Polopolus 1883 Nickie Twin plug

[spyderwerks]

An alternative hot rod engine using your original pushrod by Dean Polopolus.
1883 LN Nickie / JE pistons (10.5 to 1),late 912/SC/C ported heads (Twin Plugged), C crank,late rods C/SC/ 912 , C case, full flow oil, Weber 44 IDF's, Ron LaDows Twin Plug. , Orig. 6 Volt system. Torque camshaft ( Maestro specs). 140 hp, same torque or close . Fun and easy to drive , all in by 5K rpm.

[JTR70]

Max, Thanks for sharing a few specs on what seems to be a sweet 356 based power plant. What work exactly did Dean perform on this engine? The entire build?

[spyderwerks]

Hi Justin

Sorry for the late reply, I've been away . Dean did the complete rebuild. Nickies 1883 cc's, C crank, 912 rods and heads,, not sure about the cam spes ,but it's a torquey cam all in at 5500 rpm.All balanced components, with ported heads matched to Webber 44iidf's. Kennedy stage 2 clutch assembly. Full flow oil system along with Vic Skirmats torque biasing differential and taller gears 2 thru 4th. It came to me as a non runner. The electronics was a bad choice with a Bosch 009 , Nissan converted cap (8 plug) single point Dist, motorcycle dual coil and permatune cd ignition thrown in for a hotter spark.. All this while maintaining the 6 v system.

As mentioned the car wasn't running when I received it and after a little research I realized this engine would not run properly if at all with the current 6 v system and these electronics.

I wanted to maintain the 6 v system so opted To go with Ron Ladows twin distributors with twin 6 v Bosch coils . I did eventually add the permatune to the lead distributor and it actually gives a higher output Spark to the top plugs.

I also went thru the Weber jetting and changed the 36mm vents to 34's.

Now a very nice running car.

[Craig Richter]

Max, Could you please give explanation on why 009/Nissan cap is a bad choice.

[spyderwerks]

Craig

The 009 with a dual trigger and 8 plug converted cap and dual coils fired by a 12 V system works very well. I believe John Bentons uses this system. The problem with my setup was a single point Distributor using a motorcycle dual coil being fired by a permatune with 6 volts wasnt working.im not exactly sure why this was problematic but suspected not a hot enough spark or maybe the motorcycle dual coil was iffy?I talked to John Benton re the motorcycle coil and single point Dist and asked if switching to dual Bosch 6 V coils would fix the problem. John said no it wouldn't work something to do with the coils mismatch and suggested modifying the 009 to dual trigger and converting to 12V..
I wanted to stay 6 V.

I remembered Ron LaDow engineering his dual distributor to work on his personal C coupe with the standard 6V system so I went that route.

[Craig Richter]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. Jack and I are slowly building a similar motor. I say "slowly" because I'm the one supposed to be doing the actual assembly, and I'm the slow one these days! We plan to use the 009/Nissan cap/motorcycle coil stuff provided by Dean when he double-plugged the heads. You had me concerned, but I'm back on track now. Thanks.