Or, more accurately, money doesn’t equal a clue when it comes to drag racing. That is all.

Thanks Jalopnik!

Read more in The News.

A few years ago Hot Rod magazine published an engine build story trying to see if it could build a 500-horsepower motor from scratch for five thousand dollars. So of course, it started with a Chevy small block and was successful. But that’s kind of like trying to predict whether a kid is going to prefer candy or broccoli–too easy.

As a sort of follow-up, the magazine allowed me to take up the same 500-for-5,000 challenge with a bit of a twist. Instead of going for the safe bet, I started with a 400 Ford. The idea was that since nobody gives the old 400 any respect, you can find a block and crankshaft dirt cheap. That gives you more cubes for less money compared to a SBC, and hopefully a leg up right out of the gate. I got this one out of a junked F100 pickup for free, but for the magazine we started with a figure of $125. The secret weapon in this build was a pair of aluminum Edelbrock Performer RPM 351C heads. An update on Ford’s great Cleveland heads, Edelbrock’s Performers feature signifcantly improved chambers and ports over the stock heads, besides being about half the weight than the origianl cast-iron pigs. Edelbrock also makes a dual-plane intake for this block and head combination, and that was used as well.

But from there things got more difficult. That’s because the 351M and 400 engine family enjoys almost zero aftermarket support. I partnered with KT Engine Development for the build, and we did a lot of head scratching to find parts on the cheap that would help us hit the horsepower goal. We ended up going with a set of K1 connecting rods with a 6.300 inch length for a big block Chevy and matched them with eight KB hypereutectic pistons for a 340 Dodge because the compression distance was what we were looking for. Custom slugs would have been much preferrable, but we couldn’t afford them under our five-grand budget.

Because the 400 rarely gets any love from performance enthusiasts and because we built it with a variety of parts for different makes, we ended up naming this engine “The Mutt,” and the subsequent article that ran in Hot Rod was headlined the same. We ended up getting an OK 504 horsepower out of it, but what was really impressive was the incredibly flat torque curve that started out at 560 lb/ft at 3,800 rpm and didn’t drop below 500 until 5,400 rpm. Peak torque clocked in at a whopping 565 lb/ft. But we did, however, exceed our five-grand budget by a few hundred–and that’s not counting the new valve covers you see in the photos.

Below is a short video of the dyno session at KT Engine development when we were finishing up this motor. It sounds great and has never been seen before, so I thought I’d include it here. I believe the dual-plane intake was great for torque but really choked off the air flow beyond about 5,500 rpm. One of my regrets with this build is we didn’t have the time or money to try a single plane intake, which I think would have produced a big jump in peak horsepower.

This engine is still sitting in a corner of my shop, and I’ve been pondering using those fantastic heads on a Windsor block for a future build. It probably won’t have this engine’s 431 cubic inches of displacement, but with the right selection of parts it should come close to matching the horsepower numbers, if not the torque. And a Windsor won’t have the same bellhousing and engine bay fitment problems the primarily truck-based 400 will have when trying to squeeze it into a car. So what do you think? How should we build out our upcoming Windsor and Cleveland mix? (Clevor in Fordspeak.) Let us know in the comments, or the forums, and we’ll try to work ‘em into the build. 

If you’re interested, you can check out the original Hot Rod article here.

Here’s the dyno sheet showing the Kansas-flat torque curve:

And here are more photos from the original build:

[View with PicLens]

One of our most popular videos here at Street Muscle Action is our piece on properly breaking in an engine equipped with a flat-tappet camshaft. You can see it here. But a few things have changed since that video came out, and we thought we’d update you here. When the video was made, we recommended Comp Cams’ break-in additive, but since then the company has added 10W-30 and 15W-50 oils to its catalog formulated specifically for engine break in.

Both oils are fortified with ZDDP additives to provide that critical lubrication against sliding friction that modern oils cannot. Here’s what else Comp has to say about it’s new oils:

“Heavily tested and proven by the COMP Cams® R&D team, these advanced lubricants deliver maximum engine life. They do so by improving the surface mating of valve train components (especially flat tappets), rotating assembly, rod journals, piston rings, valve guides and other vital areas of the engine. The proprietary formulas of both the 15W50 and 10W30 oils include optimum amounts of critical additives ZDDP (Zinc & Phosphorus), Molybdenum, detergents and high grade base oil.
 
The mineral-based COMP Cams® Engine Break-In Oils are fully-formulated and require no additives or supplements. In addition, both popular weights are fully compatible with gasoline, methanol and high octane racing fuels. They can be purchased in single quarts, cases of twelve quarts or pallets of eighty-four cases.”

Read more in The News.

Thought I’d pass along some unused shots from a recent car shoot I did for Cragar Wheels.

The car is a 62 Corvette that was outfitted with Cragar’s new 612 Series two-piece wheels. The wheels have a great old-school look that really goes well with a classic car like this. The shots that were chosen will show up in an Cragar catalog sometime in the near future. The shoot started just before sunrise, and the thing I remember most is between each shot frantically trying to wipe down the dew that kept forming on the glass and trunk.

I was told this car was purchased off of Barrett Jackson, so if anyone remembers seeing it (with different wheels) let us know in the comments.

[View with PicLens]

Read more in The News.

It has been years since any compact car has caught my eye, but there’s something about Ford’s new Focus RS500 that’s pretty appealing–like the 350 horsepower coming from the tiny 2.5-liter engine.

Unfortunately, the top of the line RS500 model is a Euro-Spec only model that we won’t get to drool over on these shores. If it helps, you can watch this video of one being upfitted by hand after it comes off Ford’s assembly line. Didn’t realize the flat black paint was actually a vinyl wrap.

Check out the video after the break.

Read more in The News.

The Goodwood Festival of Speed took place last weekend, and we’re getting some good video footage of some of the great cars that were part of the event.

One that caught our attention is this on-car video of a 1970 Porsche 908/3 taking part in the one-mile hillclimb. It doesn’t sound like the driver is really putting the screws to the old race car (not surprising since only 13 were hand built and they helped Porsche win the 1970 Manufacturers’ Cup), but it’s still fun to watch it negotiate the tight course nonetheless. Hit the jump for the video.

Read more in The News.

Will Roegge is one of my favorite videographers, and I just found another great vid he’s made. This time he’s gone back to Pikes Peak and worked with driver Jeff Zwart. Roegge and Zwart are putting together a video of the weekend, but as a teaser, he’s released an in-car video of Zwart’s record-setting qualifying run in the 2wd class of 11:31.095. Watch and enjoy.

Pikes Peak 2010 – Jeff Zwart Qualifying from Will Roegge on Vimeo.

Read more in The News.

Conditions didn’t allow him to break the magical 10 minute barrier, but Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima unoficially won last weekend’s Pikes Peak Hillclimb by posting the fastest overall time in his Unlimited class Suzuki XL7. His official time was 10 minutes 18.250 seconds, which was slower than his record 10 minute 1.408 seconds, but still several seconds faster than second-place finisher Paul Dallenbach, wh0 clocked in at 10:39.534. Rhys Millen, the third competitor in the Unlimited class, suffered mechanical problems in his brand-new Hyundai with 11:06.208.

Tajima, who shipped his car over from Japan along with 64 tires and enough spare parts to build a second race car, said he thought his time was fast enough to break the 10 minute barrier. “I’m very disappointed,” he said, “I thought I was faster. It was a very good run. The car and everything worked well.”

Read more in The News.

Here’s a little warm-up video for you to get you ready for the Pike’s Peak Hillclimb. The video is a practice run by J.T. Taylor in his Tube Shark rock racer. Obviously, he won’t be the fastest up the hill, but it’s still fun to watch and listen as his navigator calls out the turns.

Read more in The News.

We’ve drooled over Hennessey turbo installations before, and that’s exactly what we were doing while watching this YouTube clip of a Hennessy tuned Ford Raptor pickup when we noticed it. Yes, we love the 600 horsepower “VelociRaptor,” but watch the video and look closely for yourself. The expensive twin turbo system is tucked in right behind the truck’s front bumper. Isn’t that the crush zone for any front-end hit over five miles per hour? It may make for a clean installation, but is that really the best place to put two quite expensive turbos?

Maybe I’m missing something here. If so, help me out in the comments.

Read more in The News.