Quote:
Originally Posted by Gach
Whats the hp range of the majority of engines you build in school shop with students.
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This is an estimate. The majority of engines built are in the 450-500 HP range peak. But the variety is really interesting to me. We had a Model A Ford engine that made almost 50 HP! Stock was 24. We had a 289 Studebaker engine make 503 HP with stock iron heads and a tiny Vortech supercharger. We had an accurate replica of the Wright Brothers first engine, built from the original blueprints with original style aluminum block make 12.8 HP peak and scared us to death. Highest HP was a BBC 535 CU in twin turbo. At the time, our Dyno would only absorb 1000 ft. lbs. of torque. It overran our dyno at 3000 RPM's. So we don't know what kind of HP it really made. We have since upgraded to a 1500 ft. lb. absorber and software. Average student spends around 2K on parts for their build. We had a student build a 450 HP SBC with mostly used parts for $750.00. had a student build a 735 HP Kasse Boss 9 engine. He had around 20K in parts for that one. It's fun and challenging and all over the board. My co-teacher and I do feel a great responsibility making sure they do everything right because it's their money they are spending and we don't want any failures. Despite our best efforts, we have had a few in 20 years of doing this.
Back to Molnar, we have built about 8 engines with Molnar crankshafts and rods so far. SBF, SBC, 440 MOPAR, 2 Pontiacs. So a decent sample size. More to come I imagine. No failures at this point.