Hundreds of guys must have done something wrong. Nothing fancy with our setup. Just put it together right and tuned it. No magic sauce.
Maybe, but you didn't have it tested and claimed 400 hp. That's why I was asking questions. I'm not saying it's impossible, just looking for info. I've seen engines that look great on paper and didn't perform. I've seen engines that seem mismatched and shouldn't run but they run like raped apes.
400hp isn't a big deal. The car has a badass set of heads, a good intake, good carb, longtubes and the minimal exhaust, just enough pipe there that it is a tad faster than open headers. We planned it out from the beginning with the AFR and keeping it under 6250, didn't quite work out that way, but it worked. Target was 300hp at the rear wheels, figured on 20% drivetrain loss. I'd say we made it with room to spare. The car has lifted the driver's tire once before we moved the setup over to the Mustang. Seems my bud had a video of a near lift, but I can't find it. Best I've got right now is a friend's vid of the tach. This is in the Mustang now, same setup. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150953214833206&set=vb.567018205&type=2&theater A short exhaust on a decent revving SBF is worth nearly 75hp compared to your standard set of duals. Do a little reading on the Corvette's setup. They run a very moderate cam. The big secret is a good set of heads and matching accessories. My cousin and my friend are checking for vids of the Fairlane or the Mustang. I had one, but that was at least three computers ago. Should still be here somewhere.
for a small 300 inch motor it sure is.. if you not revving it very high. and 75hp losses from full exhaust systems are only seen with bigger motors running overly restrictive mufflers. A 300 inch motor that doesn't breathe as deep.. will lose about 30-40. It's possible to build a nice free flowing mandrel bent exhaust that only losses around 20 horses.. but the extra weight doesn't help matters either. Straight through mufflers are a hell of a lot louder than chambered mufflers too. lol PS.. there are tons of articles and testing for these heads out there. Here's one now and shows what the small head can do on a 347 stroker. http://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/2005/05/DynoDuel/ personally.. I think that motor will be better tested when it runs the full quarter. It's far too easy for gears and a stall to skew the numbers in the eigth mile stuff... and the big end is where the little motors lay down a bit when the cam is shorted from optimum. I believe it's making around 360-370hp and your torque multiplication is making the motor feel bigger than it really is. Been wrong at least twice before though and the car definately runs well.
I think we'd all rather see it on a quarter mile track, but they don't seem too popular in Alabama. To be honest I really don't care if anyone believes me or not. Yes, it is a small motor, yes I'm proud of what we put together. Results may vary.
I hear ya and was only giving my opinion based on what I've seen and learned over the years. No doubt the car will speak well enough for itself at the end of the race. I go WAAYYY out of my way to create over achieving engines and screw with peoples heads when things don't add up. Small cams with high vacuum and only slight lopes combined with stock heads will do the job almost every time. lol Even my lowly Eddybrock Chevy heads aren't supposed to rev to 7,200 and make over 560 horse on my 385.. but the third time porting them was the charm.
I mentioned 185's cause they're not all that far away from the 165's when used on a small displacement engine. And the 282 isn't that far from the 270. The 165's could actually work better than the 185's in the lower rpms. I used Canfield's equivalent to the 165's on my 331 and couldn't be happier with the results. I feel there was absolutely no need to go bigger with the heads. As for 400 hp in a 302, anything's possible, to insist that it's not is just plain ludicrous in my opinion. But that's your's.
Yep, said that myself above, anything's possible. That's why I asked questions. And I'm not insisting anything, simply saying "show me" more proof than a 10 year old AFR marketing ad. As mentioned way back in post #13 I've owned and ran both the AFRs and Edelbrocks and have a pretty good idea of the capabilities of each. Do you have personal experience with the Edelbrock and AFR heads that you can share with us?
In my experience so far.. the AFR is better out of the box.. but the edelbrocks are only a few percent off when comparing a "worked" head to a "worked head". They're all really just baseline starting points IMHO. Either head can be made to perform nearly identically when a decent grinder and flowbench is used. Just need to take airspeed measurements to make sure your maximizing each ones potential, is all. And since we're splitting hairs here.. I'll take a raised exhaust port over factory based architecture any day of the week regardless of the power level. But that's just me trying to maximize or improve something any chance I get. To each his own though.
Never used either. But that wasn't my whole point. I get tired of hearing someone call BS everytime someone does something slightly out of the box to those who profess to be expert engine builders and get better than expected results. Not everyone has access to a dyno and the time and money to invest in documenting every detail, nor has an interest in doing so just to prove it to everyone who comes along to challenge it.
We're not that worried about being the fastest out there. We aren't, not even close. We are just trying to improve our own stuff, push the limits of the car and ourselves. Every time we've done something with this car we've worked on the conservative side of the equation, when aiming for 300rwhp we figured on 25% drivetrain loss so we would have wiggle room. When I say 400HP the program we used to come up with this combo says 421. The last time I crunched the numbers on the car it was running faster than the math said is should. We've been through 3-4 carbs, a couple of intakes. I personally fought against the 4000RPM stall. Turns out I was wrong there. Timing is locked at 35* BTDC, no centrifical. Anything else slows it down. We had a few issues that kept it in the 8s, once we got that sorted he ran a 7.96, then swapped it to another car. The exhaust was pretty easy to tune. We started with 18 inches of pipe and a set of turbo glass packs (had to keep it quiet enough to finish putting it together in my friend's parent's neighborhood at 10PM all those years ago). I think he's got about 22 inches of exhaust now. What do you consider high RPM?
I usually just base it on the motor in question and the intended application since it's entirely relevant to that. To me.. a 3 inch stroke street motor is turning "high RPM" once you start winding it over 7,000, or so. Bigger 4 inch stroke motors would be at "high RPM" once you get to around 6,500+. For racier setups.. I'd add another 500 RPM or so to the above figures.
I'm about 500 lower, but in the ballpark. Most stuff I've built was strictly street. A few for the strip, but not many.
