Road Race Engine On Dyno
 

482 cubic inch
4.25 x 4.25
AllPontiac aluminum block
KRE High Port heads as-cast (330 advertised cfm)
Bullet Ultradyne SFT cam. 259/267 at .050"; 0.606" net lift with 1.65
Northwind intake
Dale Cubic-prepped 1150 Dominator
HEI distributor and MSD 6AL box
Runing on 50% 90 octane pump gas and 50% VP110
The goal was 600+ hp.

Break-in yesterday went great! Outer springs only, 2500 rpm for a half hour.
No metal in oil

(17) power pulls today.
Had a nagging mid-range misfire and it was impossible to get a consistent timing set because the marks were bouncing around.

Final conclusions:

Dale Cubic dominator is terrific.
Mechanical package of engine is bulletproof.
HEI distributor was junk. Ended up trying an MSD distributor and it cleared up the misfire.

Ended up with 601.4 hp at 5900 rpm and 623.8 ft-lbs at 4400 rpm.
591 ft-lbs at 3500 rpm!
Best power at 36 deg total timing
Wide power band should be easy to drive without lots of shifting.

Eric

Very nice! Is the car ready for the engine?

No, lots to still do on the car. Carpet and seats took a lot of time to get right. Transmission rebuild going slow.

Eric

Very nice!
What's the compression?

10.5 compression

Eric

Wet sump?
Oil nozzles to cool pistons?
Great appearing car! (no fender-banging, please...)

Very nice!

Very nice.600 hp that'll will get you into the corners quicker and out quicker.

The motor looks great . I like the colors .

Nice numbers

Good luck with it!

Wet sump. Melling 80 psi pump with Tin Indian bottom plate, Canton T-pan.

I thought about leaving it natural aluminum, but it just looked too generic. So I went with my favorite Pontiac blue.

I went to an open track day at Mid-Ohio last fall just to watch and learn. I got to talking to a few of the regulars about my project. They were amazed to hear I was building a Pontiac engine and one of them said "as long as you can make 450 hp, you should be able to keep up with the pack". Hehehe ;)

Eric

Are those out of the box from
Kre 330 hi ports? Did you happen to flow them? Do you think an iron block would have made much more power?
This was cammed to peak that low I assume ? That’s pretty nice flat tappet combo for sure

Yes, right out of the box. I chose them because I wanted nice flow and heavy walls. No paper thin porting. Did not flow them, but I'm sure the 330 cfm rating is based on the higher lift of a roller cam. SFT is reliable old school.

I don't guess that an iron block would make more power. My main goal here was taking weight off the front of the car to get closer to 50/50 weight distribution.

As far as the cam, I told Tim Goolsby that I wanted to make at least 600 hp, didn't want to run above 6500 rpm and wanted a wide power band. Nailed it! That cam doesn't want to idle below 1000 rpm, but OMG it's happy and sounds badass idling at 1200.

Eric

Power plot looks real good. The Big Stroke Pontiac ought be extremely competitive inroad racing. Even better with a TH400.

HEI questions: locked timing showed time bounce!! aftermarket?, ground wire?, Rotot-Post Phased? Front Damper TQ'd ?!

I've experienced an aftermarket HEI having poor performance, but did not see why.

Had problems with the HEI right out of the gate. It was a used HEI that came with the car Eric bought. I took it apart, cleaned and lubed everything. It had the mechanical advance slot welded to give about 20 crank degrees total. No vacuum advance. I installed a new pick-up coil. No module. It was just triggering an MSD. When setting total timing it was jumping around approx. 4-5 degrees @ 3500 RPM. Didn't like it but what to do. Made a few pulls and it did OK. But as the day wore on it began missing and got worse and worse. Finally, I watched the timing with a light all the way to 5500 RPM. It would advance normally, but jittery up to about 4000 RPM to total timing number, then begin RETARDING! Taking 15-18 degrees back out of the total timing at 5500 RPM. That will make an engine run terrible. From 5500-6500 it began advancing again which is why peak HP was always within 5-6 HP. Pretty weird and a good reason to not use mechanical advance in this situation. Installed a borrowed MSD locked-out distributor and the timing was rock solid 1200-6500 RPM's. Lesson learned and 4 hours wasted.

VERY NICE !

A fwiw, reported as cast flow numbers for the HP head :

Intake Exhaust
.100 85 71
.200 170 129
.300 234 179
.400 284 221
.500 316 248
.600 322 263
.700 331 270


.

Here's one of the pulls with the HEI timing going all over the place.

Eric

The whole philosophy of this engine is to be super reliable and fun to drive.

I'm going to have a 7000 chip in the rev limiter but the whirling parts should be good for lots more.

Crower 4.25", 3.00 main billet crank.
Molnar "power adder" steel rods
Ross pistons
80 psi pump, with oil cooler and dual filters

My goal is to have the full team...Mike, Tim, Dave, Michael, Lori and the dogs...be able to come to the track and not have to fix anything. Just watch, eat hot dogs and tell Pontiac stories.

Eric

Good to know. So at my .606" net lift, I should be around 322 cfm.

Eric

We had high hopes and lots of optimism at the start of the day Thursday. Then the Mike Tyson quote (in my signature) kicked in.

Eric

Do you think you could run it safely on straight pump gas?

The engine sounds amazing.

Yes, the plan was to be able to drive it on the street on pump gas.
But for the sake of being extra safe, it will have the 50/50 mix on the street and mostly VP 110 leaded when I'm running it hard on the track.

Eric

What a great build.

I hope you kick some arse!

Nice build!

What it the height with the High Ports and Northwind/Dominator under the hood? Scoop on the hood?

I haven't installed the engine with high ports and northwind in the car yet. It's gonna be pretty close and need a custom scoop base. I want to keep the shaker functional.

Eric

I dont think other makes realize the instant torque of a Pontiac. I would think coming off a corner would be very telling. If you ever come to Beaver Road course in Pa. near Beaver Falls I'd like to be there.

Great job! Thanks for sharing.

Formerly Beaver Run? Raced motorcycles there many years ago, soon after it was built. Back then facilities were minimal but the track was excellent.

Well, Roger Bolliger's Trans Am is putting down 700 HP and 670 lbs of torque and is killing it.
You guys ought to do pretty well with 600 HP and 590 tq.
Going to make some Chebby drivers wonder what hit them when that thing pulls around them coming out of a corner.
Pontiac's TTF.

Great Job Eric and Team!

I built a 350 Pontiac for a circle track guy and he was killing all the 350 Chevy guys. For two years in a row he was Champion and then the sanctioning body made it mandatory to run a 350 Corporate engine. They said it was to keep costs down but I know he had less money in that Pontiac than most of those Chevy guys. They spent more more and got way less torque... and trophies!
Pontiac's Rule!

The first thing I noticed about my High Ports were how heavy and solid they felt picking them up . Nice beefy head with plenty of room to port should you ever want to.
Mine have a 2.20 valve and with a little bowl work they go 352cfm @ .700 and 359cfm @ .800 lift. So they are done just past .700 lift in my case.
I will be looking forward to hearing about your guys latest Pontiac effort.
Can you put up a vid of the engine so we can hear how it sounds ?

Is that what's now Pittsburgh International in Wampum, PA?

Eric

I believe so never been there. From net track looks nice. My good Pontiac friend Gary lives near there. John Labuda (56 Pontiac gasser at Norwalk) races his Fiero there. John says he helped there to get his' feet wet'. I always wanted to road race always(Herb Adam's ,Chaparrals). Drag was cheaper.
ELarson are you running leaf spring rear suspension? I still have that 74 good TA shell.

Good Job Eric, and team. I will have to come and watch you race at a event in Michigan or Ohio.

Tom V.

Just curious, what LSA is the camshaft, and did you try a spacer on the intake?

Congrats on the build! I like it!

You should be able to get some sort of air :filter in there if you build a custom base. If you were running a Victor, not a chance. When I switched mine from a Victor to the Northwind the clearance difference was pretty drastic. Highports are great but that extra 1/2" in intake height they add is a pain.

Edit: With highports, Victor, and Dominator

http://lstwo.com/images/63210040766489787337.png

http://lstwo.com/images/78098847680121277851.jpeg

Eric, it ought to be fun watching the faces of all the LS guys when you out accelerate them out of the curves! With that torque curve you could stay in fourth or third most of the time.

Ultradyne lobes # F4 and F19.
Tim wanted to do 112 LSA to give a broader power curve. But there were no cores available at the time so he reground an old cam that I had and could only get 108 LSA out of it. The dyno numbers look pretty broad on this one, but I'll put it on the track and see how it feels.

Didn't consider a spacer since I'm already in a bind on shaker clearance.

Eric

so the HEI had spark scatter for reluctor driving the MSD-6: whether 1-side grounded or twin wire balanced into the MSD-6, i figure electrical interference.

..just not an HEI without the 4-pin Module. Giving a full-up HEI a chance without the MSD-6 might be nice.


Aside from the dizzy stuff, the rest of the build is super.

If he was married to the OE HEI, the next test would have been to lock out the mechanical advance in the HEI Dist. and make a pull. That would have separated electrical from a mechanical advance issue for certain. But after chasing the problem for over 4 hours, the quickest test was to install a known good distributor. We did that and it was clean as can be on the next 4 pulls at various total timing settings. Personally, never been a fan of HEI anyway. Big, clunky distributor always in the way, crammed up against the firewall. Integrated coil always overheating the cap and burning through the rotor. I understand many, many people love them and have good luck with them. Just not my favorite unless a restoration. Just like my insistence on always running a 80 LB oil pump in all my performance builds. Many people think that's just a stupid waste of a 1/2 HP.

I started the day a fan of the HEI.
Ended the day never planning on using one again.

Eric

Eric I have had real good luck with the DUI HEIs.

Funny you should mention DUI ignition. The Supercharged Studebaker I posted about in another thread was on the dyno just before Eric's Pontiac. The Studebaker was a special GM DUI HEI grafted on to a Studebaker base. It worked fine until they turned up the boost on that engine. When they increased the boost above 8 PSI, they began to have some misfire and ignition issues. We decreased the plug gap to about .022" and it ran better but not as well as a point ignition Studebaker distributor they had as a back up triggering an MSD 6 with Blaster coil. Just don't think HEI has enough spark energy for boosted or high RPM operation. I could certainly be wrong, but the last two engines on the dyno have had HEI issues. Don't know the history of the Studebaker DUI, how old or how many miles on it.

I think HEI performance is inherently excellent IF the HEI is setup properly:

RELUCTOR:
Proper pickup coil winding (CW vs CCW) by wire color. No flipping coil over.
Proper magnet sense (N vs S) for proper voltage spike sense. No random magnet flip.
Inspection of RELUCTOR signal sense for proper triggering: going - then + vs going + vs -.

If you are already squeemish then go random with such (for giggles?) or sell your HEI.

4-Lead Module
Regardless of GM vs GM 990 vs aftermarket, or yellow vs White
You check for variable dwell function with your Dwell meter.
I've measured a batch of Modules and found 1 without dwell (chucked it), another with dwell vary too low, and interestingly 1 with more dwell variation than the GM Modules.

I have "remoted" the module with a heatsink onto Firewall for hot Summer posterity. No real benefit except i geek out about Silicon electron mobility and beta vs temperature. Boy a GaN HEI module would be SOA.

Button
Only use the low resistance button: about 3-10 Ohms. High resistance buttons. Are 3000-10,000 OHMs and will heat up super hot in our kind of use.

Plug Gap
0.035" to 0.40" ought to do. There may be better statements on this due to GND Lug design, side-gapping, aircraft 4-GND posts. I don't figure ANYBODY is using a recessed plug tip (scared turtle spark) like some lawn movers might use.

CAP
Brass posts for proper spark jump-Land. Rotor are always the proper metal for consistent spark jump.
AL posts corrode after each spark to allow the spark to land on various spots across the posts, for many degrees in variation per spark. AL post are/were stooopid bad for wver being let for Production.

Wires
I donta care what wire philosophy you got, just check the total resistance of each wire to be > 18,000 Ohms for the longk wires, and > 9,000 Ohms for the short ones. A fella might run "equal-length copper or nickel wire" wires for theoretically best spark delivery. Shielded aircraft wited & plugs would be best, but nobody achieves such best because unshielded is best-enough.

Dizzy GND; add a robust GND wire from Dizzy cup to Head. You'll get rid of troubles with the GND wire, and may save a dizzy gear from EDM.

Dizzy Power;
Yada yada use the copper wire 18-16 14? gauge wire to power source, I replace the fuse block wire with GM copper wire from some other used harness run. Supply wire matters for reliability, so dress the wire run to endure flexure and vibration.

Rotor Phasing
Make a spare cap with hole at post #6 so you can visually verify the spark jump tracks across the #6 post with advance sweep. If you don't then keep complaining about craap results. ADJ by slotting VAC Can mount to allow adv-ret walk of rotor-post phasing.

Mech ADV
I donta know about other's results, but my results involve the basic 139 weights and intentional Center post, mounted for Pontiac rotation. Must lay Post and weights down for PMD CCW rotation. I use heavy springs to mitigate ping on hi-compr, and continue than with my 9.0:1 deal. No idea if spark jumping around under hard accel. Many HEI images show Chevy weights setup for CW rotation...which be wrongk for PMD, and run poorly in CCW PMD. This is the Race section right, so you got this.

Vac ADV; i think the ADV range (or VAC level for max?) is stamped on the bracket. Usually too much ADV for high compression PMD combos. I zig-zag the Rod to reduce ADV range and attain rotor-post phase, as-needed. Have a selection of Cans. If in doubt run Ported Vac, and try Manifold Vac if the combo permits (think Chevy ran manifold vac). When I run Vac Adv, I run with Ported Vac.
Set TIMING
Race Section, You got this.

I wrote a Tech Paper (unpublished) for myself on the HEI build. Didn't refer to it herein, but avail upon request. So did some other PY guy (shurkey?) with a decent total capture.

Does the MSD-6 have variable dwell, for best coil charging vs RPM ?

I have held the MSD-6, et al, yet i find it difficult to inspect the build or repair. Who does?

Many times it’s the basics that need to be insured.

Any HEI or DUI needs a voltage never less then 13.7 and as the rpms and or the charge in the cylinders gets denser the wire powering it better be of a gauge thick enough to provide 10 amps just to be on the safe side .
Wire resistance going up due to engine compartment heat or too small of a gauge will bite you in the hind quarters every time!

Posts #44 and #46 make excellent points about HEI and how to make them work properly. After bashing them in a couple of posts, I can point out 2 things I actually like about them. 1. When working correctly, the all in one design is kind of nice. 2. The huge cap in theory reduces the possibility of cross fire vs a small diameter cap. On the engine in question, the distributor was not carefully addressed like HIS spelled out. I did replace the pick-up coil with a new Echlin unit. It came assembled with the coil, housing and magnet. Green and white wires for CCW rotation. All I did was set the air gap. The springs and weights were cleaned and re-installed. I have no idea if any of those parts were correct or made for CCW rotation. The HEI distributor came out of a running Pontiac drag race car that ELarson bought. I assumed it functioned correctly. (Always Dangerous). No module used so can't comment about that. If nothing else, it proves once again you CAN NOT assume anything is going to be correct on a 60 year old engine. Everything must be tested and verified. Thank goodness for an engine dyno to track down and fix this. On a road course, this problem could have taken a really long time to find and fix. It was rather subtle and peak HP wasn't really effected. We were sure it was a fuel delivery issue initially but once again, data from the dyno proved that to not be the case. (air flow and fuel flow). Finally I should mention that battery voltage to an HEI or MSD for that matter is critical as mentioned. We typically have a charger on the dyno battery maintaining 13.2-13.4 VDC when pulling. We seldom run the engine charging system on the engine dyno.

Not of great importance to original post but when i retro'ed in a HEI into my 1970 bird along with replacing the original coil resistor wire that i upgraded to a (12G) wire and also utilized the ignition post (12G) on the starter solenoid and T'ed into my new (12G) HEI power wire so during cranking there is a more direct under hood ignition power source from the HEI to positive Batt terminal

Plus i grounded the dist body and used a low resistance button reduced spark plug gaps, did all that in around 2004 not a peep of trouble and quick starts

As mentioned earlier in the threads, I never had good luck with the HEI parts and
I have had outstanding luck with a MSD/FORD SVO Box (POTTED NASCAR PART) for many many years under boost conditions.

Happy some have been able to get the things to work. My 1978 TA went thru several of
the pieces (UNDER WARRANTY) in the time I owned it.

Tom V.

Toughest HEi looksy for me is assuring the Magnet sense is correct for PMD. See, either you need a good compass, or a known-PMD HEI magnet p-Reluctor assy and go by the impressions on the magnet.

BTW the china compasses will re-magnetize after checking them a few times and start showing South for North. Toss em!

So, it greatly helps to have a PMD specific reference reluctor laying around to sort out the build parts. Otherwise, a geek-out effort with a scope or voltmeter to identify/assure the pos or neg going pulse, and the Ref needed for the Module's specifiec pulse sense. The pulse goes neg then Pos, or goes Pos then Neg, so a visual scope is best.