I'M SURE OPINIONS MAY VARY BUT I'M STARTING A REBUILD ON A 2.3 FROM "76" PINTO WHICH HAS OVAL PORT HEAD WITH STOCK INTAKE AND CARB IS MISSING I'VE HEARD THE LOWER EFI MANIFOLD AND ADAPTER FLOW AS GOOD AS ANY. BUT CAN THIS BE USED WITH OVAL HEAD OR DO I NEED D-PORT HEAD? WHAT'S A GOOD CARB TO RUN ? THE MOTOR IS .030 OVER AND SHOULD I SHAVE HEAD ? I'D LIKE TO RUN PUMP GAS.I GUESS WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR ARE SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR HEAD/MANIFOLD/CARB COMBO'S , CLEARANCE IS A NON-ISSUE SINCE THIS IS POWERING A SANDRAIL. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU FELLAS WITH THIS SINCE IT'S ONLY PINTO MOTOR RELATED BUT MOST SANDRAIL FORUMS DON'T WANT TO TALK UNLESS YOU HAVE A SUBARU OR VW POWERED RAIL I GUESS I'M THE UNDERDOG ;D IT'S NOT NEW TERRITORY.
THANKS TIM
As far as the carb goes, considering what you are going to be using it for, I would look to marine applications(boats). But on the marine versions of the 2300, mercruiser chose to use the Chevy Rochester 2 bbls on an adapter. I know Chevy is a bad word sometimes, but you cant beat a marine rochester for racing applications. There are 3 different sizes of rochesters the medium sized one would probably be the best for you.
The efi intake can be used on an oval port, but there is a couple boltholes that dont line up. wouldnt recomend it though.
There also are 2 different d-port heads, one has the standard semi elliptical combustion chambers, and the other has a sort of heart shaped elliptical combustion chamber. The heart shaped one is 4cc's smaller than the non heart shaped.
As to should you shave the head. depends on which head you decide to use. If you shave the heart shaped head you will start to quickly reach compression ratios where you wont have much luck with pump gas.
What rules are you stuck with as far as what you are allowed to do to the motor? Are you looking for reliable and inexpensive, or do you care whether you have to overhaul it after every race?
Check the website for www.speedwaymotors.com or www.summitracing.com to give you some ideas of what is available for the 2300.
If you are looking for cheap reliable and fast w no rules. shave head you have, port and polish every thing, have the block decked to .010 above piston TDC, get evrything that moves balanced, find a medium sized rochester and adapter, somewhere around a .480 cam(power range matched to what gearing is in the rest of drivetrain), set of headers, good ignition system. and go have fun.
My winning mini stock motor is this: .030, stock rods with ARP bolts, hyperutectic pistons,(stock replacement for a Ranger), oval port head, with my port job (not saying it's good but it's been working), .460 lift, .280 duration Comp HYD cam, stock untouched oval port intake, 500 CFM Holley carb with 2 inches of spacers under it. This motor is tearing up some stroker 2.5 it runs with here.
One of the reasons I stated that the marine rochester would be better for his application Is a boat carb is designed to be able to work even though it is bouncing all over the place, and jumping wakes, or just rocking back and forth. Since he is building a sand rail which will be jumping things and bouncing all over the place, a marine carb would be a better bet.
Also to consider, if you have a sand rail or any other off road toy, you might as well count on getting stuck, so you would want to build something that runs fairly cool, cause with no airflow thru the rad but what the fan is pulling it will be very possible to overheat the motor while trying to get unstuck. This may be a reason to avoid the hyperteuctic pistons as well, we have been using them in stock car engines, and you have to run a larger top ring end gap to keep the ring from butting together at higher temperatures, which causes more blow-by at cooler temps.
The more I think about it, I wouldnt shave the head, i would just deck the block like previously mentioned and go with a set of flat top pistons. Call a couple of places that custom grind cams, and tell them what you are doing, and that you want something that runs fairly cool, and see what they come up with.
A rev limiter would be a good idea as well if you are going to sink some money into the motor. It would really zoop to stretch a rod when you hit a slippy spot and the engine goes from 6500 rpms to 10000 rpms in blink of an eye.