The Engine Masters deal looked like it was "done" after last year - the school that hosted it for a decade decided not to renew their sponsorship, and the magazine guys seemed like they had decided to focus on all the internet and TV show stuff that was disrupting their industry. But somehow they managed to bring it back off of life support and its running again starting on Monday.
One result of the initial delay in getting things back on track was that we had a shortened timeline for rules and entry acceptance. Rules are very similar to last years with only a couple tweaks. Two classes - one for "Vintage" engines and one for "Traditional Muscle" engines. As somebody that actively supported this contest for many years I decided that I kinda had to participate, and sent my entry in as a "Traditional Muscle" effort. This particular class is further broken into two segments - small block and big block. We each run over a defined RPM range (3500-6300 for big blocks) and add up the average torque plus the average horsepower over that range - and then divide that resulting total by the cubic inch displacement of the engine to establish a comparative "score".
Working against the limits of time as referenced above, and budget (as in I had not planned on doing this...) I decided to use as many parts as I could from prior efforts, along with some stuff that was needing some attention before it could be run. The resulting engine is 468 cubic inches, and while it will not be a "player" it sure sounds good and run pretty well. The block is an old one from a few years ago - a defective/prototype Genesis block where the starter side is pretty much made out of stitch pins, braze, bondo, and paint. The crank is a Scat cast 4.125, the rods are Scat 6.8 H beams. Pistons are a set of used Diamonds from a prior year, they were originally for a 4.25 crank and we milled down the tops & let them hang out of the bore by .020", counting on a used set of .066 Cometic gaskets to keep it away from the head. Compression is at 11.47:1 against a rules limit of 11.75:1 so we are leaving some on the table there. Bearings are used F-M race stuff, rings are used .043-.043-3.0mm, rear seal is even used
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Cam is a solid roller from an old entry that seemed to work really well for torque - it's only 236@.050 and has .670 lift with the bolt on Harland Sharp rockers we are using ( last time this cam was in an engine it had T&D 1.9 rockers and over .700 lift...). Timing set is one of the adjustables - actually the prototype we made a couple years ago - it is of course "used", and resides under one of Jay's timing covers. The oil pan is a C8AX-A that I have run a couple times now.
Heads are Survival CNCs. They were made from a pair of castings where the guides had been installed with too tight a press fit and had developed cracks in the part of the guide boss that hangs down into the port. We ended up with a couple pairs of these at the tail end of our last run of castings, and since the CNC work removes that portion of the guide boss we converted them to this use. They will be for sale after Tuesday... The valve springs are rather interesting - one of my contacts at Comp insisted that they would work great and I tried them with fear in my heart - they are a conical single spring with a TI retainer and only 150 seat and under 500 lbs open pressure. He was right though - on this solid roller cam they are glass smooth past 6500 RPM.
The intake is a Victor that was ported by Joe Craine a few years ago. It was actually tested at that time, but a radically modified dual plane out scored it so this one never made it into the contest. The rules say no welding on intakes this year, and that dual plane was damn near made out of weld, so the Victor is pressed into service because it was ready to go. Just like before it makes really good higher RPM power at the expense of some low end torque. Rules say a 4150 style carb, thus my old QFT piece is up on top. It really like a four into one transition style spacer this time.
Headers are chassis exit catalog parts, water pump is a normal Edelbrock. Ignition is some crazy deal from Dr Tim made out of all kinds of capacitors and dilithium crystals and whatnot. He is not allowed to control timing externally by the rules, but nobody says anything about spark energy, coil saturation, dwell variation, magnetic resonance and warp core function. The good thing is that nobody knows if he is really doing any of that stuff anyways, nobody has the ability to prove or disprove whether it works, nobody can comprehend his explanation of its functionality, and everybody walks away glassy eyed and looking for alcohol.
On my dyno here the engine scored in the middle 2300s, with a best peak power number of 650 and multiple pulls around 640ish. Peak torque seems to be right under 600, with lots of pulls in the 592 to 594 ranges. Still trying to wrap my head around a 468 inch engine that peaks at 6500 with a 236@.050 cam. Really wanted it to come in at around 6000-6200 but we will run what we run and have some fun. I am scheduled to be one of the last guys running on Tuesday. I will add in some pictures of the engine once I figure out how to get them off of my phone. And will try to report from time to time as we do our thing.
Scores and updates are supposed to be posted online as they happen...
https://www.hotrod.com/events/engine-masters-challenge/
