Figured I'd stop in and fill you all in on the details of my Camaro engine build up. The basis for the build up will revolve around the 454 that came out of the car. To fill you in on what setup it was, it was a 030 over 454 with a forged steel crank, rectangle port heads, Victor intake, Demon 750 carb, and a solid flat tappet cam with .629/.605 lift and 260/266 duration at .050. This set up was good for 513 hp and 496 ft/lbs of torque.
I will be reusing this block, which is a 1974 2 bolt that will be bored 040 over. I will be reusing the crankshaft as well, which is a GM forged steel nitrated crank that has not been turned and should be ok. This is the same crank used in the legendary LS6 big blocks from the early 1970's. I will replace the 3/8 rods with an aftermarket set, likely Oliver rods. I will get new forged pistons and keep compression around 11-1, which regardless of what people say, did just fine on the street with pump gas and iron heads. Since I will be switching to aluminum heads, it should be even less concern now.
I purchased the custom grind camshaft around this time last winter. I am moving up to a solid roller cam so that I can get that extra horsepower and remain just as streetable. The specs on the new came are .677/.687 lift and the duration is something like 272/266 at .050 lift. This should give the car one hell of a nice thumpity thump....not as if it lacked it before by any means. The cylinder heads I will be going with are AFR's, probably one of the best cylinder heads out there. They flow some insane numbers, 410 cfm on the intake and 325 cfm on the exhaust. To compare that to my current heads, they flowed around 360 cfm on the intakes and I think the exhaust was 260 cfm or so. I haven't decided upon what intake I will switch to, or whether I will reuse the Victor intake I have. I will upgrade the carb to something up around 900 cfm or so, definately another Demon carb.
Along with the engine mods I will be upgrading the fuel system as well. I believe I am going to go with an Aeromotive system, something capable of supporting up to 1,200 horsepower. I will also be either replacing my tank with a stock style with a sump or going with a fuel cell, that is yet undecided. I also have a nitrous kit I bought a few years ago complete with purge system and bottle heater. The kit as is is good for 175 hp, but I planned on buying new silonoids and getting the 250 hp silonoids when doing so. As killer as the engine alone should be, I will likely hold off on putting nitrous on for a bit. I plan on reusing the exhaust system I have, as it should be more than sufficient I think. I have hedders that are 2 inch primaries going into 3 inch collectors, then full 3 inch back to 2 chamber flowmasters. It was plenty loud before, so I will likely run full tail pipes this time to quiet it down a tad, as right now I just have turn downs in front of the axle.
This engine combo should be good for close to 700 hp according to the camshaft company, so if I were to throw on the max nitrous I'd be up close to 1,000 hp. 500 hp was a handful, even at the drag strip where the car hooded great. So its going to be quite the learning curve tacking on an extra 200 hp with the engine. Some of you may think "Whats the big deal? Just point it in a straight line and hit the gas." You'd be surprised how much you have to drive a car even heading in a straight line. By top end I was going 116 mph, the hood was shaking like a mutha, and the engine is screaming away at about 6,800 rpm's, so its hardly a sunday drive.
I hope to be able to get my block down to my machine shop sometime over Christmas. I'll be using a place I've used in the past and even worked at for a short time. The place is Tico Race Engines, they are located just up the road from Michigan Speedway. Tim Arnold is the owner and has been around cars his whole life, his parents owning an automotive/machine shop when he was growing up. He also attended Ferris State going through their automotive program, and even spent some years on a top fuel drag race team. While I worked there several 1,000+ hp engines went out of there, some costing up around $40,000. So needless to say, they know their stuff.
Well thats it for now, I'll map out the rest of the drive train, suspension mods, brake upgrades, and other stuff as time permits.
2 comments:
Tico has built over 1,000 hp engines with 2 bolts without any problems. So I'm not all that concerned about it. Heavy foot? You must have me mistaken for somebody else.
A better question may be "Where does one draw the line?" I mean come on, I could go with a dry sump system, a timing belt instead of a chain, and Jesel shaft mount rocker arm set up, etc. The list goes on and on.
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