Getting More Power Out Of A 5.0L Small Block Ford - Engine Power S2, E9

today it's stage two on our street strip 347 small-block Ford let's see what more compression induction and rpm can do engine powers back with the familiar and surprisingly potent little small-block Ford we dubbed little black and blue now its parts recipe was chosen using sound engine logic and part selection now it laid down some pretty good numbers on the dyno for such a small package on pump gas and today it graduates to stage 2 where we expect to pull even more power out of it now here's a quick look at how it went together and performed on the dyno last time we started with a Summit Racing fully machined and prepped late-model om block then added off-the-shelf parts like an eagle ESP armor forged crank h-beam rods and maula pistons a Lunati hydraulic roller cam controlled all their valvetrain Amoroso 7 quart front sump pan sealed up the bottom end and up top a set of airflow research 205 CC renegade cylinder heads rested on the decks directing the air and fuel charge to them was an Edelbrock Victor jr. intake manifold topped off with an exceptional quick fuel black diamond 750 CFM carb with 35 degrees of timing the engine loaded the dyno and made a 4,000 to 6,800 RPM sweep and cranked out 507 horsepower 447 pound-feet of torque the parts for stage 2 will allow this engine to have a higher operating power band a more stable valve train and better breathing and that's all a recipe for more power and that includes a new set of Linate valve springs one of their big solid roller camshafts a set of 10 degree tool steel retainers and a set of machine keepers for extra airflow we're stepping up to an Edelbrock super victor intake manifold that's going to be topped off with a quick fuel Black Diamond 950 CFM carb now to let all that new incoming air escape is a set of inch and 3/4 hooker Super Comp headers and last but not least Kemetic 27,000 thick MLS head gaskets will allow us to raise the compression over three-quarters of a point when all the parts for Stage two arrived it gave us an idea we wanted to find out what the bigger carb and bigger headers would do on this combination and we're doing it more for you so you don't have to spend your hard-earned money trying to figure out if bigger is better because sometimes it's not the case these 1 and 5/8 headers did a great job with this combo and just goes to show small primaries are not given enough credit one in three quarter inch primary long tubes are going on and share the same size collector as the one in five eighths these are hooker super comps that fit a Fox Body Mustang nothing is changing except the primary size same length flow tubes and same size flex pipe is being used the pole will be in the same rpm band as before from 4,000 to 6,800 rpm so what is 125,000 sport 8 inch of 2 diameter worth holy crap 527 451 foot-pounds how about it's a limitation it's a limitation we've up I think we've just proved that time 27 451 now our max is 507 before so it picked up 20 numbers on power on headers alone all right here's the big key for the engine builders watching 1.5 - I can't believe that 1.5 2 horsepower per cubes on this little 347 I cannot believe that out of pump gas we're here before we tear this thing apart mm-hmm let's put that 950 on this thing with this bigger header yep Lucy was to see what it does yes this will be an interesting test that can go either way now swap in from a 750 to a 950 CFM carb is not just about being bigger it's how the car was set up initially for the application [Music] it's nice might have snuck a little bit more into it oh I've been tardy - 450 - okay well that's uh that's encouraging so that right there shows us the headers were restriction a 950 carb isn't too big for this combination right and we're stopping here and going to the real stage to make some snot well that's it for our test and tune on stage one now in stage two we are gonna try and maximize the power potential for this engine and that rests with a cylinder head and what I mean by that is the cylinder head is capable of making over 600 horsepower due to its flow numbers a rule of thumb is you can make two horsepower per CFM of airflow and we're gonna see how close we can come to that in stage two after the break next another tear down to make way for some potent power adders we're back and little black and blue is coming off the dyno for its stage two upgrade we'll leave it on the dyno cart to do the actual swap out in the assembly area we're tearing the engine all the way down to the short block so the carb comes off first along with a distributor now the Victor jr. manifold is removed the scripted valve covers are next followed by the rockers and push rods with a little bicep grunt applied we can remove the torque ARP head bolts and lift the AFR heads off the deck followed by the 41,000 thick head gaskets now the lifter spider dogbones and hydraulic lifters can be removed upfront our dyno pump can come off using a removal tool the balancer is pulled off the cranks now and underneath will loosen the pan so we don't damage the pan gasket removing the timing cover and finally the timing cover can reveal the billet timing set which also comes off with the cam retaining plate removed say goodbye to the hydraulic roller hydraulic rollers are great for low maintenance streets trip engines but if you're looking for valve train stability higher rpms and more power a solid roller like this is the way to go now there's more to it than just changing the camshaft everything associated with it also has to change like Springs lifters retainers and locks a solid roller lifter can follow an aggressive camshaft profile more accurately for a couple of different reasons one the solid assemblies are way lighter than the two hydraulics even with the link bar attached at 263 grams compared to the hydraulics which are nine grams heavier and that's huge in terms of valve train dynamics there's no plunger actuation like there is on these hydraulics and that actuation keeps the valve train quiet but directly affects lift and duration so using a solid roller will maintain accurate geometry throughout the entire rpm range and that allows the engine to make power higher in the band due to its design the cam is more aggressive across the board but still within the range of our combination it sports two hundred and forty nine degrees of duration on the intake and 255 degrees on the exhaust we kept the lobe separation at a hundred and ten and as far as lift goes we'll touch on that in a few keeping it in place is the same retaining plate torque to one hundred and ten inch pounds here's a decision we have to make at this point where do we want this engine to make peak power with our stage two parts the installed position of the cams intake centerline will dictate the engines torque and horsepower peak numbers depending on the location relative to its lobe separation so retarding the cam will make peak power higher in the RPM range while advancing the cam will make the peak lower in the range and also allow peak torque to happen sooner we'd agree every cam in every engine that we build and here is why we're finding that the degree marks on the crank gear are not jiving with what we're finding there are several variables that cause this like the location of the dowel and the cam and the key way in the crankshaft are just a couple it's called stack tolerances and it happens in every aspect of engine building according to our numbers we have to use the straight up key way on the crank to position our cam at a hundred and five and a half degrees of intake centerline our lobe separation is a hundred and ten degrees therefore the cam has installed four and a half degrees advanced that's the position that provided a optimal piston to valve clearance for this big cam the timing cover goes back on now followed by the timing pointer which has to be set up again for true TDC then the balancer is pressed back on now it doesn't matter what timing pointer you're using this is a step that has to be done to make sure that the marks on the balancer coincide with exactly where the number one piston is in the cylinder setting TDC with a piston stop like this ensures dwell is taken into effect dwell is the amount of time the piston is at TDC when the engine is running and it is several degrees it attaches to the deck and has a set screw that lets the piston stop solid against it now we'll rotate the engine to bring the piston to the stop the next step is to take a reading on the balancer this shows 40 degrees before TDC now rotate the engine the opposite way and ease the piston up against the stop slamming now remember we're counting the degrees after TDC not the actual number you're seeing it reached 320 which is 40 degrees after TDC that verifies when the pointer is aligned with zero on the balancer the number one piston is exactly at true top dead center coming up little black and blue gets ready for stage two little black and blue is in the middle of stage two and the short block is wrapping up with these Lunati vertical bar solid lifters that are filling the lifter bores they use a link bar to keep the roller in line with the cam lobe solid roller camshafts require more spring pressure to stabilize the valve train motion at higher rpms and that usually means a larger diameter valve spring here's a look at an old versus new compare oh the hydraulic roller spring has an inch to eighty diameter compared to the inch 550 diameter of the solid one they're both dual springs at our inch 800 installed height the seat pressure on the old spring is a hundred and sixty pounds while on the solid roller spring it's two hundred and twenty-seven pounds for a sixty-seven pound increase now using the new components we'll assemble the hips now selecting these parts can be a little tricky to a call in the comp cams tech line can be very helpful for this stage we're also raising the compression from ten point four to eleven point two and all it's going to take is a head gasket with a thinner compress thickness the old gaskets we tossed out we roll forty-one thick and this new MLS from chromatic is 27,000 stick that's a reduction of fourteen thousands which equals right at three CCS so that's what the increase in compression comes from the heads are ready to go back on now in their new configuration ARP bolts are torqued to 65 foot-pounds here's where another part change is happening we're swapping out the conventional stud mount rockers for a shaft system like this now that's because we're on the turn this engine until it stops making power which could be as high as 8,000 rpm so we get Jessel a call the one-piece rocker shaft Stan fastens to the original studs locations and they get torque 260 foot-pounds these parts affected our push rod length so another measurement is needed now they're longer due to the stands height six eight fifty long is what we need we also wanted the added hoop strength of a larger diameter push rod because our open spring pressure is approaching 600 pounds so these 3/8 ones will have less deflection than a 5/16 reran before jesel sent these sportsmen series shaft rockers that have several advantages over stud mount rockers like reduced friction in all areas corrects rocker geometry and maintains last settings longer for less engine maintenance plus the most important in our eyes is it stabilizes the valve train at any rpm due to their extensive engineering we also increase the rocker arm ratio from one point six to one point seven on the intake side for more lift and the reason we put the cam in at one hundred and five and a half degrees of intake center line is so we didn't run into any valve clearance issues we just got our new super Victor intake manifold back from John and Don at Baker Auto machine in Franklin Tennessee now they specialize in auto machining hydraulic hose assemblies and starter and alternator repairs now we source them to cut 60,000 soph the intake flange so it matches up better with our AF our CNC ports this also required them to cut 80,000 soph the china rail so it doesn't bottom out on the block was it worth it yep this is as good as you can get without port matching the rest of the parts to get it back together are the same as you saw earlier when we made 532 horsepower the moment we've been waiting on is here it's Dino time just listen to this thing idle it's got that Superstock sound and just like in stage 1 we'll step the RPM sweep up as we progress to 8000 rpm when we're done we'll show you how the big power pulls from both stages compare beginning at 30 degrees of timing see what she does and a sweep from 3500 to 5,800 rpm now we're starting off on 93 octane pump gas just like before to see how far we can push the limits now we know it'll need better fuel once we get to a certain point and we have that cover for 97 with 450 foot-pounds 457 was our stage one run so we're up 40 horsepower I guess you want to compare that to us to apples you guys pretty good what I want to do I'm gonna go in there and check a plug because we're to the point now where octane is gonna be an issue so far we're good so we'll do another at 32 degrees 497 450 yep repeated itself but the plugs tell a different story when you start to get a little speckle just a tiny bit of speckle it's called the black death right and that's when you start to increase your octane because as an oxidizer it's supposed to do air and fuel not air if you want aluminum the higher the octane rating the more resistance the fuel is to detonation with the cylinder pressure we're generating we reached that limit so we'll drain the fuel cell and lines to make way for some stouter gas normally at this point we'd have to go spend big money on distilled racing fuel but we found an alternative that cost way less and we trust it because we've used it before it's called race gas and it's a race fuel concentrate that adds octane to pump gas now it'll go up to 105 depending on how you mix it the formula is simple if you want one gallon of 100 octane mix 4 ounces of race gas with one gallon of 93 octane pump guest 2 ounces per gallon increases the octane for full numbers we have 3 gallons of fuel so 12 ounces are needed to make 100 just remember the more octane you put in doesn't mean you're gonna make more power you need the minimum amount of octane to keep your engine away from detonation at your power level sometimes you can put too much octane in and it will actually kill horsepower because it slows the burn rate of the fuel down let's leave the Time Lord set and take it to 6,500 no signs of detonation and from the HP gauge on the console it's going to report a good number 537 454 awesome now it's making some sneeze okay good good good good our next step is to add two degrees of timing for a total of 34 all the reported numbers are peaks at the RPM we're taking the engine to at this point 541 456 pick and I keeps picking up so we'll leave it at 34 degrees but push it from 45 to 7000 rpm 5:56 455 and still confident love it having an engine with great valve train and a solid bottom end allows us the confidence to bump the timing to 35 degrees and go for the gold here comes 8000 566 455 it holds it to 8,000 rpm that holds the power nice this is not bad for an engine that was originally designed to make what 225 horse yeah yeah and we were doing this on a stock blocked off-the-shelf parts and like you said it's just a formula that's all it is it's a math equation and formula parts and we nailed it peak horsepower was at 7,200 rpm with this combination while peak torque was at 5,800 now this engine was still making 534 horsepower at 8,000 so just imagine what all this feels like going through the traps at the drag strip and you can do just that if you followed this build although this wasn't a budget project it does prove you can make big power without custom parts or any engine witchcraft but we're approaching the limits of our block at this point but not the internals so for us it was a hands down decision to do a stage three to this build and let's just say that will involve an aftermarket block and some forced induction but before we go take a look how the two stages compare stage ones package proves you can make great power with the hydraulic roller but this type of valve train is limited by rpm the solid roller made peak power higher in the RPM range and it also carried that a lot farther for a higher rpm average and here's what they look like overlaying each other this potent setup goes to show you can't judge an engine by its valve covers

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 897,656

Keywords: ford small block, engine rebuild, Automotive;, Cars;, Vehicles;, How-To;, Auto, News;, Howto;, How, To;, DIY;, Car, Tips, ford 5.0, powernation, small block

Id: xxXxKOTD_w8

Length: 18min 42sec (1122 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 17 2019