A Boy, did you make Jeff Smith's day when I called him! Yes, he did a build on the nasty mini Mighty Mouse. He sent me a three-page e-mail with the info. Let's see if I can get to all the facts.
The engine was originally built as a technology demonstrator for the Hot Rod Power Tour. It was installed in his '65 Chevelle with a Richmond six-speed and 3.55:1 rear-end gears. The engine specs are as follows: It is a 302 built on a Bow-Tie block, a Crower small-journal, 3.00-inch stroke, 6.00-inch small-block aftermarket rods, JE pistons that he believes to be 9.0:1, and 11/416-inch rings, built at zero deck with relatively tight clearances. They bolted on a set of AFR 195 heads (180s weren't out yet). He said that the biggest challenge was the camshaft. He went with the smallest Crane mechanical street roller that spec'd out at 210/220 degrees at 0.050 inch lift, and the lobe separation angle of 114 degrees, using 1.6 roller rockers. For induction he used the Lingenfelter/ACCEL SuperRam with the idea that he could build torque to help the small displacement. Then they stuffed a Vortech Supercharger on it. He forgot the specific size, but it was small by today's standards.
On Kenny Duttweiler's dyno it made right around 300 hp, normally aspirated, which was cool considering the very small cam. Jeff kept the camshaft small to have lots of cylinder pressure at low rpm for fuel mileage. With the blower he ended up with 28 degrees total timing and 14 psi of boost-on pump gas. With this tune-up the engine produced 550 hp and knocked down an average fuel economy of 25 mpg for the entire Power Tour-this was idling around on cruise nights and running down the road between 70 and 90 mph!
You know when you can't leave well enough alone? Well, Jeff showed up at Myron Cottrell's shop, TPIS, with the engine and they swapped out the intake for one of his Mini Rams with a water-to-air intercooler and a 220-degree-at-0.050-inch camshaft, on less boost, and kicked down 600 hp.
Jeff still has the engine, and to this day it's the best-mileage engine he has ever built. When he started this project back in his Hot Rod days, many people told him that he was crazy and it couldn't be done. As always, it's very fun to prove the truly crazy people wrong. Now that we have contacted Jeff he wants to take the engine a step further. He still has the engine and would like to install Magnuson's new High Helix 122-cid Eaton blower that recently made over 700 hp on one of Duttweiler's LS2 engines. Jeff thinks with the Magnuson bypass design at part-throttle and the efficiency of the design, the little Mouse could kick down 675 to 700 hp at around 6,500 rpm! He said he would let us know if his new dream ever comes to life.
Getting Charged
Q I own a bone-stock '70 Monte Carlo that came from the factory with a 350-cid small-block. Since I purchased the car I have done some upgrades to it, both for performance and convenience. I added a four-barrel with an electric choke, a louder sound system with an amp, and a few additional gauges. Is my stock alternator enough, or should I go for a more powerful alternator? Mine is externally regulated, and the more powerful alternators are internally regulated, so how would I go about doing this upgrade? What needs to be done to the existing wiring harness and external regulator? Any help with this matter will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.Fred Pugh
A It is very easy to overtax the factory charging systems on our early Chevys. It doesn't sound like you have gone too far for the factory system unless you have added a bank of amps and four 12-inch woofers back in the trunk. That said, there are far better internally regulated alternators that would be a nice addition to your car.