[wovenweb]

Didn't Jim Hand come to many similar conclusions testing on the same platform for many years?

[Jim Hand]

Equipment on my “71” Lemans wagon

1. Continental tight 10” converter purchased in 1997 – one of the first of the true tight 10” 3200 converters. Flash stalls to 3200 at full throttle.

2. 473 cubic inch engine - +.060, stock N crank stroked +.040

3. 10.14 static CR runs on 91/92 octane pump gas exclusively

4. Standard hydraulic cam designed in about 1975-1980 – 234 intake duration with .325 lobe lift, 244 exhaust with .340 lobe lift, on a 112 LS with intake installed at 108.5

5. Variable valve timing from Rhoads. (V Max with Super lube grooves on outside)

6. Stock HE
I
7. 1977 350 Q jet by Cliff
f
8. RPM with the secondary divider cut down exactly as shown in my Pontiac book

9. 6X-4 heads ported exactly as shown in my book except bowl enlarged to 1.72” rather then 1.69 to pick up flow – flow numbers below. Ports purposely kept small as possible for max torque throughout entire RPM range – average of 170 cc per port and definitely no “choke” at the RPM we run. HS 1.65 roller rockers

10. 3.55 gears, 28” Mickey Thompson DOT ET radials – shift at 5750 both gears.

11. Factory 7 blade fan with factory style thermo clutch

12. Dr. Gas 3” X crossover, 3” pipes, and 3” Goerlich mufflers which added about 15# – car weight with driver was 4060-4065# with the larger mufflers – 4050# with regular Dynomax units.

13. Staged at 1800 on the foot brake – no line lock - went to floor to launch. T-400 governor set at 5750.

14. Note: The original Wolverine WG-5059 cam had been replaced with a Bullet cam after some 10 years of bracket racing and street driving. The replacement cam measured a little short on intake duration so Bullet had me return it so they could recheck it. I had upped the intake to 235 from the Wolverine 234. It measured a little short at Bullet but I recognized it was probably a normal deviation. I have attached a copy of their measurements for information. Again, the intake was ordered to be 235.

Air flow @ 28”– intake/exhaust (port volume – ave 170 cc)
.050 = 42/29
.1 = 78/70
.2 = 150129
.3 = 195/168
.4 = 236/193
.5 = 264/211
.55 = 267/218
.6 = 268/223

I built this car for street use and bracket racing, and stressed consistency for track use. How consistent? Here is a set of four time slips run over a two hour period - was running the Bullet cam – no measurable difference at the track from the original Wolverine.

Double click to read the time slips easier - the board would not allow a larger display! Car 5462.

Jim Hand

[Cliff R]

Thanks Jim, good to see you posting these days!.....Cliff

[Cliff R]

The 455 Super Duty is now turn key and ready for the dyno. We primed it with oil about an hour ago, and bolted down the intake.

We ran into a few minor issues, one was the valley pan being "sprung", which was probably our fault as we literally had to chisel it off the engine it has so much glue holding it in place.

I also discovered that the intake manifold ports were not ported anywhere near the size of the runners, and not even close to gasket matched. I spent about an hour cleaning up the runner entrance on the intake closer to the actual port size of the heads, but stayed a little smaller all the way around as it would have taken pretty extensive porting and going back pretty far into the runners to get an exact match.........Cliff

[TCSGTO]

Some more cam testing at the track from THE MAN

http://forums.hotrod.com/high-perfor...s-by-jim-hand/

[Firebob]

So when's dyno day Cliff?

[Cliff R]

Don't know yet, looks like next week, trying to get together with the owner so he can be there for the testing......Cliff

[77 TRASHCAN]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

+2

I put this info up on another thread but it's related to that statement.

For several years now we've been working with the owner of an 350 powered Oldsmobile 442. He has done quite a few cam swaps in that engine and a lot of street and "seat of the pants" testing, but never drag raced it.

So he asked me to race the car for him. At that time his little 350 had a Lunati 207/214 cam in it, or something very close to that. He thought the car was a "beast" because on the street it would ROAST the tires when you whacked it hard all the way thru first gear. It also "felt" really strong because the cam thru ALL the power at you right off idle and very snappy acceleration early in the rpm range.

Race day came and sure enough the first pass I made with the car it did just that, spun all the way thru first gear and netted a very dismal mid 10 second 1/8th mile pass around 82mph, or well into the 16 second range if we were at a 1/4 mile track.

I tried heating the tires up a bit more and the second run was nearly a blueprint of the first run. On the 3rd run I did a "John Force" burnout and it hooked solid without even squeaking the tires. It rolled out so slow and took so long to reach high gear that I considered ordering up a Big Mac and a Coke on that run and consuming them before I got to the finish line!

We ran the car for two more runs with huge burnouts and same deal, it was basically a "turd" for track performance, managing a 10.30 or so on the best run which is still into the 16's in the 1/4 mile..

Over the next two years he did a couple more cam changes, went to a 108LSA cam which idled too rough for his liking and got crappy fuel economy, then per my recommendations went to a "generic" 214/224/112 cam nearly identical to the Summit 2801 cam that is quite popular in many Pontiac 400 builds.

The generic cam was pretty "boring" to quote him exactly, relatively smooth idle, smooth off idle, would BARELY spin the tires when you hit it hard in low gear, but it did pull pretty hard over a broad rpm range.

Race day came again and low and behold the "boring" little generic 214/224/112 cam netted some low 9's in the 1/8th mile, a full second quicker than the last cam tested. Yes, it was a boring run, the car left pretty hard, and pulled hard for the entire run, but nothing overly impressive that I could notice being the driver. At least now he owns a solid 14 second car vs a 16 second car (1/4 mile).

I thought we hit a "home-run" but actually he doesn't like the 214/224 cam compared to the shorter seat timing stuff he'd been using. Not enough "bling", idles too smooth, and exhaust is too quiet, etc, etc. I guess some folks are more into how a car sounds at the car cruises and it's ability to roast crappy street tires in low gear when you're leaving Dairy Queen in a hard right hand turn, than having a car that runs well at the track for what it is......FWIW.......Cliff

Since there's no posts today on this derailed thread...

Man that "generic boring" cam sounds somewhat close in specs to the venerable 068 Pontiac cam...? No wonder it ran well...LOL

An Olds w/ a Pontiac grind running well....
I've seen the same grind for a SBC, also, no wonder, it flat works!

[Cliff R]

Dyno day today. All went well, the guys at KRE had the big 455 Super Duty bolted down and running it in under an hour.

We made a "base-line" pull without doing any tuning and were nicely rewarded with 433hp/516tq, total timing was 26 degrees and way rich for fuel delivery with the factory metering rods in the SD Q-jet.

Did a quick metering rod change, bumped up the timing 4 degrees and power jumped to 445hp/526tq.

Another quick metering rod change and 2 degrees more timing and it made 457.8hp and 533.4tq. Dyno sheet from the last pull attached.

I'd add here that we didn't chase the power and stayed conservative with total timing at 32 degrees. We could have spent all day with this deal and squeezed out a few more ponies, but that wasn't the goal for this project. It's going into a street driven car so the goal was more to make sure the engine was sound and no leaks, than to spend all day tweaking on it for bragging rights.

It idled nearly smooth at 750rpm's making 13" vacuum, plenty for power brakes. There was just a hint of something going on in the exhaust note like it may have a little cam in there, but nothing to indicate that it would make 1hp/cid in pretty much "stock" trim.

Just to go back over the engine specs again since my thread got "de-railed for nearly a dozen pages. It's a 1974 Pontiac Super Duty 455, Eagle rods, Ross flat top pistons, exactly zero decked, custom ground HR camshaft 230/236/112, 1.65 rocker arms, factory cast iron Super Duty intake, factory 7044273 Super Duty Q-jet carburetor, factory Super Duty distributor (points).

The heads had some port work done to them in a previous life, but we did not flow test them......Cliff

[68 Firebird]

Outstanding!!!!!

Gerry

[Formulajones]

Did you use the RA manifolds on the dyno or headers?

[hurryinhoosier62]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

Dyno day today. All went well, the guys at KRE had the big 455 Super Duty bolted down and running it in under an hour.

We made a "base-line" pull without doing any tuning and were nicely rewarded with 433hp/516tq, total timing was 26 degrees and way rich for fuel delivery with the factory metering rods in the SD Q-jet.

Did a quick metering rod change, bumped up the timing 4 degrees and power jumped to 445hp/526tq.

Another quick metering rod change and 2 degrees more timing and it made 457.8hp and 533.4tq. Dyno sheet from the last pull attached.

I'd add here that we didn't chase the power and stayed conservative with total timing at 32 degrees. We could have spent all day with this deal and squeezed out a few more ponies, but that wasn't the goal for this project. It's going into a street driven car so the goal was more to make sure the engine was sound and no leaks, than to spend all day tweaking on it for bragging rights.

It idled nearly smooth at 750rpm's making 13" vacuum, plenty for power brakes. There was just a hint of something going on in the exhaust note like it may have a little cam in there, but nothing to indicate that it would make 1hp/cid in pretty much "stock" trim.

Just to go back over the engine specs again since my thread got "de-railed for nearly a dozen pages. It's a 1974 Pontiac Super Duty 455, Eagle rods, Ross flat top pistons, exactly zero decked, custom ground HR camshaft 230/236/112, 1.65 rocker arms, factory cast iron Super Duty intake, factory 7044273 Super Duty Q-jet carburetor, factory Super Duty distributor (points).

The heads had some port work done to them in a previous life, but we did not flow test them......Cliff

That's one nice street engine, Cliff.

[PAUL K]

Great results! Thanks for taking the time to share the build and results.

[pontibeast]

Great job Cliff, maybe there is hope for me to hit 1HP per cu in after all. I have the same cam but my heads flowed 250/220 and it is with headers. I would be excited to see similar results. Thanks for going though all the questions and still providing your dyno results.

[61-63]

Good show thanks for the entire thread and build up information.

[Cliff R]

Thanks guys, the dyno test went very well, best part it didn't leak a single drop of oil anyplace, and had excellent oil pressure throughout the pulls, no unusual noises, etc.

We used a set of round port Tri-Y headers they had in the dyno room, not the cast iron manifolds, more as a convenience to get the exhaust to exit the dyno room more than anything else.

I glad we have closure on it, they are a LOT of work, this one dragged out about 5 months start to finish as we had a lot of obstacles to overcome from the ill fated previous build.......Cliff

[Nicks67GTO]

Great results Cliff. Do you think with 10.5:1 compression and a bit more cam and an HEI, it would squeak it over 500hp with the same manners? I've said it a hundred times but it's just a shame GM never let the super duty shine like it should have before the gas crunch in the 70s.

[Half-Inch Stud]

[QUOTE=Cliff R;5554054...but currently we are getting it done pretty good, we drive/race a half dozen cars out of our shop that are Pontiac powered, all of them are at or have exceeded any and all of our expectations for them in every area.........Cliff[/QUOTE]

See that's the problem. Great results, yet dis-agreement from only a few others.

When others' do it different, including my sorry approach, there's a buffet of results (performance parameters) that appear excellent, and the other attributes; some good enough particularly with rose colored glasses.

Like my case: it's all just greaat, except washing the CYLs with a super rich mixture to suffer the low idle Vacuum. Sure don't want to lose the attained great attributes upon a recommended cam change that relies on accurate DESCRIPTION of other fells's results.

Example:
Cliff advises (wisely) that i should use a 112 LSA, parked straight-up. Well i gots that but probably 10 degrees to much duration. Coworked (race engine developer) thinks i got a manifold-head vacuum leak.

Vizard advises (smugly) the popular V8 world to use "128" rule of thumb, that i should use 104 LSA (even103 for my low compression) with the right duration.

Worlds apart.

[ponjohn]

We see a lot of Pontiac dyno sheets with a dip in power before peak.

Why is that?

[ta man]

450hp at 4700rpm! That's a street engine!