Bob Johnson with our Block

As I noted in the last post (here), we managed to get the engine out of the car and over to the home/shop of our wonderful engine builder Bob Johnson. Bob had the thing torn apart within something like an hour, or at least it seemed that way.  The guy is amazing.  And given that he does all this work in his garage, his den, his kitchen, his driveway, etc. he has the most understanding wife in the world.

Once he had the engine apart, he started going over the parts and checking out their condition.  We bought the car from the world famous Jack Beckman, and the engine is the very one that he used to win the Super Comp national title a few years ago.  But it has had 290 runs since the last rebuild and we just weren’t sure what the inside was going to look like.

We’ve told Bob that our objective is to get a good, solid, and reliable engine, and get a few more miles-per-hour at the top end.  We’re not trying to build an exotic 1200 horse monster, and we’re trying to keep the expenditures under control.  So with that in mind, we started with the idea of saving most of the parts, yet still shooting for 900+ horsepower (up from what we think is somewhere in the low 800s).

Cleaned Up Pistons

Bob had mostly good news after the teardown, even for an engine with that many runs.  The pistons were in very good shape, with just some galling on the wrist pin area.  It seems the wrist pins were a little tight last time around and not enough oil got in there.  But in general, they looked great.

The heads are an older style, but are in good shape so we’re going to run another year with them.  A new set would cost another $3k, and would mean we’d need new pistons.  That’s an expense we hope to wait another year to confront.  We are pretty sure that, next year, we’ll need to go with new pistons (see below), so we’ll tackle the new heads at that time.

The block, a great Merlin piece, is in very good shape.  He had it honed and almost all the scratches came out.  There are some remaining, but we’ll live this year with them.  Next year we’ll tackle the project of going to a slightly larger bore size with its accompanying requirement for new pistons (see above).  But the block looks super, and now that Bob has painted it all a pretty black, it almost looks new.

Cleaned Up Block

We are going to replace the intake manifold.  The current one is an older one, and Bob’s pretty convinced that a new Edelbrock Super Victor intake will give us a solid boost in horsepower.  Mercifully, these aren’t that expensive, and rank high in the bang for the buck sweepstakes.  Bob’s going to tweak it to match the heads and we should have a super combination.

We’re putting in new valve springs, just good insurance for another year of smooth running.  But the valves themselves were good to go after Bob cleaned them up.  We’ve decided to go with a new camshaft as well.  The Comp Cams guy suggested we needed some more duration on the exhaust, so here again, we’re making an investment with a good return on the investment.  And of course we’re replacing all the seals, bearings, and gaskets.

The last major update to the engine is we’re going to install an active vacuum system to provide negative manifold pressure.  This will replace the puke tank we have in the back of the car, and should give us a solid increase in horsepower.  Bob’s never seen a vacuum system add less than 19, and he’s thinking we’re likely to see something closer to 30 additional horses over and above the puke tank setup that we have today.  This will require new valve covers, and we have a special surprise coming there.  Stay tuned.

Most of the parts arrive here this week, so Bob can get it back together soon.  Then we’ll head for the dyno to see how much we gained in the way of horsepower.  Next up is the transmission.  We’ve found some issues there, but that’s a subject for another post.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more updates.

Now that the holidays are behind us, it’s time to start thinking about the next season of racing. But there’s a lot of work to do before we get there. It’s time to get the hands dirty again!

We put something like 80 passes on the engine this year, and it already had a couple hundred on it before we got it. That means it’s long overdue for a freshen. And there are a number of parts that are at or close to their certification dates; we need to get those out and replaced. So just from the strict maintenance perspective we have work to do.

But, we also have some improvement goals as well. For the trailer, I’d like to get a better weather station. While our current unit works, it is cumbersome, needs 110v which requires us to run the generator at all times, the pager is flaky (dying at the worst possible moments like in the staging lanes), and generally is technology from the early 1980s. I have a new one in my sights, from Family Software. I also have some other improvements, like air and electrical lines to the pit side of the trailer and a new awning. But those will have to wait for the incessant snow here to finally disappear and outside temps to get above frigid…

For the car, our main goal is to get a few more miles per hour at the top end. In Super Comp, the faster car has a distinct advantage, being able to see the opponent throughout the entire run — and can play all kinds of “finish line games”. We don’t really want to play those games, we need a few hundred more passes behind us before we’re at that level. But if we’re closer to our opponent’s speed, it will make it hard for people to play those games on us. So I’d like to see our top speed, currently around 168, move into the low 170s. This simply takes more horsepower, which just takes more money — of course.

Fortunately, we have been very lucky to find a super engine builder just a few miles from our house. Bob Johnson is a local legend, having raced and built engines for years. He’s been building a lot of engines for people in the our local association (the PNSCA), and is the nicest guy you want to meet. And he’s a member of the NHRA’s sportsman advisory council, which is helping to set the rules for sportsman classes.

I’ve been talking with Bob about freshening the engine for a couple of months, but just never found the time to get the engine out. The other day he came over and we got the engine and transmission out of the car. It wasn’t hard to do, except that when it’s 40 degrees outside (with snow all around) it sure makes it a little chilly. But with Bob’s expert help, Em’s help and support (and a painful trip to the trailer for a couple of tools), and the occasional sun break, we got it done in a couple of hours.

Bob took the engine and the tranny back to his house/shop to begin the work. He’s going to get the engine all torn down, and give it a thorough going over so we can decide what to fix, or update. His son is going to take the transmission and put it into a new SFI certified case.  We’ll send the carb to get a full once over as well.  When we get it done, we should have a great engine and a nice solid transmission and converter.

Our goal is to take the engine from an estimated 850 horsepower today to something just over 900.  Bob and I think this is a reasonable goal given the engine combination we have, and we should be able to get there without having to resort to boring it out to 572 or other more extensive modifications. Just to be sure, and to make sure we get just the right new torque converter, we’ll be running the engine on a dyno when it’s complete. That will let us tune it just right (eliminating some of the tune part of our first test-and-tunes with the new combination) and give us some solid baseline numbers for the future.

The only weird thing is that the car is now sitting in the garage almost naked.  It’s so weird to go out there and see just a rolling chassis with a hole where the engine and tranny used to be.  The one saving grace is that Em and I got a chance to run the engine before we took it out — how great it was to hear it and smell it running again.  Can’t wait until we get it all freshened and ready for the spring, then we can really run it in earnest!

I’ll keep you posted as we decide our next steps in our constant quest to make more horsepower.