289 FIA vintage race engine with Webers

[1795]

Greetings,

For those of you who have not been following my build thread on the Superformance Riverside Racer FIA vintage race car, due to the need for a rebuild I decided to go away from the Holley 4 barrel and install a Jim Inglese 8 stack Weber system to see if that would improve race performance. That meant, not only ditching the carb and manifold, but also having to go with a different cam as the one in the engine had 106 degrees of lobe separation. Jim suggested that I use Darryl Fitzgerald in CT for the build, as Jim had taught him about Webers and had used him on many builds. When I dropped the engine off at his shop in the fall, there were 4 engines with Webers on them in various stages. He as building a small block for a Daytona replica and he had another small block that he was installing in a Kirkham 289 slab side.

Well the engine was finally done and I drove out there today to do a couple of pulls on the dyno and take it home. Darryl had called me yesterday to let me know the engine would be ready. It has a custom ground Crower cam with an LSA of 112, Comp cam roller lifters and a stock crank. Due to vintage rules it has to have cast iron heads, i was allowed to use aftermarket Dart Iron Eagle heads, and original stroke. A slight overbore is allowed, I am at .030.

It was a fun day. Yesterday Darryl told me that they had gotten 370 HP and 330 ftlbs of torque on the dyno while tuning. A little less than what Expected, but still a nice number and in line with what the originals would have been running. During the first pull the dyno operator shut down the engine at 3500 rpms because it ws not making power. We checked out the engine and everything looked alright, valve lash was still good. Then we noticed that the attachment from the throttle on the dyno to the carbs was loose. It ws righted up and the next two runs provided consistent results. 424 HP and 362 ftlbs of torque!! Not too bad for a little 289 with iron heads and stock stroke. I can't wait to get it on the track.



Here are a couple of links to some videos of the last two pulls on the dyno. Crank up the volume and enjoy.

Https://youtu.be/Wgm3LMrQvPM

Https://youtu.be/rHo7ARK3_Xw

Jim