How the Fenderless '36 Was Built, Part Two: Drivetrain and Details
To keep the car all-Ford, the team designed it around a blown Y-block — a 312-cubic-inch engine fed six pounds of boost by a vintage McCulloch supercharger fitted with new internals.
Troy's land-speed racing experience shows up in how it's sealed. Every mating surface was machined for o-rings rather than gaskets, which is how you keep an engine leak-free at Bonneville and, as it turns out, how you keep one presentable under show lights. The fuel injection's throttle bodies were sealed inside the supercharger plenum, letting the car idle at a burbling 500 rpm. The original tune ran 600, but the car wanted something slower and more mellow. Getting there meant machining a smaller pulley just to keep the alternator energized at that speed.
Suspension is torsion bar, with wishbone-style radius rods and a quick-change rear axle. That choice was driven by the fenders — or the lack of them. With nothing covering the chassis, bulky components have nowhere to hide, and torsion bars package tightly enough to keep the car's lines uninterrupted.
The same problem shaped the detail work. Apron panels, lower hood panels and doors all had to read as finished from every angle. Door hinges were reworked from a British car and configured to open about 90 degrees. The cowl carried detailing on every edge, with a tool made specifically for the Pullmax to shape the recess where the windshield base sits.
Then the dash, the headlights, and the shock mounts — three places where, on a car like this, an awkward solution is visible to everyone.
Ron Covell's coverage for Modern Rodding: Part 4 · Part 5 · Part 6
