I also remember that article when 1st published. Paul had some good stuff for sure but some crazy ideas too.
-the cross-bolt side oiler system may have made sense for blown fuel SOHC's yet they survived w/o it for years. Also, the era of blown fuel Ford dragsters and F/C's from the late 60's to early 70's well pre-dated his late 70's invention so it made even less sense when it appeared in this 1979 article.
-the super smooth cylinder walls did make sense, in a fashion. Today's Pro-Stock builders use a graduated fish scale to pull a piston and ring stack though each bore long before final assembly to check for extremely low drag. Yet to do so way back then on much lesser engines didn't make any sense since what works for a Pro Engine often doesn't work for a much higher mileage streeter or even dedicated Stock or SS car. Blowby is your friend, I guess
-The ring gap theory also doesn't hold water. He was o.k. until he stated that even .070 gaps were fine. Heck, even on the blown fuel engines we crewed on in the late 70's, .050 ring gaps were way too big but was run on bores that had been torched and no spare pistons with properly sized rings were available. This was just before removable liners came about as Donovan's aluminum 417 block, a 392 replica, had them 1st. Funny though it didn't make much difference as with .010 and larger bore clearances, way too- big ring gaps and 98% in the tank, the engine was eventually going to blow no matter what!
-his header comments were off as well since although gains might have been small, some header designs and sizes properly matched to the engine did make a difference even way back then. SS racers then were experimenting with various designs, some successful, some not. To be fair, I suspect since PSE didn't make headers, all were the same to Paul.
JMO!
