Yes, but it takes a little work, anyway it did on the one I saw built from a chevy 350, with every other cylinder in the firing order modified as such:
1. Remove rocker arm from both intake and exhaust valves of the cylinders being used for compressor.
2. Replace valve springs on these exhaust valves with very light springs, making them essentially poppet valves for the intake of air, similar to the old hit/miss engines where the intake valve is sucked open by the vacuum created by the piston moving down in the cylinder.
3. This part I didn't see, as it was under the intake manifold, but the fellow said that he pinned some springs to the pushrods on these cylinders to hold the lifters in their bores, since there were no valve springs to perform this function. The lifters have to be kept in their bores to retain oil pressure in the engine, and if there are no springs to hold them against the cam they will be spit out of their bores resulting in no oil pressure and a short-lived project.
4. Get an old set of tube headers to fabricate the exhaust system. Remember that two exhaust ports on each side of the engine will still be exhaust, but two will now be intakes for the compressor cylinders. The rig I saw just had a little paper filter on each exhaust port that was now an intake. I believe he was using cylinders 1, 4, 6, and 7 as power, and 8, 3, 5, and 2 as compressor. On a small block Chevy, this is the two center cylinders on one bank and the two end cylinders on the other.
5. In the spark plug holes he had screwed some kind of homebuilt check valve which would let the air out but not in. Basically it looked like a couple of pipe fittings screwed together and brazed to an old spark plug base, and he said there was a ball bearing and a spring inside of each one. Each of these valves was plumbed to a pipe manifold feeding the storage tank.
6. He had also bolted a second flywheel to the first one, said it ran a lot smoother that way. He only ran it a couple of thousand RPM, as that was more than adequate to supply his air needs.
7. Plug the heat riser passage in the head that the two center cylinders are used as compressor, otherwise this will leave a passage through the intake manifold to the other head.
8. No complicated unloaders or anything, he just had some kind of pressure pop-off that would bleed the excess air when it got to about 125 PSI.I don't remember any other details, but think I covered the main stuff. I can also say that the thing was damn loud with no mufflers, and four cylinders sucking air through the exhausts. Plus when the high pressure pop-off would release there was a pretty good blast of air adding to the racket. Also, the air being pumped out was pretty darn hot after the thing warmed up.
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