robertbartsch

I know but Olds muscle cars (442) were bogas...

Its sort of like the guys building cadilac engines - who cares....is someone really going to build a hot rod cadilac?

66ImpalaLT1

Yes, there is a company that exclusively builds Cadillac performance parts.

Take your blinders off, there's nothing wrong with building something different.

Eric

Richard@WCCH

iTrader: (3)

Bret,
Thanks for your insight. I'm bummed that your not entered this year. You are correct about the serious costs involved. It's going take some help from other companies to shoulder the financial burden of competing, or some seriously deep pockets! I've heard some rumblings coming from some of the entrants and the power numbers are not as high as you think. Unless what I'm hearing is bogus...........
As for coatings, we didn't use any last year, but we're going to this year. I agree that there is somwhere close to 2% alone with the proper coatings.
This year we're going Mopar and building a wedge. Your also correct that it's going to take some cylinder head magic to try and beat the king of the hill, Joe Sherman. The Indy heads seem to have the most potential to offer the Mopars. They also have a pretty nice intake manifold as well.
Tom is way ahead of schedule compared to last year. He dynoed for 3 days last year and this year he should have over a month.
One things for sure, the winner is going to have to pull out all the stops in order to win this thing. There are so many heavy hitters entered this year that the winner is going to have some serious bragging rights when the dust settles. Oh, yeah.....the $100,000 is also nice
I haven't seen the Cadilliac heads yet so I'm not sure what their potential is. The Buick engines should do well as long as the builders put together the proper combination. Those heads have good flow potential.......
Nice hearing your thoughts Bret.

Richard

SStrokerAce

iTrader: (2)

I figured you were with Tom. He did some interesting things with that setup last year, some things caught my eye some I thought were a little odd. I think it's a stretch to do with a wedge Mopar, yeah the lifters are nice and yeah the chambers are small it just doesn't out weight the other parts of it to me. The 572-13 Indy heads look like the choice, they do have rolled valves but I'm not sure if they are legal. That would leave you with the 440-1 heads, which to me need alot of help in the mid lift range. That and you guys are probably close to .700 lift with .904 lifters and 1.7:1 rockers. That should help a ton.

The money for this thing is part of the problem. If anyone thinks that Cornels monster LS1 is crazy then these things are right up there if you were paying the full tag on them.

That dyno time is also huge. We had about a week and a hlaf last year, and this year I wanted at least a month and maybe 2. That was the other problem, I was running out of time.

On another note I was talking to a customer of yours the other day. He's a interesting guy, had a bunch of good things to say about you and I think those Pro Action heads for his LT1 are going to be pretty mean.

I would expect to see some good numbers, last year my guess for HP, TQ and final score was very close to what really happened, so I wouldn't be suprised to see that much power out there this time.

I wish you guys luck, I'd like to check out the contest in CA, but I'll probably just drop by the MI site to help out.

Bret

Richard@WCCH

iTrader: (3)

Yeah my customer's building a pretty wild LT-4. It's been a project converting standard cooling heads to reverse cooled. A fair bit of welding and machining. Happily the heads are now done although I'm not sure I'll do another set.
I'm also finishing up The Indy heads for Tom's Mopar. They should be wrapped up this next week. He needs to be on the dyno by mid Sept.
I'll keep in touch.

Richard

robertbartsch

they measure HP and tork based on a weighted average; right?

why is it expensive to enter the contest? Is this because of the dyno time needed or parts? i thought the rules were designed to aviod use of expensive motors?

Richard@WCCH

iTrader: (3)

Torque values are added together with hp averages and the 2 numbers are then added together to produce a combined total. That total then becomes your score.
It doesn't cost alot to enter the Challenge, but the R&D time(time=money) is when the expense starts. Each and every component put into any one of the engines is carefully machined and measured for exact fit or flow or durability etc.
The carburetors alone are very expensive. Proper calibration on a dyno can take days. Fuel curves must be exact at each and every measured rpm to capitalize on the maximum power available. Power curves must also be considered, for example one tuning configuration may produce slightly less peak torque and peak hp, but may still yield a higher average producing a better score. There are a variety of tuning configurations that must tested and evaluated and that takes time. Remember time=money. Those contestants that fail to make it through qualifying have spent money on parts, machining and R&D time and they don't get much in return, except maybe a "t" shirt. Those that make the cut in qualifying have something to be very proud of and should be respected for their accomplishment.

I'm done.

Richard

SStrokerAce

iTrader: (2)

The sick thing here as Rich said is that time=money and what you have to do here to make a motor that is competitive is put lots of time in it.

Basically to win this contest you need to spend about $15K in parts, and then double that to pay for all the time. The winning motors are about $30K in reality. Most of the builders in this can duplicate one of theses motors for much less since the R&D is done.

As in anything rules can limit the budget, but only to a degree. Winston Cup has a "technology" limit, but in reality they still have $2.5Million engine lease deals.

You can spend more and more to win at anything, that's one rule in racing.

Bret