[jim_howard_pdx]

Have them send me their cam numbers and I bettcha a dollar to a donut that comp cams was building the same cam over 20 years ago.

Just to let you know, when you race brackets, the closest to their dial in wins. It was extrememly important to me to run within one tenth of a second. So it didn't bother me that the Hemis were crossing the finish line 10-20 mph faster than I was. It didn't matter. I took home the trophies. So I could have run 5 or 6 different cams each season. I usually just ran one or two. And mostly that was to keep up with valve geometry improvements in the "ramps" and so forth.......

Richard's dad, Ed was an interesting guy, but like Smokey Yunich he believed in low valve lift, high duration engines with lots of overlap. Cause back in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, there were a lot of short stroke engines running very high rpms to get to their horsepower peaks. And these cams built big power even though the torque curve was poor.

Like Eric 4 Nitrous said, "who needs a big block anymore" to run 6's and 7's. Now it is high lift, low duration, big flow head engines that take the trophies.

The one thing that Richard said in his article that shows how poorly he understands engineering is that "an extra 5 to 10% power is not worth the engine lasting only half as long." Does an LT1 last half as long as a low power chevy? NO! Because as the engine goes up in power, the reciprocating pieces go up in strength. Often, it is the high power engines that last longer unless they are raced professionally.

A long rod engine typically puts LESS stress on the bearings, rings and piston skirts. WHY, because the burn is more controlled. Less predetonation and detonation makes for longer lasting parts.

You know that the sbc crowd started making a 6 inch rod for the 350's about 15 years ago, because they were being dominated by the 5.0 Liter Ford engines. The 302 has a 3" stroke, a 5.09 inch rod for a 1.699 rod ratio. The 350 chevy had a 5.4 rod, a 3.5 stroke for a 1.54 rod ratio, and IT COULD NOT KEEP UP!.

So in came a 6" rod for the Chevy guys JUST so they could stay EVEN!!!!. So tell Richard to take some engineering courses, take some physics courses, build some engines, and try lengthening the rods by .25 ratio increments. Keeping a tight quench and high compression he will not get a 5% increase in torque, he will get a second off his elapsed times.

Just going from 1.54 rod ratio to a 1.714 rod ratio in an LT1 Impala, we took the et times from 14.3 to 13.3 with NO OTHER CHANGES. No cam work, no intake work, and no ignition work. Just a rod and piston change.

Hope that sheds some light on long rods.