Yay! This is one of my favorite pictures from the adventure...geek-boy me with the two engine master legends, Jon Kaase and Joe Sherman. I got to meet Joe at the engine of the show. Even though I shoot my lips off online, I'm shy at meeting people in real life. Mr Sherman came over and shook my hand with a firm grip. He has a deep gravel voice and has built more engines with his baby finger than I will build in my lifetime.
Joe Sherman
Joe Sherman growled, "Hello Andy, I got to read your website. You did a nice job."
Andy Dunn replied in a high pitched geek-voice, "Thank you kind sir. I've enjoyed reading about your engines in the first two engine masters."
Joe growled more, "You ended up testing all the stuff that doesn't matter...headers, carb, spacers."
And Joe was so right! If only I had met him six months ago. :) Ahhh, even if I had, I'd have to see it, touch it, and test it to believe it. Headers, Carbs and spacers are probably worth 1 to 5 score points each...and most likely closer to 2 and 3 points. You have to chase them a little since you want to maximize points, and ten little things of 2 add up to 20, but you can't go digging for gold in these areas too long or you are wasting time and recourses which could be better spent elsewere.
Andy asked, "so where did you have your timing?"
Joe replied, "well I was at 36 and then just bumped it to 38 to test and it burnt a hole right through the piston."
I was having a great time at this point, but I was nervous and confused.
Andy asked, with a confused look on his rookie face, "so you retarded the timing 2 degrees and it melted the piston?"
Joe the drill sergeant belted back, "Are you listening to me boy?!"
I had a big smile from ear to ear and almost howled because Joe was so no-nonsense and tough, just as I had pictured him. I only wish I could of talked to him longer. I believe his pistons were close to 300 grams to start! That is so amazingly light. Joe told me that he did not go with the AFR chevy high ports this year, but instead went with the Edelbrock Chapmans (I think that would be vic jr chapmans).
Jon Kaase
We met Jon Kaase the first day. By the end of the week, I think I had talked poor Jon's ear off. I had a million questions for him. Jon Kaase is the pro-master engine ninja.
On the last day of the event, the 6 finalist were ready to go. I noticed that four mills were fords, and two of the Fords had CHi heads. Jon had one of the CHi heads.
I leant over and said, "That lad from CHi has to be pleased how well his heads have done."
Kaase quipped back, "Are you kidding? That guy is so happy he's gonna squirt!"
Richard Holdener
Here is a picture from our table at the banquet. On the left is Richard Holdener and on the right is Jon Kaase. I really like talking engines with these lads since we share some similarities in our analytical approach to building.
Most contestants choose single plane manifolds. Richard Holdener (CHP), Greg Grosset and Dan Crower (Crower), both choose the dual plane approach. The duals did ok, but struggled to make any HP numbers up high. My score was only 3 points different from Westech to Bill Mitchell's, but Richard was pulling 1030s at westech and dropped huge at the competition. Either there is something going on in the two dynos, or there is something that went wrong in the engine. Richard is going to place his engine back on the westech dyno this week to try and determine what happened. I just got this email from him today.
Holdener writes:
"I firmly beleive that there are other ways to get to power levels near Kaase without using his combo, but it is hard to argue with his success. My motor is on its way back and I am anxious to get back on the dyno."
I completely agree. The great thing about engine masters is that the rules are still fairly wide open. You can take very different approaches to the same problem. No one tests as much as Holdener, and I know he was testing components for this contest over 7 months ago. I'm hoping that his tear down and tests reveal what happened to the engine between the west coast and east coast dynos.
The Thick Gaskets
One of the tricky things Kaase did this time, was to use thick gaskets...I mean really thick .375" or so. Jon asked the rules committee, "is there a limitation on gasket thickness?" Michael Simpson wrote back, "no, any thickness is allowed." I'm not sure I understand all the benefits of this yet, but it does allow you to shrink your combustion chamber to a minimum.
When I first read the 2002 teardowns, I thought Kaase did this to reduce detonation. It does, but there is more to it than that. Holdener stayed for the teardowns, and pointed out to me...this is why Kaase's heads have such amazing mid-lift numbers. You don't gain peak flow, but by unshrouding the valves, you begin to gain excellent mid-lift numbers. Here is an example of the Kaase's 27cc big block chamber. I think the pics from this year may have the valves even out farther.
John Beck
John Beck is the Engine Story Master. :D I wish I had a picture or two. Scott and I got to drink a few ales with Beck at the Brickyard. John had so many great racing stories. One of the six finalists was lamenting on how much he should risk pushing his engine on the final pulls. Beck said, "fourth place is like pissing your pants while wearing a dark suit...no one knows and all you get is a warm fuzzy feeling." :) I think beer shot out of my nose when he told the contestant that one.
Beck had the biggest tuning gain of anyone there. In his test runs, he made some jet and airbleed changes and picked up 30 points! If I wasn't there, I never would of believed it. Beck stated, "the screw driver givith, and the screw driver taketh away." John suggested that maybe he, Richard, and I, get together next year and compare notes. I'd very much enjoy this since I believe you can learn and gain more by sharing rather than bogarting.
Manifolds, Cams, and More
If I compete in 2005, all the time and effort I spent on headers, would now be spent on manifolds. Manifolds matter. I would buy five different manifolds...maybe two different models in 2-3 stages of porting. The Manifold choice is the fourth most important choice in my opinion, after heads, cam and compression.
The compression used by most contestants was 12.5:1. This seems to be the power sweet spot. 13:1 is a little high and 12:1 is a little low. 12.5 is where I suspect we will see most engines in the future.
In the future I would also test more than one cam. I would test the computer choice and then maybe the Kaase choice. haha :) I know holdener tested a pile of cams, and in the end, he was right where the computer told me I should be. He got the answer through real-life testing and I got there through the simulation. This gives me confidence in the computer...but I am never against testing and so I would prefer in the future to test approximately 4 cams.
If I could stay within the rules, I would also test more header extensions and weird header tips if I could. I don't think there are a lot of points here, but I do think there are 3-4 points here.
Heads
Before I went to Engine Masters, I said "Heads are king". After I left engine masters, I say "Heads are king". I wish there was an easy way to teardown all 50 engines and flow the heads. I'd bet large coin that there is an almost constant direct correlation between average headflow and score. I have no doubts in my mind that Kaase had the heads with the highest average flow data. Due to the limitations of the contest, it would be close to impossible to have heads that flowed "too big".
I continue to be one of the few builders that believes "port size" is not that critical. I would take average flow over velocity, almost all of the time. Want proof? Here is a quote from Kaase during the 2003 teardowns:
"Chris Howe, labored two days on porting and valve seat work. We started the testing with full-size intake ports and later shrunk them down, which made very little difference at any rpm."
Heat Sink
Something that was a factor on 80% of engine was heat-sink. Many engines would do pull one, heat up a little, pull a lower score on number 2, heat up and do number 3, which scored less than pull 2. I'm not exactly sure why this was occuring on some engines and not others. I don't have any hard proof, but I tend to think that a ceramic coated manifold allowed my engine to stay consistant. My pull one and three were carbon copies. Where might the engine be heating? My guess is the heat is soaking up, into the manifold arms, then heating the air fuel mixture. Perhaps by coating the manifold, this might be delayed? This might be worth testing next year.
Next Year
Most contestants are ready to go back next year. The rumors are that it will be 510ci or 511ci. I am ready to go back right now! lol For me it all depends on the stock market. I make my living investing and so if its a good year, I can afford to go, and if its a bad year, I cry in my beer. 510 is a big engine! Scores might be nipping at the 1300 range (1270-1290).
Virtual Engine Masters
The final score was 1043. I'm not positive, but I think on one of my entries I went 1040 (wish I had screen capped it so I could remember). I think there are going to be so many entries that it will be a crap shoot to win. Here are two things I did not know!!!
1) the 2002 year was the year of a happy dyno at Westech. Most contestants believe the numbers were a little too high.
2) the 2003 year was 3000 rpm to 6500 rpm. I had no idea! This totally changes the score too high. I need to play with this new info tomorrow.
