[jim_howard_pdx]

Kevin was talking about the street worthyness of his engine....What he was alluding to was that he has NASCAR YEATs heads, modified in such a way (I would love to see them) that his engine builds over 800 HP on GAS ONLY.

To do this, he is running very high compression ratios, must use racing fuel, runs exotic oils, and pushes the engine at high rpms to get the HP. So the whole engine is tweaked to d a m n near maximum. The way to go faster now, is chassis improvements, timing and fuel delivery adjustments, and adding NOS.

Kevin, what is your Cubic inches, and what is your bore, stroke and rod length right now?

My ideal street based 9 second car would be this. Use the 351 W block. I think the newer blocks are about .05 inches taller, but the 69 or 70 blocks have the high nickle content. If money is no issue go with a sportsman block with the splayed 4 bolt mains.

Offset grind the crank from a 3.5 inch stroke to a 3.25 stroke, and reduce the jod journal to small block chevy rod bearing size. This reduces the bearing thrust speed, the friction on the bearing, and minimizes bearing failure. I would also use a forged crank for this application since I plan to spin it up to 7,800 rpm or so.....

I would use the TR twisted wedge R heads. I would clean up the goobers, make sure the valve guide supports are teardropped smooth, and CC the ports to make sure they are dead equal for starters. I would stick with the 2.08 1.60 valves since I plan to use a blower.

Use a titanium or aluminim 6.4 inch rod with small block chevy pin and rod dimensions, and 4.03 reduced pin 13/1 domed pistons to produce 332 cubic inches. This nets the 1.98/1 rod ratio in the cheapest possible way. Figure on spending 1 grand for the forged crank, 500 dollars on the machining, 700 dollars on the aluminum rods, and 600.00 on the pistons. (About 2,800 dollars total after you put a grand in the block, or 3,000 for the sportsman unit). Heads are 3,500 set up with racing springs and titanium valves. Intake is 550 but have it extrude honed so count on about 1200. The 88mm throttle, mas, 50 lb injectors, and wiring/computer will be another 1200-2000. Custom fuel curves will be 2,500. So we are talking about a 12,000 to 15,000 dollar engine here.

(I could run a 3" stroke with a 6.625 rod, but this would be a custom rod and custom piston so look to spend about 4 grand MORE than the engine above.) This would be a 306 with a rod ratio of 2.208. This is a perfect bonneville type rod ratio!

Now the cam would be a custom grind, but what I am after is 24 degrees of overlap, 260 degrees intake duration at .050 lift and 280 degrees .050 exhaust duration and .758 lift on the intake and .770 lift on the exhaust. The center line would probably be around 110 degree's, but I am not a grinder, I let them center line the cam, then tell them how important it is to limit the overlap to 24 degrees. (On this type cam you would ordinarily have 75 to 110 degrees of overlap).

I would use the 5.8 Trick Flow EFI with 90 mm inlet, run an 88 mm mas, run 50 lb fuel injectors, and have someone custom burn the algorythems for the fuel curves while the engine was on a dyno mimicking a 5% grade and 800 ft of elevation.

The pistons will be reduced to 11.5 compression by completely smoothing the dome. They will be coated to further reduce head absorption.

If the Vortec S cannot make 750+ horsepower, I would try the Novi 2000. One of them should put me close to 800 hp. The very low overlap would make this car idle like NEAR STOCK. The engine would get acceptable gas mileage until you open the throttle.

You will need a cage to keep the horsepower and torque from twisting the chassis into a pretzel.

You can expect problems with clutches not wanting to maintain bite as the rpm climbs. I think a dual friction, centerforce would be the minimum set up. A full copper/kevlar race clutch like the 7 second cars run might be required.

This would be an excellent engine for 9 second quarter mile times. But Kevin's car would easily beat it drag racing. I would need more cubic inches and better heads to keep up with him.

The 306 would possibly make almost as much horsepower even giving up the 26 cubic inches of displacement, but it is hard to justify the extra 4-5 grand in expense for all the custom stuff just to get the extra two tenths percentage points for the rod ratio. If I remember correctly, I can get a Chrysler 6.4 inch aluminum rod with chevy journals and pins for under a grand. These fit good in the Windsor block with just minor clearancing.