Power & Performance News Fall/Winter 2015

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VOL. 6, NO. 2 PUBLICATION OF XCELERATION MEDIA

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RACE ON SUNDAY, SELL ON MONDAY

AARON KAUFMAN

0 36584 26583 2PPN2015-2

PRINTWEB VIDEO SOCIAL

FAST N’ BEARDED

GOT BOOST?DYNO TESTS

SUPERCHARGERS, TURBOSMATERIAL METALLURGY

CAMSHAFTS & CRANKSHAFTSENGINE LEGEND KEITH DORTON

StaffGroup Publisher Shawn Brereton

Editorial Director Jeff Huneycutt

Senior Tech Editor Jeff Smith

Tech Editor Richard Holdener

Contributors Cam Benty John DiBartolomeoBrandon Flannery Dan HodgdonTodd Ryden Mike MagdaManufacturers

AdvertisingDave Ferrato 504.237.5072Brett Underwood 704.896.1959For advertising inquiries call 901.260.5910.

Production Hailey Douglas

Art Jason Wommack Zach Tibbett

Power & Performance News is pub-lished biannually to promote hardcore automotive performance as well as rec-ognize the parts and services from par-ticipating manufacturers. The magazine consists of dedicated information from partner companies with the mission of disseminating unfiltered editorial on companies, products and services directly to automotive enthusiasts.

Editorial and advertisements for each issue originate from partner companies participating in the magazine.

Power & Performance News is a hybrid of content that was originally published at PPNDigital.com as well as original content that was created for this biannual print magazine. Magazine distribution occurs through direct distri-bution from parent company Xceleration Media and partner companies.

Power & Performance News is a property of Xceleration Media. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written consent from Xcelera-tion Media. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

Shop TALK FROM THE EDITOR

PPNDigital.com 1

VOL. 6, NO. 2 PUBLICATION OF XCELERATION MEDIA

PPNDigital.com

RACE ON SUNDAY, SELL ON MONDAY

AARON KAUFMAN0 36584 26583 2

PPN2015-2

PRINTWEB VIDEO SOCIAL

FAST N’ BEARDED

GOT BOOST?DYNO TESTS

SUPERCHARGERS, TURBOS MATERIAL METALLURGY CAMSHAFTS & CRANKSHAFTS

ENGINE LEGEND KEITH DORTON

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10/21/15 3:50 PM

COVERON THE

Tony Netzel’s twin-turbo, twin-carbed ‘61 Belvedere sporting long ram intakes takes different to a whole new level.

What’s all the turbo talk?In this issue, my friend and dyno-junkie Richard Holdener has written a good story on how turbochargers can transform even a conservative engine into a ridiculous power broker and make an otherwise conservative guy all giddy inside. All that is great and I started to write about how wonderful life is only to realize that it was old ground.

I’m the kind of guy who thinks “if everybody is going to jump into line at the turbo feeding trough, then I need do something else.”

I have nothing against turbos. Kenny Duttweiler long ago attained guru status building those all-powerful turbo motors for George Poteet and Ron Main’s Speed Demon Bonneville streamliner. I’ve heard their goal is 500 mph and I think they will get there. But I just can’t get excited enough to drink the Kool-Aid for a street turbo.

A friend recently asked me what kind of engine I would build that was not a small- or big-block Chevy or an LS. It would have to be something complete-ly different. I just finished watching a video of my pal Jon Kaase win the Engine Masters’ Vintage class by making astonishing power with — of all engines — a 400c.i. version of a ‘53 Lincoln Y-block. His Frankenstein-like 585-horsepower reanimation, by heavily modifying a set of aftermarket aluminum heads for this engine, is nothing short of masterful. The problem for me is that I’m not as talented as Jon Kaase. But I love the concept of not being intimidated by going where no car freak has ever gone before.

With the theme of monster engines and wretched excess horsepower playing a constant loop in everybody’s head, my counterclockwise logic dictates a different path. That means it might be fun to build a little engine.

On a recent business trip, I rented a Chevy Spark. I didn’t know that Chevy even built something as small as a 1200cc (1.2L) engine that makes 84 hp in a 2,275-pound car. That tiny engine got me thinking about small engines in a light vehicle. One idea is to build an S-10 pickup with a super-charged 2.2L Ecotech 4-cylinder engine. A 4-cylinder Ecotech weighs much less than iron-block V8 and could make upwards of 400 hp with push from a little boost. GM built a few supercharged versions of these engines and then switched to — you guessed it — turbochargers.

My attention was then redirected to a ’67 Chevy II that Chevrolet Per-formance built this year powered by its new GM LTG 2.0L DOHC, turbo-charged, and direct-injected version of the EcoTech. This motor makes a stout 272 hp at 5,500 rpm and with its dual-scroll turbocharger generates 90 percent of maximum torque at very low engine speeds. That makes it much more tractable for autocross racing because linear power (as opposed to light switch power) is much easier to drive quickly.

The Nova that GM built weighs 3,100 pounds while my goal is around 3,000 pounds with a driver. The engine comes with a flywheel and clutch assembly so adding the matching LTG 6-speed manual trans should be easy. It sounds like fun.

So in the best tradition of circular logic I’ve managed to put myself right back in line with everybody else bowing to the power of turbocharging. Maybe it’s not so crazy. If the rest of the world likes turbos, I guess I can play along.

Jeff Smith

TECH18 THOUGHT TANKNew fuel tanks solve a problem

28 BEARING DOWNProperly install cam bearings

40 DOWN TO THE COREThe truth about camshaft materials

50 BOOSTED TO THE BONESupercharging a junkyard dog

60 TECHNICAL TUNERBrian Macy gives tips on EFI tuning

66 ROLLING ONWARDRetrofitting a hydraulic roller cam

74 CRANKING IT UPUnderstanding crankshaft materials

82 USE IT AGAINRe-usable hose fittings save time and money

90 FINDING THE SWEET SPOTSwapping parts to change torque curve

FEATURES12 FORCE FEDWhy turbos are so popular

22 NEW SCHOOL PRO-STREETRich Bryant’s ’65 Chevelle

32 CHALLENGE ACCEPTEDRecap of Borla Street Machine Challenge

44 LITTLE BRUISERRyan Buck’s ’63 Nova

62 TALKING FASTA collection of Jeff Smith columns

70 THE BEARDED WONDERFast N’ Loud’s Aaron Kaufman

78 DO IT LIKE DORTON1-on-1 with the legendary engine builder

2 Power & Performance News / Vol. 6, No. 2

SPEED SHOPUltra Shocks Strange ..................................................... 54Outlaw Blackout Shifter TCI ........................................ 54E7 CD Ignition Controller FAST .................................... 55Exhaust Debuts Legato Performance ............................ 55Steel Clutch-Alignment Tools Quarter Master ........... 552015 Ford Mustang Coyote CR Series Camshafts COMP Cams ............................... 56New Tru-Bar Balance Bar Pedal System Wilwood Engineering......................................................... 56Ring & Pinion Setup Tool JEGS ................................... 56Perimeter Plate Blackout Nitrous System For Ford 5.0L Coyote ZEX Nitrous .................................. 571969 Mustang 428 CJ and GT500 4C SS Choke Tube Kit Classic Tube .................. 58StreetMax and RaceMax GM LS Camshafts Crane Cams ...................................... 58Injector Defender Fuel Additives Driven Racing Oil .... 59

DEPARTMENTS01 SHOP TALKLetter from the editor

04 SPEED NEWS

06 DIGITAL GUIDEPower and performance sites, apps, and social media

07 SOCIAL MEDIA SOUND OFF

Stay connected through social media

10 VIDEO REWINDRacing, product and entertain-ment videos

86 OFF THE BEATEN PATH

Explore the world of SXS

95 PARTING SHOT

96 PUT IT TO THE TESTWe test Powerhouse’s ring compressor

CONTENTS

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Even more features, videos, & event coverage

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Speed NEWS NEWS / HEADLINES / HOT TOPICS SPONSORED BY

PPN to help on Project Teacher’s Pet

You just can’t get enough can you? Well, we heard your pleas and are happy to announce that Power & Per-formance News is moving to a quarter-ly publication for 2016.

People keep telling us they really like having the print magazine in addition to the website material, so to meet the need we decided to

make the switch from a bi-annual publication. There are some oth-er great changes in store for 2016, which are still being discussed, but as of this publication we can tell you that you will see more feature cars in each issue.

We have two terrific candidates in this issue (there will be more in future

issues), and no years are off-limits. If it says Power and/or Performance, to us it is fair game.

We will also be at the Street Ma-chine National Summer Series events in 2016, looking for our next target. So get your car out of the garage and get on the road, you never know where we may catch you.

Power & Performance News goes quarterly

Power & Performance News is partner-ing with West Bend Dyno Tuning in West Bend, Wisconsin, on a terrific new project. Under the guidance of West Bend Dyno, students from West Bend East and West high schools will team together to build a Pro-Touring-based vehicle (a 1979 Z/28), which will be driven by an LS2 that the kids will also rebuild. Project “Teacher’s Pet” will serve as a teaching platform for modern day performance and drivability.

The goal of the project is to intro-duce the students to the excitement of the automotive aftermarket per-formance world. The unveiling of the car to the students took place on October 20, 2015, and the project is slated to be completed in the spring of 2016. The greatest part about this build (and one of the reasons we were excited to be involved) is that it is not just the kids in the “shop-type” classes that get to take part in this project.

Classes such as marketing, graphic communications, video production, and web design will all play a role in the build. These days, you can really make an impact in the automotive world while never getting your hands dirty (although we hope they at least pick up a wrench and try).

The automotive aftermarket is a fascinating world that drives our hobby, but also drives the OEM’s to improve upon their products as well.

We wish the students of West Bend, all the luck in the world as they take off on this journey that we hope leads them into the greatest industry on the planet.

Power & Performance News has setup a landing site for updates that come from the kids on the build and we hope they keep our web guys busy. You can keep up with the prog-ress on the build at:

PowerPerformanceNews.com/ category/features/project-builds

http://www.powerperformancenews.com/category/features/project-builds

http://www.powerperformancenews.com/category/features/project-builds

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NEWS / HEADLINES / HOT TOPICS Speed NEWS

The Camaro has been a major plat-form for performance upgrades ever since it debuted in September 1966. While previously you had to go with an aftermarket manufacturer for performance parts, for 2016 that’s all changed.

Specifically, Chevrolet will offer a variety of serious suspension, brake, and appearance upgrades for your SS or LT Camaro that are guaranteed to fit and improve the cool factor of your new machine.

Case in point is the Brembo four-piston front brake package that includes red aluminum calipers, performance pads and 13.6-inch vented and slotted rotors. These brakes not only upgrade the looks of your Camaro but also offer improved performance over the already plenty capable OE components.

Four suspension-lowering kits are available for both LT and SS models, which include front and rear coil springs and tuned struts and shocks.

2016 Camaro gets makeover

In addition to decreasing ride height up to 0.8 inch, they lower the center of gravity, giving the vehicle a more aggressive stance and improved handling while retaining ride quality.

For more details contact your local Chevrolet dealer.

Ford designers turn talents to innovative productsFord showcased the inno-vation and creativity of its global design studios at the world’s leading furni-ture and design expo.

Taking their inspiration from the all-new Ford GT supercar, Ford designers created a racing sailboat, guitar, foosball table and several other objects for display at Salone del Mo-bile in Milan, Italy.

The display demon-strates that the interior de-sign philosophy for Ford’s all-new supercar can be applied to a range of non-automotive creations.

Other objects Ford’s global designers created include a suspended light, a Wi-Fi speaker, and two different interpretations for lounge furniture. Speed thrills — in many forms. Not your father’s

car museumIf you’ve never been to the Peters-en Museum in Los Angeles, you are in for a treat. If you have, forget everything you know.

Following a 13 month total overhaul that cost $125 million to transform the museum inside and out, the NEW “Petersen” opens to the public Dec. 6.

While the core building remains intact at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax, the exterior is modified with 135 tons of steel “evoking a wind tunnel slipstream flow around the building.”

The highlights: The Nearburg Motorsports gallery will have a 180-degree projection wall showing non-stop racing action. A Microsoft Xbox room will have eight racing simulators loaded with Forza 6. The Pixar Cars Mechanical Institute will use the Cars animated characters to guide kids through the museum using interactive tablets.

http://www.brembo.com/en/


Digital GUIDE WEBSITES / FORUMS / APPS

Power and Performance at your fingertipsPower & Performance News has made it as easy as possible for you to receive the information you are look-ing for in the format you feel most comfortable with.

Whether you get your information on a laptop, tablet, or your phone, we have several avenues for you to get info straight from the source.

Our content is updated daily, so check often with Power & Performance News through any of the social media options on the right.

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PerfExpert: OnBoard Car Dyno Don’t have a dyno? This will do the trick for vicarious speed and power fans! Graph your car’s performance and estimate the power of your vehicle as you bang through the gears. According to the app description, it will measure the power output of your car within a 2-percent margin by performing simple acceleration ratios. Available for iOS and Droid.

Cost: $9.99perfexpert-app.com

Real Racing 4Now in its fourth version, Real Racing 4 allows you to build your racecar and then dive into underground car culture-land. The app provides some solid graphics and fun to drive courses, including some real life locations like Laguna Seca and Silverstone. Best of all, you can drive that car that you’ll never be able to afford. Avail-able for iOS, Droid, and Windows.

Cost: Free (in-game purchases)

Escort Live RadarWhen 55 mph was the highest speed limit in the land, Escort Radar detectors gained a great reputation for letting driver’s know when and where they were at risk of a speeding tick-et. Those same folks have cre-ated an app that gives you the heads up when you are entering a speed trap area as well as mobile and fixed position traffic enforcement camera alerts. Available for iOS and Droid.

Cost: Free (Premium $49.99/year)

Craftsman Garage DoorEver wonder if you closed your garage door when you were away from home? This app not lets you check if it’s open and will close it for you. Talk about convenience. Of course you have to have a Craftsman Garage Door opener, but it might be worth buying one for this app alone. Available for iOS and Droid.

Cost: Free

Stay connectedKeep up with Power & Performance News by liking us on Facebook and following us on Twitter. We post daily updates on car features, tech stories, and just plain ol’ cool stuff that we all dig… facebook.com/PPNDigital

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FACEBOOK / TWITTER / MULTIMEDIA Social Media SOUND OFF


Blast from the pastA B-25J bomber does a low fly-by past a ’55 Chevy at an air show in Millington, Tennessee.

Photo by Shawn Brereton


Video REWIND RACING / PRODUCT / ENTERTAINMENT

Video Rewind is where we point out interesting videos found on the internet. Whether they are histor-ical, funny, dramatic, technical, or whatever. We like them, so we thought you might too.

SIGN UP TO KEEP UPSubscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our original and curated video content that is updated daily by the Power & Performance News editorial staff.youtube.com/PowerPerformanceNews

BAD JUDGMENTBad judgment definition: A 526c.i., blown hemi powered, alco-hol-guzzling Kilpatrick 1963 Dodge made to destroy any drag racing competition. Built for King of the Street’s Unlimited class, this video shows the debut runs for the amazing Mopar. Racing in King of the Street is well worth watching.

youtu.be/bfGErRR1rao

HEMI SHOOTOUTThe 15th Annual Hemi Shootout during the 61st Annual US Nation-als at Indy 2015 is a battle of wheel-standing Mopars like no other. Highly competitive, this class has withstood the test of time — and no wonder — its awesome.

youtu.be/g4kTjdG4HUM

CLASSIC CAR COMMERCIALSBack in 1969, the rivalry between carmak-ers was hot and the competition to draw attention to their latest muscle cars was big business for the Big Three: GM, Ford, and Chrysler. Here’s a quick look at four major muscle machines and how they were ad-vertised at the time. Oh to be an ad agency exec back in the 1960’s!

youtu.be/8WmvnTNy2ts

BEHIND THE WHEEL: TOMAHAWK VISION GRAN TURISMOThe SRT Tomahawk Vision Gran Turismo will challenge and delight players. The hybrid powertrain with wide-angle V-10 engine delivers up to 2,590 hp. Active aero panels aid in braking and traction. Are you ready to drive it?

youtu.be/tP5ULeIEy6w

AUTOEDIT: GARAGE HOW TO’S AND COOL CAR VIDEOSJason Lewis is a grassroots builder of great cars. This YouTube Channel includes his most recent resurrection of a ’73 Mustang – but also includes some of the coolest cars, car trips and interesting people ever. Worth a subscription for certain!

youtu.be/Yc_fFqkiPKM

#SEMA2015

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TURBOS, IT SEEMS, are every-where. From Formula One and Indy, to Drag Week and Holley’s LS Fest, pop the hood on any of the fastest ve-hicles in attendance and the chances are very good that said motor benefits in some way from positive pressure.

While we have come to expect tur-bocharging at the strip, that amazing power potential has also found its way onto the street, where Crow and Corolla alike all benefit from boost. Heck, even the OEMs have embraced turbocharging to provide the required combination of power, emissions, and fuel mileage required for today’s per-

formance-minded enthusiast. Ford, Chevy, and Dodge all offer turbo mo-tors and not just in their diesel line ups, as direct injection has been com-bined with boost to create powerful, small-displacement, EcoBoost, Ecotec, and MuliAir gas engines.

Why the sudden popularity and (more importantly) why should you board that crazy train to turbo town? Read on my friends, as we take an in-depth look at the proliferation of turbocharging.

Turbocharging is awesome, and the power potential is amazing, but the re-cent surge in popularity is a function

of more than just power. A number of factors have combined with the afore-mentioned power potential to create the current boost craze, including cost, technology, and even social media.

Before we get to these, we need to examine the tremendous power po-tential offered by turbocharging, as no amount of technology, affordability, nor the power of social media can cre-ate desire without proper substance (the Kardashians notwithstanding). In this case, the substance offered by tur-bocharging is the ability to dramati-cally increase the power output of any combination.

TURBOthe

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CRAZEAll-motor aficionados claim that

anyone can make power with turbos, but the turbo guys recognize that all-motor fans are just guys that have never run boost. It is hard to argue with the fact that turbos allow you to have all the power of your all-motor combo — then increase it by 50, 100, or even 150 percent (or more).

There was a time when people got excited about making 1 horsepower per cubic inch on an all-motor combo, but now hot street/strip motors can eclipse 2 hp per inch, and dedicated race motors are up near 3 hp per inch. Impressive as those numbers might

The great thing about turbo-charging is that there is a turbo sized to fit any application. If one isn’t enough, just add more!

Words Richard Holdener Photos Richard Holdener, Shawn Brereton

Photo by Power Automedia


be, they pale in comparison to the 8, 9, and even 10 hp per inch offered by turbo combinations.

How do turbos offer so much pow-er? The reality is that boost in general, and turbo specifically, act as a power multiplier. If we apply boost from a turbo to a typical 300-hp V8, we must first understand that the normally as-pirated motor is already running un-der boost, boost we call atmospheric pressure (of 14.7 psi at sea level and a given temperature). The atmospheric pressure obviously changes (as does the power output) with changes in ele-vation, temperature, and humidity, but know that when the piston races down with the intake valve open, it is posi-tive atmospheric pressure that forces air into the negative pressure created by the downward moving piston.

Thus, our theoretical (normally as-pirated) V8 making 300 hp does so at an atmospheric pressure of 14.7 psi.

The upside of understanding this is that if the motor makes 300 hp at at-mospheric pressure of 14.7 psi, if we double that pressure by adding 14.7 psi of boost from our turbo(s), we can theoretically double the power out-put (double the pressure = double the power output). There are a number of reasons why this doesn’t always work as easy as the math suggests, but just know that such gains are not only pos-sible, they are expected.

Understanding that doubling the boost can double the power of our 300-hp V8 to 600 hp, we can also extrapo-late lower and higher boost levels, as well as what happens when we change the power output of the original test motor. If we apply just 7.35 psi (.5 bar or 50-percent atmospheric pressure), we get a corresponding 50 percent increase in power from 300 hp to 450 hp. The same goes for running 2 bar (14.7x2=29.4 psi), where we transform

our 300-hp V8 into a 900-hp monster. The calculation works for any boost level, but it also works if we apply it to a more powerful combination.

Suppose we improve the power output of the 300-hp V8 to 400 hp by upgrading the heads, cam, and intake. Running 7.35 psi will increase the out-put of the 400-hp V8 by 50 percent to 600 hp while 14.7 psi will (again) double the power to 800 hp. Running 29.4 psi will result in 1,200 hp, and so goes the calculations based on the new power output at any given boost level.

This example should illustrate the importance of combining a powerful normally aspirated combination with boost, as the power gains are simply multiplied by the original output — the more you start with, the more you fin-ish with. Having more power to start with also allows you to reach any giv-en power level at a lower boost level.

While the boosted power output is

The advent of affordable turbocharging like this 5.0L Ford kit from CX Racing helped usher in the current aftermarket turbo era.

Though LS and 5.0L Fords are certainly popular turbocharging candi-dates, boost can be applied to any motor including a W (348–409) pow-ered ’62 Bel Air. Check again, that is actually an LS motor in disguise!

How often do you see a twin-turbo, twin-carbed, long-rammed powered Plymouth?

The fuel-injected 5.0L Mustang was (and still is) a popular application for turbocharging. This clean engine bay features a single turbo kit from HP Performance and was good for low 10.0’s, despite running through a notoriously weak T5 tranny.

a function of the original power mul-tiplied by the boost (actually pressure ratio), know that all boost is not creat-ed equal. The advantage turbos have over superchargers is that very little power is required to drive the com-pressor of the turbo. The impeller or rotors of a supercharger are driven di-rectly off the crankshaft. This mechan-ical coupling can provide immediate boost response, especially with posi-tive displacement superchargers, but, like the power steering, A/C, and al-ternator, the parasitic losses associated with driving the supercharger reduce the power output offered by the motor.

What this means is that for nearly any given boost level, the turbo will produce more power than a compa-rable supercharger. This power dif-ferential will increase with boost (and flow), but know that 10 psi from a su-percharger will not produce the same power curve or output as 10 psi from a turbo. The sacrifice for this efficiency can be boost response, but proper siz-ing can produce amazing results as fac-tory turbo motors are able to provide peak boost pressure as low as 1,800 rpm (lower than you would want for almost any performance application).

Turbos can be used to produce amazing power. Using four-valve technology and plenty of boost, Accufab’s John Mihovetz managed to squeeze out over 2,500 hp from just 281 cubic inches.

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Turbos have offered this type of performance since their inception, but one of the major reasons for their sudden surge in popularity is avail-ability. Like it or not, the advent of affordable, offshore products has helped usher in the current turbo era. Before the China connection, turbo kits were few and far between pri-marily because of their expense.

Complexity also played a part, but we will cover that portion in our discussion on social media. The av-erage Joe could not (or would not) spend $5,000-$6,000 on a turbo kit, but thanks to knock-off turbos, inter-coolers, and the associated couplers and tubing, turbo pricing has dropped

If you are a perfectionist and looking for something to copy, check out the turbo manifolds, exhaust, and waste gate outlets on this ’32 Ford. Precision bends, slash cuts, and even fully coated, this is turbo exhaust done right. Why are quality exhaust components critical for your turbo motor?

Turbocharging can even be combined with supercharging and (in the case of this Pro Street motor) nitrous oxide for maximum effect.

dramatically. Obviously it pays to shop wisely, but putting together your own turbo kit can be done for less than half of what it cost not long ago, and even less if you shop around.

With $300–$400 turbos, $125 inter-coolers, and aluminum tubing bends readily available, it is possible to piece together a DIY turbo system for under $1,000 if you start with factory exhaust manifolds. This type of kit is not going to put a scare in the likes of Larry Lar-son, but it is capable of boosting the power or your Ford, Chevy, Dodge, or even import by 50%-100% or more.

In addition to cost, technology has played a part in increasing the number of boosted builds. We mentioned that

the boost supplied by turbo motors was a multiplier of the original (normally aspirated) output, and technology has helped dramatically improve that out-put. Using the small block Chevy as an example (though Ford and Dodge mo-tors followed suit), we see that after the original muscle-car era, power outputs plummeted to keep pace with the ever tightening emissions laws. We saw a re-surgence in performance heading into the mid ’80s, but the last L98 TPI small block motor managed just 245–250 hp.

Technology upped the ante when GM introduced the 300-hp LT1, then again after the LT1 was phased out in favor of the LS engine family. Starting your turbo build with a 250-hp L98 will naturally result in substantially less power than a 300-hp LT1, or better yet a 430-hp LS3.

The LS engine family has been around long enough that they are dirt cheap from your local boneyard. Best of all, making as much as 1,000 hp takes nothing more than adding a cam, springs, and the right turbo to an otherwise stock and inexpensive 5.3L LM7 (LS motor). It wasn’t long ago that making an honest 1,000 hp required a dedicated (and expensive) build up. It’s so commonplace, that 1,000 hp is now the new 500 hp!

Though all of these factors are inex-plicably linked, social media has also played a major role in bringing turbo power to the forefront. The power of social media is not to be denied, and how can you resist those glowing ex-haust manifold photos or videos (in-sert link here). Add to that the exploits of the 400+ mph Bonneville racers, 2000+ hp Drag Week (and Street Out-law) competitors, and all those help-ful, how-to horsepower videos and

you start to see how turbos have man-aged to stay relevant.

Despite the onslaught of online in-terruptions from the Nene, Pizza Rat, and what lunacy Kim and company might be involved in this week, enthu-siasts rush to share their own twin-tur-bo install videos, dyno, or drag race results. The sheer availability of infor-mation eliminated one of the obstacles involved with past turbo installations, as no matter what you plan to install, it has likely already been done and the videos are there on line to help guide you successfully through your install.

Things like engine combinations, camshaft selection, and even turbo

sizing are all readily available (though mind the source of info). Cost, tech-nology, and even social media have all combined with the prodigious power potential to keep that turbo train roll-ing down the track.

The only question now is, what are you waiting for? Grab a turbo and get on board!

Sources: Accufab Racing, accu fbaracing.com; CSU, csucarbs.com; CXRacing, CXRacing.com; Hellion, hellionpowersystems.com; Holley/Hooker, holley.com; DNA Motoring, dnamotoring.com; Lil John’s Motorsport Solutions, liljohnsmotorsports.com; Lucas Oil, lucasoil.com; Precision Turbo, precisionturbo.net; Snow Performance, snowperformance.net; Turbonetics, turboneticsinc.com; Turbo Smart, turbosmartusa.com

Turbos love carburetors as well, as evidenced by this CSU-carbureted, single-turbo 5.3L. Fuel supplied by the carburetor acted as an intercooler, dropping the inlet air temps by nearly 90 degrees.

Building boost is easy, but controlling it is another matter. Don’t skimp, get quality waste gates like these 45-mm Hyper-Gates from Turbo Smart.


THE MODERN RESTO mod is a great concept. Take an old muscle car, rip out the outdated engine and suspension, and drop in a modern, electronic fuel injected engine along with a high-per-formance suspension and you’ve got the perfect combination of classic car looks with modern performance.

Simple, right?Actually, as many performance

enthusiasts have learned, there’s a bit more to it than that. It may be relative-ly easy to drop in a new engine into the large engine bay of a late-’60s or early-’70s Camaro or Mustang, but getting it to run dependably can be an-other deal entirely. Getting all the bugs worked out has led to great frustration for many builders we know.

One of the big issues with this situ-ation is getting fuel to the engine at the proper pressure and consistency. Most often, builders will try to get away

with using the stock tank (if it is still in good shape), and raise the fuel pres-sure that a modern EFI fuel system requires by bolting a new electric fuel pump to the frame rail. Typically, the car will start and run while it is sitting in the shop but exhibit stumbles and other problems out on the street.

Aeromotive’s Brett Clow has dealt with helping builders fix these prob-lems for years and says that there are a number of reasons resto mods have these issues.

“Remember, when you get rid of the carburetor for an EFI-based fuel system, you’re also getting rid of the carburetor’s float bowls,” he says. “And the float bowl actually does something that most people don’t even think about. When the stock fuel tank in a carbureted car begins to get low, the fuel will surge slosh around in the tank when taking a turn, under

hard braking, or acceleration and the pump pickup can suck air. Usually, you don’t notice it, because there is enough fuel in the float bowl to keep the engine running until fuel delivery is restored.

“But now if we go to an EFI system, it relies on a steady, uninterrupted supply of fuel at a very high pressure. If the pump gets a gulp of air because fuel has been sliced away from the pickup, then that blip in your pressure is going to affect the engine right away. That is when you get stumbles, the en-gine doesn’t want to drive right, or in a worst-case scenario it shuts off.”

A second very common issue is when you have a pump outside the tank pulling through a pickup, re-quiring the pump to pull negative pressure or vacuum pull fuel out of the tank. That can lead to a scenario where once the fuel starts to warm

SOLUTION

THE

Aeromotive’s Phantom fuel tank systems can prevent fuel supply problems

Words Jeff Huneycutt

PPNDigital.com 19

up in the tank, which isn’t uncom-mon in the summertime, the pump will start cavitating and you wind up with vapor lock.

So what’s the solution? Previously there were really only two ways that you could go, and neither were ideal. The first was to stick with the stock-style tank and an external electric fuel pump then use Band-Aids to cover its inefficiencies. But that left you running from fuel pump to fuel pump, because whenever the tank got below half or two-thirds of its capacity the car start-ed missing and stumbling again, not to mention the fact that external fuel pumps are noisy.

The second option was to go with a fabricated high-performance fuel cell. These mounted the fuel pump in the tank and took care of the cavitation, noise and fuel slosh issues, but can be quite expensive and rarely fit the car like an OEM tank. This led lots of builders to fabricate solutions to in-

stall a new tank that included cutting up the trunk floor and moving around exhaust.

But now Aeromotive has come up with a third option that provides car builders with an economical option for a fuel tank and supply system that is properly engineered to eliminate all the issues that have created such great frustration. The idea is to create a line of fuel tanks that are stamped in the OEM dimensions (whenever possible) so that it is a direct bolt-in, while also designing in all the features that will allow it to work properly with modern EFI engines.

“All of these Phantom tanks are either a combination of a tank built by either Tanks Inc. or Year One with internal baffling built to our specifi-cations and outfitted with our equip-ment,” Clow explains. “We have a wide variety of tanks, so this isn’t a one-size-fits-all scenario. That rarely ever works, so we’re building specific tanks for specific cars.

“Some of the stock tanks don’t have enough depth to properly hang the fuel pump from the top of the tank and get enough space around the baf-fles for the pickup, so we’ve added the necessary volume by lowering the floor. In those tanks, we’ve added new longer hanging straps so that you can install the tank with no issues.”

The cool part about these tanks is they all come outfitted with Aeromo-tive’s excellent Phantom in-tank fuel

pump system, which can feed 700 horsepower or more, and works with both carbureted and fuel injected en-gines.

We’ve taken a close look at the sys-tems in a previous issue of Power & Performance News (search for “Aer-omotive Phantom” at PowerPerfor-manceNews.com) and they are fan-tastically well-designed, but the most important thing to know in this appli-cation is it allows for a super-clean, al-most painlessly easy installation.

The Stealth 340 electric fuel pumps are mounted to a billet alu-minum, black anodized hanger as-sembly and boast an impressive 340 liters per hour of flow. The tanks use an engineered baffling/tray system to control fuel slosh and keep the pump submerged so that you get consistent fuel flow even when the tank is nearly empty.

The tanks also include a pre-in-stalled factory-style sending unit, in-ternal return-line tubing, and three AN ORB ports. There’s three because one is used as a feed line, the second is the return, and the third is a dedicated vent. Finally, because the pump is sub-merged in the tank, it is significantly quieter in operation than an external electric pump mounted to the frame rail that can give you that annoying whine while driving.

Interestingly, while it is obvious that the Phantom tanks are a great option for fuel inject engines, they

The real strength of the Phantom tanks is the Phantom pump mounting system that submerges the electric fuel pump in the fuel to eliminate vapor locking issues and provide extremely quiet operation.

When you get rid of the carburetor for an EFI-based fuel system, you’re also getting rid of the carburetor’s float bowls. And the float bowl actually does something that most people don’t even think about.


also work very well with carbureted systems. “We can run carbureted or fuel injected equally well with these tanks,” Clow explains. “Gasoline these days is designed for a 60 psi fuel system. They haven’t blended gasoline for a carbureted car in 20 years. It is not the same gas that we used to buy back in the ’70s and ’80s. It is a lot more volatile and it is eas-ier to get it to a temperature where it will start exhibiting fuel handling and vapor lock problems. And guys with carburetors are fighting that all the time now. By installing a Phan-tom fuel tank, along with a return line to keep the fuel recycling in the car instead of allowing the fuel to be stalled at low pressure, we eliminate a lot of the hot fuel handling prob-lems that guys are having with car-bureted cars today.

“Plus, the bolt-on EFI throttle body kits are getting really good these days, and they are becoming quite popular. I’ve worked with sev-eral guys who are building a car with a carbureted engine, but they plan to

upgrade to fuel injection somewhere down the line. If you are swapping over from a stock-style fuel system it can be an issue, but if you are us-ing a Phantom tank it gets a whole lot easier. You already have a pump capable of providing the correct fuel pressure reliably, all you have to do is modify the pressure regulator. You buy a conversion kit; take the cap off the regulator; put a new seat, spring, and poppet in the thing; bolt it back together and you are ready for fuel injection. You just have to run a re-turn line in advance, but that solves a lot of problems with carbureted sys-tems anyway.”

But while Aeromotive’s Phantom tank is a great choice for many car builds, to his credit, Clow cautions that it isn’t for full-blown race cars. The stock tank shape often slopes upward in the back to help hide the tank be-hind the rear bumper or roll pan, so the pickup has to be placed near the front. If the fuel level is low, it is possible to slosh the fuel away from the pump un-der hard acceleration or cornering. For

those applications, it is better to go with a dedicated racing tank or fuel cell.

But overall, whether you are build-ing an updated muscle car, a daily driver, or a fun cruiser, if you are look-ing for an economical option for your fuel system that provides plenty of options for the future, it is hard to beat the engineering in Aeromotive’s Phan-tom fuel tanks. Source: Aeromotive, aeromotiveInc.com

The Phantom has terminals for the fuel pump and you can see the -6 ports for the return, vent and outlet (this one has an adapter for a -8 fitting on the outlet).

More people are realizing the value of running a fuel return line even in a carbureted system. Here’s a diagram to show how it should be set up. Plus, if you upgrade to one of the many bolt-on fuel injection systems available today, all that is necessary to upgrade the fuel system is a few changes to the pressure regulator.

Instead of trying to go with a one-size-fits all philosophy, which never really works, Aeromotive designed individual tanks specific to each car. For example, this is a tank designed to drop right into ‘33 and ‘34 Fords. The benefit here is obvious: No cutting up your trunk floor or frame rails, or even reworking the exhaust system.

- TELEVISION FOR WHAT MOVES YOU -


THE ROAD TO BUILDING a car is often a winding one. It can be filled with twists and turns, but hopefully it ends up in the right place. After a few detours and a shortcut, Rich Bryant and his Chevelle finally arrived in the neighborhood of his dreams.

Like many folks Rich is a huge fan of pro street cars and ran across a 1965 Chevy project that had already been tubbed. He made the purchase and be-gan laying out a build for a “race car he could drive on the street.”

After digging into the Chevelle, he found it to be in worse shape than he thought.

“I got it for a decent price,” he says. “But after poking into it a lot of things had been mudded over and it needed a lot of work just to bring it back to the condition I originally

thought it was in. I decided to look for another parts car. I figured I could take two cars and make one.”

He found the car you see here on eBay. It had also been tubbed. In fact, it had been tubbed, the rear end had been narrowed, the roll cage was built, and all of the paint and body had been done. It just needed an interior, the stock front suspension updated, and some running gear installed. The more he looked, the more he found done right, so in the end the first car was sold off and efforts were concentrated on building the silver car.

Rich admits the thought of silver and red wouldn’t be his first choice, but the interior metal had already been sprayed red. Not wanting to do things twice, he went with it. Once everything was in place, he finally un-

derstood the previous builder’s vision and he fell in love with it.

In keeping with a race car influ-ence he added a set of black Bomz rac-ing seats with red inserts and G-Force harnesses. He also added a simple fac-tory-style carpet kit and covered the door panels himself. The dash was filled with AutoMeter Pro Comp II gauges in a brushed aluminum dash panel from Classic Dash and topped with a Pro Stock model steering wheel from Grant.

With the interior squared away, attention was focused on the suspen-sion. The rear was already narrowed and on a ladder bar setup, and now rides on a set of adjustable coilovers from RideTech. A set of 4.88 gears spin inside the housing, along with an Ea-ton Limited Slip unit. Drum brakes

Rich Bryant turned his 1965 Chevelle into a race car he could drive on the street

PPNDigital.com 23

are used out back for now, but Rich has plans to replace them with discs.

The front suspension was mostly stock when the car was purchased. It

was upgraded with tubular upper and lower control arms from Speed Tech, QA1 coilovers, and Baer’s Track4 disc brakes. Rich says there are hundreds

of wheel options and trying to decide on a set can drive a guy mad. Howev-er, he already had Schott wheels on his ’65 Nova and really liked their clean

Words Brandon FlanneryPhotos Todd Ryden


design and option to have the lug nuts hidden. He settled upon a set of their Mod 5 five spokes in 18x8 for the front, and 15x20 for the rear. The big Mickey Thompson Sportsman Pros check in at 31x18x20 out back while G-Force tires from BFG were chosen for the front.

“I’ve had a few pro street purists give me a little negative feedback on the modern wheels,” he says. “But I think it’s the evolution of pro street, and a 15-inch wide wheel and 18-inch wide tire is pro street enough for me and most everyone else who sees the car. I understand the whole heritage

thing, but it’s the next step. They were using the latest technology, and so am I. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

For power, Rich chose a 383 stroker from Patriot Performance. It’s based upon a Dart block and runs an Eagle rotating assembly. He backed it with a Tremec TKO 600 5-speed transmission and drove the car for about 3,000 miles.

“I’ve always had a turbo setup in the back of my mind,” he says. “A lot of guys build these cars with super-chargers poking through the hood, but I wanted something a little more subtle, and sneaky. You don’t see too

many muscle cars with turbos, so that’s what I wanted to do.”

With a Stage 1 kit from WrenchRat Inc., he was able to add twin 60mm turbos from Turbonetics with 64mm wheels. The kit makes it easier than piecing everything together and runs 7.5 pounds of boost. Rich did pull the Patriot engine apart to change the heads and drop the compression down to 9.2:1 to accommodate the boost. It’s fed with an Aeromotive A1000 pump and regulator, and uses an MSD igni-tion to pull timing out under boost, pre-venting detonation. A FAST dash unit

The twin turbo kit from WrenchRat made it easy for Rich to venture into the world of turbocharging. Twin 60mm turbos with 64mm wheels feed his Patriot Performance 383 with 7.5 pounds of boost.

PPNDigital.com 25

keeps tabs on the air/fuel ratios and al-lows for easy tuning. Since underhood space is pretty full, a Snow Performance water-methanol kit was plumbed into the boost ports to help cool the mixture in lieu of an intercooler. It’s supplied by a 2.5-gallon tank mounted next to the 16-gallon fuel cell in the trunk.

In street trim and tune Rich says he laid down 754 horsepower at the rear wheels on the chassis dyno on pump gas at the Street Machine Nationals in Springfield, Missouri, and gets 12–13 mpg on the highway.

The impressive thing about Rich’s

car is that he did all of the work in his home garage in eighteen short months. Well, most of it.

“I did have some help with the paintwork,” he says. “Right after I fin-ished the car I had it at a car show, and some guy showing off did a burnout and plowed right into my door.”

One can only imagine how infuriat-ing that would be, but with the advice of his friend he was able to remove the keys from the other guy’s car and walk away until the police arrived. He was fortunate enough to find another door, and had the car repaired at a friend’s body shop.

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had wrecked it, with my own doing,” he says. “But to not even have any control of the incident was a tough one to process. But I kept my calm and it all worked out okay in the end and it was repaired. I know the other guy’s day was much worse than mine.”

Future plans for the Chevelle in-clude changing the 4.88 gears with a set of 3.73s and upgrading the rear to disc brakes. He’s also going to add dual funny car-style cages to the interior and tidy up a few things. After all, most cars are never really finished, are they?

Big 31x18x20 Mickey Thompsons are tucked between an Eaton limited slip unit with 4.88 gears. Drum brakes are slated for a disc upgrade.

The car was already tubbed and painted when Rich bought it as a parts car for his other Chev-elle. It was in better shape than he thought so he sold the other one.

Every hot rodder’s worst nightmare. A guy doing a burnout plowed into Rich’s door at an event.


The interior was already sprayed red when Rich bought the car, so he simply finished it out with AutoMeter gauges, a Classic Dash aluminum panel, and a FAST touch screen. Steering wheel is a Grant item.

The trunk holds a 16-gallon fuel cell and a smaller 2.5 gallon reservoir for the Snow Performance water-methanol kit. This is plumbed into the boost ports and is used in lieu of an intercooler.

IT’S YOUR LIFESTYLELive it.

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Stop giving your engine machinist cash to do a job you can easily do yourself

The cam bearing installation and removal tool from JEGS includes everything needed to work in engines with cam bearings that range in size from 1.125 inches all the way up to 2.690 inches.

PPNDigital.com 29

FEW OF US HAVE the machinery on hand to bore and hone cylinders or deck a cylinder head. That’s what engine machinists are for. They have invested in all the specialized equipment necessary to do the work. Hopefully, your fa-vorite machinist has the skills to go with the equipment to provide you with consistent, high-quality machine work. When they do, it’s money well spent.

But that doesn’t mean you are obligated to spend any more money than you have to.

Another task that many will leave to their engine ma-chinist is installing the cam bearings. That’s because press-ing the cam bearings into the bores can be a tricky task with-out a specialized cam bearing installation tool. You can try to simply hold the bearing in your fingers and bang it in with a hammer, but poor results are likely.

If you don’t hold the cam bearing perfectly square with the bore during installation, you can shave off material from the back of the bearing against the side of the bore, which will get caught between the bearing and the block. This ex-cess material will change the shape of the inside diameter of the bearing, creating tight spots that will reduce oil flow in that critical area. A machinist may charge only $40 or $50 to install cam bearings, so many just consider the extra cost a necessary evil, especially since a quality cam bearing instal-lation tool usually runs well over $300.

But now JEGS has a Cam Bearing Installation Tool they are offering for $172, which is a smoking deal. It’s still an

Words / Photos Jeff Huneycutt

1. The first step is to choose the correct size expanding driver for the correct bearing size. Remove one segment by squeezing the driver until one of the segments pops out.

2. Insert the expander assembly into the driver until the collar of the driver rests against the collar on the expander.

3. Now you can insert the fourth section of the driver back in place.


investment, but the tool pays for itself with just three or four installs. Even if you aren’t doing any machine work to your block, any time you do a complete teardown, the cam bear-ings need to be removed before cleaning the block.

We put JEGS new Cam Bearing Installation and Removal Tool to the test at KT Engine Development in Concord, North Carolina. The kit includes everything you will need (except for a hammer) to install or remove cam bearings in a wide variety of engines and bearing sizes. In fact, it will work with bearing sizes from 1.125 inches all the way up to 2.690 inches. There’s even an extension to the bar which should prove invaluable when working with longer engines like a straight six.

The first step for proper cam bearing installation is to put down the cam bearings and the install tool and pick up some lint-free towels. The cam bearing bores must be absolutely clean. Wipe down both the bores and the outside of the cam bearings with a fast drying solvent before installation. Also, the back of the bearing must be dry when installed in the block. You may think a little bit of oil would aid assembly, but the bearings are designed to be installed dry for best performance.

You should also take time to make sure you are installing the correct bearings in the correct bores. Some engines, like

5. Here’s a look at what the completed assembly looks like.

7. Slide the bearing back until it rests against the shoulder of the driver, then grab the hex and spin the bar clockwise to expand the driver. If it is too hard to reach, you can also use an open end wrench to hold the expander while spinning the bar. Either way, open up the expander until the bearing is firmly held in place.

8. The key to properly installing the bearings is to keep them square to the bores while driving them into place. The tool makes this easy to do by sliding the guide cone into the first cam bearing bore so that the driver bar always stays centered.

6. Insert the driver through the front of the block through the cam bearing housings until just before the rear bearing housing. Make sure the expander assembly is at its smallest size and slide the appropriate bearing over the driver.

4. After sliding the white guide cone over the driver bar, Ken Troutman of KT Engine Development threads the expander assembly onto the bar.

9. Using a large mallet or dead blow hammer, strike the back of the driver bar to press the bearing into place. Make sure the oiling hole matches up with the oil gallery exit in the block. And if you go too far, you can insert the driver from the other side and press the bearing back the other way.

10. After getting the bearing in place, work your way backwards toward the front of the block. A light can help you make a quick check to confirm that the oiling hole in the bearing is correctly aligned over the hole in the block feeding oil from the cam bore to the main bearing.

the Chevy small block, are stepped, meaning the cam bear-ing housing bores can vary in size based on the position. If so, the proper location for each bearing will be labeled on the box. Arrange your bearings so that you can work from the rear of the block forward.

Finally, while installing the bearings, always make sure the oil hole in the bearing is lined up with the oiling hole in the block. This may sound obvious, but sometimes can be easy to forget. Some blocks may have grooves that allow the oil to flow around the back side of the bearing before entering through the hole. This arrangement gives you more latitude when deciding where to place the hole. But instead of just allowing it to fall where it may, try to place the bearing’s oil

hole between the 2- and 3-o’clock position (when the block is oriented upright). The top half of the bearing doesn’t see pressure from the cam, so placing the oil hole at 3 o’clock or above allows the oil to enter without having to fight against the engine. The camshaft rotates clockwise, so from the point it enters, it can form an oil wedge and flow down to the bot-tom half of the bearing and support the spinning camshaft.

With the right tools, installing your own cam bearings isn’t tricky, and over time it can definitely save you money. Besides, building your own engines is one of the most re-warding things any gearhead can do. So build as much of it as you absolutely can. Source: JEGS, jegs.com


THE WHOLE POINT of owning a Pro Touring car is to show off your build skills. Outdoor car shows like the O’Reilly’s Street Machine Na-tionals in St. Paul, Minnesota, offer the perfect opportunity to cruise around in a great state fairgrounds atmosphere, but sprinkling in a three-way test of Pro Touring mettle is even better.

We tested horsepower, acceleration, braking, handling, and driver skill as part of the enthusiasm generated by the Borla Street Machine Challenge.

We started by testing the horse-power potential on Powerhouse Dyno’s Lucas Oil Dyno Challenge, then punished tires on the Hotchkis Performance autocross, and finally tested driver skill with the Stop Box, a short, 150-foot straight shot drag race funneled into a small, one-car garage-sized cone box.

To make it fair while also attracting a broad diversity of cars, we split the Street Machine Challenge into three classes of Late Model, Muscle Car, and Corvette-Viper. With a 1982 year break for the Late Model class (that corralled

all the ABS brake-equipped cars into one class), we also offered the Corvette and Viper guys their own sandbox, just so they could beat up on each other as opposed to abusing the Late Model guys. Let’s dive into the competition.

Dyno DaysTalk to any gearhead and horsepow-er is most often the first query. Gary Ubert brought his inertia chassis dyno to the fairgrounds with a simple for-mat: The car with the most horsepow-

CHALLENGE

DYNO STOP BOX AUTOCROSS

A three-way test for Challenge bragging rights

Words / Photos Jeff Smith

Horsepower is what everyone wants to know about. Among the killer horsepower numbers was Brian Brambilla’s ’11 twin-turbocharged Camaro. Opening the hood displays little since the turbos are hidden beneath the floorpan, but despite the camouflage, the LS3 stumped the Powerhouse chassis dyno with 871 rear wheel horsepower.

PPNDigital.com 33

er was awarded the top points and turbochargers, superchargers, or ni-trous are completely legal.

Oddly, nobody came braced with nitrous, but there were plenty of turbo cars. Brandon Brambilla’s ’11 Camaro came in at the top of the big dog list in Late Model that spooled up to 871 rwhp, using a pair of low-mounted tur-bochargers on an otherwise stock LS3.

In Muscle Car, Justin Nall returned to St. Paul with his ’66 Chevelle equipped with a used truck 5.3L motor that made an impressive 722 rwhp on E85. Eric Hoekensen also used a pair of turbos to crank 623 rwhp with his summer daily driver ’63 Impala. Hon-orable mention goes to Ryan Buck’s ’63 Chevy II with a normally aspirated 412 horsepower and Mark Gruetzman’s ’64 Ford Galaxie that pumped out 406 hp from a stroked, big-block Ford.

We expected big numbers from Nick Abernathy’s supercharged LT4 direct-injected Corvette and it didn’t disappoint with 565 rwhp. Nate Smith finished second in the ’Vette class with a respectable 451 rwhp.

Hotchkis Autocross This year’s Borla Showdown included an impressive new twist with the move to brand new pavement at a larger parking lot that created the opportuni-ty for a much longer and challenging course. John Hotchkis, Rob Byrd, Dan Weishaar, and company took on the task of herding nearly 100 cars a day through a 40-second, undulating course that demanded negotiating not just elevation changes, but also the task of avoiding those 2-second penalty cones.

By the first laps on Saturday, it was obvious that Friday’s fresh pavement times would not stand. It took until Sunday to really see the result of the rubber laid down on the track when Ryan Buck put his ’63 Chevy II on the line with an amazing 40.996-second lap time. That is incredibly impres-sive when you realize that for a short time, this Chevy II, with a little help from a TCI suspension yet burdened with small tires could knock down a killer lap time like this. Only Nick Ab-ernathy’s digitally mastered 2015 Cor-vette bested Buck’s lap with a 40.136 that survived as quickest time of the weekend.

Among the most improved cars from previous years was Justin Nall’s ’66 Chevelle with its big turbo, which made putting the power down very

Another Muscle Car class car that you wouldn’t expect to make big numbers on the dyno was Eric Hoekensen’s ’63 Impala more-door that was also packing LS power urged with a pair of turbos. Eric’s summer daily-driver pushed the dyno wheel to 623 rwhp.

Winner of the power test for the Muscle Cars was Justin Nall’s E85-fed single turbocharged 5.3L LS truck motor slid into his mellow-yellow ’66 Chevelle. Justin told us he bent three connecting rods on an earlier package, but was confident enough in his latest combo to pump out 722 horsepower.

The relocated Hotchkis autocross course offered plenty of challenges and it wasn’t too surprising that Nick Abernathy’s ’15 LT-4 supercharged Corvette was more than up to setting fast lap time of the weekend with an amazing low 40-second lap. But then, you’d expect at least this kind of performance from a machine of its caliber.


difficult. Despite that handicap, Justin nailed a respectable 43.10-second lap time that was good enough for third place in Muscle Car, just behind An-drew Chenoweth’s 41.73-second push for the father-son team abusing their ’70 big-block-powered Challenger. Even Nick Billig’s 44-second pass in his newly-minted LS-powered ’68 Camaro would have been good enough to steal the top spot in the Late Model class as surprisingly, the newer cars struggled to approach the Muscle Car times.

Driver skill was best illustrated by Justin Hirschuber’s taking fast time in the Late Model class with his un-der-powered Mustang. Despite pro-ducing the least amount of rear wheel horsepower of any car in the compe-tition, Justin was able to pound out a strong enough lap time to best even Brandon Brambilla’s ground-pound-ing ’11 Camaro. So here’s evidence that even modest horsepower can be made to perform on an open autocross course in the hands of a good driver.

Stop BoxFor our 2015 version, we added a bit more excitement to kick off the inau-gural Borla Street Machine Challenge. Rather than single runs, we widened the Stop Box into two lanes for side-by-side action.

The idea is to accelerate from a dead stop and put the car into the Stop Box 150 feet away, without blowing through the end of the box, or mashing the cones on either side or the end of the box. This looks much easier than it really is and while most observers focus on the quick stop at the end, the real key to running a quick time is the launch.

An additional tweak called for the entire field to qualify both on Friday and Saturday. We then created an NHRA-style single elimination ladder to declare separate class winners for both days. These two then battled it out on Sunday morning for their class win, with second place points award-ed to the runner-up. The car with the overall quickest time either in quali-

fying or eliminations (who wasn’t in first or second) would be awarded third place points.

Friday’s participation was lighter than expected, but Ryan Buck went on to Sunday’s final with a win in Muscle Car class over Andrew Chenoweth, while Clint Sova’s Mustang defeated Chris Green’s S-10 for Late Model. Since we only had two cars for the Corvette-Viper class, we held them off until Sunday.

By Saturday, the rest of the field belatedly realized they only had one last chance to get in and the younger Chenoweth defeated his dad for the Muscle Car class victory to move on to Sunday.

In Late Model, Joe Hawkins took on Mike Proulx and his ’86 IROC Camaro. While Mike made Joe work for it, Haw-kins took the Saturday class win. This set the stage for Sunday’s shootout.

Our new rules made it a little more challenging for the finalists, with a best three-out-of-five format for the

Nick Billig brought his newly-completed LS-powered ’68 Camaro to the Challenge and was competitive for a car he barely completed in time for the weekend. He finished a respectable fifth overall on the autocross considering he didn’t compete on Saturday due to a minor shunt that required repairs.

To prove that horsepower isn’t really a major factor in quick autocross times, Justin Hirschuber finished dead last in the Lucas Oil dyno chal-lenge with only 168 horsepower but redeemed himself with the quickest autocross lap in Late Model with a 45.198.

The Hotchkis autocross was the focal point of competition and it was fun to see vehicles you might not expect competing. Garrett Carlson wheeled his ’69 big-block Chevy-powered C10 pickup around the course quicker than some expected, but a bit short of making the top three.

The beauty of Street Machine Challenge is that anybody can be compet-itive. Mark Gruetzman brought his ’64 Galaxie with a stroker big-block motor. While the big car was a bit out of its element on the autocross, Gruetztman made it fun careening his big Ford around the pylons.

PPNDigital.com 35

For the Late Model Stop Box final, Joseph Hawkins put down a series of good passes to defeat Clint Sova in an all-Mustang final. That win gave Hawkins enough points for a Late Model class podium position.

For the Corvette-Viper Stop Box final, Nate Smith’s ’99 Corvette won the first round, but Nick Abernathy figured out the launch control and won the next two rounds.

WINNERSMUSCLE CAR Position/Owner HP / Pts. Autocross / Pts. Stop Box / Pts. Total1. Ryan Buck, ’63 Nova .................... 412 / 20 ................40.996 / 30 .....................2.982 / 30 ....................802. Justin Nall, ’66 Chevelle .............. 722 / 30 ................43.100 / 10 ......................3.177 / 0 .....................40*3. Andrew Chenoweth, ’70 Dodge .... 302 / 0 .................41.730 / 20 .....................3.174 / 20 ....................40** Tie breakers for class position are determined by peak horsepower

LATE MODELPosition/Owner HP / Pts. Autocross / Pts. Stop Box / Pts. Total 1. Brandon Brambilla, ’11 Camaro ... 871 / 30 ................46.031 / 10 ......................3.267 / 0 .....................402. Joe Hawkins, ’02 Mustang .......... 204 / 0 ..................48.086 / 0 ...................... 3.316 /30 ....................30*3. Justin Hirshuber, ’94 Mustang ...... 168 / 0 ................445.198 / 30 .....................3.450 / 0 .....................30** Tie breakers for class position are determined by peak horsepower

CORVETTE-VIPERPosition/Owner HP / Pts. Autocross / Pts. Stop Box / Pts. Total 1. Nick Abernathy, ’15 Corvette ....... 565 / 30 ................40.136 / 30 .....................3.165 / 30 ....................902. Nate Smith, ’99 Corvette ..............451 /20 .................44.604 / 20 ....................3.257 / 20s ...................60

Sunday final. In Muscle Car, Ryan Buck put on a clinic on how to drive a non-ABS car to quick times by de-feating Andrew Chenoweth in three straight rounds with Buck’s final run an awesome 2.982-second time that was not equaled over the entire week-end by any car.

Late Model was up next with Joe Hawkins besting Clint Sova in an all-Mustang final, with Hawkins tak-ing all three rounds. For the Corvettes the finish wasn’t much of a surprise. Nick Abernathy just put his ’15 Vette into launch mode and easily outlasted Nate Smith’s efforts although Smith did win the first round. With Stop Box complete, it was time for us to tabulate the points to extrapolate a winner.

The WinnersThe key to winning Street Machine Challenge is consistent performance. With points awarded to the top three finishers in each of the three perfor-mance categories, it becomes clear that you have to do well in all three to control the class. But if you dig a little deeper, it soon becomes apparent that if you do well in all three but do not win, you still have a shot if your com-petition only shines in one venue and underperforms in the other two.

For the Muscle Car class, Ryan Buck’s Nova clearly had it his way. He not only commanded the Hotch-kis autocross, but also the Stop Box besting the hard-charging Andrew Chenoweth. But Justin Nall made it a race by winning the Lucal Oil Dyno Challenge and then adding points with a third place finish in the auto-cross. That produced the first of two ties for overall position with Andrew Chenoweth and Nall both amassing 40 points. Our rules use horsepower

For even more coverage head to PPNDigital.com.

as the tie-breaker, so the Chevelle’s big horsepower number awarded him second place over the Chenoweth Mopar. In the Late Model run-offs, Brandon Brambilla came out strong in his twin-turbocharged Camaro, knocking down the big-horsepow-er number for the entire Challenge. While he was eliminated early in the Stop Box shootout, he was able to drive his way to a third place finish on the Hotchkis autocross and that was enough to best the rest of the field with only 40 points.

A great example of never give up was Justin Hirschuber, whose Mus-tang produced a mere 168 hp on the Lucas Oil chassis dyno, but more than made up for it by besting everybody else on the autocross. This gave him enough points to tie with Joe “Mr. Enthusiasm” Hawkins for second place overall, but Hawkins’ Mustang cranked out more horsepower, which elevated him to second overall for a great podium finish.

The Corvette-Viper class never was really much of a contest since we only had two competitors. With a 2015 ZO6 Corvette with a supercharged di-rect-injected LT4 engine, Nick was a shoe-in, although his competition was a strong but outclassed 1999 Corvette. The outcome was easy to predict. Nate Smith gave his friend Nick Abernathy a good run for the trophy, but Aber-nathy frankly never let up.

Overall, the event was an unquali-fied success. The only thing that could have made it better would have been even more entries. So if this sounds like the kind of event that is tai-lor-made for you and your machine, then there’s only one thing to do. Cir-cle the dates of July 15–17, 2016 on your calendar and make sure your car is prepared. Your competition will cer-tainly be ready.

Sources: Borla Performance Industries, borla.com; Hotchkis Performance, hotchkisperformance.com; Lucas Oil Products, lucasoil.com; Powerhouse Dyno, 218.766.1810


ATI goes to incredible lengths to torture test every product it develops before being sold to the customer

TRIAL BY


Photo by John DiBartolomeo

PRACTICALLY EVERY COMPANY in the motorsports market talks about how they test their products. And it’s true that most do dyno testing and even some real-world testing before they go to market with a new product.

But very rarely have we ever seen a company make the investment in continual product testing that ATI has, in terms of both money and time, by the head of the organization, JC Beattie. ATI actually owns and Beattie main-tains and campaigns multiple racecars that are used as rolling testbeds for developing new products. That, of course, is in addition to the company’s dynos and test cells as well as the engineering staff.

“It started with my dad (Jim Beat-tie) back in the ’70s when my dad had just gotten started working on torque converters for ev-erybody,” JC ex-plains. “It became necessary to test so that he could determine what was going on and what worked best.

“As my father worked to develop the product he would get with teams and rent tracks, and people didn’t rent race tracks at that time. He would bring lunch, bring a bunch of convert-ers, and even bring people to help. And the racers benefited too. They knew what their cars would do, and they got real life, real world informa-tion they could give back to my dad. ‘Hey, this converter works well,’ or ‘This converter isn’t any good at all.’ So that helped develop the product, and it also helped racers get a little testing time, which they appreciated, while also developing ATI’s name.

“Today it’s still hard to really do any good testing during a race weekend,” he continues. “Every pass is valuable. When you are racing, you don’t want to take a chance testing a new product. These days you don’t even want to change a tune between rounds. So we still rent tracks and go testing just like my dad did decades ago.”

ATI was founded on rigorous testing and it remains in the company’s DNA. In fact, Jim — before passing this year — and JC even expanded upon it by pur-chasing and racing their own race cars.

“I grew up racing go-karts, and we developed some products for that market based on what we learned rac-ing,” JC says. “Then I got into circle

track stuff, and we used that as an op-portunity to develop products for that. Then I settled down for a little bit and didn’t do much until they announced the drag pack program. The Ford stuff was out, and we didn’t get a Ford. But we did get a Dodge. And we used that car to put together a Stock Eliminator class racing program.

“That was really my first taste of drag racing. We showed up with the ATI car in the Stock Eliminator for a couple of divisional races, and then we went to a nationals at Englishtown. That was back in, I think, 2010, and En-glishtown was my fourth race ever.”

Beattie says he learned a lot rac-ing his Dodge Challenger in the Stock Eliminator class. One example is a new damper developed specifically for that car. In that horsepower lim-ited class many racers were looking for the lightest damper possible in an attempt to reduce rotating mass, but Beattie learned that the car actually responded better with a bit heavier damper. Of course, this went against the conventional thinking at the time, so many balked at the idea of bolting on a heavier damper to the snout of the crankshaft. But when Beattie could show them that was what he was run-ning on his car and the timeslips that went with it, it went a long way to-ward changing people’s minds.

He says they also learned at lot about how to improve their torque converters for some unique situations.

“The first converter we developed for the Challenger flashed at 5,600 rpm,” Beattie says. “And we did that because that’s where peak torque was. That was the general consensus back in the day; flash the converter at peak torque and that will do the best.

“So then we tried a little bit looser converter that went to 6,000 and saw

success. Then we upped it to 6,200 and 6,400, and then somebody else running one said, ‘Hey, I need one at 6,500.’ And it worked.

“Today we often shoot for a torque converter in the car that flashes at 6,700, which is almost a full thousand RPM above peak torque. But we’re going faster. It’s not something you can draw out on paper and say, ‘Yeah that should work.’ You’ve got to go out there and test it and prove it yourself. You’ve got to know before you sell the first con-verter because racers can’t afford a fail-ure. Some may think that a few dyno runs is good enough, but I believe you really have to put the product on a track in real-world situations to verify that it is going to work like it should.

“And that is the same way we de-veloped our Super F transmission fluid,” he continues. “I knew I want-ed a synthetic fluid. We got hooked up with Lake Speed Junior at Driven Racing Oil, and he helped us with the formulation. He sent us 5 gallons of that fluid to test, and I ran that same 5 gallons — really only about 3 gallons — the whole year. I just kept dumping it out, straining it with a paint strainer, and then dumping it back in then top-ping it off with a little fresh fluid if the transmission needed it.

“I ran that stuff all year. We put 100 passes on it in the stocker, and that’s what we did before we were willing to put the product out with our name on it. I was confident it wasn’t going to cause anybody any trouble. Because at the end of the day I am easy to reach, and anybody can call and scream and yell at me if one of our products lets them down. I don’t want that.”

In 2012 ATI added to its racing fleet with one of the very first Copo Ca-maros built. Beattie says it only made sense to start racing the Camaro. Af-ter all, ATI was already chosen as the preferred builder for the dampers, flex plates, crank adaptors, torque convert-ers, transmissions, and fluid. But Beat-tie didn’t retire the Dodge Challenger. Instead, he still races it in Stock Elim-inator and runs the Camaro in Super Stock. Racing two different cars may make for a punishing weekend, but Beattie sees it as an opportunity to put that many more parts to the test.

“I had wanted to have a second car to run in Super Stock to help refine our

Jim Beatie

The Dodge Challenger JC Beattie first raced in the Stock Eliminator division.


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(Turbo) 400 stuff and our Powerglide stuff,” he explains. “I wanted some-thing with more horsepower than the Stocker, but I didn’t want to give up the Dodge, either. I bet I’ve got more passes on our Copo Camaro than any-one else out there. We’ve run it in three different series with two different styles of engines and three different types of tires — just gaining info.

“We flog the heck out of that thing,” he adds. “We used it to test the first aluminum forward drum with a steel insert. That ran in the Copo for almost a full season before we made it available to others.”

Beattie also talks about how he and his crew at ATI mocked up a short staging area to make test runs with the Camaro while the compa-ny was developing its very popular Wicked Quick Billet Aluminum Valve Body. “You can only see so much on the dyno,” he says, “either the engine dyno with a transmission hooked to the engine or the valve body dyno. So we tried to set up a more real-world testing environment when developing our new valve body.

“We set up a lane in the parking lot at our shop, and over a two-day span of testing we tried out 14 differ-ent variations on the Copo to see how they all stacked up. We put down lines in the parking lot and set up a video camera to record everything. Then we made short passes to see which one would rock the least and lock down the hardest at idle, 1,500 rpm, and 2,000 rpm. We would bring it in and put it up on the lift, drain the fluid, and put a blower on it. After it sat for

15 minutes we’d pull the valve body and put the next one in. Then we’d put that same fluid back in and take it out for another run. And we were able to record it all with the Racepak datalog-ger and then lay it up with the video to compare that with what felt best from the driver’s seat.

“Then we took that to the track to verify it. The guys that will really need that are the ones with heavy cars and with really high horsepower stuff. It’s got to be quick, a 4/10 tree is no joke, and this new valve body is going to help a lot of racers out.”

Normally Beattie will run five events a year and rent out a track for himself and other drivers an additional five times. And for everything he’ll take both cars. That’s a ton of laps, but he’s not the only one doing significant testing work on ATI’s lineup of racing products. Pro Mod racer Chris Rini, who has done a lot of winning all over the United States, is also trusted to torture test ATI’s new and upgraded products.

“ATI has helped accelerate us in the automatic heads up world tremen-dously,” he says. “Seven years ago if you told somebody you were going to run Pro Modified and have an OEM-type transmission in there, they would have told you that you were wasting your time. Now, pretty much in 1/8-mile racing there’s almost no clutch cars left.

“The first couple of heads-up races I went to everybody called it the slush box, and wondered what we could be thinking. And now we run an OEM Turbo 400 with a lockup, and we are as fast as the stick cars. We were the first

ATI’s JC Beattie believes the best way to prove a new design is to put it into a car and give it real-world abuse. He races multiple cars so that he can verify the products his company sells all work as advertised.

OEM-type auto transmission in the five-second zone in the quarter-mile in the NMCA.

“As we’ve increased the horse-power, they have been able to keep up and increase the size or strength of parts where it was needed in the transmissions and really kept us from breaking stuff,” he adds. “We’d send our transmissions back after every 80 runs even though they were really still good, just because Jim and JC wanted to tear them down and see where they were getting any wear and if anything looked like it was going to fail. And that’s how they would make their de-sign changes and upgrades. It’s a thin line to make them as strong as you possibly can while also as light as you possibly can so that you get the best of both worlds.

“We’re to the point now where we’ve got the Powerglide transmis-sions going 100 runs, no damage, no breakage, no failures. We’ll send them back to ATI for a look over and refresh. They will install some clutches, some new seals, and check for worn parts. We’re keeping planetary gears a couple hundred runs. And that was the weak-est link in any type of tranmission. They are small and see a lot of load. We went 3.81 in the eighth mile with a Powerglide at 193 miles an hour in a 2,400-pound car. And now we’ve been as fast as 3.75 at 198 with a turbo 400.

Going forward, Beattie says ATI will only increase the rigors of the testing it does on all of its components before making them available to cus-tomers. And even after components are on the shelves, Beattie says testing will continue as he and his staff con-tinually work to improve performance and keep up with the ever increasing demands of racers.

“The testing also helps us know exactly what we need to give a guy when he calls up and tells us what he’s racing and what he’s trying to do,” Be-attie adds. “I find lately that we are spending a lot of time talking custom-ers out of something they don’t need. Instead of upselling, I guess I’m pret-ty good at down-selling. But I would always rather sell three of the right thing than six of something and two be wrong. Even if it hurts our overall sales, we’ve got to make sure we only sell our customers the right thing.

“I know it’s the way I’d like to be treated.” Source: ATI Performance Products, atiracing.com


BILL JENKINS WROTE a book in 1976 with Larry Schrieb, entitled The Chevrolet Racing Engine. This soft-cov-er book became the bible for thou-sands of enthusiasts who wanted to learn about building a high-horse-power drag race small-block Chevy.

Much of the information from that book is still useful today. Among the thousands of bits of information was a reference to 8620 steel core camshafts. This was nothing new in the cam in-dustry, but few casual enthusiasts knew about this high-performance cam core.

For some, little has changed in nearly 40 years and there are many en-gine builders who claim that the 8620 steel core camshaft is the only way to build a race-oriented or even a hot street-performance camshaft.

Lately there have been many dis-cussions on forums and message boards about the differences between 8620 steel “gold core” cams and “black core” 5160 steel billet cams. Much of the opinions offered in these forums contain barely a sliver of actual fact.

This story weaves a tale that involves a little bit of metallurgy, a touch of heat-treat technology, and an approach to building a quality camshaft core that will do the job without a lot of drama, and might even save you some money.

In talking with COMP’s Scooter Brothers, he explained that for mul-tiple decades, most mechanical roll-er cams were built on 8620 cores and worked relatively well. Cam failures that did occur were often traced to is-sues with cam spalling, which is dam-age to the surface of the lobes.

Scooter says that about 30 years ago COMP commissioned an inves-tigation to evaluate a better way to build a high-performance steel billet camshaft. The study employed met-allurgists, heat-treating experts, en-gineers, and other sources who even-tually revealed these cam problems were traced to issues with the depth of the heat-treat.

The issue with making a camshaft core is to build it with a surface finish hard enough to resist wear, yet retain

The differences between 8620 and 5160 steel core camshafts

and why it’s so important

Words Jeff SmithPhotos Comp Cams, Jeff Smith

ductility (the ability of the steel to bend rather than break), and also be able to be machined easily. These differing requirements are often at odds with each other.

For a long time, 8620 alloy steel billet camshaft cores met these tasks most of the time. But as valvetrain inertia loads have increased as engine speeds and power levels escalate, more problems with the 8620 core have surfaced. Nearly all of these problems can be relat-ed to the heat-treat process.

Another part of this inves-tigation revealed that there was a better way to create a more consistent heat-treat. Specialty, high chromium alloy steels have become the answer for high-stress engine applications like NASCAR and sports car racing, but these camshafts are also expensive, often between $2,000 and $3,500 apiece. For Sportsman racers, these solu-

PPNDigital.com 41

tions are just not economical-ly practical.

The problem COMP and oth-er companies have encountered with 8620 steel cams concerned inconsistent depth of the surface

hardness created by the carburiz-ing heat-treat process.

Before hardening, a semi-finished cam is created with un-ground lobes (UGL). This UGL cam is then put through a heat-treat proce-dure. In carburizing, the entire

8620 cam is coated with copper and then the copper is removed

from the lobes and the distributor drive gear. This leaves the main body and the journals of the cam coated with copper to protect them from the heat-treat process.

The cam is then placed in a large, sealed furnace and specif-ic carbon-infused gases are in-

troduced into the furnace. The heat opens up the iron-lattice structure of the steel, allow-

An 8620 cam is easy to spot since the carbu-rizing heat treatment process leaves a bright copper band around the cam body in between the lobes.

ing the carbon from the gas to move through the structure. This cre-ates a surface layer approach-ing 0.8-percent carbon that slowly diminishes down to 0.2 percent at the maxi-mum depth. Then the en-tire cam is quenched and tempered.

Scooter says that in the best-case sce-nario, this heat-treat process extends the hardened case to a depth of 0.100-inch be-low the surface of each lobe. The cam is then finished ground to the re-quired specs. Keep in mind that this finish grinding re-moves a certain amount of the hardened surface thickness.

While it may seem like increasing the time the cam is exposed to heat in the furnace would increase the depth, this attempt usually suffers from di-minishing returns, because the car-


bon closer to the surface fills all the gaps in the lattice that were being used as flow paths to diffuse carbon.

The one result that often does oc-cur is an increased risk of reducing the cam core’s ductility. The biggest issue with carburizing is that the process is inconsistent in creating this 0.080-inch hardened depth.

Scooter likes to use the analogy of building a road. If your goal is a hard, durable concrete road surface that will accommodate years of heavy vehicle traffic, you want a stable roadbed and a thick surface. You start by creating a solid sub-surface and then pour a con-sistent 12-inch concrete surface.

Now all kinds of vehicles can drive on it without suffering from cracking or potholes. But if that road surface is 12-inches thick in one area but only 6-inches thick in others, the thin areas will quickly crack and fail. Now sub-stitute a camshaft lobe for that road surface and you should be able to see

how important a thick, strong, consis-tent lobe surface is to create a durable cam lobe.

As mentioned, carburizing does not always create a consistent case hardening depth. The areas with thin-ner hardened depths will be where the failures occur, just like thin areas on a concrete roadway. In order to build a quality cam product, these inconsistent heat-treatment depths were unacceptable, creating the need to come up with a new way to make cams. The solution was to change to a different cam core material that could be heat-treated with a process called induction hardening.

Induction hardening uses high-cur-rent electric coils placed around the lobes of the cam to selectively heat-treat the lobes separately from the cam core, the journals, and even the dis-tributor drive gear.

After much experimentation, COMP learned that this induc-tion-hardening process could be ap-plied to 5160 alloy steel with results that consistently produce a consis-

A 5160 billet steel core cam looks slightly different than an 8620 and displays a black hue in between the cam lobes that is a direct result of the hardening process.

This is an 8620 camshaft that has been heat treated and then cut through the center of the lobe to show the depth of the heat treat. Note that the heat treatment process extends roughly 0.080-inch down from the surface. Also notice that the color or cast to the treatment changes — indicating that the steel is not as hard as depth increases. Also you can see that the depth around the cam lobe is not consistent.

This is a similar cutaway of a 5160 steel billet cam core that has been induction hardened. Notice that the heat treat extends significantly deeper than the depth displayed by the 8620 and also how the depth is much more consis-tent. The dimples at various locations are the result of Rockwell hardness tests. Larger and deeper dimples indicate a softer steel. The spec for a 5160 cam is a heat treat thickness of a minimum of 0.140-inch.

tent hardness depth of a minimum of 0.140-inch — 40 percent deeper than what could best be expected from an 8620 core camshaft.

Induction hardening works better with high carbon steels like 5160. This steel uses 0.60-percent carbon, while 8620 is a low-carbon steel with only 0.20-percent carbon.

Another disadvantage with 8620 is that the deeper the thickness of the carburizing, the hardness tends to lose strength where induction harden-

PPNDigital.com 43

not sound like a big deal, but when the company literally has thousands of cores for all the different engines, this small step reduces the cost of the finished cam. It’s a smarter and more efficient way to make camshafts.

Induction hardening creates a sur-face hardness that is every bit as hard as a carburized 8620 camshaft but benefits from a more consistent hard-ened case thickness. The Rockwell C scale target hardness for both cams is 58-61RHc.

Where some people have concerns might just have as much to do with how a cam looks as opposed to how it works. An 8620 carburized camshaft will have bright copper bands on the core of the camshaft in between the lobes. COMP’s induction-hardened 5160 cam is different, with a more con-sistent black case-hardened appear-ance on the core between the lobes.

This has given rise to concerns of the “black cam” being not as good as the “gold cam.” But now that you know about both processes, you have a much better handle on the differences.

One significant difference is with environmental concerns. The copper on 8620 is best adhered with a chem-ical process (using sodium cyanide), and that has serious environmental concerns. The carburization process also requires using a great deal of natural gas (for carbon), and that is being frowned on more and more go-ing forward.

COMP still offers 8620 cams for custom or one-off applications, which saves a little cost for small

runs. 8620 is almost foolproof on heat-treat, where any induction hardening of camshafts (like 5160) requires significant expertise and several cams have to be sacrificed to ensure the setup is correct.

Once the process is recorded for a particular camshaft (like the majority of catalog cams), the 5160 is comparable in price and is every bit as accurate and more durable than the 8620 version.

A further area of confusion also relates to the 5160 cam’s black ap-pearance. COMP’s mild hydraulic roller cams for older, retro-fit small- and big-block Chevy, Fords, and Mo-pars (among many others) have for several years been created on what is called an austempered ductile iron (ADI) cam core.

These cores were selected because they offer a low-cost alternative for retro-fit roller cams for these old-er performance engines. These ADI cams are also induction hardened, giving them a similar appearance to the steel billet 5160 cams. But make no mistake, there is a huge difference in hardness and durability between an ADI cam and a 5160 steel core camshaft.

In a follow-up story, we will dive more deeply into the composition of different steels and give you addi-tional information on some of the more exotic steels now used in con-temporary race engines. But at least on an enthusiast level, you now have a much clearer understanding of the alloy steel-hardening process and why it’s so important. Source: COMP Cams; compcams.com

ing is far more consistent. This means the core can be hardened to one lev-el by heating and quenching, which tempers the core to improve both its strength and ductility first, before the lobes are hardened.

The major benefit of this differ-ent process is that it allows COMP to create multiple lift, duration, and most importantly, lobe separation angle (LSA) combinations from a sin-gle UGL cam core. This reduces the number of cores required. This may

Because COMP sells many different versions of roller cams, one quick way to identify a COMP cam core is by the part number’s dash suffix number. All COMP ADI cams are listed as -8 cores (left), while a -9 cam is typically a 5160 steel billet mechanical roller (middle). The -11 suffix (right) is a 5150/5160 alloy steel LS series of camshafts.

For more, search “cam cores” at PPNDigital.com.


AMERICA LOVES AN UNDERDOG. The cheers still echo from the jubilation that erupted in Lake Placid when the U.S. Olympic hockey team beat the Russians in 1980. While Ryan Buck’s Muscle Car class win at the inaugural Street Machine Challenge in St Paul, Minnesota won’t end up on ESPN’s highlight reel for 2015’s most incredible victories, that takes nothing away from Ryan’s amazing homebuilt story.

Ryan’s tale started on a terrible day in March 2012, when his first ’63 Chevy II came to a violent end when it was near-ly folded in half on a city street. Life also presents challeng-es all at once like torrents of rain rather than spread out over a week-long light sprinkle.

Ryan’s wife Sarah was two months along with their first child while Ryan was staring at the remains of a de-molished car that he had just completed a few months previous. That sparked a search for an immediate replace-ment, finding another six-cylinder SS Nova in June with

the plan to have it completed in time for St Paul’s big show in July of the following year.

The plan (as it also was for the first car) had always aimed at much more than just a bolt-together cruiser. Ryan likes to turn corners and the Pro Touring approach appealed to him. So his plan intelligently dumped the entire stock front sus-pension in favor of a TCI Pro Touring front clip that offered Ride Tech triple-adjustable TQ coil-over shocks, power rack and pinion steering, and an optimized camber curve to en-hance its road-holding abilities. Braking responsibilities fell to a pair of 12.2-inch Wilwood front rotors and four-piston calipers mounted on 2-inch dropped spindles.

While many would have followed the typical alumi-num LS engine route, Ryan elected to remain with a carbu-reted 383c.i. small-block Chevy. Perhaps this was because Ryan was on a tight 11-month timeline and he was only working on this car on nights and weekends. Plus, the

Ryan Buck’s lay-it-down-quick ’63 Nova SS

Words Jeff SmithPhotos Shawn Brereton, Jeff Smith

PPNDigital.com 45

Ryan Buck 63 Nova

engine, which was planned for a Camaro project he had hoped to start at the time of the crash, was already avail-able. He took two months off of the project when his baby daughter arrived, conveniently sending the car off to the painter, but then pulled double duty as new dad and chief car builder until the finish.

He elected to move the engine back about 1-1/2 inches to help the weight distribution in the already short 110-inch wheelbase. This necessitated smoothing and relocating the firewall. The selection of the TKO-600 five-speed also re-quired raising the trans tunnel, which wasn’t all that bad since the floor pans had to be replaced anyway. Along with the TKO overdrive, out of necessity Ryan also designed and built his own mount for the hydraulic clutch master.

When you are a professional machinist, you can do things like that. Working rearward, Ryan knew that he would need more rear rubber to plant the power, so he or-

dered a set of Detroit Speed mini-tubs and installed them, along with a complete Currie 9-inch with 3.70:1 gears and a limited slip. The rear suspension consists of a TCI torque arm with Ride Tech triple-adjustable TQ coil-over shocks all packaged inside the Chevy II’s tight confines. Also with the TCI front clip and mini-tubbed rear, there was plenty of room for the large-by-huge 265/35R-18 Falken RT615 front tires mounted on 9.5x18-inch Coys wheels while on the back he squeezed in an even larger pair of 275/35R18 Falkens on the same size rear Coys.

If you have picked up on a trend here, Ryan is more into making the car functional while maintaining its simplicity. The 383c.i. small block is based on the numbers-matching 327 block that was originally in his ’68 Camaro. It now sports a 3.75-inch crank, good pistons, a COMP 236/242-de-gree cam with 0.505 /0.510-inch lift that pushes valves in-side a set of AFR 195cc heads.


Fuel is supplied by a Carburetor Shop custom-modi-fied Holley 650 mounted on an Edelbrock Performer RPM dual-plane intake. Ignition duties are handled by an MSD distributor and wires, while TCI supplied the ceramic-coat-ed headers to clear the front suspension. The engine makes decent power and during the Street Machine Challenge competition, he finished third with 412 rear wheel horse-power (RWHP). This says volumes about how well the car is prepped since he gave up over 300 RWHP to the winning dyno challenge car in the Muscle Car class.

With the engine and chassis squared away and the drive-train in place, next came the finish work that often sepa-rates the thrashers from the detailers. Starting at the front, his body guy smoothed the front license plate outline from

the bumper, and filled the “Chevrolet” emblem holes. Then Ryan made up some custom V8 badges coated in black nickel to replace the six popper versions. At the rear, Ryan relocated the fuel fill from the quarter panel to inside the trunk and blacked-out the rear tail light panel.

Because the car is so low, Ryan decided to move the exhaust outlet into the body, exiting through the Nova SS rocker panel molding just ahead of the rear tires. While on the street the car runs through Summit Racing mufflers, he also employs Quick Time Performance (QTP) exhaust cut-outs — just for fun.

Moving to the interior, the relocated tunnel demanded a nice looking console so Ryan modified a ’67 Camaro console to fit in between the 1997 Camaro seats he cut down to sim-

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ulate ’60s-era versions while still offering some bolster sup-port. The radio disappeared, replaced by a set of Auto Meter gauges. The front and rear seats are all upholstered in match-ing micro-fiber charcoal and black vinyl performed by Jerry’s Upholstery in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Ryan also built a rear harness bar that is removable to allow easier access to his daughter’s car seat, because this machine is truly a family affair. The steering wheel is a ’70 Camaro unit into which he replicated an original Nova SS emblem out of aluminum.

While the Nova was always intended as a street car, Ryan

also planned to compete with it, too. He put it all together for the 2015 Street Machine Nationals in St. Paul, where he covered the Muscle Car field to take not only the Muscle Car class win, but the three-day Hotchkis Cup competition as well. If you pay attention to such things, you will quickly realize that Ryan is probably as good behind the wheel as he is at building cars. That’s a rare combination and a big rea-son for the attention this car receives. If the goal is having fun with cars, it would be difficult to find a better example than Ryan Buck and his underdog Nova.

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BOOSTWords / Photos Richard Holdener

THE PROBLEM WITH MAKING MORE POWER is that cost and performance often go hand in hand. The greater the power gains, the bigger the budget.

Project Boneyard Boost was one of those rare occasions where we got to apply a massive infusion of power to a mo-tor that cost next to nothing. The proper application of boost to any motor is never inexpensive, and our Vortech YSI su-percharger was not what could be considered low-buck, but it was epic in its effectiveness.

Thanks to a maximum impeller speed of 65,000 rpm (rac-ers go even higher) and a peak efficiency rating of 78 per-cent, the Vortech YSI was capable of supporting over 1,200 horsepower at 30 psi. The budget portion of the equation came from a 7.4L Gen VI big-block Chevy straight out of

the local wrecking yard. Forget the typical race-motor build up, Boneyard Boost was all about force feeding some tired, high-mileage workhorse we purchased for the paltry sum of $500 ($250 on half price sale weekend!).

In our quest to locate a suitable 454, a typical trip to the wrecking yard revealed at least three of the four available big-block combinations. We immediately checked the latest 8.1L off the list due to lack of availability and parts cross over. Though larger than the previous 7.4L models, the unique 8.1L could not utilize the amazing array of performance parts avail-able for the previous three conventional big-block models.

This left us with Mark 4, Gen V, and Gen VI big blocks to choose from, any of which would work for this project. In the end, we selected a 1999 Gen VI 454 and pulled it from its

We boost the crap out a junkyard L-29

PPNDigital.com 51

home in the engine bay of a 1-ton work truck. The L29 454 was originally rated at 290 hp and 440 lb.-ft. of torque thanks to a combination of fuel injection, large oval-port heads (to replace the peanut ports used in the previous Gen V motors) and a slightly higher static compression ratio. The heads used on the L29 combined the large oval intake ports with

1. The junkyard 454 was upgraded with a mild hydraulic roller cam from COMP Cams. Available piston-to-valve clearance limited our cam choices so we selected an XM284HR that featured .547 lift, a 230/236-de-gree duration split and 112-degree LSA.

3. Run on the dyno in normally aspirated trim, the bone yard big block produced 427 hp at 5,500 rpm and 476 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,900 rpm.

5. To eliminate belt slippage, we installed this 80-tooth cog pulley from Vortech. Note we also replaced the damaged stock damper (it was slipping) with a Rattler from TCI.

2. We replaced the original fuel injection on the 1999 7.4L with a du-al-plane RPM Air Gap intake from Edelbrock.

4. The big component in the let’s-get-serious package sent to us by Vortech Engineering was this YSI supercharger. Thanks to a peak efficiency rating of 78 percent, the amazing YSI was capable of pumping out 30 psi of boost and supporting over 1,200 hp. This thing was capable of putting the hurt on our bone yard big block.

Scan QR Code to watch!

Part I

Part II

WATCH ONLINEIn Barnyard Boost Part I, Richard Holdener takes a junkyard 454 and adds massive boost! He adds a VORTECH supercharger. After installation, see how much more horsepower Richard gets!

In Barnyard Boost Part II, Rich-ard is hungry for more horsepower, and adds aluminum heads and a few other options to see just how much more he can get.


small (100cc) combustion chambers to produce a slightly higher (than the Gen V) 9.0:1 compression. The compression was plenty low for use with the blower, but the extra power it provided would eventually be multiplied by the boost.

After selecting a motor, we set about making the neces-sary changes for our test. We removed the factory EFI injec-tion, and replaced it with simple carburetion. For this test, the motor was configured with an Edelbrock RPM Air Gap intake and Holley 750 carburetor. To further improve pow-er, we also upgraded the stock hydraulic roller camshaft with an XM284HR from COMP Cams that offered .547 lift, a 230/236-degree duration split and 112-degree LSA. To al-low the motor to rev cleanly to 6,000 rpm under boost, the cam upgrade was teamed with a new set of beehive valve springs. Before adding boost, the boneyard big block was run in normally aspirated trim and produced 427 hp at 5,500 rpm and 476 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,900 rpm.

After the normally aspirated testing, we replaced the 750 Holley with a dedicated blow-through 850 Holley carbure-

tor from Carb Solutions Unlimited (CSU) and installed the Vortech supercharger kit. In addition to the powerful YSI supercharger, the kit included a cog-drive system to elimi-nate belt slippage under boost.

Vortech supplied a pulley combination that included an 80-tooth crank pulley and 32-tooth blower pulley which provided a drive ratio of 2.5:1. This combined with the in-ternal step gearing and maximum engine speed of 6,000 rpm to produce a peak impeller speed of 51,700 rpm, well below the listed maximum of 65,000 rpm.

After configuring a discharge tube and adding some race fuel, we slowly supplied boost to the boneyard big block. We wanted to make sure the air/fuel and timing curves were spot on before running the supercharged monstrosity in anger. The ignition timing was dropped to 21 degrees, and after adding a few jets to the carburetor, we were rewarded with some seri-ous power. Configured with our pulley combination, the YSI spit out a peak boost pressure of 19.1 psi where the boosted big block produced 791 hp and 713 lb.-ft. of torque.

9. After adding race fuel, dropping the timing down to 21 degrees, and adding two jet sizes, we were rewarded with peak numbers of 791 hp and 713 lb.-ft. of torque. We took the liberty of measuring the intake charge temperature under the carburetor. The carburetor worked well as an intercooler, dropping the charge temperature (at 19.1 psi) from 235 degrees to 120 degrees.

10. The carburetor was working well as an intercooler, but we couldn’t help but be concerned about the temperature of the inlet air into the car-buretor at this elevated boost level. Thinking that if one intercooler (the carb) is good, then two must be better, so we installed this air-to-water core. Originally we wanted to try the Vortech Aftercooler, but it was not available in time for this test.

8. The 750HP carburetor used on the normally aspirated combo was replaced by this CSU-modified 850 Holley. The dedicated blow-through carb featured adjustable, boost referenced power valves. Though Vortech offered their own PowerHat, we relied on the CSU carb bonnet for this test.

6. The blower was equipped with a 32-tooth blower pulley which gave us a drive ratio of 2.5. When multiplied by the internal drive ratio and maximum engine speed of 6,000 rpm, this gave us a peak impeller speed of nearly 52,000 rpm. This was more than 13,000 rpm under the maximum of 65,000 rpm listed by Vortech (racers often run much more). The blower mount also featured a provision for the idler/tensioner pulley.

PPNDigital.com 53

The great thing about using a blow-though carburetor combination is the intercooling effect you get from the in-troduction of fuel. Temperature measurements taken be-fore and after the carburetor revealed that the fuel cooling dropped the intake charge temperature from 235 degrees (before the carb) down to 120 degrees (after).

Despite the impressive cooling powers of the carbu-retor, we were still concerned about the elevated charge temps going into the carburetor. In an effort to further drop the inlet air temps, we installed a makeshift air-to-water intercooler.

Truth be told, Vortech offers a number of Maxflow Af-tercooler systems but we selected an intercooler core we had on hand for testing. The single core from CXRacing featured 3.5-inch inlet and outlets and had been tested previously at over 1200 hp and 25 psi. Using 3.5-inch aluminum tubing from CXRacing, we configured the intercooler between the YSI supercharger and the blow-through carburetor bonnet.

We also took the liberty of installing a Race-Port blow-off valve from Turbo Smart. With the intercooler assembly in place, we once again ran the blown big block in anger with amaz-ing results. The intercooler did indeed drop the inlet air temps before the carburetor from 248 degrees to 111 degrees and the cooler charge dramatically improved the power output.

The peak numbers jumped from 791 hp and 713 lb.-ft. with no intercooler to 847 hp and 761 lb.-ft. with the inter-cooler. The cooler charge air (plus tubing length and bends) dropped the peak boost pressure from 19.1 psi down to 17.7 psi. There was plenty of power left in the YSI, but at 847 hp we couldn’t help but be amazed at the extra strength GM put into the design of their 290-hp big block.

Check back with us as we plan on adding a set of Brodix Race Rite aluminum heads to the mix in part 2 of Project Boneyard Boost. Sources: COMP Cams, compcams.com; CSU, csucarbs.com; CXRacing, CXRacing.com; Edelbrock, edelbrock.com; Holley/Hooker/Weiand, holley.com; Tur-bo Smart, turbosmartusa.com; Vortech Superchargers, vortechsuperchargers.com

11. The air-to-water core was plumbed using 3.5-inch tubing that in-cluded a Turbo Smart blow-off valve. Note the lines used to direct dyno water through the core. Unusually hot temperatures meant we had to rely on dyno water that measured nearly 100 degrees in our intercooler. More realistic water temps, or better yet ice water, would yield even greater power gains.

12. The intercooler dropped the charge temps going into the carburetor by over 130 degrees and increased the power output by 57 hp. Blow-through carburetors work well, but high-boost works even better with an intercooler.

VORTECH GEN VI 454-SUPERCHARGED VS INTERCOOLED: The blow-though carburetor performed very well on Project Boneyard Boost, but we were still concerned about the elevated charge temps going into the carburetor. To keeps charge temps under control at 19 psi, we elected to install an air-to-water intercooler. Our original plan was to install a unit from Vortech, but available dyno time meant we were forced to run a unit from CXRacing. Adding the intercooler dropped the inlet air temps out of the blower from 248 degrees to 111 degrees and increased the power output from 791 hp to 847 hp. The drop in temperature also lowered the peak boost from 19.1 psi to 17.7 psi.

BONEYARD BIG BLOCK-NA VS VORTECH YSI (19 PSI): Equipped with a few minor upgrades (Edelbrock intake, Holley carb and COMP cam and valve springs), the 100,000-mile 454 produced 427 hp and 476 lb.-ft. of torque. After adding the Vortech supercharger pumping out 19 psi, the peak numbers soared to 791 hp and 713 lb.-ft. of torque at our self-im-posed limit of 6,000 rpm. The YSI blower was capable of much more power, but just how much abuse can we expect from a “race motor” we yanked from the junkyard?


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Shift like a bossTCI, Outlaw Blackout ShifterTotal and accurate control of transmission gear selection is critical when choosing the right shifter for your vehicle. The new TCI Outlaw Blackout Shifter is designed for the track or the street, and features looks to complement the interior of any car or truck. This sleek, black version of the Outlaw features a powder-coated cover and e-coated handle, both of which received laser-etched logos. The powder-coated cover also offers quick-release capability. A cable and all hardware needed for proper installation are included.

An optional, integrated two-button design allows for electronic shifting when used in conjunction with the TCI EZ-TCU. The dura-ble, military-grade buttons ensure reliable engagement, allowing for consistent gear changes. The dual buttons can also be used for transbrake, line lock, and nitrous activation.

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Get full performanceFAST, E7 CD Ignition ControllerPerfect for drag, circle track, and boat race applications, this high-output, race-specific digital unit is the latest ignition offering from the EFI and ignition experts at FAST. It is designed to allow the full performance of race engines where high-compression, nitrous oxide, and boosted applications are common. The ignition includes two built-in rev limiters, a tach output, and 20 degrees of start/retard for wear reduction and easy starting. The fully digital design also allows for much higher speed and accuracy of spark timing and rev limits than analog systems. The controller utilizes a composite enclosure that keeps it completely protected from environmental elements.

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Cobra jet carb fixClassic Tube, 1969 Mustang 428 CJ and GT500 4C SS Choke Tube KitClassic Tube’s Thermal Control Choke Tube Kit features the correct fiberglass insulation, fittings, rubber hose and S-clip for the classic Ford 428c.i. engine used on ’69 428CJ and GT500 engines. Unlike other reproduction choke kits, it has the correct “T” adapter incorporated into the tube which connects to the

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CONICAL VALVE SPRINGS ARE ENGINEERED TO GIVE YOU MORE RPM & GREATER DURABILITY.Most cylindrical valve springs reach a point in the RPM range where their compression and expansion rate matches their natural frequency, causing a harmonic state called resonance.

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THE WIDE FLEXIBILITY of adjust-ments that electronic fuel injection of-fers may overwhelm a novice engine tuner, so sometimes it’s a good idea to refocus on a few basic tasks that may help solve more pressing issues with the engine.

Brian Macy teaches tuning classes through EFI University and also runs Horsepower Connection, a fuel-injec-tion specialty shop that works with a wide variety of engine projects and can also supply EFI systems through its online shop, the EFI Store.

“EFI isn’t as easy as your old carbu-retor counterpart,” Macy warns.

With that understanding out of the way, Macy says EFI is much more precise because the tuner is telling the injector when and how long to open, which in turn allows fuel un-der high pressure to spray into the intake manifold in precise amounts at the right time.

“This is called the pulse width,” Macy explains. “A carburetor, on the other hand, pulls fuel through the booster. As the engine sucks more air, in return more fuel gets pulled out of the booster into the engine.”

Story courtesy of DragzineWords Mike Magda

In addition to monitoring fuel de-livery, modern EFI systems can also control the ignition timing through the electronic control unit (ECU), thereby giving the tuner complete authority over the engine’s critical functions to produce optimum horsepower. It’s a lot of power in the tuner’s hands, and the two biggest questions still facing tuners are how much fuel and when to fire the spark plugs. Again, it’s return-ing to basics.

“To fuel and tune the engine, we need six basic sensors,” Macy says.

Wideband Oxygen (O2) Sensor: This is the single most important sen-sor for any tuner. However, it must

be free of distractions such as exhaust leaks, single-slip collectors that suck air through the connection. Also, posi-tioning the sensor too close to the end of a collector on an open header may send the O2 sensor false information.

02 Sensor

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PPNDigital.com 61

“Most drag cars that run open headers have an issue getting a good O2 reading until close to 5,000 rpm,” Macy says. “Everything before that will just be a guess at that point.”

Also, big cams with extreme over-lap can confuse the O2 sensor. This sensor must be utilized with a strong dose of common sense. If the sensor shows lean but the plugs are black, then something isn’t quite right.

“Give the engine what it wants and not an air fuel ratio you think it needs,” Macy adds. “Listen to how the engine runs and get it to run smooth.”

Intake Air Temperature Sensor: This sensor is part of the base fuel cal-culation for most ECU’s and is respon-sible for reading the temperature of the incoming air into the intake.

“I often see a lot of drag racers who remove this sensor thinking it’s not needed,” Macy says. “If removed, the ECU will default to a low-temp value and add extra fuel.”

Throttle Position Sensor: This sen-sor is responsible for acceleration en-richment and informs the ECU when the engine is at idle or moving down the road or track.

Distributor or Crank Trigger: This sensor provides the ECU an rpm signal.

“This signal is the number one issue most people have when in-stalling a system,” Macy cautions. “Care should be taken to make sure this wiring does not come near com-ponents like coils, spark plug wires, wires to the coil, alternator wiring, and the distributor cap. Any source of electrical interference may trick the ECU into thinking the engine is at a different rpm.”

MAP Sensor: Short for manifold absolute pressure, the MAP sensor in most systems will tell the ECU the load on the engine during light throttle, wide-open throttle (WOT), or boost. Once the ECU digests this manifold vacuum/pressure informa-tion, it can look up how much fuel, timing, and target air-fuel ratio is needed to run the engine. MAP sen-

sors come in common sizes for nor-mally aspirated engines as well as those running boost or nitrous.

Coolant Temperature Sensor: The coolant temperature sensor relays info to the ECU to determine how much fuel is needed during warm up and/or enrichment during acceleration.

Now that the hardware is in place, setting the ignition timing is perhaps the most challenging tuning operation for most people, even for carbureted vehicles.

“How do you find the correct tim-ing? The only real 100-percent way to find the correct timing is to use a chas-sis or engine dyno,” Macy suggests. “A dyno allows the tuner to hold the engine at a steady load and change the timing to achieve peak torque. This method is called MBT, or maximum brake torque. “If we start at, say 3,000 rpm, and hold the engine there, we can start with a value of 10 degrees and slowly advance the timing until the torque no longer moves,” Macy con-tinues. “This is the point of MBT. You will find that after moving the timing past MBT, the torque will plateau and no longer change. Since horsepower

is a mathematical formula derived from torque, you will find that if you tune each point to the best torque you will also find the best horsepower. After tuning for MBT, you can go to the track and play around with some small timing changes to see if the en-gine will accelerate quicker.”

Getting The Fuel RightFinding the optimum air-fuel ratio is a little less complicated thanks to the in-genuity of the wideband O2 sensor. A quality wideband O2 sensor will read air-fuel ratios from 9:1 up 22:1, giving the tuner much more information and flexibility than a narrow-band sensor that generally comes from the facto-ry and reads only in the 13.5:1 to 15:1 range effectively.

A dyno isn’t a necessity when ad-justing the air-fuel ratio, however, it will speed up the process by hours, if not days. A properly calibrated air-fu-el meter and a sealed exhaust system are needed to ensure a quality sample of fumes will be analyzed.

“As I tune an engine for a racer or even a street car, we always start out on the rich end of the scale then get the mixture to come around where the en-gine is happy,” Macy says. “It’s always easier to remove fuel to make an engine run well than add fuel to a lean engine.”

“The coolest part of having an EFI street car, race car, or offshore boat is the data the system will provide you through the logging,” sums up Macy. “You will learn stuff you didn’t know about your combo and will be able to fine tune it to run at peak efficiency and horsepower.” Sources: The EFI Store, theefistore.com; dragzine.com

Intake Air Sensor

MAP Sensor

Drag boats are amazing – and this twin turbo beast runs in the Lucas Oil Pro Mod class. The boat runs on methanol, with twin 80mm Borg-Warner turbos, and uses 16 225-pound injectors with a FAST XFI controlling it all. The boat runs a 7-second index at 180+ mph.


Jeff Smith is not only our Tech Editor, but one heck of a story-teller. From his many years of being Editor of Hot Rod, Car Craft, and Chevy High Performance, he has tons of exciting experiences.

He writes about many of these in his monthly Fast Talk columns on our website for Power and Performance News. We thought it would be fun to give you a sampling of some of his mus-ings here in the print magazine. For even more crazy columns, go to our website — (ppndigital.com — and click the “Columns” tab at the top. Just make sure you have your seat belt fastened! Jeff Smith

WITH JEFF SMITH

Big engines — really big enginesI FOUND A DATA PLATE the other day in my tool box that had been covered up for at least a few years. It’s a lit-tle bit different than your normal VIN plate (or option code plate) found on the firewall of a Camaro. This one came off the engine of a Pratt & Whitney Aircraft engine. Specifical-ly, an R-2800 Double Wasp WWII aircraft engine. The 2800 designation stands for the engine displacement — in cubic inches. We’re talking a beast of a radial with two rows of 9 cylinders. The WWII-era photo gives you a clue about how big this rascal is — the specs I found online report that, depending upon its configuration, the engine could weigh anywhere from 2,150 to 2,550 pounds!

These engines were used in several famous WWII planes including the F-4U Corsair, the B-26 light bomber, the F6F fighter, and even the P-47 Thunderbolt, affection-ately called the Jug. The engine has a 5-inch bore and a 6-inch stroke (that computes to 2,804c.i. with 18 cylinders). The plate lists the compression ratio at 6.65:1 because these engines all used a centrifugal supercharger to boost power since these planes typically flew at altitudes of 30,000 feet and higher – the P-47’s rated ceiling was 43,000 feet!

Other plate goodies include maximum ignition timing of 20 degrees BTDC. A couple of the more interesting specs are Valve Timing Clearance numbers. For the intake, the spec is 0.143-inch at 76 degrees ABDC for Intake Closing and the same spec and degree figure for exhaust opening BBDC. I’m going to assume this clearance is the valve-to-piston clear-ance, so the mechanic would crank the engine over until the intake valve was at 76 degrees after bottom dead center, and then measure the valve to piston clearance. This is not the actual cold valve lash clearance — that spec is also stamped in the plate telling you to look it up in the manual. I found that spec at 0.060-inch! Remember, this is an all-aluminum radial engine that is downright huge. That means the engine probably grows by at least 0.040-inch – perhaps more.

While poking around the internet, I found a mainte-nance manual that listed the required oil as 100 viscosity rated at 210 degrees F. Remember, this was the 1940’s when oil wasn’t nearly as good as it is today. That led me to find a recommendation for cold weather operation, where the mechanics were required to mix high-octane gasoline with the oil as a percentage, based on the ambient temperature.

This was done to essentially reduce the viscosity of the oil. Think about that — SAE 100 oil at 30 degrees F would literally be a solid chunk. So they’d have to reduce the viscosity by mixing gasoline with it. That’s probably why you see vintage footage of these radial engines starting with a man standing next to the engine holding a giant fire extinguisher. If that engine back-fired for any reason, that could get ugly pretty quickly!

This particular R2800 is a model 75, which I found listed as making 2,200 horsepower. I found specs on a different version 2800 engine with the peak horsepower rated at 2,400 rpm. I used the classic horsepower equation to work backward to get the torque. At 2,400 rpm at 2,000 horsepower, the engine is also making a mind-numbing 4,376 lb./ft. of torque. That will move some air!

My buddy Tim Moore’s shop was located behind a com-pany called Aircraft Cylinder that used to rebuild these en-gines until the company reorganized a few years ago. While they were moving out of their building, we found this data plate on the ground. Ironically, at the bottom of the plate, you can see that this engine was built by the Ford Motor Compa-ny. So there’s our tie-in to cars – as if we needed one! F T

Fast timesTHERE ARE CERTAIN CARS, like famous people, that just the mention of their name is instantly recognizable. When it comes to 80’s performance cars, Big Red is a standout. For those who were only in short pants during that time, Big Red is an iconic representation of everything that exudes high performance.

Big Red is the ’69 Camaro created when Dan Gottlieb, and his son RJ, decided to build a hot rod – a really bad-ac-tor hot rod. What evolved out of that original plan is now a Godzilla-like monster big-block Chevy-powered road racer and open road rocket that seems capable of doing just about anything you could ask of a ’69 Camaro. Don’t be fooled, Big Red is more race car than street car although it is licensed and can be driven on the street. But that’s like saying, Yes. You could put license plates on a NASCAR car and drive it on the street.

What rekindled this nostalgia is a multi-part TV pro-duction called Big Red: The Original Outlaw Racer that has been five years in the making, with RJ and his dad doing things with one car that no one has ever done before. I watched the first of eight one-hour episodes where we meet the men who have pushed the car to its limits. The first episode deals with Big Red returning to where it made headlines in Hot Rod Magazine in 1990 when I was the editor, and staffer Joe Pettit volunteered to ride shotgun at the second running of the Silver State Classic Open Road Race in Nevada. In Joe’s story, Big Red set a top speed record of 220 mph and also set the overall record with an average speed just shy of 198 mph.

The documentary deals with RJ and his crew returning to the Silver State and enlisting my buddy Joe Pettitt to strap on the bull with RJ at the reigns one more time. At one point, RJ comments on what it’s like sitting in the car, waiting for his turn to unleash the beast. At that instant, he took me right back to my own experience on a nearby Nevada open road race called the Pony Express 100. In 1998 I took my ’65 Chevelle to Nevada just to see how fast I could push that brick. More accurately, my Chevelle was once described this way by then-owner of Spectre Performance, Amir Rosenbaum: “Your car’s not a brick, it’s more like the crinkly side of an English muffin!” Truer words were never spoken.

RJ Gottlieb’s comments about sitting in his race car just before the start of the race went deep with me, because I felt almost the same way. Except I think RJ probably had more confidence in his car than I had in mine. I was sitting in line with 17 other cars in the 150 mph class at the Pony Express 100. I could feel my heart pounding and my breathing was a little too rapid. The faster cars ahead of me were leaving at one-minute intervals, which offered more than enough time for the more conservative side of my brain to scream “What the hell are you doing?” Of course, there is no rational answer to that question. The risk was exceedingly great. I knew from the year before that the Ch-evelle was capable of 165 mph. But I also knew that at that speed the car was very unhappy. It continually attempted to fly by lifting the nose to the point where the front tires were only suggesting a direction when I turned the wheel.

But there I was, sitting in line with my friends just out-side the car waiting for me to launch. There was no turning

back. The risk was high and the reward was little more than bragging rights that I could push an English muffin to ridiculous speeds and live to tell the story. Looking back, I’m glad I did it, but I certainly could have found a much less dangerous way to spend the weekend.

It was fun watching the Big Red TV show, and I even have a short part in the retelling, about how I was surprised when Joe was willing to get back into the car. My good friend Chris Kaufmann was another early Big Red support-er and was with RJ in Mexico when they crashed. Luckily, no one was hurt. It was after this accident that Big Red really got serious. Big Red’s path and mine briefly paral-leled again in 2011 at the Virginia City Hill Climb. This race is a fun yet treacherous assault on Highway 341, a 5.2-mile, 1,200-foot climb up the mountain heading into the famous silver mining town that was once the richest city in Ameri-ca. I blew up the transmission in my Chevelle that year, but Big Red ran strong — as it always does. The documentary is very well written and produced, which makes watch-ing a pleasure rather than the groan-fest of current-day “reality” car shows. Do yourself a favor and catch it on the NBCSports channel or just Google Big Red and immerse yourself in the baddest Camaro on the planet. F T

This is Big Red at the Virginia City Hill Climb sponsored by Spectre Performance in 2011. Big Red didn’t win, but considering it was their first time there, were more than quick.

This was my second attempt at the Virginia City Hill Climb in 2011. Yep, no guardrails. The course can be intimidating. My best lap time needs about 13 seconds improvement to get into the 341 Club, which is 3 minutes, 41-seconds or quicker to the top of the hill.


CarnageIT IS INEVITABLE, YOU KNOW. If you play with cars and engines and push them hard enough — something’s gonna break. As a car guy, you accept those risks that sometimes you have to buy the parts twice — because you broke the first ones. What is doubly frustrating, is when you supposedly do everything correctly and you still fail. My most recent embarrassment is worthy of a story because it was so odd.

I was working on a 502c.i. big-block Chevy motor. We were adding cylinder heads along with a more aggressive hydraulic roller camshaft. So there I was with a bench full of parts. I wasn’t in a hurry — I’ve learned that bad things happen when I get rushed. So unlike every reality car show I’ve ever suffered through, I was not under some fab-ricated time crunch that demanded a psychotic breakdown to occur to make the otherwise boring story more interest-ing. Nevertheless, there was drama!

Aftermarket big-block Chevy heads can produce their own unique set of frustrating requirements. In order to improve the exhaust flow, most aftermarket Rat cylinder head companies raise the exhaust ports. This requires a unique set of head bolts longer than the originals — three bolts per side. In order to get this head on the engine, I had to borrow some bolts from a previous project. The result of all this was an outbreak of extra head bolts and washers spread out on the bench next to the engine.

I carefully assembled the heads, torqued the head bolts, and installed the intake manifold. I then pressure lubed the engine, installed the distributor, and timed it so the engine would start the moment the starter motor cranked. In this particular case, Westech’s Steve Brule had asked me to deliver the engine a day ahead of time so they could install it on the dyno the evening before so we’d be ready to go first thing in the morning. This meant I didn’t have to arrive really early, so I rolled in about 8:00 a.m. ready to make some noise.

As I walked into the dyno cell, I could immediately tell something wasn’t right. Steve looked at me and said “It’s locked up. It won’t crank.” I said, “That can’t be — I cranked this thing over a dozen times the other day setting lifter preload and setting the distributor.”

“Well, that may be, but it still won’t crank over — watch.” He backed the crank up with a breaker bar and then rotated it slowly clockwise and sure enough it went “clunk” and stopped. We ended up flipping a coin as to which piston had something in it — and guessed wrong of course, so we ended up pulling both heads. Under the sec-ond head was two pieces of steel that took a few minutes to figure out what they were. It turned out these two nasty pieces of steel were originally one very hard ARP head bolt washer that had somehow found its way into this cylinder where it was vertically pinched between the piston and the head, which flattened it and broke it into two pieces.

Standing there with a disassembled engine and a piston that now was questionable, I was trying to figure out how this happened. The piston didn’t look that bad so we

gambled and ran the engine anyway and it was fine — al-though a subsequent teardown revealed the top ring land was lightly pinched enough that the ring no longer moved. It was time for a new piston. The more worrisome part was that I could not figure out how this head bolt washer ended up in the engine. We looked to see if all the head bolt washers were still with the bolts and they were. So this was an extra one which had been on the bench during the reassembly. It took a reenactment of the engine’s final assembly moments, to figure out what happened. While I didn’t have any grainy 8mm movie video to show what I did wrong, it certainly pointed to assembly error.

Because I had more than one set of head bolts and washers, there were plenty of extra parts laying on the bench not intended for this engine. That was mistake Number One. After dropping in the distributor, I had two last steps to perform. One was to bolt on a pair of aluminum exhaust plates over the open exhaust ports so that when I transport the engine in the back of my truck, the plates keep dirt and other debris out of the engine. The last step was to drop the carburetor lift plate onto the carb pad on the single plane intake manifold. In re-creating these final steps, I think what happened was there was a light film of oil on the washer and perhaps on the bottom of the carb lift plate. I set the plate down on the bench and at that point, a head bolt washer must have stuck to the bottom of the lift plate. I didn’t notice it and simply dropped the plate on the intake and bolted it down. Sometime during the trip to Westech, the washer fell into the intake and then found its way into Number three cylinder. Ugh…

Now when I work on engines, I try to keep the bench clean of anything that is not intended for the engine. And you can bet that I also carefully sweep the bottom of that carb plate with my hand every time before I bolt it down. I also now look into the intake manifold before I drop the carb in place. Of course, the damage could have been much worse if the engine had started before the washer jammed itself in between the piston and the head. That might have been really nasty and even broken the block. So I guess I should count myself lucky. It just didn’t seem like it at the time! F T

For more of Jeff Smith’s monthly Fast Talk columns, head over to PPNDigital.com.

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The auto parts dilemmaIT IS A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS when you must know more about the parts you need than the guy behind the counter. It seems that it has become a near lost art to be a competent auto parts professional in the 21st century. I live in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles that probably has the highest number of auto parts stores per capita, anywhere in the world, and yet buying parts is becoming an exercise in frustration.

There are three big auto parts chains with stores near my house. I’m Pepped, Zoned, and O-Rigged. I’ve learned not to go to any of these stores until I have completely researched the part I need – including the specific part number. I’ve learned not to trust that guy behind the counter because too often I hear – “I don’t have that part in my computer” when in fact they do — they just don’t know where to look. I can’t really blame them, because it appears that these stores are only interested in hiring people who will work for barely above minimum wage, and their training is completely inadequate.

Perhaps I’ve been spoiled because I grew up working on cars from the time I was 12 years old, working for my grandfather in a gas station. In those early years, I leaned heavily on men who became my friends who lived the parts business. Today, the guy behind the counter has to have a list of information before he can even begin his search. If you’ve purchased parts from on-line companies like Rock-Auto, then you are probably familiar with the software that nearly all of these chain stores use. It starts with the brand — like Chevy or Ford, then the year, then the model, then the size engine before you can get to your area of interest.

Because I can’t trust these guys behind the counter to be able to navigate, I have learned to go up on their website, run through the software and find the part I’m looking for. Then I write the part number down and call the local store and ask them if they have it in stock. Then, I have to ask the guy on the phone to actually go find it on the shelf. This is essential because while the computer says the part is in stock, that doesn’t mean that is the case. If the guy on the phone is a rookie, you have to explain to him why he’s looking for something that should be there. I don’t think that should be my job.

None of this would be difficult if I was able to work with the same guy month after month. But I’m in these neighborhood stores at least once a week, and yet I never see the same faces month to month. Roughly two years ago, I met a car guy who also happens to run a string of six Subway sandwich shops in the Midwest. He told me that the average turnover rate for the fast food industry was 500 percent. That means that as a store owner, you have to hire five people for one position every year. It appears that number isn’t much better for the big chain auto parts stores.

These stores do serve a purpose. When I need off-the-shelf engine oil, oil filters, an occasional serpentine belt, or some other mundane part — these stores offer a quick solution to my needs. But frankly these places have taught me not to rely on them even to order a part and get it to me in a timely fashion. In that case, I’ve learned that RockAuto can deliver the part just as quickly and almost always for less money. At least around here, a chain store needs three to four days to get a “special order” part.

A couple of years ago, I was finally fed up with dealing with these local chain stores and now I drive about 10 miles farther to a store that is still run like the auto parts stores from my past. The guy behind the counter has been there for at least five years and he recognizes me when I walk in the door. I still look up the parts ahead of time and call him with the number. They have a better selection of parts, but if they don’t carry it, they can get it for me with-in a few hours instead of two or three days.

It’s sad that it has come down to this. I miss the old days when I used to walk in the front door of my neigh-borhood privately-owned auto parts store and it was almost like I was walking into a spinoff of the TV show sitcom Cheers. I spent so much money with them, the owner joked that I should just have my employer send my check to him and he would reimburse the balance. That store went out of business when he couldn’t compete with the big chains. But it’s not all bad. I just got a coupon from a big chain that will knock off $10 on 5 quarts of synthetic oil. I’ll take advantage of it — but I won’t buy anything else. They make me work too hard.


IN ACTING, TIMING is everything. The same could be said for perfor-mance engines, but instead of ignition timing, let’s talk about valve timing.

While opening and closing points are critical, the secret to a strong per-formance valve lift curve is the aggres-sive combination of lift and duration. Duration is time in degrees of the valve event curve between valve opening and closing, but lift is limited by the duration. Flat tappet cams are more

limited in lift than their roller cousins. So among other advantages, a roller cam offers much more lift potential for the same amount of duration. Combine the simplicity of hydraulic roller lifters with a roller lobe’s ability to crank up the lift and we now have better ingre-dients to make more power.

Recently the moon and stars aligned in such a way that we had the opportunity to underscore this hydraulic roller idea with a strong

0.030-over 454 street engine. This en-gine started life with a good solid foundation of SRP forged 10.25:1 pis-tons topped with a pair of factory iron oval port heads and a dated solid lifter flat tappet cam. The long block was sound, so all it needed was a decent cam to awaken this engine’s potential power. The engine was going into a ’67 El Camino with tall street gears and an overdrive automatic. We consulted the COMP Cams Book of Armaments and

How to retrofit a hydraulic roller cam in a big-block Chevy

Words / Photos Jeff Smith

ROLLLET IT

PPNDigital.com 67

decided on the retro-fit Xtreme Energy XR276HR with 224/236 degrees of du-ration and 0.510-inch lift.

COMP calls this a retro-fit cam as all the early small- and big-block Chevys were originally designed for flat tappet style camshafts. This means there are some important modifica-tions that must be made in order to make a hydraulic roller cam work in these earlier engines.

The first step COMP has already done for you. Roller lifters must al-ways remain aligned to the lobe. It’s pretty obvious what would happen if the lifter was allowed to turn 90-de-grees to the lobe so COMP attaches each pair of lifters with tie bars that prevent that from happening. The sec-ond step will require some minor in-staller effort.

All helical cut distributor drive gears on a camshaft create a minor for-ward thrust. On flat tappet cams, this is counter-acted by a slight angle ma-chined into the cam lobes. This angle accomplishes two tasks. The first is to ensure that the lifters rotate in the bore for a more even wear pattern. This an-gle also counter-acts the cam’s natural forward movement. For obvious rea-sons, this angle cannot be employed on a roller lifter camshaft, so the thrust must be limited by some other means.

On factory hydraulic roller lifter engines, this forward movement is limited by a cam thrust plate. Pre-roll-er engines do not have this feature, so a cam button is used to minimize cam movement to between 0.001 and 0.005-inch. COMP offers two different styles of cam buttons that we will look at, as well as a very nice two- or three-piece billet aluminum timing chain cover for our big-block that offers several advantages. These covers also offer an ideal place to check the actual endplay.

Just for fun, we also put this en-gine up on the dyno, not really ex-pecting to make great power with it. But this beast surprised us. The rest of the engine was configured with an Edelbrock Performer RPM du-al-plane intake and a Holley 850 cfm Ultra XP carburetor. We took the en-gine to Westech Performance Group and Steve Brule’ and crew quickly bolted the engine to the dyno. Since

1. This is COMP’s hydraulic roller cam kit that comes with the ductile iron cam, hydraulic roller lifters, a timing chain and gear set, a nylon button, pushrods, valve springs, steel retainers, and locks. The kit also came with rubber umbrella seals that we won’t use because our heads have already been converted to positive seals.

2. This is our 460c.i. Rat motor as it showed up with the heads already removed. This made it easier to get started. If the engine is complete, you don’t have to remove the heads to do our cam swap, but this allowed us to check the deck clearance for accurately computing compression.

3. This engine came out of a C3 Corvette, but since it was now destined for a ’67 El Camino, we knew the oil pan wouldn’t fit. Since the pan has to nearly come off to remove the front cover, we elected to remove the pan and replace it with a new Milodon version. Note that the previous engine builder fitted the flat tappet mechanical cam with an aluminum thrust button, which really wasn’t necessary.

the engine had been previously run, we put a few minutes on the engine to warm it up, but didn’t have to worry about breaking in the cam and lifters. With water and oil tempera-tures stabilized, our first pull pushed the torque scale way up past 550 lb.-


4. All of COMP’s -8 suffix big-block hydraulic roller cams are heat treat-ed, selectively austempered ductile iron (SADI) cam cores. These are stronger than a normal cast iron flat tappet cam to endure the greater roller lifter loads, but can still use a stock type iron distributor gear. 5. We inspected and cleaned the new cam and slid it into the block

using a Powerhouse cam handle after coating the lobes with COMP’s assembly lube. Also liberally coat the cam gear. Always use a new distributor gear with any new hydraulic roller cam.

6. As mentioned in the text, roller cams require a button to prevent cam walk that will retard ignition timing. We tested the included nylon cam button against the stock cover with a gasket and measured endplay with a dial indicator through the access hole in the front of the lifter valley. We measured 0.025-inch while the spec is 0.001 to 0.005-inch. 7. We needed essentially 0.020-inch worth of shims, so we cut up an

aluminum Coke can to make these five spacers each measuring 0.004-inch. After installing we reassembled the stock cover and measured 0.005-inch endplay which will work just fine.

9. With the endplay established, we installed our pro style degree wheel and dialed the cam in using COMP’s recommended intake centerline method. Not surprisingly, it was right on the 106-degree intake centerline.

8. We also tried a two-piece COMP cover on the engine with a roller- bearing button and placed the dial indicator in the hole in the front of the cover to check endplay. Surprisingly, we measured 0.045-inch endplay. We ended up adding shims behind the roller button to achieve a 0.004-inch spec.

ft. and after finalizing the timing at 37 degrees and setting a lean-power air-fuel ratio, this big Rat bent the beam to 570 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,800 rpm with peak power a respectable 508 at a ridiculously low 5,200 rpm.

The peak horsepower rpm point was low because of the conserva-tive nature of the cam as is the peak torque rpm point of 3,800 rpm. We plugged these numbers into a drag strip simulation program and with a

3,800-pound car with a 3.08:1 rear gear with good traction, this engine could run 11.50’s at 115 mph all day long. How much fun would that be? Stick this Rat in a lighter 1980 Malibu and it would be a rocket, although traction might be a bit of an issue!

So if you are considering a retro-fit hydraulic roller camshaft conversion, take a few moments to walk through this installation with us. We’ll show you a couple of tricks that might save

you some aggravation and reveal just how easy it is to update that flat tap-pet to a more modern hydraulic roller version. Then check out the power we made with a very conservative cam and you can begin to really see the ad-vantages to a hydraulic roller cam. Sources: Automotive Racing Products (ARP), arp-bolts.com; COMP Cams, compcams.com; Federal-Mogul (Fel-Pro, federal-mogul.com; Milodon, milodon.com; Powerhouse Products, powerhouseproducts.com, Westech Performance Group, westechperformance.com

10. These are the single springs COMP sup-plied with the kit. These are PN 911-16 springs with matching steel retainers. The springs are rated with 160 pounds of closed pressure at 1.800 and 360 pounds of open load at our 0.540-inch valve lift with the 1.8:1 rocker arms.

11. Adding new COMP Hot Rod 10w30 oil, a new Fram oil filter, and Autolite plugs, we were ready to put our upgraded Rat motor to the test. For the test, we used an 850 cfm Holley HP carbu-retor and pump gas. On Westech’s SuperFlow dyno, the 460c.i. Rat made 570 lb-ft of torque and 508 hp at 5,300 rpm. That’s killer torque.

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The Discovery Channel’s Fast N’ Loud isn’t just a guy show, and it isn’t just a show for people who like to build cars. No, it’s a quantifiable hit that’s always among the top drawing shows on Monday nights, and it’s gaining a cult following since first airing in 2012.

The show is filmed at the Dallas-based Gas Monkey Garage, where owner Richard Rawlings draws much of the attention with his bombastic style. But among car guys (and gals) the real star of the show is car builder Aaron Kaufman. The man known as “The Bearded Wonder” seems more content to let Rawlings grab the spotlight while he concentrates on building cars.

What many fans seem to enjoy about Fast N’ Loud is the absence of silly drama found in lots of car shows that’s obviously manufactured to create a bit of tension. Instead, Fast N’ Loud depends on Kaufman and the rest of his crew at Gas Monkey Garage to come up with truly interesting builds and that Rawlings then tries to sell for a profit. Recently, Power & Perfor-mance News had the opportunity to catch up with Kaufman for a few questions. Check out what it’s like behind the scenes at Fast N’ Loud.

Photo courtesy discovery.com

FAST N' LOUD’s

BUILDER KING AARON

KAUFMANWords Jeff Huneycutt


How many cars go through Gas Monkey Garage? Are there many we don’t get to see on the televi-sion show?Last year we ran a customer divi-sion. We had a couple of guys and a manager on that side that did the customer work, and you really didn’t see those cars. But the reality of our situation is, because of our commit-ments with television, it just became a bigger burden than it was worth, so we shut it down.

In a year we build from the ground up anywhere from 20 to 25 cars. Last year we may have built slightly less than 20, 18 or something that. But we banged out 25 the year before and then the year before that. The one thing is, as our cars have gotten better, our time-frame has gone a little bit farther. We are doing more multi-episode cars, so overall we’re building slightly fewer.

For every one of those ground-up builds that we do, we usually turn about two (and sometimes three) of what we call the “B” or “C” story cars. That’s a little bit of TV lingo, but basically those are the cars that you see Richard bring in where maybe we’ll put in a gas tank or fix a tie rod and turn it right back around and sell it. So we turn around two or three of those pretty often for every one car that we build from the frame up.

How many people are actually working on those car?That’s the thing that a lot of people don’t want to believe. What you see is what you get with the show. We have six guys working on the cars, and I have a parts guy that helps get us the parts. There is no crew hiding behind the scenes that help us get the cars done.

What is the time frame on your typical builds? Sometimes it can be hard to tell watching TV.If you see a car that gets bought and sold in one episode, that means we built that car in generally two weeks. There may also be anywhere from a day or two, to a week of drivability testing afterward. And if you see a two-episode car, or a car that we start on in one week and the build carries over to another episode, generally we build those in about four weeks. Then behind the scenes we’ll have about a week of drivability testing and maybe clean up any little issues that pop up.

That’s an incredibly quick turn-around time. Do you ever wish you had a year or more to really work on and refine a signature build like some custom shops?Every day I go to work. I’ll be honest with you, it is something that vexes me every single day. We just don’t have the time to do everything I’d like to do on some of these cars.

But because of the TV show, I have learned things I never thought I’d learn how to do. Directing people is one thing, but I’ve also been able to broaden my skill set. My bag of tricks is now enormous compared to what it was when we first started. But because we don’t have a long timeframe with these cars — the television schedule demands that we turn them out pretty quickly — I do not have a lot of time to really fine-tune those skills.

And yes, I do wish all the time that we had a year or more to do a big game-changer build, because I do think that we can hang with some of the biggest names in the industry. We’ve got a great team, but we are really geared to build great driving cars quickly.

But one benefit of our quick turnaround is our learning curve has grown exponentially. If we keep doing this for another four or five years, by that time it will be hard to run into a problem that we have not run across turning out 20 to 25 cars a year. Some shops only produce that in their existence. So we build a lot of cars and we run into a lot of prob-lems, but because of our schedule we have to find a solution, no ifs, ands, or butts. So we’ve become very good at finding solutions, learning on the fly, and adapting.

Gas Monkey Garage owner, Richard Rawlings (left) may get more atten-tion publicly, but Aaron Kaufman (right) is the man behind the builds seen on Fast n’ Loud.


Fast N’ Loud is incredibly pop-ular, but no show lasts forever. Can Gas Monkey Garage survive without the show?Yes, the business model for Gas Monkey Garage exists right now to go along with the show. Even if the show goes way, the talent, the skill, and the facility is still here and I would like to believe that we will have the ability to move on and con-tinue to build the cars we are doing now, as well as be able to take on the bigger year-long projects.

Have you continued to race the Falcon you built on the show to compete at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb?It is the only race car I own, so every time I want to race, that is the car I take with me.

I’ve been making continual improvements to the car. Over the winter, I converted it to a wishbone suspension and three link rear with coilovers all around. And I took it to the Big Bend Open Road Race — that was my second year running that — but we blew up the transmission, and that kept me from competing in that. And then I went back to Pikes Peak.

I learned so much about altitude tuning this year at Pikes Peak, I don’t understand how my car even made it to the top my first year! I never thought I would own a race car. I

never thought I would crew chief a race car. So being able to drive one — I’ve got goose bumps now just talking about it — was such a big deal for me. And I’m so late to the racing game coming in in my 30s, I’ve got a lot of ground to make up. But it was such a big deal to me. I don’t have the time or the budget to build another one, so this one keeps changing. I’ve got a supercharger and EFI setup for my car and will just keep trying to improve it.

Can you tell us about your personal cars?I have got a 6.0 Power Stroke, that’s my work truck. I’ve got an F-150 pickup. It has a long-travel suspen-sion with coilovers and bypasses on

it. I’ve got a big nasty motor for it, and that’s a fun truck to drive. It’s also basically a daily driver along with the Power Stroke.

Then I’ve got my race car which people see, and my other personal car is a ‘36 Ford 3 Window. I’ve col-lected everything to build the car, but I just can’t get the time to get started. And I’m terrified that if I start on it, I’m so busy with the show that it may turn into a back-burner project. Then it will just take up space in the shop and it will never be what I want. So at some point I’ll just have to kick it into gear and do it, but right now I feel like I’ve got so many irons in the fire, I don’t want to start the project if I don’t feel like I can do it justice.

Kaufman’s famous Ford Falcon Pikes Peak race car.

Photo courtesy youtube.com

PPNDigital.com 73

But for me I think that ‘36 Fords are really one of the most beautiful factory cars ever made.

You’ve had people come and go in the shop, most recently painter and body man KC Mathieu. Is that hard for you given the fast pace of the builds you do?It is a huge problem, because these cars here aren’t built by one person. It takes a well-rounded crew. It’s really not realistic to think you’re going to hire the very best fabricator or painter or whatever in the world every single time, but what we do expect is each of our guys to have the best attitude. It’s like we say, “We can teach you the nuts and bolts of it, but one thing we can’t fix is having the wrong attitude.”

Right now I do believe we have one of the tightest, best working teams. And on practically every build I ask someone on my crew, or myself, or the entire crew to step outside of our comfort zone and do something new to us. So I tried to drive myself and the entire crew on every one of our builds, and I think so far every-one has really stepped up and helped raise the bar for ourselves and shop.

What’s it like building cars with a television crew always looking over your shoulder?It is a unique deal because the TV crew has a different agenda than we have. They need to produce enter-

tainment and create a great television show for us to keep our jobs. And while the main focus of our jobs is building cars, we have to be able to help the TV crew produce an enter-taining show.

We’ve been doing this for over three years now. So far we’ve pro-duced over 70 builds, and we are rapidly approaching 100 vehicles that we have built out in the world. So the cars are out there, and people can look at them and be able to determine for themselves the quality of our work and what they think of our cars.

That’s the thing: There is TV land where anything can be whatever we want. The cars can be as elaborate or terrible as we want, but as long as it only shows up on television it is

really almost impossible for you to tell. But since our cars are actually out there and people can look at them and drive them, you can’t hide quali-ty, or if we’ve taken a shortcut to get a build done that just wasn’t shown on TV. So it is important for us as a build crew to make sure that the cars we build really are what we say they are. We only want quality to get out there.

It is a balancing act. When the TV crew wants us to redo things because they want to be able to show it, or stop and explain something, yes, it’s a pain in the rear, but it is something that we all agreed to do. For me, the real important part is to make sure that what we broadcast out on tele-vision matches up with what we are doing in reality.

Photo courtesy discovery.com

Photo courtesy youtube.com


UPCRANKIT

CRANK TECH-CAST vs. FORGED

Words Richard Holdener

PPNDigital.com 75

GIVEN THE INTERRELATED dy-namics of the internal combustion engine, it might be hard to select one component as THE most important, but rest assured, no engine will run without the all-important crankshaft.

The truth is that the top-side trio, namely heads, cam, and intake, get all the love when talk turns to performance, but no less important is that hefty chunk of spinning metal buried deep within.

The mere fact that we have come to expect a crankshaft weighing 40, 50, or 60 pounds (or more) to rotate 100 times per second means the compo-nent at least deserves our attention (if not outright applause). So much is ex-pected of a crankshaft that we thought it might be a good idea to take a clos-er look at the differences between the two most popular types.

We also asked Mike McLaughlin, tech consultant at Lunati, to give us a few recommendations of how he de-termines what type of crank a given engine needs. Everyone knows that a forged-steel crank is stronger than a cast crank, but there is a great deal more information than this simplistic view might suggest.

Most enthusiasts seem content in their knowledge that a forged crank is superior to its cast counterpart, but did you know that many forged cranks differ in their forging process, material, heat treatment, and finishing process?

The term forged crank has become all but generic, but the differences can be as significant as those between a casting and forging itself. For the un-initiated, the two major differences be-tween cast and forged cranks include the material and forming process.

As the name suggests, cast cranks are created by pouring molten mate-rial (typically cast iron) into a mold to create a raw casting. The benefits of this process casting include lower cost, inexpensive tooling, and mini-mal machining required to produce a finished product. Given the list of benefits, it is not surprising that the vast majority of OEM cranks are cre-ated using this process.

By contrast, forged cranks are cre-ated by placing a hot chunk of rolled steel between two forming dies. Pres-sure supplied by a forging press is used to force the rolled steel into the basic shape of a crankshaft.

When combined with the proper material, the forging process obvious-ly produces a stronger product, but neither the forging process nor the materials involved are universal. The majority of forged cranks are created by forging dies that produce cranks with all the throws in one plane. To finish the cranks and index the throws at the required 90 degrees, the raw forgings are actually rotated (twisted). It is also possible to produce stronger, non-twist forged cranks, but the tool-ing and final product are both more complex and expensive.

The final, strongest (and most ex-pensive) process actually starts with a round chunk of bar stock (usually 4340) and the crankshaft is then CNC machined from the solid billet. Like the forging process itself, the material cho-sen for the crankshaft ultimately affects the strength. Factory forged cranks generally rely on plain carbon steel, but material upgrades include 5140 chro-mium, 4130 molybdenum, and finally 4340 nickel chromium alloy.

The one downside to forged cranks is the need for heat treating. Where the journals on cast-iron cranks becomes


work hardened during the machining process, forged steel cranks are not so lucky, and must instead be heat treated after machining.

Common heat treating methods for forged cranks include induction hard-ening, tuftriding, and nitriding. In-duction hardening relies on a high-fre-quency magnetic field to quickly heat the surface before quenching. Em-ployed by most OEMs for their forged cranks, induction hardening offers the benefits of cost, speed, and deep sur-face penetration (meaning it can be re-machined without the need to re-heat treat). Both tuftriding and nitrid-ing feature surface hardening though chemical compounds. Tuftriding in-volves dipping the crank in a heated cyanide compound while the nitriding process features the introduction of a chemical gas in a heated furnace.

Once heat treated, the forgings of-fer both superior tensil strength and improvements in elongation (essen-tially the amount of deflection before breakage). In terms of tensil strength, cast cranks start near 60,000 psi, but forgings can more than double this rating to (as high as) 125,000 psi.

The elongation rating of factory cast cranks is an indication of just how brittle they are. The rating of 3 percent can be nearly doubled with the use of nodular iron, but even these pale in comparison to the 20+-percent rating offered by high-end, forged cranks.

The final piece of the puzzle to consider is the finishing process. We won’t delve too deeply into this be-cause there are so many factors in-volved, but McLaughlin gave us a few things to consider.

“The finishing process is kind of like fine tuning,” he notes. “Even if the materials and forging were the same, there are so many different factors that make a crank distinct to a given company. Things like quality of manufacturing, accepted toleranc-es, the machine used, and even the employee doing the work. But some general things to look at would be the different ways to shave weight, reduce windage, and maintain balance.”

While technical talk is all well and good, what does it all mean to the average consumer? With the Internet abuzz with the ability to exceed 1,000 hp with factory cast cranks, why on earth would anyone need to spend the money on a forging?

Crank strength is much more than

a function of what it will survive on a single hero run. Factory cranks were designed by the OEMs to last 100,000 miles or more (literally millions of cy-cles) and that life span is a function of more than just tensil strength or elongation. It is possible for even the wimpiest of cast cranks to survive indefinitely if run at lower engine speeds and power levels.

If you have a hard time grasping this concept, think about how far you could walk at a slow pace versus run at full speed.

Run at full speed and load, the cycle life of a crankshaft quickly diminishes, which is why a 400-horsepower small block run in a daily driven street Cama-ro might work well with a cast crank, but the same motor powering a pleasure boat would require forged components. The time spent at high load and rpm determine the need for a forged crank every bit as much as a peak power level.

So if you have a performance en-gine, you now know that a forged crank is the way you should go for longevity, but which one?

Crankshafts (and a few cams) are finished with the nitride heat-treatment.

“Lunati has two lines of cranks: Voodoo and Signature Series,” Mc-Laughlin says. “Both cranks are made from 4340 non-twist steel forgings, so there isn’t a huge difference there. The difference comes in the heat treat.

“The Voodoo line is induction hardened, which will save you some money and is great for most applica-tions under 1,000 horsepower. If you are running a normally aspirated en-gine, or something with mild boost (10 psi or less), or a very light shot of ni-trous, then your engine will be happy with the lower priced Voodoo crank.

“The signature series on the other hand, gets a nitride heat treatment. It can handle the higher horsepow-er and rigors associated with high-boost and heavy nitrous applica-tions. There is some more work on the finishing process for the Signa-ture Series as well, like wing cutting the counterweight to reduce wind-age, and on big-block Chevy cranks we center counterweight them to maintain the balance.”

No discussion on crankshafts would be complete without covering stroker cranks. Stroker cranks are sim-

ply cranks equipped with increased stroke length (the distance the pistons moves from the bottom to the top of the bore). McLaughlin says that the majority of cranks that come out of Lunati are stroked.

The benefit of increasing the stroke length is increased displacement, which aides in power production. It is easier to make power (and especially torque) with increased displacement. The difference between a 350 small block and a stroker 383 can be 50–60 lb.-ft. of torque, and best of all, that additional power comes at every rpm. Having an extra 40–50 horsepower at the redline is good, but having and extra 50–60 lb.-ft. of torque down at 3,000 rpm is even more useful and something that can be enjoyed on a daily basis without fear of invoking the wrath of the boys in blue.

Best of all, if you are in the market for a crank, the extra stroke (and at-tending power increase) doesn’t cost a cent, as whether cast or forged, a 350 crank generally costs the same as one for a 383 (Ford equivalent would be 302 vs 347). Sources: Lunati, lunatipower.com

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Engine builder Keith Dorton and Automotive Specialists celebrate 50 years of racing and winning

Fast50


PPNDigital.com 79

KEITH DORTON IS ONE of the most respected engine builders in the in-dustry. His engines have won races and set records in everything from NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, dirt cars, to land speed racing. Besides winning multiple engine builder of the year titles, he’s also been inducted into the Motorsports Parts Manufac-turers Council (MPMC) Hall of Fame.

At age 12, Dorton built a 1932 Ford Coupe powered by a flat head Ford. By age 15, he was drag racing at a nearby drag strip. Keith began his pro-fessional engine building apprentice-ship right, by working at the legend-ary Holman Moody racing operations. By 1965 he had started his own shop, Automotive Specialists, which makes this year its 50th anniversary.

We recently had a chance to sit down with Dorton to talk about his years building engines. Dorton could fill a book with some of his stories, but these were just a few of the best.

Starting Automotive SpecialistsI had been working at Hollman Moody and got persuaded to start my own business, you might say. And I wasn’t quite ready to go out on my own when I did, but I didn’t have any choice. It was tough. I was 21 and had just gotten married. But I did know a lot of people already in the industry and that helped.

I started in a two-bay garage, and like any new business I had to do a lot I didn’t want to do. Things like tune-ups and brake jobs to go along with engine work. But it quickly evolved into doing race engines. At that time a good bit of the business was drag racing and dirt-track racing, but from my experience with Hollman Moody I had gotten my feet wet with big-time racing too, so we evolved into that relatively quickly. But it was a very humble beginnings.

Early InvestmentsA crankshaft balancer was the first major piece of equipment that we pur-chased. At the time, the closest place to get an engine assembly balanced was in Winston-Salem [about 90 minutes away], so we capitalized on that and did a lot of balance jobs for all kinds of engines. And our first customer was Ralph Earnhardt [father of Dale Earnhardt Sr. and grandfather of Dale Earnhardt Jr.].

Running an engine machine shop requires a lot of investment in equip-

ment, and we definitely didn’t start out with a big budget to buy every-thing we wanted right away. We were constantly working to buy equipment; there was just no end to it. We got one piece of equipment that we used to pin fit and hone rods and pistons, and if I remember correctly we purchased it in 1966. And we’re still using it daily.

We bought so much stuff from Sun-nen that I didn’t just know the credit manager there on a first name basis, we became friends! Another early purchase we made from Sunnen was a line hone machine. We couldn’t af-ford a CK10 automatic cylinder bore hone so we would put a block in the line hone machine and put a Coca-Co-la crate on the ground so we could stand up high enough. We did that for a number of years until we were able to buy our first CK10.

Everything was such an invest-ment. The first CK10 I bought was the same price as the first house my wife and I bought when we got married. When we bought our house it was $14,000 new, and when we bought the first CK10 it was $13,000. I had to do a lot of talking to convince my wife that we needed a piece of machinery that cost almost the same as the house we were living in!

AlumniThere are a lot of guys that got their first shot with us and went on to have very nice careers in racing. There are a lot that went on to become head en-gine builders for their own teams and won championships. Harold Elliott,

his first venture into the industry was with us, and for years we worked to-gether. Now he runs HM Elliott, which does coatings for bearings and other things, and a lot of top engine builders trust his stuff.

You know how racers are, they will sacrifice just about everything in order to race or get into the business. We have one guy that had moved here from Washington state to North Caro-lina. He had been promised a job, but when he got here they had decided not to give it to him. He was a carpenter and didn’t have any real experience with racing engines, except for racing as a hobby. But I liked him and needed somebody, so I gave him a job. And in a couple of years he was tops. He left us to go to Junior Johnson, and he was the head engine builder for Junior for years. His name was Beecher Hedlund.

We were really big into porting cyl-inder heads in the early years before CNC equipment became available. Larry Wallace came in and just fell right in on the cylinder heads. Later on he started his own company and worked for Penske Racing as the head engine builder. He really helped put that program together and had a lot of success there.

That is one thing that I am proud of. There are so many that got their first experience in racing here. I am happy that they were able to learn a career and move on and do well for themselves, because when they were here they worked hard and contribut-ed to what we were doing and were part of the family.

Photo courtesy of stockcar.racersreunion.com Keith Dorton’s first customer at Automotive Specialists was Ralph Earnhardt. The two also com-peted against each other on the dirt track.


The Earnhardt FamilyRalph Earnhardt was a mentor and a friend, and he was also my first pay-ing customer. I really respect what he did and tried to take his advice.

We had a dirt car for a while there, and I actually raced against Ralph. He gave me a lot of advice, and I hard-ly listened to any of it because I was still young. Harold Elliott and I had that dirt car, not only for our own enjoyment, but because we thought we needed it to promote the engine building business. So we would come in at 7:30 in the morning and work on the business until 7 at night, and then we’d work on the race car until mid-night most nights. We would get to the track on Saturday afternoon and still be working on the car because we didn’t have time to do everything, and Ralph would just jump up and down. He’d say, “Don’t ever come to the race track and work on the car!” He wouldn’t even raise his hood at the track. We’d say, “We have to, we just don’t have enough time during the week.” And his answer would be, “Well then you shouldn’t be here!”

He also told me, “Don’t ever go to the race track unless you can afford to lose absolutely everything. You can blow an engine and wreck and come home with nothing. Don’t ever go to the track thinking you are going to bring back money.” And of course we all did that, but he was about the only one who was good enough to go rac-ing and bring back money.

Building Engines in the Early DaysWhen we first started, almost every-thing — when it came to race parts —had to come from the West Coast. Peo-ple here in the Southeast, we had the reputation of just being redneck dirt racers. They weren’t all wrong, but we weren’t all dummies either! But the West Coast guys making the speed parts, they had a different mentality and they didn’t have what we needed for high-horsepower endurance-type racing.

Connecting rods for instance. We couldn’t just go get a quality connect-ing rod. So for a small-block Chevrolet that you are running on a half-mile dirt track, you went and bought what they called the Pink rod from General Motors. So we had to rework that rod to make it suitable for oval track rac-ing. We would spend the better part of the day preparing one set of rods.

You had to remove all the flashing and make sure all the grinding marks were in the same direction. And then you put bushings in and resized them, and then shot peened them. That was a lot of work but it extended the life of the rods by at least two times.

Same thing on crankshafts. Back then when you got a brand-new crank-shaft from, say Chevrolet, it might have 0.0025 to 0.003 thousandths of an inch of runout in it. So we had to learn how to straighten them with a hammer and a chisel. Then you had to sit down and remove all the flash-ing and try to get rid of the stress ris-ers and everything. There was hardly anything that you could buy and put right in the engine like you can now. These days you can buy a crankshaft, and all you have to do is measure the bearing clearance. You can even buy them already balanced to your rods and pistons.

There was a period when we went through a lot of piston failures. There were a limited number of piston man-ufacturer’s that we trusted, and we worked with most all of them. We studied the problem trying to figure out what we could do to get the pis-tons to live.

The pistons we were using had a fair amount of machine work inside the piston, and every tool mark that was in those things left a stress riser. You couldn’t get in there and remove every tool mark, but we did what we could and then shot peened them. And it worked.

So I shared what we were doing

with one of the piston manufacturers I was working with, and I just about had to pull the phone away from my ear because the guy was hollering so loud. “You can’t do it! It’s going to move the metal around and distort the piston!”

Well, I did know that. But we worked around that by getting rid of all the sharp edges and the problem went away. I kept that to myself for a long time, and it really helped our engines. Compared to today, the time it took to build a good race engine 40 years ago was just astronomical. Yes, you could ignore some of the stuff we did. You could skip all those steps we took with the connecting rods and be OK for one or two races. But by the third or fourth race you were going to find yourself with a flat tire, because the engine had spit chunks of broken rod out the bot-tom of the oil pan onto the track.

Restrictor Plate RacingWhen NASCAR first put restrictor plates on the Cup cars for Daytona and Talladega it cut the horsepower down by 200 right away. And we got beat pretty bad the first time we went to the racetrack with a restrictor plate engine. So I got on a mission, I just wasn’t going to let it whip me. At the end of that season I became like a her-mit working on the problem. I spent all my time at the shop and kept the doors locked. I pissed off a lot of peo-ple and had to go back later and apol-ogize for it. That’s all I thought about seven days a week. I barely even slept.

Back then we didn’t have the com-puting power to do simulations or

things that are so common today. And nothing we’d ever done before related to what happens when you put a re-strictor plate in between the carburetor and the intake. So we did some weird things trying to understand what was going on. We’d get an engine on the dyno and I would put on a crash hel-met and a face shield and hang off a chain so I could look down into the carburetor and see what was going on with the engine running at speed. We even put windows in manifolds and put lights in there. How stupid does it sound now to put a 12-volt light in-side the manifold of a running engine? But I’d put a helmet on and watch it hoping to see if I could figure out what was happening.

But as crazy as it sounds, it worked. It wasn’t until I put the windows in the manifold that I could see the air speed was accelerating so much be-cause of the restrictor that it was caus-ing the air and fuel to separate, and raw fuel was bouncing back up off the floor of the plenum.

So then it was just trial and error trying to find ways to keep the fuel from separating from the air. But we

finally did hit the sweet spot, and I think it was 1990 that we had be-tween 30 and 40 intake manifolds at Daytona. These days a Cup team will

just hire an engineer to get on the computer and run some simulations, but back then we had to do it by trial and error.

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Cams are offered in both a broad range of duration and engine to match your specific requirements. Whatever your

need—a daily performance driver, high torque for towing, or a street and strip high RPM weekend warrior, there is a cam designed for you.

The Crane Cams Energizer® Series is designed with single pattern profiles and tight lobe separation angles to produce increased torque and throttle response for non-computer street vehicles. EnergizeCams are offered in both a broad range of duration and engine

Tech. Support 866-388-5120 | cran

Cams are offered in both a broad range of duration and engine applications to match your specific requirements. Whatever your need—a daily performance driver, high torque for towing, or a street and strip high RPM weekend warrior, there is a cam designed for you. Available in either “cam and lifter kit” or “cam only”, Energizer® Cams are the best buy in a true performance camshaft.

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WHEN IT COMES TO working on your car, we’ve discovered in a very unscientific poll that building your own hoses comes in second only to electrical in the list of “jobs you avoid until the last possible moment.”

One of the reasons is reusable hose-end fittings can be a literal pain to install. Most everyone who has ever worked with steel-braided hos-es knows the pain that comes when those sharp metal wires stab into your hand or finger. Plus, the typical “nipple and cutter” design tends to

push the hose back out when you are trying to tighten the fitting down, so it can be difficult to get the hose fully seated in the fitting, and failure here means a blown hose.

However, it turns out that not all reusable hose fittings are made the same. Brown & Miller Racing Solu-tions, which is one of the leading (and most trusted) hose manufacturers in racing has developed a hose and fitting system that eliminates many of the frustrations most often experi-enced when installing the plumbing

on your car. Brown & Miller is popular in racing because its unique hose de-sign can replace traditional steel braid in many instances, saving significant weight. (And even if you are working on a hot rod and aren’t as concerned with weight, the stuff looks fantastic.) Plus, the spiral inner lining is impervi-ous to all types of fuel and most fluids, and allows Brown & Miller to use an innovative “olive” in its reusable fit-tings that guarantees the hose won’t back out on you.

Unlike many other companies in

Building your own hose is easy with Brown & Miller’s reusable hose fittings


PPNDigital.com 83

the plumbing market, Brown & Miller produces all of its own hoses and fit-tings. Much of the company’s business is in NASCAR Cup and Formula 1 rac-ing, but more and more racers in other areas, as well as general car builders, are utilizing their ultra high quality hoses and fittings on their cars.

In the last issue of Power & Perfor-mance News, we took at look at the unique construction of Brown & Mill-er’s lightweight hoses and crimped fittings. But we understand that for many racers and hot rodders operat-

ing on a budget, lightweight plumb-ing can be quite an investment, even though it is a real advantage on the track. That’s one of the reasons why many prefer to go with reusable hose-end fittings. If anything changes, or a hose gets damaged, you can simply remove the fitting and install it on a new hose.

Brown & Miller’s reusable hose end fittings are interesting because the design is quite unique. Most fit-tings marketed to racers use a design that bites into the hose. Because all of

Brown & Miller’s lightweight hoses utilize a convoluted hose, they were able to engineer a three-piece reusable hose fitting that “threads” onto the hose before locking down, making the process of installing the fittings much easier, while ensuring you will also get a good, strong connection.

The unique system is difficult to explain, so check out the process of installing fittings on various hoses in these photos, and you’ll see what we mean. Source: Brown & Miller Racing Solutions, bmrs.net

Brown and Miller’s reusable fitting is a three-piece design. Instead of biting into the hose material, an olive (center) fits between the fitting (left) and the collar to clamp down on the hose, securing it in place.

Brown & Miller offers AN fittings from size 2 all the way up to 20. Despite the added complexity involved compared to a simpler crimped fitting, Brown and Miller’s reusable hose ends aren’t any more expensive than their crimped fittings.

Brown & Miller has a wide range of reusable fittings, but it’s nothing compared to the vast array of crimped fittings it keeps in inventory. If you need a unique fitting (or you don’t know the final length of the hose you need) Brown & Miller can crimp a fitting on one end to the hose and leave it any length you require for installing a reusable fitting later.

1. All of Brown & Miller’s hoses are constructed from PTFE, making them impervious to prac-tically all fluids, and the polyester braided convoluted hose shown here is some of the lightest available anywhere, making it quite popular. It is also quite easy to cut. Brown & Miller’s John Harper showed us how racers without specialized tools can simply wrap some Scotch tape, or any other tape with very mild adhesive (don’t use duct tape), around the hose to prevent the braid from fraying. Then just cut it with a pair of scissors. For Brown & Miller’s lightweight steel braided line you can use a large pair of hose-cutting shears or an abrasive cutoff wheel.


2. After cutting your hose to length, slide the collar over the hose and remove the tape.

3. The olive simply threads onto the hose underneath the braid. Harper uses a pair of pliers with tape on the jaws to protect the olive. With the polyester braid you can usually get by with using your fingers instead of the pliers, but if you are working with steel braided line you definitely want the pliers to protect your fingers from the sharp ends of the freshly cut steel wires.

4. Thread the olive onto the convoluted hose until a little sticks out beyond the end, like you see here. The braid should be on the outside of the olive.

6. A little light lubricant on the threads of the fitting will help protect them and aid assembly.

Here’s our finished fitting (left) on the hose with one crimped fitting. The reusable fitting can be removed from the hose and used again, but Brown & Miller recommends using a new olive each time.

And for comparison’s sake, here is a swivel fitting reusable hose end fitted in place on a hose. Like Brown & Miller’s crimped hose ends, these fittings are machined from a single piece of aluminum where the fluid flows (no brazing), which makes for a stronger, more durable fitting.

5. Now use a razor blade to cut the hose so that it is flush with the end of the olive.

7. Slide the fitting in place until the collar is flush against the olive. Next, slide the collar up over the olive and thread it onto the fitting as much as you can by hand. The end of the braid should be covered by the collar.

The olive slides be-tween the hose and the outer braid. You can see how the leading edge of the olive is actually threaded, so instead of having to be pressed on, it actually threads into position and won’t slide off.

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WHEN YOU THINK OF true per-formance mobility, have you ever considered an off road vehicle as a hot rod? I’m not talking about your 4WD truck or rail buggy kind of off road vehicle but a little smaller in the ever-evolving world of Side-By-Side (SXS) or Utility Task Vehicle (UTV).

The realm of heavy cargo load capacity and towing ability in the utilitarian side of SXS, as well as some with incredibly high horsepower, has become a hot bed of add-on perfor-mance. This is true especially for the guys and gals who love to go fast in the really rough terrain of the desert or through the twisting tree lined trails in the mountains. With many major companies stepping up their game it just might be time to take notice.

When you look at the working rancher on the farm, the SXS is now commonplace among the tractors, taking over the seemingly smaller tasks. Some ranchers will use their SXS vehicles to feed cattle or work

A hot rod for off-roadWords / Photos Rick Sosebee

This Kawasaki Mule Pro FXT is built for work and heavy hauling but if the desire to trail ride came up it will do that as well and very comfortably.

a fence line while others will use these off-road two, four or even six passenger vehicles to get close to their favorite fishing hole or hunting stand.

In a more performance related direction if you look around at the

speedways, or say an NHRA event, you will likely see more of these machines running around carrying people or pulling racing equipment. It’s casually taking the place of the slightly less capable golf carts,

PPNDigital.com 87

because with more power you can tow more, and with better suspension you can be more comfortable doing so. All of these things are evolving in the SXS industry and getting some pretty big names following with their checkbooks.

It could be difficult for someone who has not had the chance to drive one of these rigs to understand just what features make them good, bet-ter, or best. One thing is for sure, once you get in the working utility SXS, then slip into the seat of a beastly big bore or turbo charged machine, you will feel the difference in your soul. Just a quick look around the cab of either of these types of machines will invite you to want more.

There are features like power steering and high back bolstered seats made to hug you like grandma used to. Another impressive feature we all need is more storage, so many manufacturers are adding to this wish list with things like removable water resistant (or even waterproof) storage boxes. We used to think that if you got two drink holders you had

This Polaris EV is totally electric and is focused more on light terrain as well as tasks around the farm or Jobsite. Hunters may also use the quiet electric SXS as well to sneak into the stand.

The incredible engineering that is built into this newest SXS by Yamaha is setting higher stan-dards for Pure Sport machines. With a sequential shift gearbox and a floor mounted clutch the excitement level goes up ten fold.


a Cadillac, but those are standard and often overlooked for the next big feature. Ranchers will dissect the spec sheets for how much the vehicle can tow, while the sporty enthusiast buyer will want to know how fast he can go.

More recently the gearhead or off-road enthusiast has begun to treat the off-road rig as the new type of hotrod. It is safe to say that the biggest portion of press received in the Side-By-Side industry today is on the versions of these radical machines that go 80 mph through 3-foot deep whoop sections of the harshest desert

terrain. It seems people are becoming more impressed with not just how much power can be built in a stock machine, but how much more they can add for that fun factor.

In the world of UTV, the industry is gaining a reputation for dropping the big “T-word” quite often. From some manufacturers, you can get a turbo-charged machine straight from the factory. Although pressures are most often limited to below 10 psi from the manufacturer, if you understand the dynamics of pushing air you can boost that subject much more. Pun intended.

If you are brave enough and have a bottomless pocket book you can go to your local nitrous dealer and spray the hell out of the engine for extra power as well. There are even guys who will take a 650cc engine and plug it out to over 1000cc’s with forged pistons, custom ground cams, and bench flowed heads just to drop it in a mud bog race or to sand drag the beast. Of course all of this requires the addition of protective custom roll cag-es and safety harnesses, which is just as common in on-road hot rodding these days.

Recently a manufacturer released

It is no secret that add-on power such as nitrous is a way to gain that competitive edge in the racing of SXS.

Once an unassuming ranch and trail vehicle, this Intimidator pairing shows just how radical the world of off roading can get. From the stock form to an all out custom machine.

their version of a completely capa-ble performance off road vehicle with an extremely revolutionary power plant with a transmission that will make any gearhead grin. The 2016 Yamaha YXZ1000R is pow-ered by a fuel injected triple cylin-der, 12-valve DOHC, liquid-cooled 998cc monster that boasts an 11.3:1 compression ratio. Each individual cylinder gets its own throttle body and coil pack for a tuned air/spark delivery. Innovation that is un-matched in the industry.

This high horsepower machine is built for two, and the companies crawling out of the woodwork with performance parts are becoming limitless. It is rumored that the triple cylinder in this rig creates over 110 hp in its stock form. But this is just the tip of the iceberg my friends. In terms of changing the industry, most of these rigs have automatic belt driven transmissions; however, to gain a more intense hot rod feel, this YXZ1000R machine has the industry’s first floor-mounted clutch pedal and a sequential-shifting gearbox.

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting in a rally car style cockpit, the

The world of mud racing and riding has exploded over the years and more radical machines are being built to traverse the depths of the harshest terrain and to also be the fastest competition in the mud races.

gear shifter is center console mounted and first gear is engaged by simply pressing the clutch while pushing the short throw shift lever one time forward. Once in motion there are four more gears waiting with just a slight tug rearward on the shift lever as your course speed grows.

It is hard to say where this grow-ing industry will be in five or ten years, but one thing is for certain, with an engine that spin happily to the 10,500 rpm range and a sound like no other, for a true gearhead the hair will stand up on your arms. And that’s a promise.

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FROM A SIMPLE MATH standpoint, making more horsepower requires nothing more than shifting torque pro-duction higher in the rev range. It is also possible to simply produce more torque in the same rpm, but with any given displacement, additional torque becomes more and more difficult.

Simply shifting torque produc-tion higher in the rev range becomes the only available method for im-proved power production. The reason this works is that horsepower and torque are mathematically related us-ing the following formula: HP=TQx-RPM/5252. Using this formula, we see that anything done to increase either

torque (or the engine speed at which it occurs) will ultimately improve power.

An example works well to demon-strate this relationship. A typical 383 that produces 450 lb.-ft. of torque at 4,500 rpm, equates to 385 horsepower. If we produce the same 450 lb.-ft. at 5,000 rpm, the horsepower production jumps to 428 hp. On paper, making more power is easy, but the question now is how do you go about shifting that all-important torque curve in the real world?

Altering the power curve of any motor is as easy as swapping the ap-propriate performance parts. When it comes to shifting the torque curve,

look no further than the big three power producers, namely the heads, cam, and intake manifold. To illus-trate the effect each of these compo-nents had on the torque and power curve, we tested them individually on a 383 stroker Chevy supplied by Speedmaster. It is also important to note that the combined effect is every bit as important, as matching these components to produce power pro-duction in the desired rpm range pro-vides optimum results.

The test mule featured a number of desirable components, includ-ing Speedmaster’s own 4-bolt block stuffed with a forged rotating assem-

We swap parts to shift the torque curve on a 383 stroker

PPNDigital.com 91

Words / Photos Richard Holdener

bly that included a stroker crank, H-beam rods, and flat-top pistons. The baseline test was run with a set of Speedmaster as-cast-aluminum performance cylinder heads, a COMP 218/224 hydraulic roller cam, and Speedmaster dual-plane, Eliminator intake manifold. This represented a solid street 383 that (as testing demon-strated) produced an excellent combi-nation of idle quality, drivability, and a healthy torque curve.

In addition to the as-cast heads, 218/224 cam and dual-plane intake, the 383 was configured for dyno use with a 950 HP Holley carb, MSD dis-tributor, and 1 3/4-inch dyno head-ers. All testing was run on 91-octane pump gas using Lucas 5W-30 syn-thetic oil.

1. The small-block Chevy test mule came straight from Speedmaster. The 383 featured a Speed-master 4-bolt block stuffed with a forged, stroker crank, 6.0-inch rods and forged flat-top pistons (with generous valve reliefs).

2. Topping the 383 stroker was a set of as-cast, 190cc cylinder heads. The heads featured 190cc intake ports, 64cc combustion chambers, and flowed 266 cfm at .700 lift. This baseline combination was also equipped with a COMP XR270HR cam that offered a .495/.502 lift split, a 218/224 duration split and 110-degree LSA.

3. The bottom end was buttoned up using a Speedmaster oil pan, pump, and pick up. Speedmaster also supplied the aluminum front cover and neutral, SFI-rated damper.


4. Completing the mild 383 combination was a Speedmaster, dual-plane Eliminator manifold, hardened pushrods, and aluminum roller rockers.

6. The new test motor was treated to 5 quarts of Lucas 5W-30 conventional oil before being subjected to a pair of computer-controlled break-in cycles.

5. For this test we relied on a Holley 950 HP carburetor and MSD distributor.

7. Run on the dyno with the as-cast heads, mild COMP cam, and dual-plane intake, the 383 stroker produced 388 hp and 453 lb.-ft. of torque.

Run in this baseline trim, the 383 produced peak numbers of 388 hp at 5,200 rpm and 453 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,800 rpm. The first upgrade in our torque-shift sequence was to replace the as-cast cylinder heads with a set of CNC-ported heads from Speed-master. It should be noted that had we elected to test the three compo-nents (heads, cam, and intake) in a different order, the power gains of-fered by each would be different, though the combined effect would still be the same.

After replacing the as-cast heads with the CNC-ported heads, the peak numbers jumped to 426 hp at 5,700 rpm and 459 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,900 rpm. Note that the head swap raised the engine speed where the motor made peak power from 5,200 rpm to 5,700 rpm, but shifted the torque peak by just 100 rpm (from 3,800 rpm to 3,900 rpm). Equipped with the ported heads, the 383 lost power slightly below 3,400 rpm, but the next upgrade would offer much more of a shift.

With plenty of head flow at our disposal, we decided to upgrade the camshaft. The milder 218/224 COMP cam was replaced with a much more aggressive profile that offered 248/254 duration split. With nearly 30 degrees more intake duration, we expected (and received) a significant shift in power production. From a peak stand-point, the new cam offered an extra 40 hp, bringing the total to 466 hp at 6,200 rpm. This shifted peak power produc-tion from 426 hp at just 5,700 rpm with the milder 218 cam, a shift of 500 rpm.

8. Though the performance upgrades can be applied in any order, we chose to replace the as-cast heads with a set of CNC-ported heads from Speedmaster.

10. Like the as-cast heads, the CNC-ported version included a spring package designed to work with the hydraulic roller cam. The head upgrade increased the power output by nearly 40 hp.

9. The heads were installed using hardware and gaskets also supplied by Speedmaster.

The peak torque shifted by 400 rpm, from 3,900 rpm with the 218 cam to 4,300 rpm with the larger 248 cam, but the peak output actually dropped by 10 lb.-ft., from 459 lb.-ft. to 449 lb.-ft.. In addition to dropping the peak

torque output by 10 lb.-ft., the power gains experienced above 5,000 rpm (see graph 2) were accompanied by equally significant torque losses be-low that point. The extra 44 hp at 6,000 rpm cost 44 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,200

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rpm. Much like our final intake test, cam choice comes down to where you want your power production.

The final test run on the 383 was to compare the dual-plane to a sin-gle-plane intake. Having shifted the torque curve with the CNC-ported heads and wilder 248 cam, we sus-pected the 383 might benefit from a single-plane intake designed to further enhance high-rpm power production. As illustrated by the results, the shift offered by the in-take swap traded power production much like the cam.

Replacing the dual-plane Elim-inator intake with the single-plane Shoot-Out intake (both from Speed-master) increased power production by 20 hp, bringing the peak number to 486 hp at a slightly higher 6,400 rpm. Peak torque actually dropped by 5 lb.-ft. (from 449 lb.-ft. to 444 lb.-ft.) and shifted by 400 rpm (from 4,300 rpm to 4,700 rpm).

When we finally called it quits, the combination of the heads, cam, and intake increased peak engine speed by 1,200 rpm. Equipped with the new components, peak torque actually dropped by 9 lb.-ft., but occurred 900 rpm later in the rev range. Though we lost a little torque, this Power Shift added nearly 100 additional horse-power to the test motor. Sources: COMP Cams, compcams.com; Holley/Hooker, holley.com; Lucas Oil, lucasoil.com; MSD, msdignition.com; Speedmaster, speedmaster.com

11. After upgrading the heads, we turned our attention to the camshaft. Off came the damper and front cover to provide access to the camshaft.

12. The mild XR270HR cam was replaced with a much more aggressive XR300HR grind that offered a .562/.580 lift split, a 248/254-degree duration split and 110-degree LSA. The cam swap shifted the power curves dramatically, increasing peak power from 426 hp and 459 lb.-ft. of torque to 466 hp and 449 lb.-ft.

13. Off came the dual-plane and on went the single-plane. The single-plane was designed to enhance power production higher in the rev range than the dual-plane. Equipped with the single-plane Shoot-Out intake, the 383 produced 486 hp and 444 lb.-ft. of torque.

PPNDigital.com 95

GEARHEAD

WINNER

EDITOR’S CHOICEAlso at each event we comb through the thousands of cars and pick one that we thought was cool for one reason or the other with a focus on Power or performance, of course!

GEARHEAD POWERPACK WINNERSLeading up to each Street Machine Nationals Summer Series event, Xceleration Media has a social media contest called the Gearhead Powerpack Giveway, where we choose one lucky car from Facebook submissions to receive free entry into the event, VIP parking in Xcel-eration Media’s booth space, and over $700 worth of gift certificates from COMP Performance Group. We’d like to congratulate the win-ners from the July St. Paul event and September Springfield event.

Springfield: This is Kirby Holden’s ’67 Barracuda Formula S. Kirby had a couple of photos set up on the dash that revealed how far down to the bare body he took the car in his own garage. He told us he’s owned several of these cars, including a ’68 Barracuda con-vertible that was sitting at home. This one has a small block with 13.5:1 compression that he normally runs on methanol. That alone makes it different. It’s an owner-built and driven car that he takes to the drag strip and runs quite often. This is a real car guy who spins his own wrenches.

St. Paul: Steve Nitti bought this ’71 Duster brand new when he was a youngster. He couldn’t afford a big powerplant, so he bought the little six-banger version. Well, he’s hung onto it through all of these years, and the little slant-6 is still kicking — only now it’s on oxygen. But in this case it’s not a bad thing. That’s right, it now breathes compressed air through a Procharger that helps the mighty Duster down the 1320 to times in the low 10s! We couldn’t think of a better pick!

St Paul: Terry Sorensen’s ’97 Ford Mustang Cobra was chosen for the St. Paul event. But this isn’t your average Cobra, it comes equipped with a turbo LSx packed under the hood!

Springfield: Joe Kossen’s 57 Chevy pickup is about as bad as they come. Airbagged, tubbed, and blown is the ultimatte way to make a truck look mean. Cover the entire thing in a hot rod black satin finish, and you have a murdered-out snarling beast. Joe actu-ally just completed the build a few weeks before the event capping the 8/71 blower with a custom EFI and an awesome ProMod hat!


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The piston slides into the block with a slight push. Note that it’s narrow enough to have cleared headstuds if this engine had been so equipped.

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Power & Performance News Fall/Winter 2015