CHEVYMAN434

iTrader: (8)

Looks like what i need..

KRAZY K 2000 TA

iTrader: (5)

Tony what did you paint the intake with?Paint brand and method?

VIPRETR2

iTrader: (63)

I thought they were MSD coils but almost everything I've read on them is negative so I thought I was mistaken. I'm sure you will expose any weaknesses they may have.

SinisterZ28

iTrader: (4)

That engine belongs in a art mag. Nice work, maybe with enough time n hard work I too will have something as nice as that,lol. I'm sure it's going to make great numbers and perform awesome.
Beautiful !

LS1-NAVY

iTrader: (1)

thats sick

Zmg00camaross

iTrader: (11)

garygnu

tuning a high out put in Cali.,go figure.great motor ,I bet it dose great .how much?

SnIpEz

iTrader: (4)

That is the most gorgeous looking engine I have EVER seen...

brokenfly

"tony shoemaker"......

Tony Mamo @ AFR

iTrader: (13)

So after literally years in the making I finally had a chance to see the "Vader 454" unleash some of its fury at the Westech dyno facility in Mira Loma, CA (using the same dyno and test cell I use to do all my LS testing for directly comparable results).

It was one of those unforgettable days filled with anticipation and excitement and unfortunately as the day progressed some slight disappointment as well.

Im going to quote myself taking a paragraph from the first post I made to start this thread....

It's like I subconsciously knew what might transpire on the dyno....LOL

To make a long story short I didn't get a chance to complete all my testing (I had a short list of changes to make in an effort to extract more power from the combination). About a dozen or so pulls into the day we noticed the engine starting to smoke out of the breather at WOT when we loaded it for the pull. After inspecting leak down, cranking compression, spark plugs, and cutting open the oil filter (everything looking like a clean bill of health) I decided to run it a little more....power was exactly the same but it was venting crankcase fumes during the run. I decided better be safe than sorry and halted any further testing till I find out what was going on.....something had obviously changed. My suspicions were a ring had stuck in one of the grooves or I pushed the limit on my piston to head clearance (quench distance) just a bit too much. After taking the engine home yesterday and not wasting a minute to find out it turns out the latter was exactly what transpired. There was some very light piston to head contact on one side of the piston, enough to close up the critical top ring gap not allowing it to conform to the cylinder wall (hence the blowby we started seeing). In fact I was sooooo close to my target (which was to get the piston so close to the head the carbon is almost cleaned off), it took a dozen or so runs to get the rods hot enough to stretch to the point of light contact. And thats how it goes.....sometimes a couple of thousandths is the difference of winning and losing when it comes to high performance engine assembly.

Lets get to the good stuff.....this engine surpassed my highest expectations and did so with the wrong header (still had the baseline 1.75 tube headers) and without the benefit of the vacuum pump or any of the items I planned on testing to hopefully find a few more ponies (rocker ratio swap, moving the cam position around, etc., etc.).

The engine sounded incredible on the dyno and twisted the strain gauge on the SF902 SuperFlow to the tune of 652 ft/lbs of torque and a best of 731 HP!! It was making north of 700 as early as 5700 RPM's and over 640 ft/lbs by 4400 (carrying over 640 all the way to 5800). When we loaded it and started the sweep at 3500 it was already producing 45 more ft/lbs of torque than my 383 made at its peak (about 570) and based on all the previous testing I have done that lead in torque figure will be at least 10-15 ft/lbs higher when I swap to the larger header (1.875 tube)....in fact the larger header will fatten the power and torque curve everywhere in an application like this.

Check out the dyno curve.....it looks like a boosted engine in some respects





And here is the hard data from that run....




Needless to say I'm thrilled with the results and look forward to returning to the dyno (likely next month) to complete the testing and see what this combination still has in it....the larger header is a no brainer and some of the other moves I would like to make may be worth a few as well.



Cheers,
Tony

PS....I will post the results of the second round of testing in the dyno results section of this board when I have all the data.....at this point this is more of a technical related story with some numbers and a pitstop along the way!

lexva_58

iTrader: (1)

Well that the only way to learn right lol
very nice numbers
congrats

Patrick G

iTrader: (14)

Looks like a Kenne Bell 3.3L supercharger got stock on top of your engine Tony. Very broad torque curve and nice power. Should be around 650rwhp once it's in the car which is muy nice.

LilJayV10

iTrader: (39)

Tony,

What are you going to change so the piston doesn't kiss the cylinder head anymore?

Congrats on the numbers. I'm sure it will keep getting better.

majorityrls

congrats. I could only hope to get a engine like that in the firehawk!

Tony Mamo @ AFR

iTrader: (13)

Jay,

That's easy....just order a slightly thicker head gasket.

Cometic makes them in varied thickness....I set the quench where I wanted it in the first place based on the pin height of the custom piston I spec'ed and how much material was removed from the block. The original set-up I went with an .040....will probably use an .045 when I put her back together but make no mistake about the fact I knew exactly where I was setting it originally btw....just got a hair too aggressive.....actually more like half a hair if I had to guess!

Bottom line, you push the envelope enough on these optimized builds for max power and stuff like this is inevitable. I was just forthcoming enough to share....I've seen alot of stuff conveniently buried in this industry....featured builds that grenaded right after (or before) the last flash bulb went off....its not all glory and there are lessons to be learned. As I said, I handled numerous aspects of this build slightly differently than I would have had it been a customer's engine.....I was willing to take some calculated risks with my own build and alot of them paid off.

When the smoke clears I would rather have a 740+ HP engine that needs a slight adjustment than a 715 HP engine that doesn't! (which would have still been a huge number thru a cathedral head and a FAST manifold).

Also, now knowing without a doubt the capabilities of what I'm building will make the downtime of getting her back together alot more tolerable!

I cant wait to experience this engine in my C5.....When I was at Westech I compared the overlay of the 454 against the 383 I used to run (from the same dyno) and the comparison of the two curves is retarded.....especially when I consider just how capable and fast the car was with the 83' in it (high tens at 130 traps).

I will try to post that next week in fact.....I need to have Steve at Westech email me the 83' dyno file.

-Tony

SHovV

iTrader: (1)

very awesome build.

SS_Wannabe

love this thing, may not be a good street engine but would love the same look look with some decent streetability. anywhere we can see a parts list, or more pictures?

02sleeperz28

iTrader: (26)

Very nice!

Stage7

iTrader: (1)

Beautiful engine and great results Tony. Thank you for sharing the good with the bad as well. Pretty rare in the industry as you noted.

Should be another 10 or hp with the right headers too. Almost unthinkable with a plastic intake a few years ago. Cubes work...

2000PewterT/A

Beautiful build.