New dyno video from Nick's Garage, this time with a Pontiac 400
 

A new video was posted yesterday by Nick's Garage, this time with a basic 400ci being broken in and tested. Thought you all might be interested in viewing.

YouTube LINK.

I just watched the entire video. I am sure many who watch this will be just aghast at the way Nick does things. But I will just say at least the guy is real. He is not editing out all the chaos that is very typical of every dyno session. If you run a dyno using all kinds of different engines, different configurations, many things your not familiar with, this would be very typical. Guy brings in a used engine with a new cam. Asks you to install the cam and different heads, supplies a carb that says it's running at 20:1 AFR. It's a tough deal for the shop and dyno operator. I will say that at our shop, we have a "dyno carburetor". It's a BLP 750 Holley mechanical secondary carb. It runs good on every engine we put it on. From a V-6 Buick to a 500 Cu In Chevy. I am not saying it's perfect, but you can make pulls and get a decent AFR. Good enough to isolate or eliminate carb problems from other stuff. The fact that he had 1 that was ultra rich and another that was ultra lean, didn't give him much to work with. I enjoy the videos, very realistic of a typical generic dyno session. The load bypass valve he was messing with is very difficult to adjust and sensitive. The engines that make allot of low RPM torque like a Pontiac, need lots of bypass water around the dyno turbine. This is because they need lots and lots of water at the beginning of the pull when the servo opens to brake and hold all the torque at low RPM's. The water has to bypass when idling or the engine would stall. It's not as easy as it looks to run a high torque/low RPM engine.

Yeah, I also found it somewhat surprising that for as big as Nick's shop is, he doesn't have a few "house" carburetors hanging around that can be used in situations like this. I certainly don't claim to be an expert when it comes to dynoing engines, but I've never felt that Nick's process was particularly different from how most others in the business likely do things. Gotta get the engine timed, make a few small pulls, sort out what needs sorting out, optimize the package you were given even if it's not ideal, and move on as best you can.

Being a Mopar guy, he probably had several Holley's and AFB's laying around. He admitted in the video he wasn't a Q-jet guy. With our BLP "house carb", we have a square bore/spread bore adapter, so we can put that carb on almost anything in 10 minutes. Again, it's not perfect, but if the engine runs better with an improperly jetted, adapter plated Holley than whatever piece of crap the customer brought in, we know where the problem is right away. It has been a huge time saver for us. I am just amazed with the horrible excuses for a carburetor (s), people bring in and expect to work properly on their new engine on the dyno. We had a 383 stroker SBC that made 55 more HP with our shop carb than the used Edelbrock based AFB he bought used. Not the place to cut corners!

I truly can’t believe he even tried a pull while having no secondary metering rods in the carb, and then he knowingly went in the full opposite direction with metering rods from a carb that was known to have a 20 to 1 ratio!
To me that’s flat out being abusive to a customers motor.

Can I get back the time I spent watching that video?

Have watch Nick's drama with Pontiacs before. I think they stress him out.
1. There is NO need to run 20- 50 weight oil, AFTER break in.. No need, Period. Is he scared, or just way too STP OLD SCHOOL?
2. That engine did Not need a Hi pressure pump.
After break in and warm up, he was still at 98 psi at just under 3k RPM. Waste of horse power and possible foaming if excellent oil isn't run.
3. After Warm up, engine coolant was at 160 ish. Should be at 180-185 anyway.
4 If he switched to 10-30 oil, the engine may loose 10 psi, but still would be way more than needed.
Why does he think its a large journal motor.?
I am Sure he has a "house" AFB. every mopar nut has half a dozen that are fine for pulls.
Lot of extra drama by the producer. In Real life, time is money, so 3 people at a dyno with issues knock this out in 30 min after break in.
Of Note, Nick doesn't Start tracking TQ or HP till 3k typically.... sad......

I don't understand why he titled the video "Problems Solved"? Did I miss something?

I think the problems were "solved" with a different carb & distributor after the video was filmed. He mentions it at the end of the video. Not the best video thumbnail given that us viewers don't get to see anything get fixed.

LOL and I seem to remember people complaining about those of us that complained about the last dyno session he did and yet here we go again :pound:

I'm seeing a pattern

I got the impression there's gonna be a second video where he fixes the problems. I am curious to see what it makes. He said he hoped for 330hp. With 48 heads and a RAIV cam it should do better than that. Sounds like the heads are probably not ported.

At the end of the video they talked about several fixes that were made - he changed plugs, put on one of his dyno room carbs (a Holley), and swapped on an HEI distributor. With those changes the engine made 352hp and 401.6 ft-lbs torque.

Ah! Thanks for that. He signed off so I stopped the video and moved on, didn't see the "addendum".

I still would have thought maybe a little more power than that.

Too many problems, Nick fault, the engine owner fault, the engine builders fault, the producers fault, nobodies fault, sun, moon and starts not lined up right, who cares. Just a bit too much "drama" for me and another half hour of my life gone that I'll never get back. I've been on the dyno with just about every Pontiac engine we ever built here and absolutely and for sure you NEVER go there with unknown or untested components, like carbs and distributors, for example. Even if/when I took customers MSD's or HEI's, or their carburetors I ALWAYS took my own "test mules" along in case we had issues. You can waste all your time dinking around with unknown parts and before you know it you've ate up an entire dyno day and don't know any more when your finished than when you started.

The heads wouldn't need porting of any kind to make excellent numbers.

Decades ago I tested a very "basic" 400 with untouched #16's on it. It EASILY made over 1hp/CID with the Crower 60916 and 60243 cams in it. The 16's are close enough to 48's that the engine Nick was testing should have been somewhere close it 380-400hp without much effort.......IMHO

Also the fact that he made the first pull with 36 degrees of timing proved that he knows little about Pontiacs , but besides that I would be hesitant to start off with 36 degrees in any type of motor even if I was running 112 octane fuel.

Here’s the first and last page from a year 2000 issue of muscle car review.
In the end the all stock RAIII ( far smaller cam then the RA4 in Nicks video) matched its factory rating of 366 to Nicks 350.
Nick, keep all those Mopars running substandard for us.
Thanks in advance!

Oh yes, as posted , I want my half hour of my life back and my data usage time!

Cliff
You're absolutly right...I to don't have time for Nick's Garage.
Dumb as a box of rocks

One thing to remember is YouTube creators need to keep pumping out content on a regular basis, so in this instance he may not have had time to get everything all set and ready to go perfectly before releasing the video.

For some reason, I can relate to "old school Nick" Here is why. At my school, we dyno all kinds of different engines, from early 1920's 4-cyl Fords, to fuel injected Kasse Boss 9 engines to everything in between. From a $500.00 backyard rebuild to a 20K really scienced out engine. The set-up is different on every one of them, and every one has problems from very minor to an oil pan full of water from breaking through a thin wall porting a head.
I don't want to make too many excuses for Nick, but his little videos look all too familiar to me. We run a Pontiac on our dyno maybe one out of 200 engines. Nick may be about the same. He is a Mopar guy and I assume his reference to "large journal" is in comparison to Mopar with their 2.750" mains. Just a guess. His move to a M54F oil pump was not a good choice to us "Pontiac people", but a common go to for a non-Pontiac guy. I have a very hard time believing it would hurt a thing on that engine. Might cost them 2-3 HP if they drop to 10w-30 oil like they should. Drama is why most people watch videos anyway. I wish he would learn more about Pontiac engines and produce better results. But he doesn't upset me.

That’s true Rtp, but some rocks we need, like the ones we process Mercury out of!
That being said I think the world ( and folks cars ) would roll a long better without Nick.

LOL you guys are harsher than I ever was in the last video he did with a Pontiac
:pound:

I didn't watch the video but it sounds like he's either had a worse time with this one or his practices were worse.

At least it sounds like he provided a timing reference this time as a base, and wasn't just moving the distributor around and making pulls, or was he.... :rolleyes:

Either way the comments are comical :D

Another thing!
Did anyone see the use of a knock sensor by him?

That would be yet another reason for me not to use his, or any other dyno shop that does not employ one.

It does not take long to harm a customers motor even with 95 psi of oil pressure!

And that level of oil pressure makes me wonder how long that customers distributor gear is going to last?

Almost every iron headed engine we've had liked 36°.

Yeah, with the old iron heads, they do tend to like 34-36 degrees, that's been my experience.

As far as distributor gear wear, that's a myth as far as I'm concerned. I've run 80 psi pumps in all my Pontiac builds, my Formula included which I daily drive and over the last 25 years logged about 100k miles on it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the distributor gear.

You guys must be running some really soft bronze gears or something.

Well the gear ware may be a myth for you you, but that was a long term high mileage concern for Pontiac engineering and the reason for the bigger distributor gear and smaller cam gear used with the SD455 motors.

I have used a stock iron gear with a roller cam for a ton of miles on the street when both are prepared right and with a oil feed hole in the gallery in front of both gears , but then again todays oils are far better then they where in 73.

I am fine with 36 or 42 degrees even if that’s what it ends up the motor needs and will not knock with.

My concern was starting off with 36 in the first place with the unknown functioning of that carb on the motor and his experience level with Pontiacs.

If your starting off with 36 as I have done to make the cam break in easier, that’s fine, but don’t do the first pull up at 36 without a knock sensor.

And here’s another point about that video, did he even change the oil and filter after cam break in and before the first pull, did I miss that or did he not do that?

I'll give ya that Steve, it's generally best to start lower and sneak up on it.

Nick’s Garage videos or others like Vice Grip, etc can be amusing but I can only take so much at a time.

Call it a YouTube channel or reality tv, they’ve still got a producer standing there doing their jobs trying to make it more entertaining, dramatic, humorous or heartbreaking. It’s a tried and true production formula that works for everything from classic cars to cooking to home remodeling to rescuing baby animals.

Is the show something outdoorsy like hiking or camping? Add gentle acoustic guitar. Something about big, powerful vehicles? Crank the gain knob on the electric guitar amp. Yawn.

Pontiacs are definitely NOT in Nick’s comfort zone. You can tell he’s uptight before he even starts any of them up, and he’s had a few.

Ah well, it’s still better entertainment for me than the Bachelorette or some phoney Judge baloney, haha.


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Why I have to keep wondering is.. Does You Tube pay Nicks producer voice over guy, and Nick, and the shop enough to tie up the Dyno for a whole DAY, and the expenses and labor?
I am betting so, and far beyond it.

Yes, me too. I even did a bunch of fast forwarding.

I constantly have to remind me wife when she takes a YouTube video to heart. I remind her ... it's just some guy with a camera, it could be your or me, there is no test you have to take, no guarantee of truth, no certification, no experience necessary .. nothing, it's just some guy with a camera in his back yard or basement. Doesn't mean they are all bad, or wrong, it just means it's some guy with a camera.

My wife tends to be one of those people who still kind of thinks ... if it's on TV it must be valid in some way (we usually watch on our smart TV). I watch a LOT of informational videos, after a while you see the clues as to whether this is a person you should listen to or not. Like a guy telling you how to setup a vineyard .... in his 100'x100' back yard ... probably not the guy to listen too.

Nick's target audience is definitely not knowledgeable, experienced people. His Keystone Cops style methodology does create a sort of drama that increases the entertainment value for people that just want to see a "big motor" run on a dyno. And if you read the comments by his viewers they think he's a genius. So it works for him.

I hope for the sake of his customers that this is just a Youtube persona and that he builds motors in a more meticulous manner.

I enjoy Nicks video's to. Not much editing just tackling issues as they come up. I do wonder what pump did he put in a SD pump? I also didn't see any Air/fuel being monitored unless I missed it.

What was wrong with setting the total timing to 36?

Our local engine builder doesn't do Quadrajets either

Nick’s a good guy. Bonafide Mopar “genius”. But he struggles with Pontiacs. And, I struggle watching it. And, it’s that way every time he has a Poncho mill on the stand.
Why make a pull when you know you don’t have a carb?
Why stab the timing at 36°, when all you know for sure is you don’t have the right carb and, it’s a 10.75/1 mill waiting to grenade on wrong timing and or fuel? Or, do we even know this?
Did we take in consideration the compression ratio when fueling or did we just dump 86 in it and expect it to actually run?
Literally makes my butt clinch up watching stuff like that. Glad it wasn’t mine.


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I have no idea how much income he generates from YouTube (that's a complicated algorithm that has to do with the number of subscribers, number of views, number of likes, any ad revenue, and probably the phase of the moon.) He does own his own dyno and it's sitting right there in his back room, so it's not like he's having to pay by the hour to run it. Also, dyno runs are just a portion of his business.

I also get the impression that he's slowly moving towards retirement - he's 66 years old and has made some comments about slowing down the business, and maybe running the place more like a hobby where he can just play around doing whatever he feels like. It appears he has fewer employees than he used to, so he apparently is taking in less general repair work.

I have my engine ready to dyno now. 90% anyway. I hope to have better luck than Nick! But you never know until you get it running. Should have some results by the weekend.

Yup, all mine too.

Very nice!

I hope you exceed the power levels your hoping for guys!

Oh, by the way I assume your first pull will be with the metering Rods in both the Carb, unlike they way Nick started out.lol!

"Nick’s a good guy. Bonafide Mopar “genius”. But he struggles with Pontiacs."

You can specialize in one type of Detroit V-8 engine but you should never be WAY off the mark with any of the others....IMHO

The last time I looked all of them were not much more than 8 round pistons moving up and down in 8 round holes. With all brands you are working with CID, compression ratio, head flow and camshaft choice. Unlimited information at your fingertips if you venture into any of them and no reason so come up with a complete "turd" no matter what you end up with. Of course it helps to stick with the "name brands" that have more of them out there and better parts support. I've done just about every type out there at this point and using the same "basic" rules for all brands have done very well with them.

To date I've never done a Buick or Cadillac and never plan on it, unless you count the GN Buick turbo V-6's and I did half a dozen of those back when that was the trick of the week.

Looking back thru all the years and all the engines I've worked with I'd put the Chevrolet 327 and Mopar 340 at the top of the pile, at least for what you put in vs the return. I also consider the Pontiac 400 an excellent engine and there is no need to build one that doesn't make great power on pump gas if that is your goal for the project. 1hp/cid is literally falling out of a tree, you don't even need to touch the heads anyplace, just use good ones, around 10 to 10.5 compression, super tight quench, all pretty much stock internals for oil pump, timing set, connecting rods and top them with a good piston. You don't need an aftermarket intake, carb or distirbutor.

Just squeeze it hard, top it with good heads, good cam selection and reap the benefits. As good as 400's are most folks jump very quickly to the 455 and stroker variants of them. Oh for sure they make great power, but the parameters aren't nearly as good as the 3 3/4" stroke platforms.

Here's a case in point. I helped a local customer with a 400 build. Nothing really special about it other than KRE ported the #62 heads for it. Very "basic" short block with a modern rod and forged piston in it, Crower 60243 cam, stock 1968 iron intake, recalibrated factory Q-jet, recurved stock distributor. In his 1968 Firebird backed by one of my TH350's, custom torque converter and 3.73 gears it runs high 11's on DOT's. It also runs around 114-116mph showing that the "little" 400 with iron heads, factory intake and carb is making great power. I know folks who have 455's with twice the momey in them and all sorts of aftermarket parts bolted on that don't run that quick..........Cliff

Very true. Not sure why so many Pontiac enthusiasts think their brand of engine is so different from any other. As far as tuning, building the engine and making HP, they all take a similar approach.

Agree. My favorite Chevrolet small block is the 327. Built right it's a great package that works very well.

And yes, can't count how many expensive 450+ci engine builds with aluminum heads and thumpy cams running around here that can't fall out of a tree. Sad to see stuff like that at the track that can barely crack the 13's in decent air.

Looks like he got peak HP at 5000 RPM...shouldn't a 400 with an 041 be peaking at least 500 rpm higher than that?

Yes!
Even though that 400 was not running the 1.65 rockers to match the intended use of that Cam it should have peaked higher.

Get., I mean the smaller 744 Cam peaker higher then 5K

The engine doesn't even sound like it has a "RAIV" cam in it, nor is it making the numbers a RAIV cam will make in a Pontiac 400 build with #48 heads on it.

There are simply a LOT of things amiss with that build, and even with the blurb at the end how they bolted on a Holley and swapped out the points distributor for an HEI and saw improvements, the numbers just aren't there.

I'll add here that the RAIV is really not the best choice for a 400 engine unless you've pretty much patterned it after the original RAII and RAIV engines. Those engines had high compression, and round port heads, plus the factory made sure the cars they went into had pretty tall rear gears.

I've found from building 400's here with "D" port heads, or even KRE aluminum "D" ports that I can make about the same HP with a slightly smaller cam and enjoy more vacuum at idle, improved throttle response, and more power and efficiency in the "normal" driving range. With over 80 degrees of overlap the RAIV cam just bleeds off too much cylinder pressure in 400 builds for street use. It only works OK at 10 to 1 compression, better around 10.5 and starts to shine pretty good up near or just over 11 to 1.

I actually had a customer once have his RAIV engine rebuilt and the "builder" lowered the compression by machining a dish in a TRW forged piston and installing a "modern" lobe profile cam dubbed as having "RAIV specs". Down at 9.5 to 1 it was a complete "turd" even with the "modern" camshaft in it and he ended up having it done again with flat tops, tight squish, real RAIV cam, and closer to 11 to 1 compression. Even clear up there it managed 92-93 octane without issues. That clearly show us how much cylinder pressure you bleed off the RAIV cam in a 400 build.........

What I heard was Nick was given an engine and parts to change by his customer.

He had to look at the heads to even know which heads they were. He was probable told it was an 041 cam and would not know the difference if it was not

Stan

Is there someone I have never heard of that has made a qjet work with no secondary metering rods? LOL

Some later Carter carbs have a spray bar/air bleads ( for lack of a better word, Cliff likely knows the correct term) on the leading side of the secondary air door to distribute fuel as the air door opens, instead of metering rods. Maybe someone got the carbs types confused and forgot to put the metering rods in…:)

I used fast forwarding thru much of the video. But I did catch the part were he said the engine was standard bore yet, had low oil pressure, and was more or less a used engine from one of the owner’s friends. So no big shock it didn’t put up very big dyno numbers. Looked like the owner didn’t give Nick much to work with.


At just over 100 lbs oil pressure we have sheared the timing gear/cam keys. After having a couple of them shear. I get a little nervous when the oil pressure get’s up to 100.

I don't get it, at 4:55 into the video Nick is heard to say that in 1976 he worked for Pontiac for 5-6 years. You mean to tell me if he worked for Pontiac in that time period, he was not sure what #48 heads were. He also said that the customer wanted these heads because they were from 1969. At that time, he would have run across GTO's and Trans Am's with those heads. Also, why would you test a Pontiac with a chevy quadrajet that you would have no clue what the primary or secondary jets are. You would be much better taking to customers quadrajet
and rebuild it. Sorry this build has many problems. Putting in a oil pump that gets you 100PSI cold nuts. That was the 20W-50 oil and an SD-455 oil pump. With stock weight oil that pump was known to blow oil filters off cold winter starts. When my SD-455 was rebuilt Nunzi switched out the 80 psi spring for a 60psi so I wouldn't have to worry about that problem. Because I was not running the engine to 6,500 rpm.

Jay you make a great point!

I don’t think I would be going out on limb by saying that I don’t think there is any racing situation where you could get a Q-jet to work with no secondary metering rods in it.

Even if by some form of magic you did I can’t see the biggest needle and seat that could put in that carb keeping up with the fuel demand of those big now rodless holes!

I would not hire him.

While it may peak @ 5000 RPM it really starts to layover @ 4700 RPM. I cannot believe that the cam the customer gave Nick was a RAIV / 041 cam.

Stan

To be clear, he worked at a Pontiac dealership during that time period, not for corporate Pontiac. As for this particular engine, he didn't build it, it was furnished to him by the owner who supplied the parts; my understanding is those particular cylinder heads were installed to reduce compression. Also, he said at the beginning of the video that the runs would be only done to 5,000rpm, I assume that was at the direction of the owner but don't know that for a fact.

There is no way that was a RAIV cam. It was pulling 17” Hg under 1000 rpm and idled like Catalina wagon.
It’s a video for people who don’t know any better. I still enjoyed it more than a lot of the mindless drivel on YouTube