I guess I'm starting to loose some with the intangible stuff.
This has got to be what is making the difference with my combination. With everything appearing to be so wrong where it comes to the components I've picked for my combination, the intangibles has got to be what is allowing me to be the only person performing 8s with a heavy car and 1.835" intake, 1.50" exhaust valves. It's the only explanation.
Here is another interesting story about my combination.
I eluded to the fact that I used an engine analyzer computer program to come up with the specs of this combination. The engine analyzer I use is the same that many other well known engine builders use to study engine combinations. Kenny D. and Mike at TA Performance are just a couple that use this same program. I recall a story from Mike where he was putting together an engine for a dyno pull challenge. The program ended up predicting within 5 hp of what the engine actually ended up producing on the dyno. The engine builder who turned me onto the program also had similar stories.
When I was first putting this present combination together I had just blown up my first V6 build that was using typical add-ons and specs that were very popular at the time. The only difference was that I was using methanol for fuel. I went through a learning curve with the fuel that taught me some very important lessons. Lessons that were responsible for the blowup of my first and second build. Anyway, the second build is where I really got into the engine analyzer to come up with the best specs to use for the next build. The whole combination would revolve around the heads. The M&A heads with the small valves. I concentrated mainly on camshaft specs and the manifolding specs, particularly matching the exhaust manifolding to the camshaft specs, to hopefully make up for the obvious shortcomings of the heads.
I wanted a higher rev point than what was typical in the Buick crowd, but not so high to make valvetrain durability an issue and maintenance a pain. Hence, the shorter stroke that I picked for the engine. I picked 7800 rpm as the redline.
After completing the build and doing some testing, it became obvious that the real world numbers were far off of what the engine analyzer predicted. Remember, I had only expected around 600-700 bhp to be the maximum I would be able to pump out of these heads. The sim is what gave me this assumption.
Today, I calculate that the engine is producing around 1130 bhp. A far cry to what the sim originally promised me.
to be cont.
