340 Vs 360

rumblefish360 said
@Rat Bastid - Ehhhhh, when it comes up again.

No worries. In the future, I’ll ask for clarity or on something I have no clue about. It’ll not be a bate question.
(Like some others think I do on purpose.)

Going back to what you were saying earlier, I’ll give you this on one of your assumptions on me and that answer is still the same but clearer.

No, have not built a race engine the way you describe it.
Hung around race tracks and friends long enough to certainly know what a race engine is. I hesitate to say the words as they maybe taken, friends of mine have run rail cars and it’s always been a pleasure to be in the garage helping them work on it but! That’s their ball of wax and I’m just passing a wrench or torquing something down on the other side of their engine. Or some other chore etc….

My Grand Father in law and I have had some great conversations when he experimented with the nitro methane in the ‘50’s. His time at Chrysler working on the turbo 4cyl engine with Shelby & why he liked Fords better. He was locally know for his excellent ability to make the Chrysler HEMI work great.

I miss that man. Perhaps one day…..

So no I haven’t built your version of a race engine but then again, IMO, a Hyundai accent can be a race car and if the owner is so inclined to make the best of that engine with his magic wrench’s, well, I hate to say it but that’s a race car with a race engine.

Any one here that bracket races has built there engine specifications up for that purpose….. that’s a race engine.

If you’re going heads up and money is involved, the way you’re talking about how it gets screwed together and how it should rpm etc…. Sure, absolutely, race engine. Max house on fire screaming rpm is the way to go. No doubt.

Some guys are thinking bottom of the page part choices when in reality, what one needs for pushing the cross the finish line first game is not on any page for most 99% of the parts.

I agree. One BIG issue is in the last 20-25 years the line between street/strip and race has not only gotten blurry, it has been expanded.

What was once considered a race piece today can easily be considered a street/strip engine.

And with that you get the wide range of opinions on what works and what doesn’t.

I spend an incredible amount of time just trying to keep up with current and future machining techniques and procedures. It’s fascinating to study metrology (just starting to seriously work on this stuff…I’d love to find someone with 4-6 sheets of Fuji paper laying around that I could buy from them), tribology (advancing at a pretty fast rate), tooling and fixturing (any way you can grab and hold the work piece more ridged and efficiently the better the part) and things like that. That just doesn’t interest some people.

If you aren’t at least trying to keep up on stuff like this it makes it hard to see how the old rule is .001 clearance per inch of diameter has become far less rigid. You can use .0009 or even .0008/inch of diameter IF your machining is close enough and you use the correct oil.

Its things like that that add up and make what was once unstreetable now very streetable.

It also makes some people apoplectic that their paradigms get knocked down a bit or run over and demolished totally.

As an example (this is MY opinion but it’s based on FACTS and TESTING) if your engine builder is still using honing techniques from the early 2000’s the finish isn’t what it could be. And that means instead of running a current steel top ring you are stuck using a ductile iron top with a moly face. That’s giving up power (and here again is a FACT that one guy on here will argue to the death) and it affects the tune up on your carb. That’s right. Ring seal affects booster signal and booster signal is a big deal with a carb.

I‘d rather quit (I have before and will do it again) than to build engines like I did 20 years ago. Or even 5 years ago.