<VV> Re: Was "Correct Engine?" now turbo-less 180 ???'s

[Tony Underwood]

At 1024 05/25/2004 -0700, Mike Stillwell wrote:
> Question for the group, that the previous post
>reminded me of. 
> I have been contacted about doing some work on a late
>180 convertible that the current owners wish to use
>for a cruiser type car, without putting a ton of money
>into and without wanting to rebuild a turbo charger
>etc (too much for their budget).
> My initial thought was to pull to Turbo (put it on
>the shelf in case they one day want to make the car
>correct again) and install regular carbs and exhaust.
>This is provided that the long block is in good
>conditon.
> Does anyone know what kind of performance to expect
>from this?

You will *have* to change out the distributor and if you have a choice, the
heads as well.   The combo you mentioned will behave like a small-inch 80
hp engine.   With the 95 heads it would at least perform well enough to get
out of its own way (with a distributor swap as well) and still run on
regular.   In fact, if it's tuned right, a 180 turbo-less engine with 95
heads can run rather well, well enough to surprise a person.   BTDT twice.
 But those bath tub chamber turbo heads really need to go...   although if
need be they can stay on the engine and you live with the drop in
performance.    But, if a pair of 95hp heads was available I'd swap them
out.   



> I want to avoid an engine that's going to
>be so underpowered it's useless. I'm more interested
>in what someone has already witnessed/experienced than
>what it theoretically might do. Theory tells me it
>will be close to an 80 hp, given the mild cam and low
>compression.

Low compression yes...  around 7.5-1 at best.   Low perf cam?    No... the
180 cam is in fact fairly aggressive with better midrange specs than the
891 cam.   It has slightly less lift but a bit more duration and the
overlap is a bit different.   It's not a high rpm cam when feeding a
normally inducted engine but this changes with forced induction.  Still,
it's a decent performer and has better upper range power than the 889 (95)
cam and likely would be indistinguishable from the 891 cam in most aps.      


> The other alternative, would be to pull the whole
>engine and put in a 110. 

By the way... the 95 heads would obviously end up being the better choice
for the turbo engine if the owner decided to "put it back".     


In your instance, considering the $ and work requirements, maybe the best
path is to leave the 180 heads on the engine, swap a 95 or 110 distributor,
run a pair of good carbs and be done with it.   If they don't like the
lower power, tell them about the 95 heads, which *will* make a difference
when swapped out over the 180 heads.     


tony..