Guys.  Had a great time at the Engine Masters Challenge and would definitely do it again.  I entered a 375 inch Y which ended up being too big an engine for the iron heads to have a really good score.  At 6700 rpms, the engine was just out of air.  Good peak numbers though and that’s what I was counting on.  The 316 incher I readied for last years competition would have had a much better score at the expense of reduced peak numbers.  The big numbers did not rule at this competition as there were several 800 plus horsepower engines but their average scores were down compared to the smaller engines.  Triple thanks goes to the other Y team members who assisted me at the EMC site which included Jody Orsag, Harry Hutten, Jerry Christenson, and Royce Brechler.

The 375 got that way by way of a 3.859” bore with a 4.00” stroke.  Pistons with a 9cc dish gave me a 10.1:1 static compression ratio and 9.0:1 dynamic compression ratio.  And the engine idled like a champ with a healthy rumble at 900 rpms through the mufflers.  The original plan was to enter the 4.00” bore X 4.00” stroke combination (403 CID) but the block just ended up not being strong enough once the cylinders were bored out and replaced with sleeves.  That engine ultimately twisted the block on a moderate dyno pull to the point the camshaft was difficult to remove.  A new set of pistons arrived in the middle of September for the 375” combination at which point the assembly of a new and smaller sized Y started going back together.

On my dyno, the 375 incher was peaking 462-464HP and 446-449 lbs/ft torque.  At the EMC competition, I lost numbers like the other competitors.  The best EMC numbers after tuning changes in preparation for the qualifying session netted the Y team 433HP and 416 lbs/ft torque peak values.  Still not too shabby for an engine We could have put back in a car (or truck) and driven back home on pump gas.  Although I tested the engine at 7000 rpms on my end, it was pushed to 7400-7500 rpms during the competition.  It held up just fine to the surprise of everyone at the competition.  After 49 pulls on my own dyno, I was reasonably confident that the engine was not going to be easy to hurt.  I had already increased the over the nose valve spring pressure from 330 lbs to 388 lbs during the course of testing just to insure that the rpm capability was going to be there.  The Isky cam and lifters are showing no signs of wear after all of this abuse.

The electric water pump is an Ebay big block scrub electric pump that I gutted and then made an aluminum plate to adapt it to the Y engine.  Although I had reservations about using it in the competition due to some air lock issues that were cropping up, it worked just fine in the competition.  In fact, the engine temperatures with each qualifying pull were consecutively dropping and the last pull was at 136°F which was in itself a performance deterrent.  When I build a new version of the electric pump, I do have a plan on how to make the pump self priming and eliminate the air block issue.

And that’s the short story of what happened at the Engine Masters Challenge.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

The rules this year allowed engines as small as 280 cubic inches.  That got a 4.6 Ford Mod motor into the show.

Regardless if the heads are iron or aluminum, the smaller cubic inch Y engine would have been more favorable under this years rules format.  I know that now but in hindsite would not have known before actually testing this combination.  Better flowing aluminum heads will obviously support a larger engine though.  There’s no doubt in my mind that last years 316 engine with this years iron heads would have produced a much better score this year while potentially still coming close to the 400HP barrier with a pump gas combination.  At the EMC competition, it’s all about the score and not the peak values.

This years rules format specified a cast intake manifold without external modifications and the Mummert intake was definitely the best available.  A big Thank You goes out to John Mummert in getting me some of the new intakes to work with for this competition.  The next best intake design on the list was the Blue Thunder.  Most of the 3X2 and 2X4 intakes as originally cast are not the big power producers for this kind of competition and especially if limited to the carb bolt patterns that came on them.  If a good single plane design had been available, then that may have helped the overall score.  Testing is really the only way to know for sure on any of this.  This particular engine saw seven different intake manifolds on it during testing along with a variety of carb spacers and carburetors.  But an injection intake with Webers would be worth looking at based on the performance of the early Hemi that was running that combination this year.

The 375 incher did surprise me in testing when I tried a 1050 Holley Dominator on the Mummert intake and it made even better numbers.  Made three pulls with the Dominator and as I leaned the mixtures, the power levels just kept climbing.  Started out with 88 jets square and was down to 81 jets square by the third pull with the indicators still pointing to the engine being on the rich side with 81 jets.  And the Dominator idled just fine and cleanly with all the jet combinations.  Unfortunately I was already in a time crunch situation at that point and didn’t have the aluminum stock available to whittle out a spacer/adapter that would fit the rules.  For the test, I used a 2” adapter I had on hand just to try the Dominator carb and that particular adapter was just too tall as required by the rules.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)