Creative "Rules Interpreter" Jon Kaase Talks Hidden Horsepower

now the whole engine performance Expo is really about getting into the minds of some of the greatest that are out there in the engine building world and total seal piston rings has been a leader in that creating the hidden horsepower podcast uh you can find it on Apple podcast Spotify SoundCloud the totalseal.com website or wherever you get Podcast uh I am the host but I'm just the luckiest guy on the planet to be able to do it because we have such great guests rock stars in the industry like this guy nine time engine Master Mr John Causey and of course Lake speed junior is back and we're gonna do a little hidden horsepower live right now as part of the engine performance Expo and John I'm sure you're super excited about that yeah we're ready we're ready yeah like and and we have peppered this guy with questions so up there already but it wasn't quite in person and so what I would like to to start it off with is uh you know an origin story a foundational story like we all know your career since then but take me back to the what was it the back seat of a 1964 tripower GTO where you went from you've heard that story normal kid to my older sister uh she had a boyfriend and came over with this planet GTO 64. Try Power you know it had a deep urine and stuff and I had never ridden in a car this fast you know I mean your parents my parents weren't Racers you know right your dad's a dentist right okay yeah parents typically try to not endanger their kids yeah and I didn't know a car was any faster than what we drove so anyway we go down the street he bangs through the gears in that thing and it ruined my life it really it really didn't but it changed my life you know it was like I that was it I mean I was hooked from then on you know and it was it was more than just going fast it was like just the sound that it made with the four speed yeah and those whiny gears you know the old muncies made all kinds of Racket because there's all kinds of garbage in them and whirling around sound like a turban you know but I remember that to the day I died running in that guy acceleration just putting it back in the seat and it had a deep here here so you know we ran through all the gears you know on the city streets yes and your sister was part of this oh yeah there was four of us in the car you know no seat belts you know Cleveland Ohio right well God looks after pools right yeah but anyway um you know that kind of started it off and I was I was just kind of getting to the point of thinking about cars I was only about 13. and uh my dad helped me get a Nash Metropolitan when I was 13. and and you know we lived in the city so we're going out in a country so I I couldn't drive it on the street but I drove it up and down the driveway thousands of times you know and did burnouts with it and everything you don't have a stick shift and but I I learned cars you know and and uh you know we disassembled it I took the rods and pistons out put it back together all that stuff wow so you know I was always kind of interested and I worked on lawn mowers and you know I had my lawnmower repair money from where I worked on lawnmowers and stuff and but by the time I was 16 I had a 66 Comet this was 1968. it was so it was only a couple year old cars common cyclone and I bought it stripped out and I got an engine and put in and so by the time I got my driver's license my car was ready you know and at the same time I met a couple of guys that you know there's a couple life-changing experiences and and for me it was like I met this guy Ron Baker and Bill Ralph and Bill Ralph was an engine builder uh close to me and he was only in his late 20s started a shot but anyway he helped me through these engines and stuff and I ended up going to work for him part-time and I really learned a good bit of my engine business from you know skills from him now was that in Ohio right yeah yeah it's up around Cleveland okay so it's right around the corner from my house like I could almost walked there right so it was just it's just lucky you know so I met him and and I worked for him for a while but I learned a lot of stuff from that guy well you know and then so I raced that car for about six years I actually had a Mustang too but you know it was 11 second car in 1969 you know I mean it has a 427 finally and and then I met up with a guy Larry Ford and we built a Pro Stock Pinot in 1975 when Pro Stock was at its beginning yeah and uh we did good with it you know I built the engines he built the car he drove it and we we qualified it Gator Nationals and indy and some of that stuff and we finally wrecked the car so we weren't sure with how we're going to rebuild it but it was end of 1976. we I met Dino Dan in that time so we raced with him right yeah and he was just the best guy for meeting and talking to it didn't matter who you were he had no system anybody he would talk to and be nice to and um so that's the other profound effect on somebody's life you know right I went to work for him and uh I wanted to get out of Ohio winter was there it was 18 you know he lived in California you know yeah yeah I can imagine this day you're driving your car in January in Cleveland and you're like I'm out of here I'm done you know and he needed a crew chief and I wanted to get out and I was done with college and stuff so I know I'll do this for a while so I went to work for him and you know of course working for him I met everybody you know oh California at that time oh yeah Mickey Thompson and all those people so um but we we had really good luck the first year he won his NHRA Championship you know and uh so I worked for him for about three years but I wasn't going to make a really good living at it because I mean nobody had any money yeah you know and you know you can't you can't live with 200 a week no you know and at that time I met my future wife Linda we and we had got married and stuff and you know we just need to do something else not to live on the road out of the suitcase so yeah I start my own business into 79 and then almost immediately we started working on big engines for Ricky Smith he had a car that Rao should built it was Oak Ridge Boys sponsored car yeah and we're here at Tennessee today Boss 429 and we did good with it and we did really good with it you know we started building more and really fast forward to now things just kind of progressed um so your shop was in California though no no no no Georgia Georgia so when you yeah when I'm shop you moved no no with Nicholson he had a place he had a place in California a place in Atlanta and we spent most of our time in Atlanta because most of the match races was Back East okay so so it wasn't I didn't even have to move when I started my own shop I was already in an apartment okay in Atlanta so um but you know 20 about I rented spaces and stuff about 20 years ago we built a building and that's where I'm at right now so it's kind of grown it's grown a lot you know we still do big engines for about 25 years we did nothing but big engines yeah you know big Ford drag racers oh yeah and then um that's why I first heard of you were Mountain Motor Pro Stock that was you were the king then we started branching out and we you know we started making some cylinder heads you know on our own and getting things done and and uh so now we've got several avenues that we work in you know we we do um the Marine stuff yeah we do some Marines you know some of them are called super cats where they're uh it's a it's a race boat yeah a big boat but they're big Chevys and we work on those and then we've got the unlimited stuff which is it was the Geico team and it's still a team it's just going to be changing their name but uh we we won a championship with them you know and these are 180 mile an hour boats yeah they're big multiple engines too right yeah twin turbo two engines they call them a Mercury qc4 so today we work on those qc4s we're one of the few people that really work on them because they're no they're a little difficult but Mercury really doesn't like anybody else working on them there's a twin overhead cam yeah okay yeah it's like a huge coyote motor with twin turbos yeah that's yeah why not it's a masterpiece it really is so we work on those and and on those big big offshore boats and some of them are poker runs okay yeah so we do those you know we build cylinder heads and uh cylinder heads from scratched or Boss 429 stuff like original basketball 29 and we build manifolds for those and uh you know valve covers and stuff like that and then we've got a wedge head that we build it's you know 460 style looking it looks like a passenger car but they'll make 1200 horse if you do it right yeah now also though you were you got into this Southeast gasters thing right you were yeah testing yesterday right yeah we were testing the Shady Side yesterday one of those old cars with the straight axles and stuff and it's everything like 1966 you know you can't be yeah I'm gonna tell you what it's a man's race car it's hard because they're clutch four speeds yeah as you said yeah plus four speeds no RPM limiters and it's just like it was in the 60s and they're you know if their quarter mile cards would be low eight seconds so they're fast you said they're straight axle too straight axles they're all over the place they do wheel stands it's a cool deal so we've got a lot of different things going and you know today besides me there's 10 other guys working with me right you know and every one of them's first class they're all the best there is yeah so you know and if some some of them are I've got a wide range of guys I got a guy that's 21 I got a guy that's 77. you know and I did a little math coming here you know all together we got 350 years of building three experience 350. a little bit with 11 guys yeah got a first class team of guys oh I had no doubt about it yeah it's and you've been here oh yeah exactly it's a it's really I hope it's a fun place you know I love coming here it's like if I go near Atlanta I'm coming to your shop we get a lot done but yeah um well this way I've never walked in the door at his shop and not seen him standing at a machine making Parts ever I've never caught you on the phone either on the dyno or you're running a lathe fortunately you know cliff and Doug do a lot of the phone stuff and I I really I love Machining Parts I love Dino and I like working on engines especially like working on a new project that's different yeah but this this is a tough business and I'm you know I'm not really that excited about running a business anymore you know my my guys do a really good job at it and well the farther I am back in the building the better off everybody is I think well I think the last time I was in the shop you were actually working on a set of heads for one of those gastro Motors yeah I will tell you we're not going to do many of those because it's a money loser you know a lot of work yeah but you know maybe somebody took place of the engine Masters this year because there wasn't one right yeah you know they're getting something they've closed that down for a while so um sometimes yes right let's talk about that nine times that's the challenge right I like to have to be a challenge I like to come up with a challenge yeah well that's a challenge that was a lot I missed it this year it's like when it gets when the weather starts getting cool start thinking I should be in there working on that well there was nothing to work on this time you know because they put it to rest for a while but yeah um we'll uh we'll see what happens in the future they might pick it back up again race winning Brands talked about it but did you have your planned out uh entry did you already figure out what you were going to do yeah I had one started I was going to build a little Ford but um you know and some of them are disaster some of them aren't that good and some of them really are good so right you know well the one I think everybody if you've known about the engine Masters and heard about John I think the one that probably is the most iconic one is the valve seat oh that well you mean the Edsel motor with the chamber this yeah that explain for those who haven't watched or don't know please explain you'd kind of have to look and find it on YouTube or something yeah it was a 58 Edsel engine that the chamber was just extended down into the bore about an inch you know it was done with a big huge piece of brass but very hard to explain but you could find pictures because essentially was it was it you couldn't a valve job on it right something like that but they didn't say anything about a gasket so you actually made it was almost an unlimited set of rules but um it basically space the heads up off the block about an inch and just made the head taller but it was mostly because the chamber came down it made the valve balls deeper and well there's something to that now let me tell you right I mean it was good but it was basically take a whole Billet piece of copper or in this case weather Ray copper was more like a well LeBron and Chambers were around pieces about like this about an inch thick it just stuck in there and and then the there was an aluminum piece that went around them just face them up but it was a one in a lifetime project but it worked worked good oh yeah yeah go to YouTube find it what year was that engine Masters 17 17 yeah you just go check it out later on because you you will not be sorry for investing that time in your life and you uh you had the courage to go into that competition with a Pontiac that's exactly what I was thinking and and I wanted to do something different than the Ford and the Pontiac was it qualified number one but the one time I burned it up was you know they're pumped gas and yeah I think I had a piece of gasket when a jetters anyway it wasn't my year and I you know yeah it happens one of my really good friends won and I was glad for him so I mean that's the way it is he's not going to win them all no well you and Bischoff were back and forth me yeah y'all were Fierce competitors in that Tony is as good as it gets yeah I mean is really tough and I really enjoyed I'm showing again I'm sure you did yeah I think twice one time he beat me by one horsepower another time I beat him by five horsepower or something else I mean so he was you know he hasn't done it as much but lately but um he's super competitive that's cool so well I don't want to say something yes so we made a mission earlier the number one segment from the first Expo was you doing your video that's what I was going to bring up okay well no because it's it's the it's the point go ahead continue well the thing is literally two weeks ago John I'm in a guy's shop and he points out the uh Scotch Brite disc he caught it the John Causey disc yeah you know just well it was just a bunch of Handy things that that we've come up with over you know 50 years of Building engines right really the most of them were from the last 10 years yeah but um yeah a lot of them were different because yeah like I told you before I made a mission at the beginning of the show that original presentation you gave was at aetc yeah some of probably like 10 years ago yeah they were all bits and pieces from other presentations right which was great to be able to share with everybody but they're uh then they need to know how to go and find that on your it's literally the last year's stuff yeah but uh there's a lot of things on there if you build engines it will help you it's very cheap to do things oh yeah none of those things were expensive none of them but I couldn't do it again because I don't have any more that was it well there might be a few but that was I you got most of them yeah but you had to fill it 45 minutes your willingness to share those Secrets not everyone in a profession is willing to share their secrets they don't want other people knowing the information they've amassed over the years in and of itself sometimes you just need to and some of those things it's like we talked before the guys you don't want to know already know right yeah you know you're not you're not pulling over the wall of their eyes yeah they already figured it out too yeah and some of those come from other shops yeah a few of those things so and you know what you've some of that I mean if you had your super secret way of putting heads or something that's one thing but most other stuff everybody knows you know well back to the I think it's combination too it's like I know in NASCAR the thing was hey I can give you my right front spring good luck with the rest of it yeah it doesn't matter yeah you gotta have the whole package right yeah yeah so I've always heard you can share help to my right direction and I can give you a part with this right but you still got to figure out the rest of yourself yeah well I I don't mind sharing that stuff no you've always been a gracious host and help us all with everything so we appreciate you taking your time to be here and do this and share these things is great you know well this didn't take any prep this year you just show up it's easier just show up yeah let's talk about some of the Mountain Motor stuff because uh you know they're kind of being pulled into the NHRA now and I'm I'm learning a lot more than I had ever been exposed uh to you know Mountain Motor Pro Stock and man they're amazing amazing machines but to be on the Forefront of that and kind of go into it when it was uh new and and a frontier almost if you will and now that I speak with those guys they just love it they love the uh having more power than they can use and carry the front tire 300 feet yeah they're um really when you think about it they're probably the the most powerful n a motor ever anywhere because there's you know maybe an airplane you know World War II airplane yeah yeah but as far as supercharged though yeah well that's true yeah yeah but most of your it's for a car engine you know we're a little over 2 000 horsepower on the best of the best days and uh for a carbureted V8 to make 2000 horse on its own you know oh I remember the first time I got to the shop and they were dynoing one of those things I thought there was a Formula One engine in there or something yeah they're loud yeah because you think okay well it's a big giant engine it doesn't turn a crazy amount of RPM and here I come from a NASCAR shop these guys are done on the 10 000 RPM all day long and I I hear this sound and I'm like oh my God what is that things like it's screaming and I'm like I think it's only turned to like 7200 RPM but then you said probably 28 500 okay for the Piston speed right yeah I forget what it is 80 I don't know it's way it's a big number yeah it's eight faster than the formula one oh yeah yeah there's nothing yeah because of the stroke yeah the main piston velocity is faster than a form of one engine at twenty thousand RPM yeah but they they don't yes any trouble you know it doesn't burn the skirts often you know they weren't fine yeah it's harder on the connecting rods because they're pulling so hard when they change direction that's what's hard now with those if you use a steel rod or aluminum Rock oh no you'd never get it aluminum rod aluminum rod yeah it needs a cushion you know Steel Rod you most likely would tear the bearings out of it or something because the shock is so much yeah just yeah yeah plus you'd never get a balance and as as a civilian like just wrapping my mind around things that don't make sense like there are a lot of stats I run into on a regular basis and I just still don't like you know Top Field dragster zero to 100 miles an hour and eight tenths of a second like you can tell me that all day long and I you know like I can't get with it and the Piston speed and the starting and stopping when I try to think about it it just brain locks up the brain locks up because it's like no how can that actually be happening how can anything do that I don't I don't really for some reason we get by with it that's all I know you know yeah right don't ever let anybody tell you something won't work right until you know for sure yourself it doesn't work right you know because because yeah I had somebody tell me years ago we couldn't build these big engines because the rod Garden wasn't big enough for it well we run those things 100 runs you know they're fine so you know just you fix what breaks is pretty much what you do that's good way look at it right yeah you fix your brakes I mean we know we know in the big engines the the uh the connecting rods we got to service so maybe over 30 runs and then you know the lifters you have to rebuild those and valves every once in a while Pistons they'll go they actually last pretty well it's pretty amazing to me make to make that kind of power and be that well you said too they're they're running well they're with the NHRA they're running quarter mile they run eight miles quarter mile yeah so back to really because what what's the top speed on that thing about 220 225 228 in there somewhere yeah they're nasty yeah it's good yeah that's crazy but uh you know we we uh have worked on those for well 40 years yeah I'm beginning to start 1980 so yeah this is our 41st year building big engines and what's the biggest displacement you built well because the Ford we never built a wide board center block with real big boards okay you know we we maybe did a 900 inch one one kind of pulling truck or something but we've never because nobody really wants to build pro mods out of them so we didn't ever go that route okay you could but we don't want you know nobody wants to spend the money right well exactly and and that's what I've heard through my conversations it's like hey we're all out here racing we got something that's already making more power than we need already so what's the point in going into this like crazy development race right and costing everybody a bunch of money and and instead of racing we're just developing is that accurate yeah oh yeah absolutely yeah we uh and we don't you know we're at the point we don't want to spend our own money on a lot of r d and something we're not going to sell any of but you got to be careful you can't build something really tricky on this whole one you know yeah it's a business see in the end it's a business right such as you're an artist yeah if you run it with your heart you might go bankrupt yeah and let's go back to the boat stuff now you know it's easy to say yeah 180 miles per hour on the water but when that's crazy fast think about it like that doesn't that's another one of the numbers that just doesn't really make sense well it's a 50 foot long boat you know it's fourteen thousand pounds you know it doesn't have brakes all I can think of this I mean my dad's a water skier from they go now I learned how to water ski when I was about six if you hit the water going like 36 miles an hour it hurts oh yeah I can't imagine 180 that's insane well unfortunately on a straightaway crash they don't survive those a lot of times you know so we try to behave yeah sometimes in the corners they'll bump yeah you know but they behave pretty well in the straightaways because it's too fast to wreck you know but where they normally would have troubles if they do a blow over right yeah yeah yeah yeah those are those are really tough on the drivers and and how is it different uh you know building something that's it's like two opposite ends of the spectrum right drag racing it's got to live for six seconds and over 100 runs uh say whereas in the in the water that is prolonged the exposure that's the the abuse those engines take is unbelievable you know it's like a big Daytona when they get out there they'll maybe go two miles make a turn come back two miles you know and so they're wide open for two miles worth and two engines there's Lord knows there's probably a hundred hoses and stuff and hose clamps oh you know there's so you gotta see these they're huge and all the coolers and everything on them and there's so many things that could fail and it doesn't take but one you know and you know if you're the one who put it together you're sitting there and you know it's just like we won't this race ever get over you know it's only lap four and there's eight there's 12 more to go or so it's it's really hard to watch yeah it's hard to watch you know so let's go this from these big giant engines yeah tell Joe and the listeners about the little uh covid lockdown project you have my bike yeah yeah unfortunately we don't need pictures here but it's on our Instagram but if you go to the seals Instagram page there's one on there oh yeah I took pictures when I was at the shop I put them on there yeah it's a little V-Twin that I built out of an airplane it was a model airplane engine that it was an opposed engine so I built a crank case and brought I wanted to look like a little miniature Harley right yeah so stop he built his own crankcase the motor is only about this big yeah but you know what it goes about probably 40 miles an hour on the bike such a pit bike now yeah if I ever get to go to races again if we get over all these sicknesses but we um yeah it's a neat little project yeah eight speed transmission on it that came out of a Shimano rear axle Hub you know it's like a lenko okay you shipped it wide open and it shifts no clutch nothing it's just like oh yeah yeah that's awesome that's cool yeah so I think we come down we need to go down to Atlanta we might just need to go drive that thing up around the park Street yeah it kept us busy and you know there's racing in town this week and since you're already here yeah well I think I'm not sure about that I I might have to go back to work technically this is work yeah but this is fun yeah so with the racetrack being up up the street do you have any good personal stories because ah no we got in my Pro Stock panel we had in 76 we got runner up to that race really yeah fall race and ihra yeah the best we ever did yeah next weekend is when we crashed the car but you know then if we wanted to crack you know there's all these life-changing events you know right if we didn't crash a car I don't know maybe we still would race if I if I still would a race I wouldn't have been working for Dino Dan you know so everything in your life might not be sitting here no exactly yes you don't know no you don't you never know yep so growing up in Cleveland area did you know Ron Hunter you mentioned him earlier yeah if you were chatting yeah hudder yeah he's he's one of the absolute best yeah he is isn't he he's one there's another quiet guy he's kind of underrated because a lot of people don't really understand and know him because he's a little bit low profile but he is the absolute genius we uh we spoke with him on a recent episode of hidden horsepower and it was just like once you it's interesting like these deep thinking types oh yeah right you're media friendly okay but some of the deep thinkers like you gotta pull them out of that and then they start to go and oh here we go yeah you know it's on and then you start telling some stories and yeah you know even even uh you know pushing back on conventional uh thinking that kind of stuff uh yeah he's I have a lot of he's one of my heroes you know aside from a couple people here yeah I heard oh yeah earlier I'll walk out there in the waiting room and there's John John Cali's and WJ sitting at the table I'm like man that is too brilliant right there yeah and you don't have to pry but like what's that conversation about is it about engines or something else well it kind of since he's got wj's got the whole day he's waiting to do his thing later I said come on over here and have a seat you know let me let me ask you some stuff yeah it was it was and it's not easy to get you know the Sunday morning at 7 30 if I'm go I happen to be going to work his car will be in the line he's working yeah yeah I hear Warren Gets to work at 4am no he said about it all right don't ruin the Legends so we can have some pretty good conversations but still at this point I've never really seen any of the cylinder heads or anything you know he's still got oh oh yeah no yeah yeah not good I wouldn't even ask yeah well I'll ask for you yeah later on today cause he wants to see the cylinder heads more let it happen you know we're not going there all right all right all right so something about media friendly and some other good uh YouTube videos tell us where did the origin come from of the finger in the manifold right again if you've not seen it you've got it's on YouTube right and don't try it at home yeah definitely don't try detc Cosi video or something like that yeah yeah somebody put it up there I didn't put it up but uh I had a um to do a presentation for the aetc and I kind of wanted to see how this would work anyway I always wanted to do this but we built a had a motor on the dyno we built a big Shield big steel Shield so if it blew up it wouldn't hurt us so you could stand next to the engine while you're making the dino pools yeah so we can stand next to the engine while you're making the dino pull we had some plexiglass up it had a little place for your arm to come out and then I had like a little protrusion in the intake manifold we had a glass port on the manifold and we we had like a little nipple that stuck out and it had kind of a radius end on it and you could put your finger in there right I wanted to see what the pulses felt like right you know and it's a lot different than you might think you know there's it really was a surprise and I like it not pushing down anywhere near as much as you think well it's not a smooth flow at any time it's not what you think it is it's changed everything the way the way you think about what what something runs but there's more of a pulse going backwards if you just close your eyes and put your finger in there you couldn't tell which way the air was going but you'll see it on it yeah stop and thinking about that for a second it would make sense though when the valve closes everything bunches up against the valve I had three or four of my guys did it and most the time the first time you did it you'd give up and tap out and pull your finger because it keeps getting worse and worse and you think I'm only halfway through the dynapole and if it gets twice as bad from here I'm gonna break my finger right it's that it's just that violent oh you can't hold it still it's going up and down and if you put it in sideways it'd probably just locate your I tried it sideways once I had to pull yeah we put a glove on a rubber glove yeah and it stripped the rubber off and it wouldn't open it but how so how cold is it uh it's probably a good 30 degrees colder than the air yeah and you and it's not when it's idle and it's pretty good and the minute you go wide open whoa is it cold in there yeah and so we we realized that you know you really don't have that in a fuel injection mode no no last night with the gaster thing yeah yeah and even you know electronic fuel injection it does not have that Cooling and that's that's one of the reasons why a lot of times carbureted engines are a little better than fuel injected because the air is you know a hot day especially the air because you got your vaporization and stuff going on a little refrigeration cycle happened you know and it gets cold look how much you learned just from that experiment oh my God and the other thing was if you just put your just put your finger in there a little bit or you bend it down so it's against one of the walls feel anything so yeah all that time you spend on all this finish and smooth and there's nothing happening there you know it's all in the center it's all in the middle that's crazy so we you know like and there's times when you put a manifold on it doesn't fit quite right you know and you'll see the floor sticking up or something most of the time when you fix it it doesn't make much difference you know it's not like it hurt at 20 or 30 horse you know and right it probably doesn't make much difference because it's probably there's not as much going on there as you think yeah out on the outside corners and along those edges if it's if it's a like a short turn or somewhere where the air is maybe you're doing a real good bend probably a little but down the middle of a port it's just everything's all right down the center now you mentioned when the ATC thing that you put some oil in the headers right and what happened yeah well we had a clear port on this engine right and where the O2 sensors were about a foot down in the header pipe we just put a little cap on there and throw a little hole in it and we squirted oil in with the oil can yeah while it was running it's just sitting there idling and it took about five seconds to see the oil coming up in the manifold every every cycle and go a little farther pretty soon it's all in the plenum yeah think about that for a second yeah oil that's in the header yeah a foot from the exhaust valve in about five seconds is in the plenum okay so what's the punch line to that I don't know it just blows your mind you know what it is it's a rusty header yeah exactly but when we did the video from the expo from January the end of that segment John takes a mild steelheader yeah tamps It On The Ground I'm standing behind the camera filming it and it's everything I can do not to be a gas and make a noise when he's tapping this thing in a ton of rust comes out and they were around a week before that you know it's just you got all those acids and everything in there and if they're not stainless that's what you get yeah and a lot of our final hitters are not stainless so we have to tap them out and blow them out real good before we run them each time because the moment you crank it up in five seconds that stuff's in plenum yeah you know coating still Coatings prevent that hopefully no not on the inside now there might be some way you could do it but I've never been able to find it you know when we get the like the jet hot type of stuff you know the really good coating ceramic Coatings that's all on the outside of the tube and that stuff's sort of sprayed on they can get in there about an inch but they can't get in the middle you know if it was dipped in a tank or something you think Joe may have some mouse sweaters look on his face two-thirds of the questions that I have are directly related to me okay that's bad one of the things that and not a lot of people don't know but one of the things if you got a race car you know and you race it every weekend it's got mild steel headers on it you know it's going to do that right but when you crank it up if you've got throttle about half open when you hit the ignition just let it rub up to 4000 real quick you know it's not gonna hurt it yeah you know don't let it chug the life it just just barely get going cause that's when all that crap goes back up in them yeah and it'll be on the carburetor throttle plate yeah you were mentioning that me yesterday or this morning about that you had a customer that had that happen yeah it'll be it'll get up in there so far it'll be all over the bottom of the carburetor rust so but if you if you rev it up the second it cranks not two seconds later but the second it cranks if it's revved up it kind of now there's gonna if it's in your garage you're gonna have a lot of rust in the floor you know but it's better to not be you want to blow it out and I suck it up and you're a ring and cylinder wall finish guy ah so you don't want that stuff going up and down with your rings do you no that's the worst I thought you do all this work you spend all this time with the profilometer get everything right yeah I'll throw a handful of sand in there you destroy it like that and then people look at it and they say oh the guy who built this thing you didn't get it clean or something because there's all these scratches right right I mean somebody eating it up so cold start rev it up as opposed to Sure slowly like I think that uh conventional logic out there yeah people like it to chug to life because the oil's cold don't worry about that just rev it up you know it's another reason not to run straight 50s you're not gonna you're not going to hurt the uh um the oil and the bearings and stuff being cold it's just revita well it's going to hurt you the most is the rust grinding up and down on your valve seats and the Rings and the boards it hurts right now I'm thinking I need to have stainless steel headers is what I need to have stainless we can tell the difference if an engine has Stainless Headers the boards look much better when it comes back this is one of those little nuggets you know that you can think about I mean I know from oil analysis I can tell a difference in how much wear is in an engine if they're running titanium retainers or steel retainers that type retainer is lighter but that tie wears it will make everything else in the engine wear more every single time tie retainers it's yeah I mean I get it from a valve train perspective Dynamics but Tire retainers increase engine wear across the board I didn't even think of that I know that it wears them down oh it does but uh you know it's not going to stick to magnets or anything so I guess it just goes in the oil and stays there but right and the filters can't capture everything that's the thing I mean a filter has that they call a beta ratio so say for every thousand particles that head to that filter yeah some percentage you're going to get through and it fits at 99.9 it's for a thousand particles one gets through okay but it still gets through yeah and that's for a a given size depending on how small it is that's it can be something so those are all those little things that they beyond that first piece of information it's like okay why is my engine smoking and all this right well okay let's look at your headers I mean it's not your first thought yeah right very very interesting so let's uh let's move forward in that uh we've talked a lot about the past but let's talk about the future in that you know what do you want to work on what is a combination that you think is you know Cutting Edge that is the future of making big Power that kind of stuff things that you're interested in doing in the future you know sometimes we just kind of roll with what prevents itself to us you know like it can be road course cars or you know we do some Nissan GTR engines for a company in Atlanta that we just do exclusively for them and uh you know it's we've learned a little bit from working on it those are twin turbo engines yeah they're 2000 horse yeah you know six yeah but pretty much we kind of like to look at stuff and maybe see what we can do to make it better you know what's what's failing the crankshafts right you were showing me there's some things that are cranks in those in fact we talked to Randy Neal here right you know because we he has a pretty good view of those things and he helped us a little bit but there um any of those projects where you know we're going to be doing some more uh Unlimited Boat stuff I think with it with the Mercury's and uh you know anything that's different right really anything that's different power-wise you know a lot of stuff we work on the the big engines you know were not stuck but we're at the point where the gains are getting really small yeah you know but the NHRA is absolutely the same way you know their their gains are really small yeah because you once you get those things to three horsepower per inch or something you know there's not a lot left no not without a rule change or something that's changed right you know and well they just you know not that long ago switch to the fuel injection from the carburetors step them back and they still haven't uh they're in the right conditions they're approaching what the record was but they're not there yet but they got their air intake down on the ground and that thing's at 130 degree air oh yeah get off the asphalt right right on a hot day the speed and then really God yeah oh yeah so I don't have an answer for that but they're getting there though that's the thing that's amazing they are almost back you're having a claw back too right I mean that that's a big a big part of it is you're really having to kind of claw back and those gains are small so you have to work really hard and put a lot of little things together to try to get there which makes it makes it tough I know someone who'll know about this yeah we'll have them on a little bit later on today okay yeah yeah yeah yeah and W he's still working on those engines yes more for fun right you know I don't think I'd love to see them drive again I would but I think he could I know he could yeah I know he's gotta you know he's got a whole thing he'll tell us he's ready to go 1973. two weeks ago he goes up to Indiana to go run a go-kart race he goes there and waxes them just kills him right what he's been doing though he's been all summer long we got the dyno running at the shop yeah so we got the dino going now been working on headers a couple other things made the the trick header we had we thought was really good that made this big big peak Power number it was just that big peak Power number yeah we got another header that's maybe about one horsepower off but it's four up everywhere else oh yeah you have to you really have to be careful about that because you know it doesn't matter what size the motor is but when you uh you know you're working on an engine and if you trade power around a lot of times you can trade it yeah trade it down in the middle and add it up at the very top it'll almost always run worse yeah yeah you know you get that big number everybody's happy right car's slower you gotta get there you gotta get to that Peak number and you lose time well don't spend that much time up there either it's only at the top of the gear it's not going anywhere then yeah it goes somewhere when it's at the bottom of the gear you know it's so interesting I think it was Larry McReynolds uh you know NASCAR routine famous guy was like I'll take a mile an hour at the center of a corner then a mile an hour in the straight away yeah so mile an hour's mile an hour but the reality is that one mile an hour at the center of the corner is a greater percentage of the speed yes plus I'm building from that one mile an hour the whole straightaway versus that one last little flash I'll tell you one thing this is going back 1984 Leonard Wood one of my hero absolute Heroes nicest man you know him oh yeah nicest man I've ever really talked to just about he he told me that you know on one of those cars when you run it let's just say at the time who is maybe go 8 000 to let's say it's Charlotte yeah there's eight thousand to the bottom end of it might be six something like that he said so the engine runs six thousand to eight thousand all the way around the track right and he told me absolutely for sure and I've lived this every day and he said if you kill the power at 5500 where it never sees it to add it up on top it'll always run worse really yes at 55 even though you're not even there you're never there he said if you whatever you did to hurt the power 500 RPM below the point that it gets to it'll always run worse my that I think yeah that's good well yeah yeah I think that's it right yeah it makes sense right like you push your rock up a hill but he can't get it to the top the thing is it's weird because you think okay well I think about our clutch carts and stuff it hits at ten thousand right or ten thousand two right that's where you want the power to be what does it matter below that if anyone's Gonna Know Leonard Wood yeah right I mean that's a man that I mean David Pearson and those guys I mean Dad would tell me stories because he knew David I mean for several years there they probably had a 40 horsepower advantage over everybody but Pearson was smart enough he wouldn't win every race and he wouldn't Win It by as much as he could like he would wait and run it down the very last little bit and make a show of it because he was like I don't want everybody to know what advantage we have yeah because then the rules makers will come after us they will absolutely we don't want those rules makers John this has been amazing uh our next bit John Cali is going to talk about hydraulic roller lifters that's a pretty uh big dog versus solids yeah versus solids right well we have to run Hydraulics you know a lot of times but it's a mystery for everybody why is that well it's kind of a moving Target you know there's another spring in the system exactly there's a spring and a piston inside that thing yeah actually so it's got it right you know and they have their place right you don't have no choice and the challenge is anymore you've got this High horsepower Street Motors right and that's a variable that's right it's another one we use more Hydraulics than solids than the crate motors we've built by far yeah exactly yeah they have our name on them but they're they're Cali's Morel lifters exactly yeah amazing this has been an episode of hidden horsepower I recommend you go to Apple podcast Spotify SoundCloud totalseal.com website to get more stuff just like this thanks to Folks at Edelbrock for supporting this uh segment uh John this was just tremendous every time we speak we you know there's something learned always always and run out one day I don't think we'll we'll keep on digging until we find that point okay but thank you very much you really appreciate you and thank you for coming in and like uh this was Illuminating oh it's fantastic more to come more to come

Channel: Total Seal Piston Rings

Views: 88,009

Keywords: Engines, Engine Power, Motorsports, Racing, NHRA, Drag Racing, Ford, HEMI, piston rings, friction, Efficiency, racing engines, friction reduction, increased horsepower, race fuel, comp cams, motor oil, car podcast, engine building podcast, hidden horsepower by total seal podcast, hidden horsepower, hidden horsepower podcast, engine masters

Id: moUZPvAmvr4

Length: 45min 42sec (2742 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2022