Brent How high up into the ring package does the 5.700 rod put the pin ? Any chance you have a picture?

Jim on your last engine did the piston have a dome? Must have with using 58cc chambers. Also where did your flow numbers come from? Looks like if they were the 180 Darts they have a choice of 1.94 or 2.02 valve. It seems flow numbers depend on who flows them. Did you check out the vid link I posted earlier in this thread. They tested and dyno with the head you have. They came up with different numbers than what you posted. But keep in mind I am not sure when the heads were from. they evolve over time and change. I dont know If Carlquist racing has a cnc program for your heads. I know he has a program for the 65 289 heads. No idea of the cost. I asked about the cnc program he has for my Gurney heads. Was quoted $550 to $600

It’s a 1.060” piston, so just a hair shorter than a 347 piston. Works fine. I use thinner rings than most guys do though. Most are 1mm/1mm/2mm.

The long rod gives me a torque advantage. They make between 390-400 lbft with factory heads.

It looks like Trick Flow needs to make a an iron version of the 11R heads in 170,190 cc Also AFR need to do the same for there 165 and 185 heads for the vintage racing crowd in the us.

Thanks for some reason this morning I could not picture it. Now its got me thinking about the big end of the rods dimensions. 2 inch or smaller Honda size stuff . Smaller journal same stroke = longer rod.............Just thinking out loud!

Can’t give away all my tricks but I’ll tell you that there’s not a lot of factory parts or dimensions in one of these custom race engines.

You guys ought to give Brent a break. This is his business and how he makes his living. If you like him and his approach to engine building you ought to buy an engine from him. Consecutive brain picking sessions to determine his build receipé so you can duplicate it without buying from him is not playing fair for him or you.

If you don't know the fundamentals behind the design / build choices, just knowing the choices does not help you to properly assemble the pieces into the engine you are looking for. You are still missing a lot of the magic secret sauce. Even worse, if you are mixing magic secret sauces from different sources you might end up with a Denver Omelet when you were expecting your eggs sunny side up.

If you have a specific question about a particular item and how well it might fit your particular driving style in your replica, go for it but don't use him like a CarTech or SA Design book on engine building — it's not only not fair to him, it is disrespectful and you didn't even give him the $25 that Amazon would have charged you for the book!

Brent offers a high quality, value for value exchange. If you appreciate his approach to engine building, you should bring him money and engine preferences and let him deliver the finished product to you for use in your replica. Put yourself in his shoes and then ask yourself how you would feel?


Ed

Ed not sure if your pointing your finger at me. So I am not sure how to reply to that. But if so I think you are taking something the wrong way.

I think of this thread as a bench racing session between a bunch of friends. Not sure anyone has asked any big speed secrets.

I was running a dome on the piston in my last set, and will be running a smaller dome in the new set. The flow numbers I was posting were from the Dart page. With some porting, should be seeing better numbers. I have some contacts and will be comparing cam profiles when I get them and rationales for those profiles as I imagine each cam builder will have different profiles and rationales. If any of the cam profiles are considered proprietary, I will not post them on the web.

Trying to do a good job of comparing parts and putting together a cohesive build that makes sense to me and my engine builder.

Jim

Ed, I'm not that concerned about it. I've been a part of this forum since 2001 and consider a lot of these guys my buddies.

Nobody has my arm twisted behind my back and if I feel like I don't want to share a particular detail, I'll zip my lips on it.

FWIW, most of the horsepower that's made is in the heads and camshaft. The other "tricks" add up, but if you don't have the heads and the cam in the right spot, then you're going to be behind.

Jim, not sure who you're contacting, but if they don't ask for head flow numbers, I would put a line through their name. Head flow numbers will make or break a cam selection.

Brent,

Definitely doing flow numbers. Not going to just grab a cam off the shelf. Want to make sure things are matched and everything is in balance.

Thanks.

Jim

No one person in particular and everyone in general. The guy (Brent) is involved in a for profit venture building these engines. There is a large capital investment in equipment and tooling to operate this type of business. He is attempting to be a good guy and entertain questions about the builds that are possible.

Like he said, he has 11 engines in the cue to be built. One engine is a lot of work 11 for a one man shop is impressive no matter how you look at it. The time to participate on a web site is significant — if you want to give good answers to questions.

Questions that delve onto the strategy of parts selection and the performance matching considerations behind behind them dig into the essence of the value add that he provides and is compensated for.

I nothing else give the guy a break so he has time to devote to his engine building for his cash paying customers rather than beating on a keyboard answering secret sauce type questions for non-customers. What is happening in this thread is not bench racing. Bench racing is what I did at the track last weekend or in response to someone's query why I did what I did and what I liked about the outcome. Digging in on component design and specs for engine variations is getting into the building side of the street, not the bench racing side.

If you really have a keen interest in the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) design and operating principles side of the street then consider buying some real books that dig deep into the how come and why for side of the subject matter, to better understand the dynamics involved.

Those books will not be the $25 SA Books kind of stuff although some of those are not bad. They are however the shallow end of the swimming pool. The books I am pointing you at will be in the deep end of the swimming pool and look and cost like John Heywood's Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals 2E which you can pick up on Amazon for somewhere around $100 or Randy Beikmann's Physics for Gearheads which while more about vehicle dynamics and a lighter read, will still stretch you a bit.

The knowledge that is being solicited from Brent comes from lots of study and years of real time hands on experience. It is the essence of the guys business and the value add he brings to his engine builds for his cash paying customers. It is minimally impolite to ask for him to give it away for free. If you feel good about the man and his work product go buy it, don't try to mimic it.

If you just want to learn then take the time and effort to educate yourself in the disciplines involved. A good place to start would be either of those two books. They will both go deeper than you might want but the answers and why they are the answers are there for the inquiring minds.


Ed

You are a valuable resource to the forum, Brent and while I genuinely appreciate your participation, if I were in your position I would find the balancing act a little tough to do especially with the amount of business you have in the cue.

I wanted to add a little bit of a damper to the enthusiasm over the treasure trove of knowledge you provide and the insatiable appetite for more. Sort of sensing how I would feel in your spot — you're nicer than I am :)


Ed

I try to be nice the majority of the time. LOL It really gets on my nerves though when: 1. People look to me to teach them every detail and try to catch up on 17 years of experience 2. People read something stupid on the internet then want to argue with me when I disagree with it. If you're a seasoned engine builder and want to offer up different experiences, that's fine, but if you're a plumber and all you do is plumbing work, don't argue engine data/techniques with me.

I'm still trying to convince Brent that my 1963 "K" cam was the greatest cam ever made in the history of the FE engine.:cool:

Ed I understand what your saying. Brent is good at what he is doing. Like he said no one is twisting his arm. By his willingness to answer questions here makes me more willing to have him do some work for me. I am also sure he get work from others because of his willingness to talk about things.

As far as the books and thing you mention. We are way past that stuff. We have had a copy of Internal combustion Engine fundamentals for a long time. My son knows John. My son is doing a disertation for work on his PHD on full 3 dimensional multi physics computational fluid dynamics. The computer program took 55 hours to run 3 cycles or 6 rotations of a 3 cylinder engine. This is just the start of it.

One of my hobbies is scratch building multi cylinder engines. This includes making any patterns and castings plus any machine work involved. We have the equipment to do just about anything you could imagine to a small block ford. I think we could go as far as making a billet 289 block on our old machining center. We are not in the business of building engines for others. We have all the equipment for our hobbies. If someone asked for us to build one we would send him to Brent.

From my point of view the whole thread is bench racing. Also there are very few real secrets most have been around for years.

Just read an informative article on camshaft design.

https://elgincams.com/wp-content/upl...Dema_Elgin.pdf

Have you guys heard of him previously?

Jim

Elgin goes back to the earliest days of hot ridding.

Ed

Yep, and a lot has changed since then too, although the mathematics are still generally the same.

I like at the end how it talks about how "lofting the valve" is bad. If it weren't for lofting the valve, most NHRA stock eliminator guys wouldn't be competitive.

There was a real nice discussion on his webpage elgincams.com in which he further discusses the nuances of cam design and use in an internal combustion engine, I was not able to copy the link. He compares valve overlap in race engines as opposed to street engines and how long duration of overlap may be fine in one and not the other. There is also an nice discussion about the effect of too much overlap on exhaust gases and how they may replace some of the fuel mixture and also have a detrimental effect on heat dissipation.

I was a little confused at first because there is Elgin Industries which Dema Elgin started and then sold to it's employees, which tends to make budget cams from what I have read. Then there is Elgin Cams, which is the new business that he started focusing more on custom and race cams from what I read.

Jim