It's just almost as good as having sex.

Not even close, do I need to start a new thread? ha

Man I didn't know you were having to tear the whole engine down for a rebuild. Glad to see it's almost back together though. I'm anxious to see what you end up making on the dyno. I'm envious. I need to get my engine built already, lol.

The single plane intake in the picture came with the heads I bought, I've already sold it. The dual plane makes more torque down low and the single plane makes more hp up in the higher RPMs, I wanted the more power down low, plus the single plane was cut for a 4150 style carb and I wanted to retain my Quadrajet which fits on my dual plane intake.

I picked up the headers tonight so we'll get to use them for the dyno pulls tomorrow. I'll try to get some pics of them before, if not for sure after once I get the engine back home again. I think how my friend cut the slots in the holes is gonna work out pretty slick.

Uh... I think that mountain air is starting to have an effect on you Greg!!! :peepwall:

Although, with the way I've been running around the house all giddy and what not the past few days...my wife might agree with you. :D

It all happened pretty quickly...heck I only pulled it out of the car on 12/26. If all goes well I might have it back at the house tomorrow evening.

Ordered the clutch this morning, that should be the last big thing before it's ready to go back together.

Barney
 

Lance good to hear you are almost
done with the engine. I remember talking
to my engine builder about having a tall single
plane in my Pantera. I told him everyone had them
because they look cool. He said do you want it to look
cool or pull out of the corner. That ended the conversation

Happy Dyno Day

Bob

My wife seems to always encourage me to buy some new car parts or have a motor rebuilt.... I'm sensing there might be something more to this than just casual encouragement.... LOL

Thanks Bob,

I had a similar conversation with my builder about the cam we chose. He said it won't sound like it has much of a cam at idle, I said I don't care what it sounds like at idle.

He replied that he just didn't want me to be disappointed and that races weren't won at idle... :D

I usually read resto threads in my downtime because I love to see old cars with new tech installed. Mainly because I want to do one, instead of tearing into my 02 ws6. This was a good read though. Seeing changes made with videos. Don't see many 80's Monte Carlo's around. Looks great ! Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to seeing some new stuff with the new engine.

Makes me miss living in Missouri. There is so much more available to do( car oriented )than in the middle of nowhere Montana.

Wow... Not very many people admit that they miss living in Missouri! lol... Thanks for the kind words, the car is a labor of love for me. Mostly labor, little bit of love thrown in.

Engine is bolted to the dyno, I just finished bolting the headers to it. The builder had a few other things to get done so I ran home to grab some lunch and check my emails (work ya know). Will go back up when he calls that he is ready.

I think everyone that knew I would be dynoing my engine asked me "What do you think it will make?" There is always a lot of talk and banter about the "number" one gets after dyno session. I've maintained all along that I wasn't really worried about the "number", I just wanted a lot more top end power than I had before and the engine to be just as reliable and street friendly as it was in it's former form.

My builder got a late start today and had a few other things going, so we didn't get going with the pulls until after 4 pm today. We talked about holding off until tomorrow and starting over but the weather is going to turn bad and there is a small football game I'm fairly invested in starting at 3 pm tomorrow, so I talked him into just making a few pulls with it tonight, then loading it up and taking it home. It is now sitting on my shop floor...

The engine fired right up, no issues, Yancy adjusted the idle air screws just a bit and broke the engine in before I got there. Once we decided to make the pulls tonight, it fired right back up again and he put the hammer to it once warm.


After looking at the sheet, I was pleased...really pleased. We talked about a few things, discussed some options, the put my air cleaner spacer and air cleaner on it and made another pull.

It really REALLY liked the air cleaner. Yancy said it is most likely due to the spacer and filter smoothing out the airflow before it got to the air horn. It was a bit fat on the top end on the first pull and that evened right out on the second pull with the air cleaner in place. I should also add that this was done with my 1 5/8s mid length headers installed and about 3' of my exhaust head pipe attached to them.



I could post the peak "number" it hit, but that really wouldn't tell the story. What really pleases me about the engine is the torque curve down low AND the peak HP number up top. I'm also very happy that the engine idles smooth as silk at 825 RPM and the air fuel ratios look good across the board. The engine is ready to drop back in Barney and rock, nothing else needed.

Maybe I should do a poll... :D Everyone here knows what we put into the engine, what do you think it did?

My only disappointment is in our hurry to make the pulls, Yancy forgot to clear the screen that shows the torque and HP curves...so that screen showed the last 50 dyno sessions he's done along with mine, so it was unreadable.

It made 425 HP and 505 Torque..... with pulls ending at 6000 rpm??

Because the heads were bought used, we really didn't know how they were going to flow. Apparently the work that Brzezinski did on them for the previous owner made the heads much more efficient than we planned on. My friend that helped with the cam selection was disappointed that we undershot the peak RPM, the engine made peak HP at 5400 RPM and peak TQ at 4100 RPM. I'm alright with this though as this helped the torque curve down lower which I was more concerned about than the peak hp number. It still pulls on through 6000 RPM only dropping about 20 hp from peak.

To me, this is why we put it on the dyno. Not to see what the peak number was but to see the curves and where the peaks were (and mostly just to break it in and make sure there were no issues). Every dyno is different and especially when corrected for conditions...who knows what the real number is. On a different dyno on a different day, I'm sure the numbers could be 30 or 40 off of this in either direction. For this dyno...and the conditions present at the time, this is what it made.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps59czf0uf.jpg

524 ft lb at 4100 RPM and 467 HP at 5400 RPM.

That was the last pull with the air cleaner and spacer on. It was about 5 hp higher throughout than the 2nd pull (first with air cleaner on).

Here is the first pull without the air cleaner on.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psrasacqpu.jpg

As you can see it made 50 ft lbs and 22 HP more at peak with the air cleaner and spacer installed!!

I am VERY happy with the results...ecstatic even. I can't wait to see what the butt dyno feels like. I'm slightly concerned that I may now have a more serious traction issue. :D

Here's the graph for a bit easier viewing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psjajm9ws3.jpg

It should motivate out of the corners very nicely me thinks...

I came here just to see this. Congrats, Lance! Those are good numbers and curves. Will you ever switch to bigger headers?

Thanks...

Not if I can help it. I pretty much hate headers on a street car anyway and these are about as street car friendly of a header that I have ever seen. I told the builder before the dyno session that I'd give up 20 hp just to not have to deal with long tube headers... He looked at me like I was crazy... :D

He said most everyone that comes in his shop is looking for every little bit of power they can get regardless... I guess I'm just different. That shouldn't be news to anyone here though. ;)

That will work, nice numbers. Do you have the air to fuel ratios for the pulls with and without the air cleaner? The air cleaner must have dialed in the jetting.

He couldn't find his O2 sensor as he almost never uses it. As he explained to me the dyno calculates the ratio based on the fuel that goes in and the air that comes out of the engine. That is the far right column on the two sheets.

He said that 0.500 is right at 12:1, when the number gets down into the 0.4xxs it is leaning out a bit and making more power...up into the high 0.5xxs to the 0.6xxs is getting richer.

On the pull without the air cleaner, at 5400 (peak HP) it was 0.590 and the pull with the air cleaner it was 0.539.

The fuel lb/hr column shows it using 189.9 without the AC and 181.4 with the AC, so it was using less fuel to make more power by running leaner with the air cleaner and spacer. In other words the AC and spacer let more air get into the engine faster and smoother.

At 4100 (peak torque) it was 0.497 without the AC and 0.475 with the AC, fuel consumption was 134.9 and 143.0 respectively.

So it was using more fuel and running leaner at 4100 RPM with the AC and making 48 more ft lbs of torque.

BTW, this was all done with the distributor locked down at 32 degrees timing, no advance, no curve, no nothing...just 32 degrees timing and burning 91 octane pump gas.

I have an A\F meter in the car and will verify that it's still safe once all back together and on the road, but I'm certain that it will be fine even if I stumble on a bad tank of gas somewhere along the line.

Lance, are you running an ignition box to alter timing? Nice numbers!
You might need bigger rear tires...
Great job getting us detailed information, as usual!

Thanks Scott... Any updates on the Chevelle?

I have a MSD 6530 in the car which lets me adjust the timing to whatever I want to, the distributor is locked out, timing is set at 32 degrees and distributor locked down. I'll be able to pull timing out if necessary once back in the car.

For dyno purposes it was just flat base timing. Builder says these heads are just so efficient there is no need to chase any more power by adding timing too them, you just open yourself up to trouble if anything goes wrong (bad gas for example). He said there really isn't any reason to back any timing out at low RPMs either, maybe just a start retard that helps with starting but as you can hear in the video, it cranks over and starts real easy while hot with 32 degrees timing. Keep it simple stupid method in play here...

I wasn't too far off!!! And even closer if you look at the HP numbers at 6000 RPM's.



I like your numbers even better though!! That motor will be sweet. Glad this is working out so well for you Lance.

Nice Lance!!!!

You're going to need to bump your tire budget this season buddy. :)

Those are some nice numbers Lance. I have been strongly considering putting my dual plane intake on the ZZ383 I bought and seeing your dyno numbers just convinced me. Enjoy the new motor.

Close enough for nuclear war. :mock:

I had a feeling it leaned out more with the cleaner on to make the power. Lucky it didn't work out the opposite and not test it until you installed it in the car.

Thanks for all the posting of your journey. This is a real enjoyable reading!

Thanks... For anything other than just flat out drag racing or circle track racing, I couldn't see using the single plane intake. We did gasket match port my intake before installing and it took quite a bit of work...but the results speak for themselves.

Thanks Greg...I'm pretty stoked to get it back into the car, it should be a fun little beast.

After the Chiefs lost their football game tonight I played a couple of videos of me racing on the big screen for some friends that had never seen them before. All I could think about while watching other cars walking away from me on the straights at NCM was... "Not next year..." :D

I remember watching a Harley on a mobile dyno many years ago up at the local Harley plant during a show. They ran the bike with no air cleaner, then put a K&N setup on it and it made considerably more power with the filter on.

That was the first time I really started to understand airflow and power. Was kind of surprised to see this much change with my air cleaner on, but we backed it up with another pull and it was plain as day different.

You are right, I'm glad we tested it. Just imagine if we had leaned out the secondaries to max power with it off, then ran it with it on... :badidea:

Thanks Sieg!

I've got 3 sets of half used Falkens that are gonna have to get me through a track day weekend each this season. Then we'll see how many pennies I've saved back up. This little experiment took a bit more of a bite out of my budget than I was planning on.

Thank you for following along. I enjoy sharing, both to learn from others and to hopefully help someone else out along the way as well.

Depending on how close the air filter is to hood, things could change again. I've seen cars on a chassis roll lose as much as 30 hp with the hood closed vs open when the filter is too close to the hood.

That's an interesting thought that I hadn't considered, but after seeing how much just the housing affected the airflow, I'm curious now. If I ever get the car on a chassis dyno again, I'll be sure to make at least one pull with the hood down as well. I've never done that in the past but it makes sense to me now why one should.

The seal on the top of the filter housing fits up snug to the bottom side of the hood then there is a 2" cowl space above that open to the back of the hood. The the back of the cowl space is covered by metal with holes punched in it. A friend of mine has done the calculations and at WOT there isn't enough hole space in the panel to let enough air through to the engine. That is why my housing still has the snout open to the air under the hood just in case the engine needs more air than the cowl panel will let though. One cure is to open up all of those holes a bit larger, but then I'd have to repaint the hood. It's always something trying to get every last little bit out of your ride isn't it?

I'm guessing it may lose some power-- how much? Who knows, it not just the amount of air flow but also the path it has to take as well. I learned some interesting things on my current engine when we had it on the dyno, even when I added just a 45* bend to the intake tubes it hurt the power 30 hp vs having the filters bolted directly the the tb's. The air wants to take the straightest path possible, the closer the filter is to the hood the tighter the turn is going to be into the carb. Those small holes in the back of the hood are going to cause more turbulence vs having a wide slot.

Lots of trade offs though, who knows which is best without testing all of them?

No spacer drops housing down from hood opening up path on top of housing, but looses the straightening effect below the housing into the air horn, plus pulls in hot air from engine bay vs outside fresh air.

Housing up tight to the hood does create a 90* turn down into housing from hood, but GM used setups like this for years on their hottest hot rods...wouldn't they have tested this?

Open element housing on my spacer or a K&N open top filter on with my current housing might be an interesting option as well.

It is kind of like I discussed with the builder about headers though. I'm not out to get every last little 20-30 hp here or there with this setup. It all has to work together, look good, and perform safely. I will certainly pay special attention to the A\F ratios under WOT pulls once it's back on the road though as I can see now how drastically air flow can affect mixtures.

Worked on my plug wires today. 5 years ago I used these Made4u bracket looms to run my wires up over the valve covers.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psip6jl0hj.jpg

They attached to the holes on the side of the head seen here.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psriw6krig.jpg

With the way my header flanges are now moved up on the fastburn heads, this was no longer an option, plus its just a much cleaner look with the wires under the headers. I also won't have to fight them anymore every time I deal with the headers on the engine, something I hated as well.

I looked around and found this bracket on a shelf already bead blasted and painted...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psnirqkpdr.jpg

It's from the 305 I pulled out but I never reused it. And my wife makes fun of me for being a pack rat.

That and an insulated clamp and a few looms tidied things right up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...pseollpjpk.jpg

Mucho better...

Looks great Lance!


I never toss stuff like that - you never know who might need them. Brackets can be modified for whatever.


I run all my plug wires under the headers. Seems to be way less heat as the heat rises...

Congrats! Those are some fantastic numbers!

What is the spacer you're speaking of? Is it a carb spacer or an air cleaner spacer?

What type air cleaner do you have? I went through your build thread but couldn't find any specific photos of the complete engine in the car, can you post up some when you get to that point?

I have a friend that told me he dynoed his engine with a standard 14x3" K&N with a metal lid, and then put a 14" K&N filter top on it. He said power dropped(!) with the filter top. I guess the air flowed better coming in just from the sides as opposed to wherever it felt like. Looking back I wish I were smarter and when I was in school I could've attended that fluid dynamics class my engineering student friends did, lol!

Thanks Ben!

The air cleaner is a knock off of the old 70s Chevelle cowl induction setups, the spacer raises the housing up so that it just touches the bottom surface of the cowl induction hood.

Here are all 3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psljtpwpkf.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps5pojbsli.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps5rhjhw3d.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps8af12ayo.jpg

My friend John must have 30 hours of machining in building that spacer, but it turned out pretty sweet. Never thought it would be the horsepower adder that it is though.

I kept the factory routing for the most part on my LT1. It allows for a very clean look. Keep the wires retained away from the headers and you're good. Keep up the good work, Lance!