Dragster and engine

bigaldart · Post by **bigaldart** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:12 pm

Maybe this will work this time, shot of the car with the old carb set up and two engine close-ups.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/ ... directlink

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/ ... directlink

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/ ... directlink

bigaldart · Post by **bigaldart** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:31 pm

Motor is a 3.5 + .040, stock crank, Carillo Chevy rods, narrowed to fit, Volvo cast pistons from a 144 B20 engine. Stock heads, O-ringed block running copper gaskets, no water in block. ARP studs on head. Stock bolts on mains. Cam is a mild street hydraulic blower cam bought from Real steel bargain sheet. Solid lifters on inlets with adjustable pushrods and Rhoads lifters with stock pushrods on Exhaust. Stock rocker shaft assembly. Standard SD1 valves. Real Steel dual race springs. Induction is a 4;71 GMC blower on a home made manifold @ 11% under drive, Enderle bug catcher mechanical injection, 80A-1 fuel pump, Vertex magneto. Gearbox is a Ford C4 auto with a full manual shift kit fitted, converter stalls at about 3500. Rear end is a 9" ford with 4.56 gears, Slicks are 12.5 x 33 x 15 and don't hook very well. New tyre and new size this year. All in a rear engine dragster, total weight with driver is 1600 lbs. On best pass 60ft was a 1.25 walking it off the line and 5.97@ 113 at the eighth, 9.45 @ 140.11 in the quarter. Wallace calc says 1.68 0-60. Approximate 460HP. In theory switching to 11% over by swapping pulleys should get that up to 700+. hence the looking for a cross bolt block.

Alan

sidecar · Post by **sidecar** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:42 pm

Bloody great!!

topcatcustom · Post by **topcatcustom** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:54 pm

Nice! What fuel do you run it on and what is the purpose of solid lifters on inlets and hydraulic on exhaust- and on that subject is the blower cam a mechanical one, hydraulic, or special grind?

Also how is the mechanical fuel injection run?

TC

bigaldart · Post by **bigaldart** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 6:00 pm

Runs on Methanol, nice and cheap compared to racing gas. The whole injection system is driven by the pump which is belt driven off the front of the crank. Pump is just visible in the low level pic behind the fuel lines. Line with a big curve feeds the barrel valve. The tee fitting is a high speed bypass, really a pressure controlled valve to bypass a little more fuel as the volumetric efficiency of the engine drops at high rpm. The line from the bottom of the block is the main return. For our best run I disabled the high speed temporarily. It is a really simple system to use with a blower but part throttle is a nightmare so not very good for the street. For petrol it is also pretty difficult to keep a/f ratio's where they need to be. Methanol has a huge tuning window. Between 4.5 and 6.5:1 it will be within 10% of best power. Its the 10% that matters for top alcohol but for our racing is irrelevant, its the sheer consistency that counts.

Alan

bigaldart · Post by **bigaldart** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 6:06 pm

Cam is a solid grind, the mix in lifters is purely to use parts we had in the garage. Funds were very tight when we put it together. You can use a hydraulic lifter on a solid cam but not the other way round. Purely a case of having almost a full set of Rhodes lifters and almost a full set of adjustable pushrods. So just shimmed for exhaust and used adjustable pushrods for inlets. I did say the engine was a clunker. The previous carb set up had us scraping aluminium off the bores on a regular basis. So ring seal is not all it could be.

Alan

topcatcustom · Post by **topcatcustom** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 6:59 pm

I see! Have you ever had any problems with the adjustable pushrods stripping the thread?

part throttle is a nightmare so not very good for the street

And just when have you tried running that on the street?!?!!!!

p.s. is meth street legal

bigaldart · Post by **bigaldart** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 7:27 pm

No problem with legality, exhaust is dead clean as far as Govt meters go. Only problem with adjustables has been them bending or breaking but only when a rod has let go or a valve dropped for some other reason. There is a trail of broken parts leading to where we are now. But, now I am confident to spend money on short motor and heads because the rest is sorted. Top fuel Donovans from the 80's ran adjustables.

Alan