[ponjohn]

Gearbanger- are your cam specs confidential?

Cliff- AGAIN- thanks for the great info. I second the question- any idea what increase you would see from 310cfm heads?

John

[tommieboy]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

...Kauffman Racing Equipment spends a lot of time/funds coming up with their combinations. We used a custom grind selected by them, I'll leave it up to them if/when they want to release the specifications?....Cliff

Thanks Cliff...

[74t/a]

Cliff, 5800rpms is nothing for a HR lifter. I don't find the weight of the lifter to near as important as the weight of the valve and retainer.

I have some BBC HR engines that turn well over 6500rpms. I have a foolish customer that regularly turns an engine over 7200. The only thing I have seen is some valve float indications from that engine. I increased the seat pressure to 145ex/150in and sent it back out.

[Cliff R]

"Do you think your heads are now the limiting factor for more power? At 260 cfm, you are probably getting close to NA power potential at 514 hp. I wonder if the larger cam gave up power because of the heads not flowing what the cam wanted?"

My opinion, I have near perfect head flow for the power output and rpm range that I run the engine in. The bigger cam, the flat solid just didn't measure up, peak power occured at 5200rpm's, and "nose-dived" from there. I don't think the flat solid cam was nearly big enough, it would take at least 10 more degrees @ .050" to equal the power of the old flat hydraulic cam (best guess).


"I second the question- any idea what increase you would see from 310cfm heads?"

310 cfm are not needed or wanted to make the power we were after. Keep in mind, that we were looking for torque production, not top end horsepower. The car is daily driven, using conservative gearing/converter. Idle quality and strong power right off idle are manditory. Everything I've ever done or tested to this point, that provided more top end power, or a shift in power to upper rpm's, has slowed the vehicle down at the track.

The goal(s) were to increase power at every point in the rpm range where we load the engine, this is approximately 3300rpm's to about 5500rpm's. Installing cam(s) that shorten up the power curve, or shift power to higher rpm's or combinations of both were not what we were after. For what it's worth, many folks tend to focus WAY too much on peak power numbers. For our application, it only spends a blink of an eye at peak HP during a typical run at the track. We heavily load the engine at a low rpm and short shift it to use the strong mid-range power to get the car to ET well.

Keep in mind that we are testing relatively new parts and combinations of them. We're using an undersquare engine design fed by ports no bigger than a run of the mill small block Chevy 350 uses. This thing is going to try to make a lot of power early in the rpm range. We are trying to spread the power out as much as possible without pinching off power at any point. We have been directly involved in dyno runs with several of these engines, and like anything else in this hobby, it's all about the "combination".

Who would have ever thought that an excellent intake such as the Torker II would not work any better than an iron intake? On our race engines the T-II intake rivals the Victor to at least 600hp. Who would have thought that the iron intake would hit a brick wall at 500hp? It doesn't look all that much different than an RPM intake, especially after you open up everything under the flange to the near exact size/shape as the RPM.

We're sure learning a lot from all this testing, and much of it just doesn't work out as we had planned. We did learn a couple of things the past few days, our HEI distributor makes the same power as an MSD billet with a locked out mechanical advance, and our 1977 Pontiac Q-jet will run right with a Holley HP950 carb, at least at this power level......Cliff

[grandville455]

Cliff I think it's great that u set your goal and u obtained it exactly as u wanted to do!!! I also think its great that a stock intake rocks to about 500 HP!!When u said open up the stock one what did u mean? ports and everything to RPM size? I dint think there was enough meat to open the ports that big and still seal?Do you have any pics of your stock intake ports?..Also I would almost bet if you would have duplicated the HR to the Crower in every aspect I bet it would have been equal,But cause of it having alot more area at .200 and more lift it out did it...Just goes to show you the old stuff is pretty damn good!!...Once again thank you for all your time and dedication the hobby!!..Will be very interesting to see what it finally comes down too after all your tuning and then to the track she goes

[Cliff R]

"Has the Kauffmans actually ever "scaled" their dyno with a calibrated weight on a calibration beam?"

Tom, I have no idea? I do know that KRE's dyno is somewhat conservative. That info did not come from them, but from someone who has dyno'd there, then taken their engine elsewhere for additional testing. It's not off much, somewhere around 3-4 percent, at least that is what I was told.....Cliff

[screamingchief]

Was the torker II modified in any way,or was it "box stock"?

Any spacers tried on it?

Enquiring minds would like to know...

[Cliff R]

Screamingchief, the Torker II was port matched (or close to it) and we ran a 1" spacer on it. This is usually good for the best "peak" numbers for these engines over anything else. In our case the engine didn't want, need or like the straight streamline runners. The RPM intake KILLED it everyplace.

Darby, our iron intake is opened up under the flange to almost the same size/shape as the RPM intake and has both bolt patterns for spread bore and square flange carburetors. The ports are matched to the heads, we use a slightly opened up stock Felpro gasket.

No doubt about the old parts being pretty good. At least in the case of the 041 camshaft. It is a very good choice for the medium compression ratio 455 street/strip engine. By adding the Rhoad's lifters and high ratio rockers arms, as Jim Hand has suggested for years, it's producting some numbers that rival the "modern" stuff! Don't forget we've ran 11.64 @ 115.30 MPH with that "old" cam, not to mention the car is very "mild" at a glance, with near stock idle qualities. We still run Ralley wheels with trim rings and no traction bars of any kind! We'll get a better idea as to how much this new cam improves things in a couple of months when the tracks open up?.....Cliff

[screamingchief]

I really was'nt questioning whether the RPM was superior in this case,to me it seemed a perfect match for what ya'll were going after here,and had wondered to myself why you guys were'nt using one in the previous testing,and opting to use the torker II as an alternate choice instead.

I kind of understood it with the solid in part due to the somewhat earlier intake opening numbers of the solid,and the A/F issues you mentioned having with the stock intake on those tests.

But when ya'll decided to loose the solid and go to the HR I kinda felt the RPM would possibly make some gains some overall.

I just had'nt seen some of those details stated like the port matching stuff on all the intakes,and was curious on my own part to know the answer to that.

Like many have already said,congrats on your gains,and thanks for sharing the info here,have a happy new year!

Bret P.

[Cliff R]

Bret, thanks. We don't always own all of the parts tested, so we're often limited to how much we can "hack" away at them just to make a couple of dyno pulls! At a minimum I'll put a mark on them for exact port alignment with my heads.

In my opinion, the Torker II and RPM intakes are miss-named. The Torker II is an excellent upper mid-range and top end intake. The RPM is a strong mid-range peice. At least with the engines I've dyno'd, we almost always see a shift in power, and higher peak numbers with the T-II over the stock iron or RPM intake. At least till this combination, the small ".050" spec'd HR cam and our unported heads favor the dual plane intakes, by a pretty wide margin. Don't get me wrong, the T-II made good numbers, but it gave up power to both of the other intakes in the 3000-4000rpm range.....Cliff

[J Druin]

Cliff, nice to see you got the results you were looking for with the HR. I was pleased with my results I got at KRE back in June. I did all my testing with a TII that has been opened up about an inch or inch and half into the runner to the FP 1233 gasket. I had an RPM with the same massaging in the runners but did not try it as I was only doing a half a day dyno and Jeff said it would only boost the TQ down low. Now, with what you saw I kind of wish I had tryed it. Anyways, when you said you saw the manifold pressure was high what was it with the stock intake and what did it drop to with the RPM? Oh, just wondering what kind of correction factor you had on the dyno today. Thanks, Jeff

[Tom Vaught]

Quote:

"It's not off much, somewhere around 3-4 percent, at least that is what I was told.."

What not implying that it was off or otherwise in error, just asked if it had ever been scaled? Maybe Jeff knows.

Tom V.

[Cliff R]

"Anyways, when you said you saw the manifold pressure was high what was it with the stock intake and what did it drop to with the RPM?"

It really wasn't "too high", but starting to show some 1.1" numbers toward the end of the pulls. The numbers actually increased at each level by about .01 when we installed the RPM. I guess it really isn't a problem. The big Holley HP950 carb didn't have a vacuum port, so no readings on the next pull with it, but it made almost the same power as the Q-jet, only down 1HP/1TQ "average" power from the previous pull.

"Oh, just wondering what kind of correction factor you had on the dyno today."

I have no idea? Even though it's middle of winter here, it was warm and raining the day of the runs. I ran pretty lean metering rods with the Q-jet to see best numbers, so the air probably wasn't much better than the last time we dyno'd this engine here over a year ago in August?

Tom, I emailed Jeff Kauffman last night and he replied: "I do have a calibration arm and we do check the dyno from time to time."

For what it's worth, we do see some variation in dyno numbers from one facility to the other using the same equipment. I'm not implying that Westech or anyone else is "fudging" any numbers. The trend I see from some facilities, I'll keep picking on Westech for example, is that numbers from engines dyno'd there, are quite a bit higher than near identical engine combinations I've dyno'd here. It doesn't really mean anything negative toward one facility or the other....IF, the numbers are being used to learn anything from? There are so many little things that can cause the results to vary by slight amounts, (how much exhaust gas leaks back into the dyno room and makes it into the intake stream, for example), that it is nearly impossible to make DIRECT comparisons between engines ran at one facility, with those ran at another. If you are going to any dyno as a tool to learn from, it would be wise to always return to the same one, and use the same operator to perform the tests.

One last note on dyno numbers. I have witnessed, dyno sheets delivered with engines from a particular vendor, that were way too GENEROUS for that particular combination of parts. I'm not "mud-slinging" here....but....if you are simply looking for impressive dyno sheets for bragging rights, you might want to put your engine in place and do some track runs. The drag strip is where the BS stops!.....Cliff

[mr68]

Cliff,
Nicely put, as you saw on my motor chasing horsepower you see your tail a lot. It was not a problem not making the power as I understand it because you were not off much of the total numbers, but you were off a lot on the entire curve. This should be interesting to see how you manage and plant the higher torque to the pavement this spring.
Congrats,
Russ

[Tom Vaught]

Quote:

"Tom, I emailed Jeff Kauffman last night and he replied: "I do have a calibration arm and we do check the dyno from time to time."

Then what you have is "as good as it gets" for this area with its air quality.

I have heard hundreds of times that the Westech dyno typically provided numbers differently than say some other dynos. Every dyno is different, even with scaling, as I mentioned due to its location in the US. Dyno might be accurate but the numbers will be different due to the weather conditions and corrections.

Speaking of corrections, you can play a lot games with corrections too.

JMO

Tom V.

[P@blo]

Cliff Ruggles:

It is not a copy of, or anything really that close to the old .470" lift flat tappet grind. The lobe profiles and lift are much more generous. The ONLY similiarities between the cams are the .050" numbers.

Cliff, do you think the results might have been different with a slightly larger HFT cam like the Wolverine 234/244 #5059 or the Crane #284281 234/242 duration. Or would a custom ground hydraulic flat with more lobe profile at .200 may have been able to benefit from the added flow of the RPM Intake. The results clearly show the HR with the advantage but think it might have been a more even test with an off the self HR to test against a shelf grind HFT. KRE clearly doesn't want to release the specifications probably because of the expense and time invested to TAYLOR a CUSTOM cam for certain applications. This is clearly an advantage the CUSTOM HR has over the generic Crower #60919, not to forget the HR's benefit of being tested on a recently freshened up engine. If the same time was invested designing a custom HFT for a particular set up I'm betting the results would have been a lot closer. Please understand I have no real preference in cam design and would install a roller cam just for the prevention of flat tappet lobe failures and reduced friction the roller enjoys. But I also feel testing a custom HR cam against a 041 HFT clone might be misleading. Thanks for reading

[Cliff R]

Pablo, if one is going to spend the time AND funds that I did, to upgrade our engine and make MORE power, I'm going to go to go into the lobe catalogs and pick the very best of them!

Incidentally, KRE has also tested a slightly larger HR cam than we used, with this same combination, and it made slightly LESS power. So much for dyno simulations?

Looking back on all of this, I think that the 231/240/113 cam was near perfect for this combination of parts...when it comes to making the needed power in the rpm range we run the engine in.

The 240/248/112 cam was a "dud", so instead of trying to re-invent the wheel, we picked a hydraulic roller grind based on the Crower RAIV clone cam we had been running.

As expected, we "inflated" the broad power curve that we enjoyed with the old cam, making more power at every rpm. Note that we DID NOT extend the rpm range with the new cam, it actually peaked at 5400rpm's, 200 rpm short of where the Crower 60919 cam quit.

As stated before, our HR cam's only similiarity to the old flat hydraulic cam are the .050" numbers and LSA, it does everything better at every point from there.....Cliff

[P@blo]

Thanks Cliff

[Karch]

Like stated above...you are probably nearing the maximum power out of the heads if the 2HP/CFM 'rule' holds true....which is quite impressive!

Thank you for a great effort and for sharing.

[Cliff R]

"Like stated above...you are probably nearing the maximum power out of the heads if the 2HP/CFM 'rule' holds true....which is quite impressive!"

Thanks! In terms of "power", it would depend on what you are defining as "power", HP and/or Torque numbers? We weren't looking to make a bunch of top end horsepower. I could have easily had KRE CNC port the heads, cut them for about 11 to 1 CR and go with a 250/260 @ .050" cam. The net result would have been another 80 to 100 horsepower (best guess).

The goals were to keep the small high velocity design and improve upon it. We wanted to see more power across the rpm range we run in, and enjoy a bit more peak power in the process. I would have to speculate as if we are reaching the maximum capabilities of these heads without increasing the cross-section of the intake runners? I'm not a head porter, just an engine builder/tuner, so I'll leave that up the "experts".

No doubt these heads are capable of temendous power in their stock configuration. Exactly where the limitations are, who knows? KRE continues to test different combinations all the time. We've have a pretty good one here, if on is measuring power in terms of torque production, and total power production from off idle to 5500rpm's.

We'll know even more once we get back on the track in a couple of months. One thing you can bet on with this hobby, making the power is a LOT easier than USING IT!.....Cliff