Dyno Mule II

[dynonflowdave]

Years ago I built a 390, as a Dyno Mule, just to find out what some of the stuff I'd been running in my dragster, before I had a dyno, was worth.  I spent about a year testings, tearing it apart and testing some more, even blew it up a couple of time, but I learned a bunch.

Well I'm going to do it again, with a another 390.  I call it Dyno Mule II.  I've researched several combinations.  I looked at building a 440, but backed away because I want to run flat top pistons with about 10:1, so I can street drive this thing when I'm done testing, taking pictures & writing about it.  With a motor that large it requires pretty large chambers to stay at 10:1.

So I've settled on a 4.060 bore & a 4.125 crank for 427 inches.  I like this, it has a nice "Ring" to it, after all it is a 427, well sort of.

So far all I've got is a 390 Block that will clean up at 4.060, a pair of C!AE-A heads and my old flow bench, which I fully rebuilt last year.  You can see my flow bench @ http://www.davenettlesgospelmusic.com/thegreatflowbenchrebuild.html  I'm also working on a CNC porting mill, but it's got a ways to go.

I'll be back from time to time as all this comes together.  So later, until I'm here again.

[andyf]

Sounds like fun. I have a couple of dyno mules which I use for testing various parts. I've run a lot of cam tests as well as rocker arms, carbs, intake manifolds and headers over the years. These days I'm spending most of my time on fuel injection. It is really nice to have a dyno mule handy when the mood strikes to test something.

One thing I'll warn you about is the question that people ask when they see one of my dyno mules. Everyone also asks "what is that going in"? If I tell them it is a dyno mule they'll say "what is that". If I tell them it isn't going in anything they look at me like I'm odd. I had one guy get mad at me for wasting my time on the dyno when I should be racing my car. I told him my race car already has a engine in it and then he got really mad. Guess he was pissed off that I had more than one engine.

So beware of people asking "what is it going in". Sometimes they just can't handle the answer.

[dynonflowdave]

Actually the original "Dyno Mule" still exists.  About 15 years ago I had all my old stuff in storage, it was costing me about $100 a month to store all these old race parts & the "Mule".  So I went to see my old race partner, Al Vanderslice to see if he was interested in buying this stuff.  His response was "I probably can't pay you what you think this stuff is worth".  I said "Try Me".  He made me an offer and I took him up on it, under "Cutting the Losses".  The "Mule" is, to this day, sitting on a engine stand in his shop.  My thoughts about all those old parts was "If I do this again It's gonna be with new stuff".  Well here we are, so it gonna be "New Stuff".

My perimeters for this thing are "Street-able" with a cam I could live with on the street, because this thing just might end up in my '62 Fairlane.  So far I've got about a truck load of parts staked out on Ebay.  But building a short block will come first. 

Gonna do lots of unconventional stuff, just like Sinatra, "My Way".