Interesting thread. At least it doesn't talk about Camaros... yet.
I really became interested in the Nascar stuff after seeing the teams give away their stuff on the used market after their "life cycle" was used up.
But I also wanted/needed something that didn't have to be rebuilt every 500 miles (1 race).
As much as I would love to play with a 9000 rpm motor, I wanted to gain the needed low and mid range torque and bring the powerband down for durability and less maintenance. So a 4" stroke was used instead of the 3.25" that the Cup cars use.
4.170 x 4.0 = 437"
Of course with the small chamber size of the SB2.2 heads (mine are 51cc, many are in the 40 something range) this made piston design pretty much impossible to achieve 11:1 to 12:1 in order to get to pump gas range. So, to minimize the dish in the piston and keep it "acceptable" according to my engine builder we ended up around 13:1 compression. So, the other pump gas came into the picture... E85. Several stations not too far from me. I am good with that.
Even though a .800-.900 lift cam would be right at home with the heads, we decided to use a milder cam (.660ish net lift) with a lower rocker arm ratio (1.7 instead of 1.9 or 2.0). Again, all to keep things lower maintenance.
I really wanted a toned down Nascar motor with all the cool parts and look but not the rebuild cycle. Time will tell but I think we achieved that without giving up the BIG power. In fact the trade off to gain the torque is what I am really excited about.
640 ft #s out of a pump gas SBC. I'll take it.
