses smaller diameter studs than the minor
the ford has round intake ports, the minor has square
the thermostat bulge hits the fins of the manifold (i dont believe this would be an issue with the early thermostatless head)

after some careful measuring and repeated fitment, i took to my nice new aquaplane twin carb manifold with a series of files and carbide burrs.

There is plenty of meat to take out to clear the thermostat, you have to go about 4mm past the fins (possibly different depending on your engine casting)
you will need to increase the diameter of the stud "holes"
depending on your exhaust manifold, you may need to alter the "depth" of the flange, and take some material off to blear the stud bolts.
And of course square out the ports and sort out your exhaust.

http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q194 ... -10-26.mp4

it works!
I am using a pair of HS2 1 1/4 SU carbs taken from a mini
you will need to make slightly longer choke and throttle spindles, and a throttle cable bracket and return spring bracket

I made up a set of extractors to suit




other work i have done recently includes fitting a waterpump i found a few years ago, a lightened flywheel (5.55kg)
(and of course EVERYTHING else, every single part of this car has been out, apart, rebuilt, replaced, or modified)
Also have my custom dash to go in, have added a matching amps and water temp gauge to the original, and a correct smiths clock in the glovebox

[alexandermclaren]

Fantastic work
much better than those other engines on here
which are supposed to be done by professional time served BBC mechanics of 40 years
let's have more of those pic's posted, because photos tell a thousand word's
keep us all updated on your superb project

[mike.perry]

Read "Tuning Side Valve Fords" by Bill Cooper, there is a lot of info which can be applied to the Minor side valve.
Opinion seems to be that twin 1.25 carbs are too much for the Minor, a pity as I have a pair of H2s which I would like to use. I like your exhaust system, where can I get one?

[tortron]

My original twin carb set up was for two 1 1/8 carbs (looks better imo too with all the brass bits). I think twin HS2 will be on the heavy side for the sidevalve, a single one with extractors is probably ideal. Some old data sheets i came across claim a 20% increase in power in the 100e when fitted with an aquaplane manifold and exhaust (the exhaust is probably a viable upgrade to the minor as well, i would just cut off the original intake).

I had also done some porting to the intake and exhaust - matched to the gasket and smoothed the harsher castings out. Have read the tuning small fords and had a look over a home tuned hot 100e engine. Some modifications to the valve/piston area is planned next time i have the top off. Am holding back on increasing the compression as i have a wee amr500 super charger i would love to have mounted up.

The exhaust is the result of two weekends in the shed. The extractors are made from 1" U mandrel bends, merging into 1 1/4", all are as equal as practical - 22 inch primaries and 22 inch secondaries. Rear exhaust is 1 1/2" stainless, with a free flow resonator at the end. I will probably make up a second set at some point as i already see a few things i would like a little different.

The idea of this build was to produce my interpretation of a factory special, or special edition, keeping as close to period correct as possible. If i can get some people looking twice and wondering how rare that must be, il be happy

[mike.perry]

You seem to going the same direction as I intend. So far my engine, ex WD, has slightly larger inlet valves, unleaded exhausts, inserts and guides and stronger springs. The ports have been polished, the flywheel lightened and the rotating parts balanced. If a Derrington head was to come my way..... The biggest power loss is the exhaust manifold. I have a choice of single or twin H1s or single or twin H2s. The twins would look better but an H2 would probably be most effective.
I am still running the engine in so no conclusions yet

[tortron]

Have taken the old girl for its first drive in 5 years last weekend.

just on a rebuilt original carb and exhaust manifold.
results with larger rear exhaust, free flow muffler and lightened flywheel are promising.
Revs very freely, its been a while but if feels to be getting up to 30mph/end of 3rd gear quicker than it used to (tho its been 5 years and iv been driving my 1948 commer superpoise which is glacially slow).

no 0-60 time yet, as i run out of road and need to adjust for a final tune.

Have just received another cylinder head, so will be taking that in to a local engine builder for a skim (looking for somewhere between 7.5:1-8:1 which seems to be about right from the research i have done)

am working on a mk2 exhaust, as i ran into fitment issues as i gradually tweaked it more and more.
i have actually picked up an unknown home made twin carb and 4-2-1 exhaust, if i cut the whole lot off and weld to a new flange it should be gold (post spacing is just about identical, tho the intake is offset about 1/2 an inch above the exhaust).
I also have a cut down standard exhaust manifold which could be used (however it needs resurfacing)

looking forward to speeding around (1950's dirt road levels of speed) in this

[mike.perry]

Do you know what the C/R of a Derrington Head is? It is probably a good guide to how high you can go. If you take too much off the face of an iron head it can crack above the piston.
Another route I am checking is the benefit or otherwise of vacuum advance. At the moment I am running a DM2 dizzy with the pipe into a spacer behind the carb. I need to get it set up on a rolling road so that I can check if the vacuum advance works on the DM2, is it any benefit, and is it an improvement over a DKYH4A. At the same time I can get the engine set up properly. As you cannot see the timing marks on the timing case with a water pump fitted it makes life a little tricky.
If you have not already discovered it, a handy place to fit a temp gauge is to drill and tap it into the circular boss behind the distributor.[frame][/frame]

[tortron]

Just trying to figure out how much to skim to get to the 7.5 ratio. Was hoping you may remember how much was off your head to save some maths, but will CC the head today and go from there.

Yes, i do have a temp gauge fitted.

The panel is still a bit of a work in progress, but will be painted and the chrome trim back on.
also added is an amps gauge, and speedo with trip meter.

One of the spare engines i had was fitted with a DM2 dizzy, there was also an attempt to introduce a PCV system between the tappet cover and a tube braised into the oilbath air cleaner.
There may be some benefit in that (going from what iv read on ford v8's).

Getting the standard dizzys advance curve mapped out would be a good idea, you could then adjust the weights or convert to a vacuum model to suit the driving style requirements.

I normally set up with a vacuum gauge and ignore the timing marks, it accounts for any wear in the system pretty well. An instrument port/bung in the exhaust would probably be a useful tuning tool.
That said its a 1930's engine and im more than happy to tinker with it every weekend under the guise of attaining the perfect tune

Its been washed since then.

i also had another look at the 100e cylinder heads, very similar water jackets, differences being the 2 either side of the distributor shaft, and interestingly they use the one thats blocked off by our gasket between 2-3

[tortron]

ok gents, have just cc'd my spare cylinder head
*keep in mind i have no history of this head, but it has no markings to indicate its been shaved in the past. So lets assume its std.

im getting 32cc per combustion chamber (using champion L86C plug)

Now due to the shape of the sidevalve combustion chamber, things get a little tricky when trying to measure the cc of the head gasket. (measuring it on the block is probably the best way to do this)

lets assume 0.04" thickness compressed (i get about 1.1mm or 0.043 when i measure)
For the sake of my sanity im going to assume that the chamber is near enough a rectangle
when we smooth the curves out its roughly 59mm wide and 90mm long
lets call this 5.4cc

Deck height, well i havn't measured this yet. Could anyone out there with an open engine let me know?
its probably 0.05in as this would give 6.5:1 compression ratio on a standard engine
(unless of course this head has been skimmed)

[tortron]

ok, some further measuring gives an averaged combustion chamber measurement of
51.8mm
61.8mm
10mm

meaning in order to achieve about 7.5:1 (32cc to 27cc) i would need a 1.5mm or abour 0.06" skim

[tortron]

just got my milled head back.
Had it milled by 0.060" giving a combustion chamber of 27cc. So my maths seemed to have worked out pretty well.

Gave the engine a decoke while i was in there, doesnt look too bad. Valves all seem to seal up happily, i see i have 1mm printed on top of the pistons, so they should be 0.040" over size. Bores look good, not that i measured anything, but no obvious lip or damage.
This means my engine should be 950cc which is getting up to morry thou territory. Hopefully i can up the power to beat those series II's and ford 100e's

Had a time of it getting the engine to run after everything was together.
Was pushing it reusing my old gasket (had been on and off too many times, did try annealing it again, but no luck), so a nice new one was installed.
I had left my distributor sitting upside down and a wee bit of oil had leaked inside
and had run the battery too low.
Was only getting a few seconds of running. But seems alright now after cleaning everything up and flushing the carb with new fuel (i think i had contaminated the line with water when i was working on something else).

Just ran it for a minute or so and all seems well. Will get everything back together proper tomorrow and see how we go

[tortron]

Have just been on a few test runs around the block.
Not a massive wheel spinning increase in power, but i can get from stopped to slow a bit quicker. I would say the torque down low has increased the most i.e, if i drop the clutch it doesnt just bog down and then putter away, it gets up and goes right off the bat.

did a compression test out of interest. (warm engine, WOT, plugs out) all are 130psi-132psi. I put some oil down the plug holes and tried again (im sure most of it ended up on the valves, perhaps not the most accurate test) and got an increase of 20psi to about 150 on each cylinder.
Not so bad i think, there is no major differences between cylinders. With the miles il be putting on this fairly low i should get a good run of it before further work is needed (will be saving up for a full rebuild and oversized exhaust valves in the meantime)

i found this info online as well
http://www.oocities.org/~morris-minor/M ... tions.html

Performance
Model 0-30 0-50 30-50 max speed in gears (mph) mpg
top 1 2 3 top
MM 2 door 8.7s 24.2s 24.1s 19 32 50 62.3 40.0
MM 4 door 10.0s 37.1s 31.6s 24 37 50 60.1 39.8

I was thinking it seemed a little optimistic, but then again 30seconds is a fairly long road

[tortron]

All legal now, just needed 2 new tyres on the rear. Had to go from my ancient 155/80/14 to 165/60/14 due to availability.
Will have a set of original wheels widened, or rather the centres knocked out and put in something else, so next time i should have more options.

Went for a long drive (high comp head, lightened flywheel. But no extractors or carbs) and she went very well. 150miles and up a couple of steep hills.
Handles very well, as it should with all the steering and suspension rebuilt. Not even a hair of slack or wobble in the steering wheel at open road speeds.

Will cruise nicely at 4000RPM in 4th (going from t he manual 4400 is peak power, shifting at about 5000 seems about right to keep the power up). Cant quite squeeze the extra 500RPM out in 4th at this stage.
With these shorter tyres this gives me a top speed of about 57mph at 4000rpm (assuming i could achieve the same rpm with original sized tyres i would be at about 62mph at this point, so an extra mph or 2 on the top speed).

Current performance
1st 18mph larger tyres:19.5
2nd 31mph larger 33mph
3rd 46mph larger 54.56
4th at 4000rpm 57mph larger 62 Theoretical top speed:4000rpm 67mph, 4500rpm 75mph, 5000rpm 83mph (with original aspect tyres)

I should really time how fast it takes as well, the lightened flywheel and shaved head seem to have increased low down power and acceleration, i do notice a 3rd gear flatspot, so adjusting the driving style is needed (as mentioned in the old tuning articles). No doubt with the carbs and extractors i will be seeing some improvements, which can only get better after the engine is freshened up.
This wont be for a while as the minor is now tucked away in storage for the next 2 years, im off to cycle from the top of canada to the the bottom of south america - possibly the next slowest form of transport from a morrie

[mike.perry]

Anyone can cycle from Canada to S. America. Doing it in a Series MM would be an achievement

[tortron]

might leave that to the archbishop of canterbury's one. The only issue would be high altitude and steep hills
I drove my 1948 commer superpoise over to put in storage as well, the same trip took 2 days at 30mph. I did take some gravel back roads however, its great on those.

Have the minor up on stands, cylinders full of oil and water drained. So i expect an easy start up when i get back (the brakes will need doing again il bet)

[tortron]

For anyone wanting some further proof or confirmation about using ford 100e or 93e components on their sidevalve minor

here is a 93E inlet/exhaust gasket sitting on a sidevalve minor flange


obviously the ford uses round inlets and the minor uses square, I filed these out square on my aquaplane twin carb manifold. also the mounting stud holes are slightly different diameters, so about 5 min with a round file may be needed for a perfect fit. But as you can see the exhaust is an identical fit, so if you want a betterexhaust without building a tubular manifold, then the centre exit aquaplane exhaust would be an improvement over the standard.

You may or may not need to open out either the manifold or your exhaust ports (i.e. port matching) to get a perfect fit, theres about 1mm difference in castings from the standard manifolds I have here

[panky]

It's so difficult to get a good view the pictures are HUGE Or is it just me

[tortron]

have posted these on other forums and they resize automatically. I tried the next size down on the imgur link but its too small to see!

**ok I found how to resize

[panky]

That's better thank you