Building A High-Performance Smallblock V8 From Scratch Using Only Catalog Parts -Horsepower S13, E18

Hey, have you ever heard that expression? There is more than one way to skin a cat. I used to hear that all the time growing up in Arkansas and I can't tell you if it's true or not because I never saw any furless cats. I saw a lot of guys go to the junkyard to start

building

an engine, then there was a lot of machining before the job was done, since then I've known guys that swapped an engine core for a revenge short block to build it right today, Of course, if you have the cash, you can also buy a new engine assembled with most of the work already done, but if you are watching your funds, want to work with new

parts

and make good power, there may be a better way. to skin that. cat, sorry Peter, we're just kidding, now we're going to build an engine today, we're going to put together our street

performance

small block v8 from

scratch

, all with

parts

purchased directly from Summit's racing

catalog

and we're sure as well be.

Cheaper than a crate motor of course, it all starts with the base and Summit Racing now offers a 383 block machined to accept a 375 stroke crank. It also has four main bolts. The first $760 we spent was for this block, an original cast iron spec. block with four inch diameter bores and one piece rear main seal, but first we need to get rid of the rust inhibiting coating they use for storing and shipping, then a good coat of wd-40 to keep it from rusting again on our budget and power. Goals in mind, the tech guys at the summit hooked us up with a 383 rotating assembly that includes the crank set, aluminum pistons, flex plate, harmonic balancer piston rings and a complete bearing set on top of the bearings. fork that we are placing on this Stroker.

The Eagle crank, which is cast steel and well balanced externally, next to our pistons, has over 30 hypereutectics coming from the power of the seal that formed these I-beam connecting rods with floating pins. Now some of you newcomers may be wondering, what is the difference between floating? pins and press fit and which one is better are actually two questions but here is your answer. Press fit is pretty much what the name implies, you need to use heat to expand the small end of the rod so the pin can go in with a floating pin. Installs fairly easily and moves freely within the connecting rod, most aftermarket pistons have grooves to accept locks for a floating pin setup, there is less friction which is a definite plus in

high

performance

.

Next we can install our perfect circle rings that we picked up from Molly Clevite after setting the gaps now, this is a procedure that can be conf

using

but it needs to be done and it's usually not that difficult. The first step is to install the ring in the hole with the point facing up and square it to meet the initial one. size

using

the feeler gauge now place it on the ring filer making sure the filing direction is towards the inside of the ring remove some material reinstall it check it and continue until you get it right which is the right thing to do if it's a street, simply multiply the size of the hole by the point zero zero four five for the top ring which came to eighteen thousand multiply the size of the hole by the point zero zero three five for the second ring fourteen thousand in our case on the ring Oil should be a minimum of 15 miles, the final step takes a stone soak in oil and simply tap the edges of the ring opening to avoid scarring the cylinder.

So what if you're

building

a nitrous or blower engine? We publish a ring gap chart on our website that covers just about each well combination, the next step is to put some oil in the grooves here, install the rings and stagger them to prevent them from leaking. Now when you hear the term "blow" that means that combustion forces gases into the crankcase and the oil well literally blows out the valve. covers this is the correct way to stagger those rings, place the oil ring spacer gap between the 90 degree arc labeled a, then place the oil ring rail gaps at the points marked b, the ring gap lower compression ring is turned to position c and the upper compression ring. gap in the d position, if you follow those simple steps to space and stagger the rings, you will have a pretty nice little engine, one that has good sealed cylinders, makes good power, and last but not least, doesn't have any exhaust now .

In the meantime we need to take a break and I'm going to go ahead and fill these cylinders, welcome back to the

horsepower

. Well, it all started with engine parts we ordered from a Summit Racing

catalog

, including our base, a 383 block. Our order also included an eagle rotating assembly and after prepping the rings we installed the rods with seal power pistons. next item in our wish book

high

performance camshaft now ours is a high performance hydraulic roller with a duration of 234 on the intake 238 on the exhaust with a slip of 50 000 then after installing the chain double roller distribution, we go up to install our oil pump and collect.

Now the pump is a high-volume part and delivers about 20 percent more oil than a standard one. Next we need to install our timing cover as When using a one piece oil pan gasket, the nice thing about this gasket from our felpro kit is the compression stops around the bolt holes which prevent overtightening. Finally we can close the bottom end with a moroso 6 quart deep sump pan and Screw on the oil filter adapter, now back on top we can put the hydraulic lifters on and remember there's a lot of lubricant here. Mounting on the rollers and sides of the risers.

We ordered an installation kit that includes dog bones and a steel spider to hold those risers. Instead, there are plenty of ways to take shortcuts when you're modifying an engine build like ours, but if you want to get big power, don't go cheap on cylinder heads, these aluminum models cost around $570 a piece. and so. You get some obvious features, like CNC-machined 185cc intake runners for better flow, and some smaller premium features, like here bronze valve guides that better transfer heat and resist blocking. With 64cc combustion chambers, we expect our combination to produce a compression ratio of about 10 to 1.

Oh, no penny cents on the head bolts, these are screws with sealant on the threads. Okay, now it's time for the pre-measured pushrods from our summit valve train and don't forget to put some mounting lube on top to prevent scarring during start-up, lastly a set of aluminum rocker arms with a ratio of 1.5. They are bolt-mounted, which is a popular choice in high-performance builds for both their strength and adjustability. With the loose locknuts in place, we can remove the slack from the pushrods and hold the intake valves. The collector we chose for our 383 is one of three from the Summit Street Strip stage.

It is now a high-rise dual plane designed with separate guides to prevent heat absorption and has a power range of 1500 to 6500 rpm. The open area under the plenum also keeps the air and fuel charge cooler to help generate more power in addition to this powerbond harmonic balancer, we are installing a high flow mechanical water pump, our pulley set and finally the belt trapezoidal with these chrome valve covers bolted into place, we are done here and ready to transfer the engine to a dyno car, we are feeding our small block with the help of this Summit Street Strip 750 carburetor which is equipped with a choke manual and a mechanical secondary to start, a royal purple break-in formula that supports 55 lbs. just go ahead let it circulate for a minute ok and to fire up a hei distributor and eight millimeter spiral wound wires it says we are burning 89 octane pump gas in our 383. it has good oil pressure and after a 20 minute break-in at 2000 rpm let's dump the brake oil and get ready for the race, first we'll go 45 or we'll go 55.

We'll use six thousand dollars right away, eh, yeah, damn, you're brave, 460 lb.-ft. . of torque 400

horsepower

, yes we have a little way to go pretty good, especially the torque control fingers, but never good enough after closing the valves again and changing two carburetor jets on the right bank to a time of 78 seconds for race number two 418 466. That's better. We're getting somewhere, but let's see what another degree of synchronization gives us, so we're a little rich. I'm going to go ahead and put another grade, grade and a half on it with 465 foot-pounds and over 400 at 25. Not a bad piece, you know, the kitchen has to go for one more this time with 76 in all four corners, okay, final run with this, here we go, are you sure?

I hope so. Okay, 443 horsepower, 485 pound-feet of torque. I'm happy with that, I don't think we can really improve on that unless we put a 150 shot on it, there's time to put it down, okay man, that's awesome. We begin this engine building parts catalog with a statement that we could do it. Turn it off and spend less money than we would pay for a comparable crate engine, which in this case would be a 383 zz. If we did, that crate engine loaded with our carb intake distributor and water pump would cost you about $5,800. Our full parts count from the top was about forty-six hundred, which is a savings of over twelve hundred dollars, a pretty good trade-off for our labor, meanwhile, this would be a great engine for a street hot rod. rod, even for a daily driver, well, that may be up to you because look, we'll be giving it away soon and we'll keep you posted on how to put your name in the hat.

Stay with us. Tell us when you were a child, did you like to take things apart just to see what was inside them? I know, I used to take apart my toys, watches, uh, my mom's toaster once when it didn't work very well. I guess things haven't changed much. Here I am disassembling these oil filters and I'll tell you what, while the design is basically the same. I can see that the technology in one is far superior, perhaps very similar to synthetic oil which runs through it well. Now that we've taken it apart, let's see how they put it together.

For that we have to travel here. a 355,000 square foot facility in southeast illinois. Well, when someone makes the decision to upgrade to a super premium lubricant, one of the first questions we are asked is what filters should I use and it is really that question that prompted us to research and bring to market a truly synthetic ultra premium filter for develop an ultra premium filter the inner element has to provide near perfect particle removal while allowing maximum flow most filters compromise with a synthetic cellulose blend the royal purple filter is 100 synthetic it is primarily fiberglass with some polyester as structural support on top of that there is a screen wire to back that media which is the best longest lasting media, best longest lasting filter on the market after the filter elements are pleated and cut to size , workers insert center tubes preventing metal collapse.

High-strength adhesive end caps provide positive seals for filter element assemblies. Now, with both ends of the filter housing complete, the units are heated to 400 degrees to cure while, in another part of the plant, mild steel coils are used to fabricate the additional material. thick shells a magnetic conveyor belt carries the shells to a machine that cuts rings, they are then steam cleaned, loaded onto an automatic palletizer and moved to an assembly area where each one is placed face down on a device and loaded with a spring. Finally, the shelves and filter elements are joined together with the help of this machine.

The entire process is a combination of automation and manual work. These hands are installing silicone anti-drain valves that prevent dry starts. They are now mounted on pedestals. The filters are ready for that brand. The color rotates as the machine sprays the purple powder coating, then they are heat treated at 400 degrees and while still hot, sent to a machine that applies the heavy duty nitrile rubber base gasket. Samples of the seriesproduction undergo a severe sequence of vibration and shock tests on six jeeps to ensure that they will stay together in this part of the laboratory. They are subjected to 150,000 continuous starts to verify fatigue.

Royal Purple filters weigh 40 more than standard filters thanks in part to stronger steel. backplate here in a first string test a conventional filter comes loose at 260 psi the purple oil filter is still intact at 600 psi perhaps the most important test is the multiple pass test where ultrafine dust is introduced to the oil before it flows to through the filter Currently, right now it has an efficiency of about 99.99 at 25 microns, which is practically one hundred percent; Virtually eliminates all contaminants and dust. We are challenging it with the Royal Purple filter, it is a super premium filter and is on top of them all. filter options that are available to the consumer today, whether your engine powers a hot rod or a daily driver, when you put one of these filters in it, it will have the same high quality as the synthetic oil running through it.

Pneumatic tools are essential for fast and efficient work in your home workshop, but don't hate lugging around a compressor with a bunch of tangled hoses. Rapidair Products has a new economical 100-foot master kit made with you in mind. Now comes with this lightweight and durable nylon tube compressor manifold. kit and two air outlet kits is now easy to install the hose connects to the fittings in a snap and you can get all kinds of fittings to customize the master kit and make your home system clean and efficient now the master kit will set up You get about 140 dollars back, not a bad price for air anywhere you can run, but you can't hide from it.

Rust is one of your vehicle's worst enemies. The renowned industrial technology developed in 1986 to prevent extreme rust and salt removal equipment is available for cars and trucks is also called countering and is a patented electrostatic technology with a module that connects to the battery and sends tiny electrical charges through these two couplers that deploy a very slight negative charge on the surfaces of the vehicle body that prevents and inhibits oxidation. and painting body panels that protects against corrosion, even bolted fittings made of dissimilar metals, basically the counterattack system eliminates the tendency of oxygen and iron to rust.

These things are great for everything from daily drivers to show cars and come with a warranty that's good even if you trade it in from one vehicle to another. With prices starting at just under $300, I hope you stay dry and rust free until next week. See you then.