Felony head vs Pond Head FE

[ScotiaFE]

I was wrong, he can get 666 hp.
A bit devilish.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/74182/thread/1435874607/Dyno+results+-+Blair+Patrick+482%26quot%3B+FE+with+near+stock+out+of+the+box+BBM+heads

[BigBlockFE]

very impressive, big numbers, I wish all dynos were the same...

[ScotiaFE]

very impressive, big numbers, I wish all dynos were the same...

Are you suggesting that this dyno is not accurate?
Or your dyno test of a 482 BBM FE was not the same?
Pretty sure Blair Patrick does actual testing and not fantasy testing.

[Barry_R]

1.319 TQ per cubic inch on an as cast head, pump gas engine is very impressive.

[blykins]

"Accurate" is relative. 

Dynos are a necessary evil.  To a builder, they're a way of making sure the engine doesn't come apart, it doesn't leak, doesn't smoke, carb is tuned, timing is right, etc.  It's also a great way to show incremental changes.   To the general public, it's a bragging right, and most guys just wanna see that peak hp number.

This is something I discuss with almost every other builder, including Barry, Keith, and Blair, because it's a "thorn in the side" to all of us. 

From what I've seen in the use of several engine dynos in the area, most do not read the same.  This was one of the factors behind the EMC...you get a bunch of guys on the same dyno, then all the guessing and variables can go away.   I'm sure Barry or Blair will tell you the same thing, but as a builder, you basically pick a dyno that you're familiar with and then stick with that one so you can have a way of comparing past/future builds.  Barry has his own.  Blair uses Jim Morgan's dyno.  I use Dale Meers' dyno.  That way, if I do a 482 with a specific cam/head/intake package, then change a cam on the next 482 while keeping the other variables the same, I can see what the difference is. 

I'm often concerned that the numbers I'm getting are "accurate".  The correction factor has a large part in the numbers and where the weather station is located has a large part in the numbers.  If the computer is getting STP from the intake air, it will show different numbers than if the computer is getting STP from the dyno room, where the engine is running and the headers are adding to ambient temperature.

On the dyno I use, it's typical to see correction factors anywhere from 1.06 to 1.1.  That's a 6-11% correction right off the bat, and it will vary based on whether I dyno in the winter, dyno in the summer, etc.   I've even taken the time to gather weather data independently and calculate the correction factor manually, just to compare to what the dyno is seeing.  Again, the general jist of it is that if I dyno that same engine in the winter or summer, the numbers should be the same because the computer should be correcting.

I have already made plans with Barry to dyno one of my engines here, then make some pulls up there.   I'm curious to see the difference as we often compare notes and commonly see the same horsepower between similar builds, but I tend to show more torque.  If I dyno here and then dyno there and show a lot less torque, then it will be more data for us to sift through and decipher.   To be brutally honest, we all want to know how we compare to each other.  I'll be the first one to raise my hand and say that I'm not as sharp as Blair,  but it would be nice to get us all on the same dyno one day to see what the difference actually is. 

[BigBlockFE]

Either way all you guys really know what you are doing, I would love to able to do a quarter of what you can do with an FE, all the guys around me think the FE is the biggest piece of crap motor ever built, they love the Windsor, of course they are not concerned with the History of the FE as I am so they wont touch it...

[fastback 427]

"All the guys around me think the fe is the biggest piece of crap motor ever built"  Well, nobody is perfect  That why God made hondas, to keep the flaps of of harleys.

[CaptCobrajet]

"Accurate" is relative. 

Dynos are a necessary evil.  To a builder, they're a way of making sure the engine doesn't come apart, it doesn't leak, doesn't smoke, carb is tuned, timing is right, etc.  It's also a great way to show incremental changes.   To the general public, it's a bragging right, and most guys just wanna see that peak hp number.

This is something I discuss with almost every other builder, including Barry, Keith, and Blair, because it's a "thorn in the side" to all of us. 

From what I've seen in the use of several engine dynos in the area, most do not read the same.  This was one of the factors behind the EMC...you get a bunch of guys on the same dyno, then all the guessing and variables can go away.   I'm sure Barry or Blair will tell you the same thing, but as a builder, you basically pick a dyno that you're familiar with and then stick with that one so you can have a way of comparing past/future builds.  Barry has his own.  Blair uses Jim Morgan's dyno.  I use Dale Meers' dyno.  That way, if I do a 482 with a specific cam/head/intake package, then change a cam on the next 482 while keeping the other variables the same, I can see what the difference is. 

I'm often concerned that the numbers I'm getting are "accurate".  The correction factor has a large part in the numbers and where the weather station is located has a large part in the numbers.  If the computer is getting STP from the intake air, it will show different numbers than if the computer is getting STP from the dyno room, where the engine is running and the headers are adding to ambient temperature.

On the dyno I use, it's typical to see correction factors anywhere from 1.06 to 1.1.  That's a 6-11% correction right off the bat, and it will vary based on whether I dyno in the winter, dyno in the summer, etc.   I've even taken the time to gather weather data independently and calculate the correction factor manually, just to compare to what the dyno is seeing.  Again, the general jist of it is that if I dyno that same engine in the winter or summer, the numbers should be the same because the computer should be correcting.

I have already made plans with Barry to dyno one of my engines here, then make some pulls up there.   I'm curious to see the difference as we often compare notes and commonly see the same horsepower between similar builds, but I tend to show more torque.  If I dyno here and then dyno there and show a lot less torque, then it will be more data for us to sift through and decipher.   To be brutally honest, we all want to know how we compare to each other.  I'll be the first one to raise my hand and say that I'm not as sharp as Blair,  but it would be nice to get us all on the same dyno one day to see what the difference actually is.
[quote/]

Thanks Brent for the compliment.......I really spend zero time wondering how my junk compares to anybody else.  We build and dyno alot of engines....about 99% FE engines, and I very rarely post any results on the forums any more.  Without fail, someone will make comments to suggest that the numbers I get are not real.  Fact one:  We do not, and have never purposefully blown up a dyno number (and it is easy to do).  Fact two:  I swept up a bunch of junk I had in the floor in 2008 and took it to Engine Masters.......a filled Ford 428 block, a pair of Dove heads I had laying here that I extensively worked, a Ford intake cast in 1963 that I worked on, and a 4150 carb (in a field of Dominators) and as a LUCKY coincidence I had the highest scoring Ford FE on the grounds.  The EMC dyno showed me 14 more HP than Morgan's on that engine.  Fact three:  I do not care what the dyno NUMBER or the flow bench NUMBER says, as long as the board at the end of the race track shows the right numbers, and the little light comes on when someone wins a heads-up race with an engine or parts of an engine from here.  Fact four:  I've been doing this stuff with FE engines for an honest 37 years, and I am 45 now..........I apply everything I have stumbled across, every day, and sometimes I see something I did not see yesterday that makes improvement.    When I went faster than anyone else in my classes, some said...oh, he's gotta be cheating...........funny, NHRA's most rigorous tech man of the time tore my junk apart numerous times and found nothing illegal.  Now I apply alot of what I learned over my life of this to the Nostalgia and street FE stuff, and poof!.........it's gotta be the dyno.  I went to the EMC and that told me all I needed to know.  I took substandard and outdated junk up there and had the highest scored FE..........that was not my dyno!  I spent way too much money for no gain on that.  If I spent 30-40K and a chunk of my life, I could easily make their top 5 with a Ford FE, but if you do not win, for whatever reason, it is a waste of time and money.

I would rather focus on continuous R&D, accurate COMPARISON TESTING, and feedback from customers,  to improve the product we sell.  I do not worry or care what the other guys do, or how they do it, but it does piss me off pretty good when some Joe Blo implies either directly or indirectly, that my "numbers" are inflated.  To those fellers I say....before you judge, pick any class running FE's heads-up and bring it on.  The race track does not lie.  The rest is bullshit and speculation.

[Faron]

I am a bit Biased , as I got to work with Blair " aka " " Joe The Grinder' and he is as dedicated and humble as the come , we didnt see eye to eye on everything , But I learned a bunch while there , The Big thing we did agree on was Dyno's are nice for comparing , BUT as Blair said The Scoreboard / Time slip NEVER Lies , and That Is not open for interpretation 

[jayb]

Gotta disagree on that one, Faron.  There are fast tracks and slow tracks, and variations in the weather will have a significant effect on ET and MPH.  If you run your car on a cool day, with high air pressure, on one track, and then swap in your new motor, and go slower on a hot day, with low air pressure, at a different track, that really doesn't tell you if the new motor is more or less powerful than the old one.  By your "time slip never lies" logic, though, the new motor has less power, and that is faulty logic, in my opinion.  That's where a dyno is valuable, because it is the same "track" every time, and the weather station built into the dyno allows compensation for varying weather conditions.

There are variations in dynos, just like there are variations in race tracks.  Its difficult to compare numbers on engines that are from two different dynos, especially since there are so many "happy" dynos out there.  Plus, the dyno's weather compensation is really just a good estimate, not an absolute, pretty much like a density altitude compensation factor that you might use at the race track.  But if I've got two engines I've just run on a dyno, and one makes more average horsepower over the RPM range of interest than the other, I'm pretty convinced that's the one that will go faster on the track, on any given day.  I think if you look at average horsepower, over the RPM range of interest, you can always make the right performance decisions based on the dyno data.

[Barry_R]

I generally agree with what Brent and Blair said - with a couple minor, but personal exceptions.

I use my own dyno.  It's a sister to the one I used at Jim Stykes before purchasing it - both are older DTS4000 units purchased new within a year of each other in the late 1990s, and the same engine tested within 5 horsepower on both of them.  That was important to me because - like the others - I want comparable data so I can identify and quantify trends over time. 

The dyno data I post is from my machine, in my shop, with me operating it and does not directly reflect anybody else's information.  While I personally believe my machine to be accurate, I have never met a dyno owner yet who does not think their equipment is "tight" but the guy's down the road is generous or loose.  My installation and room are very nice, but we run through muffled exhaust because of neighbors.  The exhaust is huge 5" truck stuff and I do not think it hurts engines in the 500-800 HP ranges at all.

The forum noise has gotten bad enough that I rarely post the data lately because of some of the adverse commentary, conspiracy theory, and off the wall comparisons I see.  I had some YouTube guy try and compare a Cammer I did to a Sonny Leonard Pro Mod engine for gosh sakes.  And I have had other folks tell me that an engine we did did not make enough because they read in a magazine somewhere that it should make xxx or yyy with just a cam and an intake.  I will post up a brief comment where I see a combination that has done extremely well (I try to learn from those) - or one that visibly has further opportunities for improvement.  I should probably get around it and just start putting the information out there again and let the chips fall where they will. 

FWIW my pump has been used for multiple Detroit area EMC entries beyond my own, and has been reasonably comparable to the DTS installations at UNOH where the contest is run.  Last year was an anomaly as they pulled a bunch of the correction out of the contest numbers and pretty much ran us "straight up" - kinda startling until you saw everybody else's score in the same ranges.

My only gripe is using EMC as a point of reference, and then claiming its so easy that you ran with floor sweepings and junk.  Those comments are belittling to everybody who invests in and competes in the contest, and we both know that even in jest they are inaccurate.  Blair has entered that contest twice - and we are 50-50 for the best FE between us.  I put 100 points on him one year, he put 20 on me the next, and he has not returned since 2007.  There have been several others over the years, but none have ever been close.  Claiming that you could easily do a top five without entering is like me claiming that I could easily build a competitive Super Stock engine.  (Just in case anybody wonders about that let me make this perfectly clear - Blair builds some of the baddest assed Super Stock and Stock eliminator FE engines on earth and could absolutely and completely 100% kick my ass all over the planet if I was stupid enough to dare to try building one.)

[CaptCobrajet]

2008, not 2007.  I took a little motor in 2007 and it was completely the wrong combo, and a pig in my opinion.  It was done by me, wrongly, and I failed miserably.    I don't give a shit about 50/50?  I also am not belittling anyones effort.  I just know the quality and potential of what I took in '08, and I know the quality and potential of what I can do if I had a budget to use some of the stuff we sell to some customers.  What I drug in there was not on the same planet with some of the better stuff we have, but time and money did not allow that.  I spent about ten days on that stuff, and you will not win that contest with a ten day effort. I have not done it anymore because I think it is a waste of my time to attempt it, knowing that I cannot devote the time it would take to win the thing.  If I enjoyed it, it would be different, but racing dynos is not my idea of racing.  That is kinda like racing flow benches.  If I had time to screw around with a dyno race, these days, I would put my car together and go to a racetrack.

Talking about time slips that don't lie...........serious racers who visit several tracks on a regular basis, and have weather stations, know exactly whether or not their stuff is better than it was "last time"..............right down to hundredths.  You can never judge gains or losses on one track, one day, with no consideration of the conditions.  What I should have maybe said was.......win lights don't lie.  If you race another car in a class with the same rules heads-up, and outrun that CAR by .05, and then three weeks later after you work on your junk for two weeks, you race that same car that was not worked on for two weeks and outrun it by .08 at another track....... that there would be an improvement, and a real world one.  Racers know how fast their competitors are.  Most who are serious at heads-up racing can tell you how much their competition has gained or lost from the last race just about as accurately as they can their own car.  One of the best yardsticks is the Stock Eliminator qualifying sheet.  Those guys measure themselves against their rivals at every race on "the sheet".

I used to race alot...........like twenty weekends a year, sometimes visiting the same tracks several times.  Racing is like golf.  If you have a good teacher........the more you play, the better you will get..........if you pay attention.  I could not race as much now as I did several years ago........I am not in the same positions I used to be to enable that, but the benefits from serious competitive racing are burned in the brain, and can be applied over a long period of time.  Most improvements seen on a dyno will show improvement on a track, but some will go the opposite direction.  It IS possible to test a combo, make GAINS on a dyno, and slow down on a racetrack.  It has always been like that, and it will always be.  Carb sizing, port cross section, runner length, header primary size and length, and collector changes are just a few examples of items that may or may not show positives both places.  Stuff like cubic inches and compression ratios, parasitic drag, etc. will ALWAYS show the same direction both places.  Lightweight internals and valves/valvetrain will NEVER show up on a dyno, but will ALWAYS show up on a dragstrip.

[blykins]

Unfortunately, engine builders that are discussing dyno results may just as well be discussing abortion, politics, or religion....LOL

What it all boils down to is that for us who are selling horsepower (and I'm saying it that way because most guys wanna see the dyno sheets), we always end up in conversations where our stuff is being compared to somebody else's stuff. 

When my stuff is 100 hp down to somebody else's stuff when the components are essentially the same, I wanna know if it's the way my stuff was measured, or if I'm just stupid.   If it's the way it's measured, there's not much I can do about that.  If it's because I'm stupid, then I need to learn more and try harder.  Nothing wrong with that.

[CaptCobrajet]

Unfortunately, engine builders that are discussing dyno results may just as well be discussing abortion, politics, or religion....LOL

What it all boils down to is that for us who are selling horsepower (and I'm saying it that way because most guys wanna see the dyno sheets), we always end up in conversations where our stuff is being compared to somebody else's stuff. 

When my stuff is 100 hp down to somebody else's stuff when the components are essentially the same, I wanna know if it's the way my stuff was measured, or if I'm just stupid.   If it's the way it's measured, there's not much I can do about that.  If it's because I'm stupid, then I need to learn more and try harder.  Nothing wrong with that.

I understand what you are saying Brent, but the error in your statement is the assumption that because two engines may have some of the same parts involved, that they are "essentially the same".   I use the Stock Eliminator engines as an example again here, because they are among the most efficient and groomed engines on planet earth.  Take two guys with a SBC 302..........same block, crank, same pistons, same rods, same heads, same intake, same cam lift, same carb.....all required by the rules to be the same.  Both engines perfectly legal.  One guy I know of can go at least 3 tenths of a second faster than ANY other human on this planet with a 302 Chevy.  His engine has to be about 60 hp better than the other offerings to do that, but it is "essentially the same" engine, and definitely the same raw materials. Lots of sharp cookies have tried their hand against his stuff.......for 45 years now, but one still stands out as THE best 302.  Lots of ways to score, and lots of ways to lose power that stack up, or not, when doing an engine.  I often hear the statement that there is "nothing in a shortblock", but there is.  There is a ton of difference in a good valve job, and the best one for the purpose.  It goes all through the engine.  I don't know what the numbers are supposed to be on street or street/strip strokers............I just do what I think "right" is, and go with it.  Everybody does not have the same definitions for good or right, and nobody is always "right".  Your engines are respectable, and your passion to do a good job is also evident.  If a person is interested and dedicated, as you seem to be, you will keep making your own stuff better than your last one.  As long as you see and know the improvement, and pass it on to your customers, it really don't matter what the rest of us swingers are doing in our little corners. 

[blykins]

It's human nature to be competitive and to want to know how good you are at something.  When you have a couple of guys going at it on the track, sometimes it's easy to see which engine's making the power.  When you're comparing street or street/strip stuff, then we are having to resort to looking over our shoulders at other guys' dyno results. 

BTW, does your wife know you're a swinger?