Author Topic: 1930 Buick V12 build  (Read 27656 times)

Essex_29

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1930 Buick V12 build
« on: August 06, 2022, 10:57:09 AM »
I'm part way into a hot rod build, and thought I'd share some of what I'm working with. I don't know how to cathegorize my build, it's part hot rod, part rat rod, mainly I focus on having fun.
Some background:
In the fall of 2019 I bought the Marquette by Buick and got it home. Before this I had bought a junkyard V12 from an older BMW 750. I chose a Buick because they had large eight cylinder engines in 1931. The Buick was sold to me as a 1931 Buick, and when I arrived at home, I was very sad to notice that I had indeed not bought a 1931 Buick, but rather a 1930 Marquette. The difference may be a problem in the future when it's time to get it MOT tested and street legal. I decided to roll with it, and now am used to caling it "the Buick". I do like the proportions and looks of the car in any case, and it's a two door sedan, which is exactly what I wanted.
An abundance of chores took me to December 2019 before getting the old lady rolled into the garage, the first picture is from that day.
Second pic is a photoshopped pic from that time showing what I'm aiming for: A fully fendered  hot rod with wideish radials and it's supposed to be a pretty practical driver.

Essex_29

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2022, 11:20:25 AM »
The V12 engine in its original guise is not a good looking one, seen from a hot rodder's perspective. Most of what could be removed was, and I was left with a narrow high engine. And it was going to be carbureted.

The frame here bolted to the floor, making like a make shift frame jig.

The intake

To make the intake I needed some flanges done.
As I panned to get them laser cut, I needed drawings, and downloaded free cad, watched some tutorials and got busy drawing parts.
Of course it took me a couple weeks to learn by doing, and here's a look at what I got done:

1. Upper intake flange ( with a bunch of 2" exhaust flanges to save material).
2. Top intake flange with holes for two four barrel carbs ( bolts to the #1 flange)
3. Drawing for the number 2 part
4. Four barrel carb flanges. These will be spaced up about an inch off the top intake.
5. 2" exhaust flange
6. 2-1/2" exhaust flange.
7. Intake to cylinder head flange.

A few days after sending the drawings to the laser cutting company, I got a text telling me to come get my cut parts.
I was pretty excited to see the parts that I had drawn.

Just a matter of filling in the blanks spaces between the flanges with sheet metal and tubing to make an intake now.

This is modern times already. Work started on the intake July 15, so it's less than a month ago.


Essex_29

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2022, 11:31:37 AM »
I started working in the intake runners a couple days ago, cutting sort pieces with a supposed 13 degree angle, then a 37 degree angle of a pipe bend. Of course doing this cutting free hand with a simple jig, the angles were more or less off, all of them.



A. I ended up cutting and adjusting, then tacking a piece and a bend. 6 pieces were an average length, the six others were off, either shorter or longer, and got dedicaed third parts to compensate.

B. Then they were welded to make 12 equal length runners. 36 pieces of tubing, bad engineeering, I should have them from two, instead of three pieces, but there you go.

C. All 24 welds were ground off, and the insides were smoothed with a small grinder with a rotating file.



I had to check for clearance for the intake bolts under the plenum floor. This will be enough, but the intake will be very tall.

Essex_29

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2022, 11:40:01 AM »
I took the intake flanges off the engine to tack the intake runners to the flanges.



The intake flanges are tacked together with sheet metal pieces to keep their relative angle when off the engine.

When eight runners were tacked to the intake flanges, the whole thing was bolted back to the engine. Simple intake by the way, no water and no exhaust in it.
After some measuring and planning, a plywood template was cut with a hole saw to cut holes for the intake runners in the plenum floor piece with the plasma.



The plenum is designed short, so the outermost runners will turn into the ends of the plenum by using tube bends cut to fit to the plenum end pieces. Form over function perhaps, but I think it will work decently too.
The holes in the plenum floor will be ground to fit loosely around the runnes, and the conjunctions will be ground round and smooth to promote air flow over the awkward angles.
Hoping to be able to weld this, without warping the flanges too much.

I recently got an Edelbrock 500cfm 1404 in the mail so now I just have to find another one.

Turned out the flanges warped a bit. Heating them from the back side with the tig got them straightened out nicely.

Rattiac

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2022, 12:18:48 PM »
Cool build.  👍
Keep us posted.  I would love to be able to cut my own parts. 😎
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EDNY

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2022, 12:41:10 PM »
Good for you...a lot more than I would ever tackle!
33 Chevy 5 Window, 34 Chevy 3 Window, 37 Chevy 4dr sedan

Essex_29

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2022, 04:19:44 PM »
 Thank you Rattiac, I'd love to be able to cut parts with some kind of precision myself. The plasma with thin plywood templates work nicely if exact precision is not all that important.  The laser cut parts were awesome, I could thread the cut holes, they were very exactly cut.
 Haha, EDNY, you can probably guess how it goes: I get an idea and think "that's doable". Then I work on it like crazy, feeling dumb for not realizing how much work it really is. Me and my project are like the Dunning-Kruger effect in person.

Anyway.
After getting the intake runners welded to the intake to cylinderhead flanges, it was time for some serious grinding. I'm better at grinding than welding, so this makes the whole thing look decent in a new way.



Bolted back to the cylinderheads, the runners were welded to the plenum floor and more grinding to do.



To avoid getting a bunch of debris down the intake runnes and weld spatter onto the valves, I made intake "gaskets" from 19 gauge sheet metal, with no holes but for the bolts. Also I filled the intake ports with tee shirt fabric.

sixball

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #7 on: August 07, 2022, 10:42:50 AM »
This is interesting stuff. I'm looking forward to more.
The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.  Edwin Conklin

Essex_29

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #8 on: August 09, 2022, 04:46:02 AM »
Nice to hear, sixball, here's some more:

Parts for the plenum were cut to exact sizes and tacked together to form a box.


The end plates wre cut to mate with the outermost intake runners.

The top of the plenum consists of a frame that is about 3/4" wide all around the outer edges and that has 30+ holes tapped with M6 threads, and a top part with corresponding holes for the 30+ M6 bolts. Everything was welded together to form a box like shape.



Again a lot of grinding to make the entrances to the intake runners smooth along the outer edges, and of course the bendy end pipes.

Finally the whole thing was given a thorough sanding on the outside.




Essex_29

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #9 on: August 09, 2022, 05:00:30 AM »
Finally a kind of "collars" were welded to the top of the plenum, for the carburetor flanges to sit on.



One of the reasons for the bolt on intake top is to gain access to grinding welds on the inside. Also, if it works otherwise, I can easily make another version for, say three 2Gs, or even injection.

Intake on the engine, carbs on the intake.



The whole thing looks pretty nince already, two fours is always a good look. The carbs will be two 500 cfm Edelbrocks, and I know it's probably way too much, but I just have to hope that I will be able get the engine to run somewhat decent.

sixball

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #10 on: August 09, 2022, 01:04:06 PM »
Good work. The Edelbrock carbs are highly adjustable even beyond the jetting & rod combos listed in the book.   
The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.  Edwin Conklin

TFoch

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #11 on: August 09, 2022, 03:23:55 PM »
Very cool build Essex_29!  Nice fab work!
Spending time with my grandkids gets in the way of finishing my car but I don't regret it!

Essex_29

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #12 on: August 09, 2022, 04:38:05 PM »
Thank you for the kind words, TFoch and sixball! And yes, I like the Edelbrock carbs and they way they adjust. I had a 700 cfm Edelbrock on a 455 Olds some time ago, and I got that one to run very nicely after changing jets and rods, and getting the springs right. I've also worked on twin Weber DCOEs, they are almost infinitely adjustable, and with the help of the 1977 Weber book and a wideband lambda, I got the engine (Ford Cortina GT historic racing car) to run just perfect. Carbs can be fun, especially if one has the time and energy to work methodically with them.

So, next on the agenda would have been the ignitionsystem(s) on the V12. Yes, they're actually two separate ignition systems. As from factory, the BMW V12 had two totally separate Motronic ECUs running totally separate ignition and fuel injection systems for each of the two cylinder banks.
My plan originally, was to do this:



I meant to cut two Ford Cologne V6 distributors, and drive them off the camshafts. In theory I tried all kinds of ideas, until I got very frustrated with the packaging issue I ran into how ever I tried to make the distributors short and compact. The end result would inevitable result in my moving the engine back a few inches, and that in turn would force me to rework the firewall... OR to cut the frame and lengthen it.
About a week ago, I decided to back down from one of my principles, and throw out the mechanical distributor idea, and go with an aftermarket ECU to take care of the ignition advance and timing, two coils to send spark to the stock "dumb" distributors.
 This will result in a bit of a dilemma, in other words, me having something in my car that I can't fix on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere if disaster would strike. On the other hand it may well work for many years without service...

EDNY

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #13 on: August 10, 2022, 09:06:10 AM »
There is a lot of info online discussing distributorless ignition systems (homemade and commercial).  One system that you might consider is the OBD1 GM Tune Port Injection since they are "bank firing" versus the more complicated (OBD2) sequential firing system.  You would need to determine whether to use speed density or MAF.

This would only take care of the fuel injector portion and being bank firing it would inject fuel on the entire left and/or right banks at one time....you can wire in as many injectors on one bank as needed.

Now the ignition portion needs to be addressed. I can burn any TPI chips you need.

33 Chevy 5 Window, 34 Chevy 3 Window, 37 Chevy 4dr sedan

sixball

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Re: 1930 Buick V12 build
« Reply #14 on: August 10, 2022, 12:16:46 PM »
You may find some answers at DIYAUTOTUNE. It is a world of it's own and can be over whelming. I haven't used the site in years and if looks different but I'm sure the info is still there. There was a very extensive forum component filled with posts from users. I would bet that someone has put a MSII on one of these engines, They can run injection & ignition. I built one several years ago and if I can do it anyone can. There is so much out there now I'm sure you can figure this out.

https://www.diyautotune.com/shop/megasquirt-kits-components/
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