Mystery Chevy 400 Dyno Tested - What's Inside This SBC?

it's very very rare to get a 400 chevy motor in my dino so we're gonna get it running let's get it tested let's see what it does [Music] it's another beautiful day at nick's garage the sun is shining the doors are open and the place is full of muscle cars today nick is working on something a little unusual around here he has a chevy 400 on the dyno for [Music] testing welcome to nick's garage and of course back into my dining room i have a guy that came in here his name is charles he's from newfoundland labrador i believe he's also a viewer on our channel and he had this 400 small block chevy which is a 400 cubic inch right from chevrolet which is a mid 70s engine i believe it is it's a non-stoker it's a 400 cubic inch he had it built by this company uh doesn't do many racing engines here in montreal so he decided to come and visit his mother here in montreal and also pick up his engine and then he decided to drop off the engine to put on the dyno sure he brought it here but there's a lot of little things that were missing for example he brought me the distributor on the side no oil the engine was not primed there was a lot of little things for example i had to install them the bolt that was missing on the harmonic balancer then i installed this distributor i got him a clamp that he was missing to hold down the distributor so when we adjust the timing it stays in place another thing he was missing with the engine dipstick so i got him an engine dipstick and of course the biggest part is to break in the cam which you know maybe he wasn't familiar with it you know you have to add zinc in the world and all that anyways i was here early this morning i got the engine running i got to break in the cam everything seemed well there's no leaks no vibrations everything seems good so right now i just got it warmed up and i just wanted to make a test i haven't tested it yet and uh he didn't ask me if he's looking for horsepower or anything like that but i noticed on idle his vacuum is very low so he's got a little bit of a radical camshaft so what kind of power is he going to make i do not know it's got a dual plane intake mount from elderblock and we are using the shop holley high performance carburetor which is a 750cfm and the headers that i have in-house are one and three-quarter inch so there you have it you guys a simple engine he wants to know what's going on so i try to do a complete package for him break it in fix it up tune it and of course when he takes it home all he has to do is drop it into his car and the 400 chevy small block was not introduced to uh general motors or chevrolet for a performance engine you know they got the 350 they got the big block 454 but the 400 i believe were like in the mid-sized car or should i say like the big cars the chevy pala biscayne or big station wagons i'm not sure but that was the 400 engine it was not built for performance but this one here my client charles he decided to do something with it because he's starting up with a 400 cubic inch instead of 350 and of course he upgraded the cylinder heads intake manifold camshaft so now we can call it a performance 400 small block chevy non-stroker so if you guys want to stop by if you're interested let's start making a few tests which i haven't started yet let's see how it goes after all it's a 400 chevy it's not a high performance engine but of course you install the aluminum heads intake and lockers or whatever it's got a cam in there i do not have a specs on it because this place to build the engine for him i asked him did he give you a file or a dossier or anything like that any spec sheet he has nothing so i'm starting blind but you know what let's do some testing and find out what we have are you guys ready let's go all right here we go put my o2 sensors on okay this is on this is on let's go fuel pump ignition and starter okay it's a pretty loud engine take the oil pressure [Music] [Music] [Music] and uh case one of the noah 400 is an external balanced engine he's got the harmonic balance that uh designed for 400 and i also have to supply a special flywheel it's also external balance counterweight on it so we've got all the flex plate not on flywheels on flex plate and uh we want to make sure there's no vibrations this is the right setup and uh let's see how it goes we're going to start at the just for the initial okay we're just broken in the cam we're going to take out a 3 000 we're going to start at 3 000 go to 5 000 and this is going to be my very very first test okay [Music] i'm ready to shoot it here we go so everyone well all pressure's good and here we are let's see what we got here pretty good we still need to go to a higher rpm so far it seems like it's gonna get a goal of one horsepower per cubic inch looks pretty good so let's bring it down to 5500 rpm here we go and now we're gonna take it to five five seems like it needs to rev a little bit more the oil pressure is good let's check the air fuel ratio let me just take a look it's a bit of the lean side thirteen four second five okay here we go 389.7 hp at 5000 rpm and still climbing so that means now we're going to take it to 5 500. let's make another test here we go we're gonna start at 3000 go to 5500 rpm at 300 rpms per second are you guys ready let's do it put the fan on okay ignition fuel pump starter pretty loud here we go 5500 rpm okay let's turn it off okay here we go hmm it looks like i got stuck at the 383 we did more horsepower before well let's cool it down we're gonna make another test you know what since i got 389 let's try to get 400 out of this thing i'm going to about to timing just a bit more i got 34 degrees on it i'm going to advance it a couple degrees to see if we get a little bit more power than this i like to get the 400 for charles all right i'm just going to guess my two degrees advance which i'm pretty good at i'm gonna go do it right away actually i better put my tummy line on because uh i just gotta be sure i just love it hey when an engine screams like that i just love it yeah whatever okay here we go let's check the timing i believe that the subaru moved on its own so let's go let's go through it to make sure i got the right timing here we go [Music] 34 35 degrees let's try it there [Music] okay i'm hoping to hit 400 with this let's do it come on let's do it man i want to show you this guy's got a cam in it because look at about a thousand rpm we only have about 12 inches of vacuum now does this car have firebase i do not know i did not select the cam i did not build this engine so anyways let's look for the horsepower let's go here we go yes yes we did it right here nice i knew the timing packed up on its own there it is neat very neat at the 400 so we got a little bit more than one horsepower per cubic inch well you know what maybe not the timing a little bit more bring it to 38 see what it does after all we hit the 400 mark i'm happy so i'm going to call it client later on but anyways now i'm not going to touch the timing i'm going to leave it where it is i'm going to put on my turbine i just want to measure some efficiencies and uh that's it after that it would take one more test if it goes well i'm calling my client to come in tonight or this afternoon take a test with him and uh see what he wants to do after that but from what i see everything looks pretty good we got 400 plus horsepower when it's 400 cubic inch actually it's a 406 you know it's a four or six cubic inch so let's try to get 406. come on let's not give up after all i like a challenge and i want to get that 400 horsepower for him this one measures efficiencies on the engine and it misses airfield ratio not with the o2 sensor but it's on its own so i'm going to take some notes especially on the efficiencies i want to see the volume which is on it so i'm going to make what that's with this let me hook it over here and you'll get over here too there we go this is good this is good you know i like to make printouts for my client i like to give them my own file on it i don't know what kind of rockers he's got in there i know it's a hydraulic flat tattered cam i don't have the specs until it comes this afternoon anyways in the meantime he's been heading back to newfoundland this weekend i believe so i got another dyno yesterday broken the cam this morning i'm doing some testing right now everything seems pretty good so right now my goal is i want to get 406 hp so i could say it's one horsepower per cubic inch let's go [Music] i gotta bring down the art frame actually it's a bit too high here let me bring it down a bit [Music] take a look here we got a lighting about 12. oh it's a bit high i don't know if it's an automatic car i don't know if it's a four-speed car but anyway we just got 15 inches vacuum at 1200 rpm all right here we go let's make a test now with the uh turbine here we go okay we're getting somewhere we're getting somewhere here it is ah 405 404.7 405. stork numbers are at four the focus is pretty good 430 uh i don't know it's got a rather high fourier this torque numbers look it's pretty flat here let's go on the on the graph there you go torque is 435.8 horsepower is 404.7 maybe i'll that's a tiny little bit more maybe i'd like to get them 406 if i can actually they were just two horsepower off we're pretty good you know what maybe i'd like to type a couple degrees and uh we'll take a shot at it okay here we go think we'll make that 406 ah i'm just gonna match it just a bit here we go okay i got roughly two more degrees advance let's see if it goes up or down here we go and you know what i just thought of something wait a minute i might have a half a liter too much oil i'm not so sure but that's what it looks like anyways i'm gonna make a test out with the timing advance two degrees and after that we're gonna drain maybe a little bit of oil and make another test and see what we can do but let's make a tester now just about with the timing here we go uh i notice it's running lean it's in the height mid 13 side 13 is at full throttle i'd like to bring it down to 12 9 13 13 1. so i'm gonna have to richen it up i'm running a 750 carburetor it might be a bit too big for it but let's see what kind of cfm's this mortar is taking here we go wow all we need is a 650 look at this it's taking a 5500 rpm it's taking 589 cfms so maybe a 650 will do the job hmm you know what let's go with the 650 let's see you know but for instance 50 might even run richer okay let's change the carburetor ready [Music] after all this is what the purpose of a dyno is you want to get the right correct air fuel ratio you want to get the uh the correct timing the right size carburetor that's what the clients paid for and that's what we're here for so this is a 750 and i'm going to pull it out at 650 hp i'm going to take long it'll just take me a few minutes here we go you know sometimes a carp could be too big but if you go slightly smaller especially for a street car it's much better so now i know what cfm it's taking it's just under 600 we're going to put on a 650 [Music] [Applause] here we go 650. that's done let's put the shoe pump on check for a few leaks here we go let's see if the scripts are working watch this you press this one there we go let's check the real one we got fuel okay let's check the level that's good that's good and we have a little leak here where's that coming from oops something is leaking here maybe we gotta tighten these screws a bit there we go i know what this is all right let's start it let's pull down the room go to center water pump one two three [Music] take mercury [Music] so all right let's try it out [Music] here we go we're back to the same thing four or five four four point six four four point nine five four oh five i'm up by one hp come on nick you can do it i want to just drain a little bit of oil let's go i don't think i need much the big splash in the pan hits the crank and it with all that weight at high rpm it takes away horsepower because it adds weight to the crank so i'm just gonna drain a little bit of oil because i think i i've got too much in there after all you know it's the initial break-in we added zinc we added oil we primed it so i'm just going to drain a half a liter that's all yes according to the dipstick we're about half a liter too much so i'm just going to drain some give me a few minutes and we're going to make another test back to back it's gonna get hot when i pull this here we go [Music] hey [Music] to go no not enough yet i think we got enough let's see yeah it's almost half a liter i think it should be good there okay we took about half a liter the only reason i'm draining some oil is because we just got too much oil in there don't forget i did the initial break in a little bit too much oil to break in the cam is no hurt there's no damage happening i've also installed i also uh installed zinc additive so right here we're on the f mark okay so we're good let's go let me just wash my hands they're oily let's get it started and make one more test okay let's go here we go [Music] oh pressure looks good yes yes we did it we did it there it is 409.9 here it is i knew it like you know too much oil robs horsepower so anyways we have too much oil that's the reason why i took some out and there you have it you guys 409 at 5200 rpm 409.9 i'll put the terminal on check it one more time with a 650 cfm carb we change the oil the oil level is still a bit too much but doesn't matter leave it as it is oil pressure is good now let's check the air fuel ratio 12.7 12.8 we're good so this is the perfect card for his setup 650. you know we're gonna put a turbine on let's make one more test here we go looks like we got it done and it's gonna stay at 36 37 degrees where i initially had it okay here we go so we met our goal of uh one horsepower per cubic inch and a little bit plus which is great so i'm gonna call in charles to come in later on take a look what we've done the engine runs smooth oil pressure is good the timing is pretty good where i have it set let's put this on here there we go turbine is on everything works well and here we go water on sensor on cool down the room and here we go all right i guess charlotte's gonna be happy we do uh we gained our uh 100 powerful cubic inch and a bit more so we're good so now we're just making our final test with the turbine 650 is the carbon to go with their fuel is good 36 degrees max timing so let's make one more test before i call them in here we go okay one two three we're just going to bring the water temperature up a little and we're ready it responds very good i like to think of 156. it doesn't matter the engine is pretty warm already it is [Music] so i cheated a little bit i ran at a cooler temperature but it doesn't matter it's all good just to let you guys know we are running one uh we are running 94 petro canada 94 octane uh from petrocanada and there we have it for 11.2 there it is we'll leave it at that and now just for fun i'm just going to remove a plug i want to measure the cylinder pressure so we got a 411.2 horsepower let's go at the graph and take it from there there it is this is test number seven i have no idea what car is going in maybe a nova maybe a camaro chevelle i have no idea you know the small block chevy they've been in every type of vehicle from what i know in the past 30 40 years so let's go make a silver pressure test full throttle warm engine i'm just gonna remove my plug and take a fast test i'm curious to see what the cylinder pressure it has because like i said earlier i did not build this engine so let's see what we got i know i have to remove eight spark plugs but i'm just gonna do with uh only one and usually when you got all laid out you got usually five more psi let's try this you know this bolt was missing earlier this one here and i had to put a bolt in here because it's open to the crankcase if you notice when i revved it up oil came out flying so i bought the i put a bolt there closed it off and now no more oil leaks okay here we go let's see what we've got not bad we're almost at 175. here we go let's go again yeah we're 175 180 so it is what it is so we're pretty good you could probably use our 91 arcane fuel which is pretty good so he's all good yeah there's all kinds of muscles here on nick's garage not just mopar anyways now i'm gonna call charles in get this done another one ready to go and you guys thanks for joining me here in the dining room for some fun hope you guys enjoyed yourself this was a chevy 400 and everything went well there you guys have it and thanks for watching here on next garage and you guys if you look down below the video we have a whole bunch of merchandise that you guys can buy so whatever you like buy it love it wear it and enjoy it and help spread the word of nick's garage and if you have some time check out our patreon page we have extra content and you guys can watch it and take it from there and we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Nick's Garage

Views: 480,467

Keywords: Pistol Grip, Restoration, racing, Engine Builder, Big Block, V8, Street race, Performance, Racing, Drag race, Nick's Garage, Modification, Stock, CAM, ignition, Dyno test, Dyno, Dynamometer, Engine Test, numbers matching, Roadrunner, Road runner, Race truck, Horse Power, Horsepower, Hot Rod, Hot Rod Magazine, upgrade, Engine Build, Charger, Dodge, Piston Damage, Head Damage, Rare, Car and Driver, dream car, Chvec, Chevy, Chevrolet, 454, nova, 1972, Small Block, SBC, Nova, Camaro, Truck, 400, 400 CID

Id: NWPQfyOoh2o

Length: 33min 6sec (1986 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 14 2021