Road-racing Engine

[Grabinov911]

Isnt the rpms really just a function of a good valve-train though? oiling aside and rod bolts

Actually Andy F's book on Mopar performance has a really good chart on average piston speed based on stroke and RPM. What it reminds me is that RPM sensitivity has a lot to do with the ability of the engine to withstand the continuous change of direction of the piston, the rod and pin and the parts along the crank.

Throw piston at head at 5,000 feet per second
Stop it within thousands of an inch and throw it back the other direction by containing an explosion in the small space above it.
Stop it again using pure mechanical strength (rod, pin, piston)
Reverse it's direction in thousand's of an inch
Repeat

The effect of all that momentum on parts is unreal. At that speed, a savings of a few grams in a piston or wrist pin can save huge amounts of stress on the rest of the system. Add to that 99ss' point, which is basically that the valve has to go through the same process, and it makes the life of a cam look easy - it never has to change direction!

 

[2fuzy]

Supershafts: Last night I put my car on a trailer. It should be at your house next week!

Awesome man. I'm printing out this string so I don't forget anything. I have a set of hood pins for the car and I'm trying to decide where to put them. That's easy enough though. Just have to set my mind to it...

Isnt the rpms really just a function of a good valve-train though? oiling aside and rod bolts

assumeing that one has the flow to support any givin air requirment and valve train as well the limiting factor becomes piston speed and burn rate
big block mopars have a very short stroke for there displasement(lower piston speed) and an almost ideal rod ratio
the best bottom end of there era the only thing as good is a side oiler ford
the hemi heads allowed for fantastic beathing and put the two together you have the legand that it is
but if you put those heads on a 455 pont they would be worthless with its 5" stroke

 

[Sweet5ltr]

Grabinov911,

If that big inch Mopar is built right, it's going to have gobs of power down low. You went right with the M1, the Victor is the only intake I would have chosen over it. The Indy manifold (dual plane) will fit under a stock hood. I run the Victor single plane and the .590 solid with 106LSA and 312 degrees duration... I have absolutely no issues with power down low. I also run a six pack hood, and my oval breather is turned sideways in order to fit and sits right into the space of the scoop. It would never even come close to fitting a stock hood.

A good lil' intake manifold article:
http://www.hughesengines.com/TechArticles/4portedintakemanifoldsupdated08272007.php

 

[Kern Dog]

That intake article is cool. I liked that they showed that the Edelbrock RPM intake flows much better than many others. I have one of them in my car and was considering a switch to the Holley Street Dominator. I still may buy one if i see one at a swap.
On another topic regarding the Poncho crowd, Ever taken a look at a Pontiac intake valley? It is amazing that that crap holds together with all the unsupported areas. Their HUGE main journals on the cranks are a massive drag. Pontiac made some great looking cars, but their engine designs were flimsy.

 

[2fuzy]

That intake article is cool. I liked that they showed that the Edelbrock RPM intake flows much better than many others. I have one of them in my car and was considering a switch to the Holley Street Dominator. I still may buy one if i see one at a swap.
On another topic regarding the Poncho crowd, Ever taken a look at a Pontiac intake valley? It is amazing that that crap holds together with all the unsupported areas. Their HUGE main journals on the cranks are a massive drag. Pontiac made some great looking cars, but their engine designs were flimsy.

If you take the Pontiacs for what the were the where cool I had a 73 firebird formula with a 455 great car for doing donuts but not much else as no tire seemed to stick but rpm work not but for moving a safari wagon around great but the intakes to get under a low hood the air had to change diretion about 20 times before it got to the valve

 

[Bolt-Action]

Of all the intake shoot-outs/comparo. that I've read, the oldies are still VERY competitive and sometimes better than modern intakes.
For example, the Holley Street Dominator and orig Eddy Torker intakes, still VERY comparable and better than several modern intakes,
makes sense, esp. when you consider their design has been copied on some modern intakes.

 

[Supershafts]

the hemi heads allowed for fantastic beathing and put the two together you have the legand that it is
but if you put those heads on a 455 pont they would be worthless with its 5" stroke

If you put the hemi heads on the 455, you wouldn't be happy with the outcome...

 

[Grabinov911]

ARGHHH!!! After all that debating about intakes, the Mopar M1 single plane intake manifold for the 440 is backordered EVERYWHERE! I'm internet searching like mad...

 

[Boise68]

Here is one on the forum:http://www.forbbodiesonly.com/moparforum/showthread.php?58843-M1-sigle-plane

ARGHHH!!! After all that debating about intakes, the Mopar M1 single plane intake manifold for the 440 is backordered EVERYWHERE! I'm internet searching like mad...

 

[Grabinov911]

Thanks Boise. I have actually been chatting with cwhubb from that post. That intake is for a Max Wedge port head rather than a stock port head. It's amazing how many variations of the same manifold there are.

I gave up on the M1 after being told not to hold my breath by lots of our credible vendors (Moparts, Hughes, Mancini, Bouchillon etc.). Based on further research I ordered a "deep port matched" Edelbrock Performer RPM intake from Hughes Racing today. They had the manifold in stock and said they could have it in the mail - machined - by first thing next week. I am hoping for the best of both worlds - low RPM torque from a dual plane, and high RPM flow like a single-plane from the custom machine work. $394.00, but if it runs, it'll be worth it!

 

[Grabinov911]

Hey Hey! Progress!

Ok Gents,

The heads are on for good. We used a FelPro version of the three-layer steel heads gasked and ARP stainless bolts - which are beautiful by the way, but black might have looked better on the silver aluminum heads. The machine shop pulled apart the Edelbrock valves and springs and was happy enough with them to use the stock Edelbrock parts. The only change they made was to fix the springs so that the spring rates were consistent across all of the valves, which I guess they were not. I don't know what change is made to the spring to accomplish this (cut? file? compress? change the spring out?). I asked about the quality of the spring retainers and they seemed happy with them. Unless you guys tell me to do otherwise, we'll probably stick with 'em. Neat Mopar "M" on the end of the head!



There is a picture here of the billet crower cam and oil pump / distributor drive. I'm told that it is a billet gear as well (even though it looks to me like it's pressed on) so we are going with a brass oil pump drive gear. The one pictured is from 440 Source, and looks to be pretty burly and high quality in person. So far I'm pretty happy with their stuff.






Crower doesn't make a rocker arm system for the Mopar 440 to go with the cam and lifters we got from them, so we're going with the Comp Cams Ultra Pro Magnum 1.5/1 rocker and shaft system. It's an 8560 chromemoly rocker which, for this hydraulic roller motor, should give pretty good reliability and longevity even if it's not the highest revving alternative (a super-light extruded aluminum rocker).

I also ordered a Melling M63-HV high volume oil pump and cleaned up the ports with a Dremel an a few pictures from Andy F's Max Performance Big Blocks book. The castings REALLY are bad from the factory. Lots of dangerously sharp edges and pits from the casting. They sure clean up easily though.

The Hughes Engines super-ported Edelbrock RPM Intake Manifold should be here Wednesday...

 

[451Mopar]

Cool project, plenty of power.
What are you using for a fuel tank? I figure you will need about 35 gallon fuel tank?

 

[AMX364]

The only issues the Police had with the 440 engines were that at high speed that the block had trouble getting the oil from the top of the motor to the pan. Less oil going to the valve train helps after several minutes at 5000 rpm, gauge starts to drop oil pressure. The road race pan that you are planning to use will help quite a bit.

 

[Grabinov911]

451: Not sure if you were just kidding - bad mileage - but I am using a new replacement stock tank so far. I wanna say stock is close to 20 gallons, so I don't think I'll have a problem going 100 miles - even at high speed. I gotta figure I'll get at least 8 to 10mpg at cruise at speed...

Thanks AMX - That was my thought as well. With the high volume oil pump moving a lot of liquid at say 4,500 RPM, there is going to be lot of oil up in the engine. That means less in the pan. The big, efficient, pan with baffles should help keep the oil there at the pickup...

 

[451Mopar]

451: Not sure if you were just kidding - bad mileage - but I am using a new replacement stock tank so far. I wanna say stock is close to 20 gallons, so I don't think I'll have a problem going 100 miles - even at high speed. I gotta figure I'll get at least 8 to 10mpg at cruise at speed...

Thanks AMX - That was my thought as well. With the high volume oil pump moving a lot of liquid at say 4,500 RPM, there is going to be lot of oil up in the engine. That means less in the pan. The big, efficient, pan with baffles should help keep the oil there at the pickup...

I think it would depend on the speed class you are running. I think the engine will make well over 500 HP, but it sounds like your not going to run it full out. A few friends who have been to the Silver State Classic talked about cars that ran out of fuel before the finish line.

 

[Supershafts]

I ran a 158 mile run on less than one tank at pretty much 130 mph the entire way except for the 4 momentary stops and didn't run out of fuel, im sure there are people at some runs that are only carrying the weight they need to and if that means 14 gallons rather than 28 gallons then that might be why, i wouldn't do that but other people will

 

[Grabinov911]

With 28" tires and a 3.55 rear end, which is what I'm running now, I'll turn 4,260 RPM at exactly 100mph. The Silver State is actually 90 miles, so that means turning 4,260 RPM for 54 minutes. For what it's worth, with a 6,500 RPM proposed redline, that means running at approximately 2/3 of redline for that period. Maybe more interesting, that should be almost exactly at the peak torque point for a 493" motor, and I am guessing at about 80% of the peak horsepower.

An off-the-shelf turbocharged diesel engine will run at 80% of peak pretty much until you run out of fuel or have to change the oil. An old style gas v8 (that isn't a NASCAR engine or a Ferrari?)? I don't know. I'll tell you one thing: I'm glad I paid for the internally balanced rotating assembly.

To go much faster than 100 over that distance - which I can't do in the entry level class for my first year - I'll probably need a Keisler 5 speed or a Gear Vendors overdrive: 3,300 RPM at 100 MPH, or 130 at 4,260. That's fast, but only for 41 minutes!

 

[451Mopar]

I'm was just trying to figure based on BSFC. Example, if your only pushing 400 HP at a BSFC of 0.4 lbs/hr and gasoline is 6.073 lbs/gallon, than in one hour you should be using 26.35 gallons/hour? But that would be more like running WOT all the time.

FWIW, my '69 Coronet has a 505" stroker with mild ported stealth heads, 10.3:1 compression, Comp XR286 Hydraulic roller cam, Edelbrock XT EFI, and the Keisler SS700 5-speed OD trans with 3.54:1 gears and 27" tall tires. It will be interesting to see how it does for fuel mileage (If I ever get the cursed transmission back...)

 

[Grabinov911]

Rockers are going in... These are the Comp Cams Ultra Pro Magnum Rockers - Part number 1621-16 described earlier. We have a couple of them on each head to check the pushrod length - which turns out to be the same on both sides, which I guess says something about the quality of the block and heads. You can see that these are bushed (rather than needle bearing) rockers with a special coating on both the rocker and the shaft, and an oil hole in the rocker "gallery" in the back of the rocker arm. Pretty cool how the oil comes out of the shaft, through the rocker "gallery" and then out the tip of the rocker to oil the top of the pushrod.

The shafts are STOUT! You can't believe (maybe you can) how much stronger this configuration looks than the aluminum rocker setup on the BBC sitting behind this engine in the shop - like night and day...

I also attached a picture of the position of the rocker on the valve, which looks pretty good to me. We're running about 320 pounds of total spring load with this hydraulic roller setup. You can see the Crower lifter in the last pic too...

 

[Grabinov911]

Complete Long Block

Well as of today the long block is complete. I pulled the Mopar Performance valve covers off of my 383 and put the stock ones back on so these can go on the new motor - the FIRST part to actually be swapped over. Now I just need 3 friends t help with the big stuff: Take off hood, undo trans, pull motor, etc. I'm hoping to have BOTH motors out for at least a little while so that I can clean up the engine bay a little bit, and maybe even respray it.

Now I have to start taking things apart - from the stock motor I mean. Makes me a little nervous taking apart a running car to move parts over. This is the part where you worry you're going to be without your car for YEARS! I'm gonna try to stay on it. Shouldn't take too long...