Dirt Track Small Block

[ Pat ] You're watching Powernation.

[ Frankie ] Today on Engine Power we team up with the UNOH motorsports program to build them a brand new class specific race winning dirt track engine. [ Music ]

[ Frankie ] Hey, hey, welcome to Engine Power. Good to see you again. [ Pat ] Mister Higgins. You guys made it okay? Everything's good? [ Frankie ] We have a ton of parts laid out and we're gonna have a really great engine by the end. We'll show you what we got. [ Pat ] Come over here and let's look at some parts. [ Frankie ] Today on Engine Power we have a really special build planned that's gonna be really cool and I'm very excited about it because we are building an engine for the UNOH motorsports team for one of their dirt track stock cars. It's a great program that I went through. So we're pretty happy to give back, and the base of our build is gonna be this World Products Motown small block Chevy block. So this is gonna be the heart of your guys' build. [ Paul ] Sounds awesome Frankie. [ Bret ] Tell me a little bit more about the block. [ Frankie ] This one is finished at 4.155 bore. We also have a 3.750 stroke crank. So it's gonna be 406 cubic inches. This is a billet four bolt blade cap. It's a really, really nice block. [ Bret ] Sounds like a good package. [ Frankie ] It should be pretty serviceable for you guys too. We have standard size lifters, standard cam. So parts are easy to get if you need to service this thing, get parts down the road, it should be relatively easy to take it apart and find off the shelf parts for it. I think this is gonna be a great foundation for the build and we worked with a bunch of companies to get a ton of great parts to go inside of it. [ Pat ] We need a lot of hardcore parts to stand up to the rigors of the demands of the application. We're gonna start out with a Callies Comp Star 3.750 stroke 43-40 forged crank. Along with that we have a set of Mahle Power Pack pistons. These have a one inch compression height and they have the dome that works with our combustion chamber. That goes with all of our rods that we have for this build. [ Nash ] And they have a 6.125 center to center length. [ Pat ] I can tell you studied. They have a 927 pin with a bushed end. To go along with that we have a custom ground Comp solid roller. It's 900 base circle and we'll go over the specs for that later. That goes with a set of Sportsman lifters from Comp as well. Rounding it out we have a set of Total Seal gas ported rings that's gonna work great in this application. [ Frankie ] The University of Northwestern Ohio, or UNOH, houses one of the country's best vocational programs in Lima, Ohio, and offers degrees in fields like automotive technology, diesel, HVAC, and our favorite, high performance motorsports. They push hands on education to give their students real life experience in their field and have over 20 student run clubs and their own motorsports team to give students as much knowledge as possible before they graduate. [ Paul ] The motorsports team at the university is an extracurricular activity. On the motorsports team the students do absolutely everything. They build the cars, they build all the engines. The stock car class has gone through a lot of rules and transitions in most recent years. They opened the rule up to allow four barrel carburetors on those, which has totally changed the whole build aspect of the engine. [ Bret ] The cars are a G-body front clip and they have to have a cast iron block, cast iron head engine with a four barrel carburetor. [ Frankie ] That's a huge change to go from a two barrel to a four barrel setup. That's kinda the idea of building you guys a fresh engine. So we can change the combination and take advantage of that. Tell me about the other rules of the class because they're kinda restrictive, right? [ Bret ] Yeah, we do have some other rules in our class. In our class we are required to run cast iron heads, stock valve angle. So that's 23 degrees. We're also required to run stock ignition style and mechanical fuel pumps. [ Frankie] For heads that is a restrictive piece because you're only limited on options for what you can get for cast iron but we got you guys a set of Dart Iron Eagle 230s. This is a new old stock head. They actually don't make these anymore but it's basically the biggest cast iron head you can get. These flow 300 c-f-m and should be plenty to make the power that we're trying to make for this class. [ Bret ] We have some really good rods, great pistons, a nice looking camshaft. It's super nice stuff. [ Frankie ] Well we've got a ton of great parts. I think it's time to stop talking and time to start working. [ Bret ] Let's go! [ Pat ] Up next, the students put together some high tech parts to build a race ready short block.

[ Pat ] Bret and Nash have a ton of hands on experience with UNOH, and they jumped right into the build process. Starting out they torqued up the main bearings and set up a dial bore gauge to measure main bearing clearance and set each of the mains between 26 and 31 ten thousandths of an inch. [ Bret ] I got involved in the race team by seeing the emails that coach sent out. It's everything I hoped for. I've been learning so much. It's really a great opportunity for anybody who wants to learn. [ Nash ] It's all about teamwork. I've learned a whole lot about working with other people, and on the team we rely on everybody. That's the greatest part of UNOH is you get to know everybody, and I've made tons of friends and met lots of cool people. [ Paul ] Nothing that makes me more proud when a student graduates from the university that was a member of the motorsports team and has found a career path in what they desire and they come back and tell me how successful they've been. [ Pat ] The students measure the rod bearing clearance in the same process as the mains torquing the rod bolts to achieve between 53 and 57 ten thousandths of an inch stretch, and setting up the rod bearing clearances between 22 and 25 ten thousandths of an inch. With all the main clearances set the crankshaft can be laid in the main saddles, main caps installed, and the main fasteners torqued to 70 pound feet. [ Frankie ] Our Comp custom ground billet steel solid roller camshaft uses Comp's new LNW low shock technology lobes with durations at 50 thousandths lift of 269 degrees on the intake and 283 degrees on the exhaust. They are set on a 109 degree lobe separation angle and net lift at the valve is 681 thousandths on the intake and exhaust with a 1.5-ratio rocker arm. We also utilized a 4-7 firing order swap. So the firing order is one-eight-seven-three- six-five-four-two. For this build we are using a Jesel belt drive timing set for ultimate durability and accuracy in cam timing. The timing cover is sealed on and cinched down with ARP studs followed by the cam adapter and the lower crank pulley. The upper pulley is slid on with the grooved timing belt and the cam pulley bolt is torqued in reverse to 70 pound feet. [ Bret ] So coming to the race team I was an open book. I wanted to learn, get hands on. I think it's kinda funny that I knew nothing and now I'm the head of engines. [ Nash ] The thing I love about working on engines and building engines is the science behind everything and how you can take a bunch of metal pieces and pretty much put the together and pump air, fuel, and spark through them and they run and sound good. [ Pat ] The camshaft and valve events determine when and how efficiently the air enters and exits the engines and is based off of track data from other race engines. So the students degree the cam in to have it six degrees advanced. [ Bret ] 121 plus 85. 103 centerlines, awesome! [ Pat ] This engine will utilize a Fluidampr viscous style harmonic damper that will diminish the widest range of dynamic harmonic frequencies and won't have to be rebuilt after every dirt racing season like an elastomer style damper. [ Bret ] We're putting the rods and the pistons together. Because they are non-press fit they require clips. We're just lubing them up, pressing them in, ensuring they're the right direction. [ Frankie ] For our dirt track engine it's gonna be in an abusive environment constantly. So we wanted a trick ring pack and we reached out to the guys at Total Seal to get one to fill our pistons. So what we have is a one millimeter, one millimeter, two millimeter ring pack with a standard tension oil ring, a napier style second ring, and the trick piece of this is the AP 440-B stainless steel top ring. This has lateral gas ports machined into the top of the ring. What that does is allow combustion pressure to get behind the ring and force it out against the wall, improving sealing. Now these also have a C-33 PVD face coating, and what that does is helps to keep dirt from embedding in the ring, which is probably gonna be really, really helpful in a dirt track environment. We do have gas ports in our piston and you're probably wondering can you run gas ports in the piston and the ring, and the answer is yes. They actually work together and it works awesome for helping to seal the cylinder. We're gonna get these installed and lubed up, and then start putting pistons in our block. [ Music ] [ Nash ] Thank you sir. [ Frankie ] The rod and piston assemblies are installed using an ARP tapered ring compressor, and Nash gently pushes them into the block one by one while Bret temporarily tightens up the rod caps. [ Paul ] How's it going guys? [ Bret ] We just got the last piston in and rotating assembly's all finished. [ Paul ] Ready to torque up the bottom end? They doing a good job? [ Frankie ] They're kicking butt, ploughing through this thing. Got the short block basically done. Once we get those rods torqued I think we'll get the bottom end sealed up and go up top. Coming up, we finish up UNOH's newest dirt track racing engine and get it ready for the dyno.

[ Pat ] In order to get the bottom end sealed up on the newest UNOH dirt track bullet a Meling shark tooth high volume pump and ARP oil pump driveshaft are dropped in, and the ARP stud is torqued to 65 pound feet. The edges of the pan receive some r-t-v, and a one piece oil pan gasket drops on followed by this Moroso seven quart oil pan from Summit Racing that has kickouts, baffles, and a crank scraper. [ Frankie ] Looking good. Got the studs out of the box if you want to get them prepped. We're putting these heads on. Remember for heads we have a set of Dart Iron Eagle 230s. These are a little bit hard to find but we were able to find a bare new old stock set. We have outfitted them with some valve train from Summit Racing Equipment. Namely we have a 2.080 intake valve and a 1.600 exhaust valve. For springs we have gone ahead with a packed 12-43-X spring pack that we have setup for 211 pounds of seat and 565 pounds of open at our lift paired with their tie retainers and a set of their keepers. Now to get the compression ratio that we wanted we actually dropped these off to our favorite automotive machine shop here in Nashville, Shacklett Automotive Machine, and he flat milled the heads for us down to a 65.2cc combustion chamber paired with our 4.165 bore 27 thousandths compressed thickness gaskets, and Shacklett also square decked the block to nine inches for us. We have a 13.63 to one static compression ratio. That's gonna be great for making power. They'll get those studs prepped and we'll get these babies bolted on pretty soon. The heads are being held down by a set of ARP seven-sixteenths head studs, which do not need any sealer since the head bolt holes are blind in this aftermarket block. They are torqued in three stages to 80 pound feet with ARP Ultra Torque. [ Bret ] Starting to really look like an engine now. [ Nash ] I like it! [ Bret ] Just take your time. [ Pat ] The Comp Sportsman series solid roller push lifters were pre-soaked in oil and can be slid into their lifter bores. The rest of the valvetrain consists of Jesel shaft rocker stands, Comp three-eighths diameter 80 thousandths wall eight inch long push rods, and Jesel 1.5-ratio Sportsman shaft rockers. The rockers are installed in the firing order at t-d-c compression stroke and torqued to 26 pound feet. Then cold lash is set at 16 thousandths. [ Music ]

[ Frankie ] While those guys finish up the lash on this engine the next thing we're gonna be installing is the intake manifold. To cinch down this Edelbrock Victor-2 intake manifold we're gonna be using one of ARP's stainless steel intake manifold bolt kits. The great thing about these is they are fully stainless and this is a dirt car. So this thing is going to be abused. It's gonna be raced, it's gonna get muddy, get dirty, and it's gonna get pressure washed probably every week during race season. So these are not only gonna be strong enough to do what we need as far as clamp load but they're also not gonna corrode when they're exposed to the elements like you would find on a regular steel fastener. Even if it has a coating on it as soon as you break that coating with a wrench or a socket it's gonna let corrosion get in there and start rusting. So these will not do that. We also have a bunch of matching kits for the rest of the engine. Everything from motor mount bolts to fuel pump bolts so that we have that same quality and that same look all the way throughout the engine. It looks like those guys are done. So we'll get this baby on. All the ARP stainless fasteners have a 180,000 p-s-i of tensile strength, which is way higher than even a Grade-8 you'd find at the hardware store, which are normally about 150,000. And ARP includes cool features in their kits like these front four intake manifold bolts actually have a smaller head radius to clear the coolant ports on the front of the intake. That's super handy getting them in. You don't have to modify your intake. You can just drop them in and go. Got something cool for your valve covers though. Just so everybody knows who built the engine. [ Bret ] They look great! [ Frankie ] Go ahead and get them on and we'll keep going. [ Music ] With the crankcase sealed up we can install a critical system for finishing a race, the front accessory drive. We are using a Jones Racing front drive with a high flow water pump, power steering pump, and one wire alternator that will run the car's various systems and can turn 8,000 r-p-m consistently. As the rules require a mechanical fuel pump we chose a Holley 170 gallon per hour unit with dash-8 a-n outlets to feed our new carburetor. [ Paul ] Looking pretty good guys. Now that new rule that we're building this engine specifically for look at what we get to put on it. [ Pat ] This is a QuickFuel 1,050 c-f-m four barrel carburetor. This is gonna give you an extra two barrels of extra horsepower. Can't wait to get this thing bolted on. Let's make some noise on the dyno. [ Music ] [ Bret ] Looks great! [ Music ] [ Pat ] Up next, we put this 406 to the ultimate test in the dyno cell.

[ Frankie ] We got our QFT 10-50 bolted down with no spacer for now, and then we were able to get the engine into the dyno room, get a Wix filter on it, and we actually went ahead and got most of the engine ready. We have a lot of the lines made like water lines and fuel lines and got pretty much everything we could bolted to the engine including a set of Shoenfeld dirt track headers we got from Summit Racing Equipment. These are actually the headers they're gonna be running in the car. We know they fit the chassis. They have a one and three quarter to one and seven-eighths to two inch triple step with a three and a half inch collector. Miraculously they actually fit the dyno. So we're gonna be able to use these and get an accurate number. The next thing we need to do is prime the engine with oil, and to do that we're gonna be filling it with seven quarts of Schaeffer's Supreme 7,000 series racing oil. This is a 15-W-40. We wanted a quality racing oil because we're not only gonna be beating on it here in the engine dyno but students are going to be racing this car. They're gonna be running it on the track and we wanted a quality oil for the engine there as well. This has great resistance to thermal breakdown. It has abrasion resistance, it has wear resistance. That way we can protect all those nice parts that we just put in. We're gonna get seven quarts of this in and get some oil pressure in this bad boy. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ Pat ] This thing has excellent oil pressure, 77 without it running. [ Frankie ] That's good! [ Pat ] Our class dictates we have a stock style ignition. So for our Chevrolet that means an h-e-i. We went ahead and picked up an MSD Pro Billet h-e-i distributor and already locked out the advance on it and installed a bronze gear for our billet camshaft. Now we will put on the cap and wires and start making some power. We made a custom set of 4-7 swap MSD Super Conductor wires for this build, and they are feeding a set of NGK R-5673 plugs with a heat range of seven. All the UNOH cars use Sonoco 112 racing fuel. So the students brought several pails with them. After filling up our fuel tank we are ready to go. [ Frankie ] We got the engine on dyno. You guys ready? [ ] Yeah! [ Frankie ] This is where all the hard work starts to pay off. [ Bret ] Sounds real good! [ Frankie ] Nice and throaty. 62 pounds of oil pressure at idle. [ Pat ] First thing we're gonna do is get some heat in it. It's very tempting to just start blasting on this thing because it's got a bunch of good parts in it, but we want to make sure everything is doing what it's supposed to. Our pressures look good, our temperatures look good, and most importantly our lash looks good. [ Frankie ] With the engine at full operating temp we can shut it down and the students will check each valve's lash setting individually making sure none have drastically, which could indicate a problem. Then they will adjust them if needed to our hot lash setting of 16-thousandths. [ Pat ] How close was the lash? It looked like it was pretty good. [ Bret ] All of them are pretty close. There were a couple that were a little tight but across the board it all looked really good. [ Frankie ] I think everything looks good. Put it at 300 per second and raise the r-p-m. We'll go from 4,500 to 7,000 cause this thing looks like it should peak before that. We set the cam up advanced. [ Pat ] That's more representative of where it's gonna run in the car as well. Let her eat! [ engine revving ] [ Music ] [ Pat ] That's not bad at all. [ Frankie ] For relatively not a lot of timing. [ Pat ] I'm gonna call that 500 pound feet. [ Frankie ] 499.9 and 584.9 horsepower. [ Pat ] In order to fully tune the engine to race trim we'll spend several hours with the students making several dyno runs and incrementally adjusting the ignition timing and fueling to safely gain as much power as we can with their new power plant. We landed on 36 degrees of timing with 84 primary jets, 91 secondary jets, and 28 thousandths high speed air bleeds. [ Frankie ] We'll see what 36 does here. [ engine revving ]

[ Frankie ] It's like oh! 598.2 horsepower and 503.7 pound feet. That's dangerously close to 600. [ Pat ] Lets cut her off and the only thing I want to do now is let's put a spacer on it just to see if it does something. Spacer do one of three things. They help, hurt, or it stays the same. It'll do one of those three things. [ Frankie ] Let's go do it. Based off previous combinations we are jumping straight to the big dog, a Wilson two inch four hole tapered spacer, to try and squeeze a bit more out of this dirt track power plant. Gonna see what happens right now. Here we go! Hold on to your pants! [ engine revving ] [ Music ] [ guys clapping ] [ Pat ] 601.9. [ Frankie ] 511 pound feet. I saw that torque slinging and thought it's gonna do it. Peak horsepower at 6,800, peak torque at 5,100. That's a good spread. What do you guys think? You built this engine, you're gonna race this engine, and we got to dyno this engine. How cool is that? [ Bret ] It's awesome man. [ Pat ] Nice job. [ Frankie ] Great supervision! [ Pat ] And like we say, great success. [ Frankie ] For more high power engine builds like this one you can find Engine Power on Powernation.