Table of contents for Winter 2015 in Engine Masters

So, what does it take to put together a successful engine building project? The target here can be pretty broad, depending on what you are trying to do. Maybe the goal is to get your street/strip machine to finally deliver a 9-second timeslip, or maybe the objective is just getting your car down the road. In the case of engineering student Grant Pitt and his little Ford 289, it was simply another step in bringing his ’68 Fairlane back to life. When faced with the costs of education, room, and board, a part-time job only gets you so far, so taking on a project like this is not something that is going to be as easy as whipping out a wallet and bankrolling it. The goal was to take it…

“Bearing clearance is one of the most important aspects to the longevity of an engine.” Engine bearings are one of those critical parts of an engine assembly where cutting corners will often mean taking everything apart and starting the build all over again. So, what’s the big deal, you may ask. You know the crank is ground 0.010 inch undersize on the journals—and maybe it was done at a shop you fully trust. That box of bearings says 0.010. So what could go wrong? Bearing clearance is one of the most important aspects to the longevity of an engine, and therefore an important specification to measure and confirm. The bearing clearance is a product of several elements, including the bearing design itself, the diameter of the bearing housing bores, and…

AEROMOTIVE – REGULATORS Making power requires that the engine and its support systems are all working exactly as they should, and at the most basic level this includes getting a reliable and consistent supply of fuel to the engine. While consistent fuel pressure is important with a carburetor, fluctuations in pressure with an EFI system can create havoc with the tune. We could not compromise in the quality or ability of any of the fuel system components when contemplating the requirements of the Engine Masters Challenge. Our requirements were the same as those of any serious performance enthusiasts, a system that could deliver fuel with the utmost in reliability and accuracy. We selected Aeromotive as the exclusive supplier of fuel pressure regulators to outfit our testing equipment. With these components…

What do you do when you notice a retailer is having a fire sale on limited-production racing parts? If you have the spare change, you step up to the plate and buy—just to take advantage of the deal and put it in stock. That’s just what a customer of Jessy Robinson’s SKMFX Engines did when he spied an R3 Mopar Performance block on offer for seven hundred and fifty bucks. Mopar’s R3 was a seriously beefed race piece, offered in a vast array of configurations based upon the production LA engine architecture. This particular block, produced with the larger 360-sized main bearing bores, two-bolt main caps, a 59-degree lifer bank angle, and featuring non Siamese bores, is one of the less desirable examples of the breed. Be that as it…

We have all heard the bench racing and been warned about the dangers of over-carbureting an engine. While there certainly are cases where too big can cause problems, when it comes to high-power engine combinations, there is also the perils of going too small. If you look at some of the old carb sizing tables that have been around since the 1960s, you’ll see puzzlingly small size recommendations. As far as we know, the physics of carbs hasn’t changed since those days, so what gives? Tose tables have as there x and y axis cubic inches and rpm. If you may recall, back in those days, making 1 hp per cubic inch was pretty good for a street piece. These days, power per cube has escalated dramatically, and ultimately, the…

An engine’s compression ratio is the product of many interrelated factors, but it all boils down to total volume above BDC divided by total volume above TDC. In round numbers, if there is 1,000 cc of volume above the piston at BDC, and 100 cc at TDC, the compression ratio will be 1,000/10=10:1. The calculation is very simple, but getting together all the data for an accurate compression ratio calculation is not always so straightforward. While calculating the ratio used to take some basic mathematics, these days most rely on easy-to-use online compression ratio calculators. To get the ratio, you simply input the required specifications, and the calculator spits out the ratio. Normally, we have the bore and stroke in fractions of an inch, the combustion camber volume in cc,…

COMP – RETAINING PLATE This new 3-Bolt Camshaft Race Retaining Plate Kit for LS Race Engines is a thrust plate kit that offers bolt-on performance along with quality and style upgrades over stock cast iron and steel aftermarket thrust plates. It is compatible with stock LS applications. The new retaining plate kit is a must-have for race cars equipped with LS engines. It features an upgraded cam thrust plate along with a lock-bolt plate for 3-bolt LS cams. The thrust plate is made from a high-quality billet bronze alloy that is much stronger than the stock component. The exclusive COMP Cams design is CNC-machined and double-disc ground to precision tolerances for an excellent surface finish and significantly reduced friction. It also features a CNC machined O-ring groove for a positive…

Itmight be the current economic situation, or possibly because it’s an election year, or maybe we have all just taken a good look at our waistline, but America seems to minimizing their propensity for super sizing. Small is the new big, with a call to arms to shrink everything from the government right down to the size of a New Yorker’s favorite carbonated beverage. One might question the logic behind imposing limits on a Big Gulp, but who among us wouldn’t like to drop a few pounds? In many cases, less really is more, but this particular buildup isn’t one of those instances. In fact, this build is all about more, as in more cubes, more cam, and more compression, but we didn’t stop there. In keeping with the theme,…

Part of the fun of a new engine project is digging in to see what you have. When the engine is a type that you have never worked on before, it becomes a real adventure. So it was with the Cadillac 429 that recently landed on this editor’s desk. Well, actually my desk tends to be a workshop, and the Cadillac in question belongs to my boss, Hot Rod and Engine Masters Publisher Jeff Dahlin. There I was, peacefully bolting together another nice Mopar big-block when the sound of a tailgate slamming down disturbed my concentration. I turned to hear Jeff bark out the orders, as he tends to do, “Dulcich, build this Caddy, and make it quick.” Before I could even start making excuses, he punctuated the situation by…