For fun and to look back from our circle of pals, I have some old thoughts from the very old guys who mentored many of us over the decades. I have always loved to see how old tricks are new, what new is sometimes old, and how engines get refined to get more and more power from the same parts.
When we built say, 4 identical race 390s, or 428s, or 427s, and these were blueprinted to the 0001 and very precise, head c.c's with.1 and every piece massaged, it was always interesting how the final dyno numbers,corrected for weather, water grains, the baro and so on, we often had one or two that had that mysterious 'tick' more oomph.
Presuming this, the best piece went to the best Driver who had the best shot at the title or championship.
So I just ponder the below and more.
Class racing with rigid tear down rules play a part, so does guys who always push the envelope to win but not break the rules, and of course, guys who break a rule maybe, or do things that are in a gray area or gap in rules.
In the 60s, the old guys would quietly share with team members, how T based race engines, in-line 4's using trick OFFY MILLER FRONTY or other heads, and FORD blocks and welded stroker or hand cranked cranks, rods and pistolero's, might, or often, ran better not newly bored and honed, not at all, but with clean bores that had been allowed to break in a long while
Remember, today, as we did 40 years ago, the torque plates and heads done and finish lapped on a torque plate too, and so on, results in a Dyno break in where the blow by gauge shows night seal fast, as opposed to 50-60's production engines that required maybe 1,000 miles to 'break in'. You owners manual had time tested procedures to break in the engine, and this light throttle time, often different oil, and all the directives to'not jack rabbit start', or maintain the same RPM, or load the mill hard, etc, was by design
An engine settles in, and basically fits itself as it wears and burnishes off high spots, the RMS or finish of many parts, gets refined or smoother, and the parts mate, rings rotate and get shiny, as the marry or honey moon, lol, with the specific bore they live in, seats conform the valve faces, guides hone in, loosen a tenth or two and so on
So long ago, the real slick engine guys knew that a reciprocating assembly, that was broken in and fit under load, had a slight edge after a series of races, or after some time.
Some old guys around us called this 'loosening up', others, 'getting 'run in', or, letting the entire assembly 'get happy'
So as a hot rod engine got raced, you tore her down and read the parts closer and closer.
And parts reading between races is huge, it can yield hints to more power or a new path, it can give clues to wear, an impending failure issue, hardness incompatibility, what parts are in harmony hardness wise, what part is being sacrificed or wearing faster but acceptably, and when you want to change in a new part to maintain power and life, often.
So when I was real young, surrounded by racers,race cars,engine, blower, chassis and other shops, you'd hear a lot of trick guys quietly say that they believed that their 'seasoned' block made more power or was quicker for reasons that were correct, or obvious
I vaguely recall some top builders around us, honing their blocks upside down with the heads on in the early 60s, and talk that others had tried this in the 50s and before
Why? In the 30s and 40s, some of the fastest piston engines did NOT have removable heads.
Many cutting edge race engines for airplanes in the 20s-30s and 40s were very trick and ahead of their time. Many of these tricks, trickled down to Hot Rods
So reducing cylinder distortion for initial power was a concept or trick that evolved quietly. Not in magazines, not in the aftermarket for some time
FORD had engineers who pondered this in the 60s because several of those engineers came out West, and were maybe a generation older than some of us, and It was cool to hear the debates and pros and cons play out in our FORD MERC race engine cells
The for EEE guys had bosses who won in the 50s, and they trusted what won and worked for them, so head plates had to be proved and tested and many good old class Drag Racers building at home played a nice part.
FORD guys, in Detroit, by the mid 60s, moonlighted in race shops close by. Head plates were made for example, by EE guys over at DOUG NASH in the 60s, tried, proved then adopted
My co builder on many fast mills, DN, spend months making them so guys like DYNO DON and others could quietly try them and maybe gain some hindeths(maybe a 9.30 might shave a .01 or 2 sometimes
So things evolved but for sure, around us, many very accomplished engine men, who had won the huge races for FORD and others, and who had their hands on a bunch of major victories and trophies, titles and record, did not buy in to the need whole heartedly
And if you work on the blown and injected stuff we all have around this swamp, shucks, check into it.....decades after decades of blown fuel, alky,gas cars, injected fuel, alky and gas cars flat fly and do not get finished honed with a plate
Very few Kieth Black HEMI blocks for example, got a finish plate hone of many years if blown, injected, or pushed way past the carb power numbers, not the KB 1's,2's3's,4's, 5's...LOL or the KB 10 we have in one 5 second car right now. Same with hundreds of Brad Anderson blocks, same with probably all the JP 1 PISANO blocks we saw, same with so many Allen Johnson blocks today so this is a relevant observation to some builders
at 400 hp, plates and a seasoned block will hand you 2-3% free power maybe, right from the break in, or soon. BUT< after an engine runs and runs, it also will settle in, and pick up some power naturally, without plates to our observations and durability testing
Carbs up to a 1000 HP? Of course, why?
A Pro Stock engine can NOT waste a lot of time doing break in passes. Your goal is max power, off the dyno, fresh and fit, drop it in and chop away at a record or win
But if you step the HP per CUBE up above , lets say Pro Stock level cylinder pressures and RPM, load, and time in use, passes before freshening, once you go injected alky, injected nitro, blown gas, blown alky, then blown fuel, the seal is more forced by boost and cylinder pressures, and the BMEP demanded, right? You go logically up the HP/cube ladder and it seems, the need for plates and other similar tricks is 'nice' but no big deal. Often, a ductile interlocking sleeve with super thick walls, is part of the reason, but when you force feed a chamber, and a conformable stainless top ring, including the old 031 DYKES we ran and still use sometimes, the power level,3 hp/cube( say injected alky,good gas) to (Nostalgia heritage levels, one fuel pump, only 1 mag,small 6-71 blower, overdrive limit rule)10,11,12 Horses per cube, nobody uses a plate to hone. Its rare. For NHRA Pro series stuff, the 500 CID 14-71 twin arc welding magneto, max Godzilla fuel pump land rocket mutha's, flirting with around 10,000 horsey's.....no plates between rounds....
So why?
The sleeves are used, they broke in on the burnout if not the warm up in the pits, the re fit and settled. In max form, around 20 HP per cube, between rounds what do you do? Well, there is the sleeve and bore, you read it close. You see burnishing and wear on the thrust axis, and you see a lot. If you dial bore gage it to the 0001, like so many have done 50 years or so, it ain't all perfect round,,,,LOL
It will get rounder when the heads get torqued, but you use a flex hone. Why? If follows the minor distortion, if any, And re finishes the bore where and how it is compressing, elongating under load, and changing after it warms up then sees piston melting hell fire in the chambers and exhaust
So, on pump gas , small inches,one carb,heavy car,tall gear, small cam,mufflers and an air cleaner, car A racing car B, identical builds to the washer, my money is on the head plate honed car for maybe a few bumpers when brand new( bumper lengths through the eyes/traps/at the 1320 mark)
On a Pro Stock? Much bigger deal probably, maybe half a fender
But as the HP per cube goes up from there, plates are not really the trick of the month and have been tried and not and used and not, over 40 some years, and less of a deal
OK
BARRY is a genius builder and the 2 plates is how smart guys distort the casting evenly on both sides, now, serious comp racers and super stockers, even us in the 70s, like Dyno's 351 C's,(flexy blocks) super trick builds bolt the motor mounts on, water pump, front cover, oil pump, freeze plugs in, and then plump the block to run water at 180 degrees or 210, wherever the mill lives in the race
ALSO
For decades, brand new iron blocks, and some alloy, go into a cup engine or others, only after the casting is stress relieved to minimize dimension shift. We ll know this but for the new guys, many engine men mount new blocks on a trick vibrating shake table firmly, then vibrate it over a range of frequencies, and modes, for up to a few days in some instances..LOL for hours in others, to let the block or heads release internal stresses and settle in to where the dimensions remain more stable during use
Heat cycling, hot cold hot cold is big too, so again, a real clean block, raced a while then re-freshened, still can have that tiny edge to some
Brent as always, make a smart, mechanic engineer, pro builder point too
I hate to offend anybody but shucks, I cant count how many engine builds I have read in the past years, that say,,,we plate honed the block, at the machine shop, took it home or to the shop, fit the rings......
Not to bug a soul, we fit the rings with the plates on...for decades.....it only makes sense?
Plates off, then fit the rings? Well, gap all 16 with no plates, then bolt the plates on and compare....right Brent, 001 distortion due to torque loads,, times Pi, 003 plus real so fit it stressed is our deal too....
FORD Race team tricks
I smiled really wide when Blair kind of clued some guys in on a thing we knew long back
A race FE, fired then shut off in a few minutes on a dyno, with iron block and heads, all super trick, cc'd fussed over and perfect to the 0001, may NOT leak down all even at first. FE's can leak a bit on the end cylinders due to deck and head distortion for a little while but that vanishes pretty fast, as even a really trick FE says..let me break in a bit, or settle in and get comfortable;...LOL....And yup, if you do your entire valve job on a head plate bolted to the head, this above phenomenon diminishes significantly
Now also,,,,,,,,,,some guys do insist on an aluminum head plate, thick, sometimes a sacrificed alloy head that got hurt, why? An aluminum ported race head can be a lot softer and more flexible than a bitchin surface ground thick BHJ style head plate
So a few super tuner amigos do split those hairs to chase those 2 or 3 ponies in a tight class racing situation
Always fun
I made FROD a torque fixture we called it on a Mill in about 1972 by taking a hurt 427 Tunnel Port head, then boring the 4 holes right through the used head
We had a huge machine shop and tons of capacity and tooling so it was fun
That really lightens a head
We liked these fixtures because the head bolt lengths were correct, and so was the crush rate of the cast iron bosses cast OEM ......
OK, enough old school observations
Only hope is that it helps us all think through more then more ways to win, innovate and do good work
I love the trick new style head plates too, insist on them for anything with a carb.
Now here is my mid flex issue that has been fun for decades. And we had Smokey Yunick as one of many sub contractors on some builds and he pondered this.
If you do not think and engine will settle in and get happy, remember this. Some of our GT40 engines got Dynoed, then raced, then re dynoed. So did some boat race engines, some off road FE's, some stock car FE's.
Remember me explaining our rigid build sheets and tear down sheets, listing the post race dimensions?
I learned something long ago when the observed rotating torque of the cold engine before the Dyno,after the dyno, then after a race is studied. This is correleated to wearing in many surfaces, super finishing some finer too, and what really changed my thinking was when some race engines came back from a race, and got dynoed and had MORE power
That is worth pondering for some of us and fascinates me sometimes
I enjoy when you guys think out parasitic issues and so on a lot....building a better mouse trap is a cool challenge. Trust me, FORD spent millions on FE's to win and win they did
Blown fuel time for 3 days, pray for a safe race
Adios
PS..You guys are all great, thanks for all that you do
+3 day FORD race this weekend at bakersfield/Famosa
+ Have new Shelby blocks agin if somebody needs help
See ya soon
