What goes into rebuilding an 11,000-hp Top Fuel dragster engine? | Redline Rebuilds Explained - S2E3

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There's so much technical stuff in this ~2hr long video. It's crazy how much power these things make and how different some things are from normal production cars and even general tuned cars (i.e. solid copper gaskets). Sorry if this has already been posted.

👍︎︎ 11 👤︎︎ u/Shadow703793 📅︎︎ Sep 28 2018 🗫︎ replies

Man this shit is wild I loved every second of it

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/zkramka 📅︎︎ Sep 28 2018 🗫︎ replies

Thanks for sharing! It's amazing how they were able to show everything without actually showing "anything". It's easy to make a very technical or a very entertaining video, mixing the two aspects without sharing the proper "secrets" of the trade requires a lot of thought and effort.

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/bse50 📅︎︎ Sep 29 2018 🗫︎ replies

Absolutely fantastic!

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/Haematobic 📅︎︎ Sep 29 2018 🗫︎ replies
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(engine roaring) - Even your most hopped-up street engine can't even turn-- - Couldn't turn this at wide-open throttle. (Ben and Davin laugh) - That's just... (explosion) (engine roaring) - Hi, I'm Davin. - I'm Ben. - And we're here to talk about our top fuel dragster build down at Schumacher Racing. - Yeah, that was pretty cool going down there. - Oh, it was bad. It was awesome, it was awesome. - [Ben] We got quite a few questions online, plus, we kinda just, I don't know, came up with some stuff of things that we learned while we were down there as well. - Things that we learned and a little backstage commentary on how awesome things are and crazy. - Right off the bat here, what sort of impressed you the most? - Well, given the fact that on a stand, that thing is six foot tall. Granted, it's a foot or two off the ground, but it's six foot tall, and it is a daunting piece of equipment. - [Ben] Yeah, for sure. - When you're sitting there and you're thinking about what that engine is physically capable of, and how much power it puts out, and of course the heritage, and everything that it represents as far as how it got to where it's at, is it brings the hairs up on the back of your neck when you're thinking about it. 11,000 horsepower is substantial. (engine roaring) When you're looking at it you're thinking, wow, the money in the carbon-fiber injector. Kevlar bags holding the blowers together if it comes apart. The same thing with the straps. The Mopar covers there that go over the top of the spark plugs, That's titanium. We're not talking about, let's just put a little piece of plastic over the top of this and hope for the best. It's no, this is bulletproof shields. Let's be thoughtful about what we're dealing with. - Well and even here, the covers for the headers that are sitting there are just, oh, we'll just happen to make these out of carbon fiber just because we can. - That was the best, too. And that was the comment, why aren't these aluminum like everything else? Well, cause we got a carbon fiber shop. Why wouldn't we? (laughs) Well okay, fantastic. - [Ben] So, cool, this is the whole thing. As we go into this, there's so many cool numbers around all this stuff. This whole process of completely tearing down and putting back together happens, what, how often? How many runs do they get in? How many-- - So, what they shoot for is basically, ideally, this engine lasts one event. And that one event is typically four rounds of qualifying and four rounds to the winners circle. So you're talking eight rounds. 12, 16 rounds, that's even better, because everything that they, and when the engine lasts, they're really talking about the crankshaft and the block. That's what their concern is because, in the car, between every round, every time it goes down the track, it comes down to, it's tore down in the chassis to a bare block. The camshaft's in it, the crank is in it, and all your kinda your front bits are on there after the blower belt. So, the injection's taken off, the blower's taken off, the intake manifolds are off. Usually, unless something happened, the magnetos are left on. And then the heads are pulled off and the pan is dropped. The pistons and rods are pulled out. So it's pretty much a full rebuild, but what surprised me is it's not a rebuild with brand-new parts every time or at all. So they're going through, and they have, they mark them, so they know how many runs the rods have on them. - That's right, I remember. - And they check them for straightness, and they check them for size and all that. But they have done their homework and said, well, if we hit 12 runs, these are going out. Regardless of what they look like, that's their limit. And play it safe because there's a lot of money on the line if those go bad. - Yeah, I remember the piston guy was marking the rods with how many times each one had been, and then they had a whole, everybody had a notebook of keeping track of how many times things run, and they all have numbers on them. It's crazy the amount of detail that it goes into. And also, the fact that one of these weighs, what? That whole thing there. - That whole assembly is right about 500 pounds. Which, I think 150 of it's right in that blower, because that blower's heavy. - Yeah, which is crazy to think about how heavy it is to lift a big block out of-- - Yeah, so as a comparison, when we, like, a small-block Chevy, fully dressed, in cast iron, is about 500 pounds. At about half the physical size. - And 1/100th of the horsepower. - Yeah, well-- - 1/50 of-- - When one cylinder is making almost 1,400 horse, yeah not bad. (engine roaring) - [Ben] We went down to Don Schumacher Racing, and not only did we shoot this video of this whole engine being torn apart and put back together, but you got to help. - [Davin] Oh man, heck yeah. There was gonna be no other way, yep. - So, talk about that experience for you. You've rebuilt a lot of engines. You race, yourself, with your nostalgia dragster. (engine roaring) - Yeah, so my thought going into this is, I can't wait to see what's inside of this because there's gonna be some miracle mushrooms in here that are just like, oh my God. And there's stuff that makes power. The blower makes all the power. Magnesium intake manifold. And I think it's funny how you have this huge opening on the top of this, but it's only open in the back based on how everything works and functions. So for my end of things, yeah I'm looking at it and going, okay, we're just gonna see some amazing stuff. and we did, But at the end of the day, it kinda all boils down to the same parts. or it is all the same parts. The blower's a new piece to it, but. Alright, so in general terms, you have to have some way to get air and fuel in to any engine to make them work. Typically, it's a carburetor. In this situation it is this, they'll call it a blower hat or an injector. This particular one, oddly enough, is called the Big Ugly. You're sucking air and fuel down through the blower. You're adding additional fuel in there to basically, enriching all that air, and shove as much into that cylinder as you possibly will physically fit. And it's like that far at full throttle from hydrolocking. It's got that much, it's not atomized anymore, it's just wet. - And speaking of fuel and power, and amount of space that has to go into displacement on this and then what type of fuel? - Actually, displacement-wise, it's relatively low. It's 500 cubic inches, which, in the grand scheme of things, is big, but at the same token, there's a lot bigger motors out there. So, you're talking 500 cubic-inch, and they run on up to 90% nitromethane, which is mixed with methanol. So it's 10% methanol, 90% nitromethane. Nitromethane is an oxygenated fuel. So not only are you cramming as much fuel in there as you possibly can, nitromethane, the potential energy is seven times more than your top racing fuel. So like 114 octane race fuel. It's seven times more, has seven times more potential for power. - [Ben] That's crazy. - [Davin] So yeah. - [Ben] Cool, so blower's off, and what's next? - [Davin] Blower's off. Actually, some fairly standard spark plug wires. We ran these on our 331 Hemi, oddly enough. But, yeah, it's two plugs per cylinder because there's a lot of juice to burn there. Also, that's why they run the pair of magnetos, and then your-- - Yeah, it's something, what, 88 amps, and 50,000 volts. - Yeah, each one of them are 44, 44 amps. Yeah, they're pretty much arc welding through the spark plugs. - [Ben] That is nuts. What are these patches right here. It looks like they're bubbled up and-- - Yeah, they're a controlled burst. So they're considered a burst panel. So it's pop-off valve, for lack of a better word. So if something starts to go wrong, instead of the motor completely just blowing into shrapnel everywhere, it blows out and relieves that pressure out through there. - Okay, so it's like freeze plug, but for air. - Yeah, yep, yep. And then, on the front of the blower you'll see them, too, and I think the back ones, as well. A couple of them-- - [Ben] Oh yeah, I see them. - Yeah, they actually have stress transducers on them. So that's kind of an early warning device as they start to swell, meaning it's that fast, but as they swell they can start, the management system can start shutting things down, as far as reactionary, yeah. - Shutting fuel down, Power down, cool. - Alright, so here, basically, we're down to the intake manifold's off. That manifold is magnesium. Basically, just a weights savings piece. It doesn't work on heads and block but it works really well for the intake. And it's about another 30% lighter than aluminum. And then, here you have kind of a standard-issue, if you will, HEMI as far as shaft rocker set up just like we had on our stock one. And the huge wide head. These are full-on billet aluminum heads. Don Schumacher makes these from a chunk of raw aluminum. It's just 356 aluminum and they, all the chips out. And then what is different on these than a standard head is they actually have a stud that goes down into the block which I found that to probably be the most difficult piece of the assembly, is because inside the, right in here, well, you can see one right there. So this is a stud that goes up into the head but you have a nut that's on the bottom side. And it-- - Oh, okay. - There's just, it's a crappy spot to try to get to. So they've got a little stubby wrench, on a torque wrench. It's calibrated out so it's adjusted for the distance change. But you only have (popping) to tighten it. It's a tight-- - So that to that end there is, there's a stub that's on the head that goes in there? - Yeah. - Okay. - Yep, so when you take the head off, when you'll see it here, when you take the head off, there's four studs that go in that intake manifold area that typically aren't there. - [Ben] Oh, yeah. - [Davin] See them there? - [Ben] Yep. - And surprisingly, that's a lot of mass but they're not that heavy. You take everything off as one unit that way. Cause, remember, their whole idea... So, at race day, they'll have stacks of these, I say stacks, they'll have four sets of heads ready to go on with zoomies hanging off of 'em or the headers hanging off of them. - Minimizing the amount of-- - Minimizing the assembly effort, yep. Because they have 35 minutes to turn this motor in the car on race day between rounds. - And what we'll get to is you see that there are different people's jobs do the certain things. - Yes. - So everybody can kind of, you have these units that disassemble off, and then, people can simultaneously work on that stuff and then it kind of all comes back together at the end. Copper gaskets? - Yep, solid copper gaskets. Ridiculously heavy, in comparison. Surprisingly heavy, I guess I should say. - They're thick too, they were like a quarter inch thick. - Yeah, well they're, I remember one being 108 thousandths. - [Ben] Okay. - So yes, very thick. Most head gaskets are 40 thousandths. Now, what I found out is that head gasket is very key part of things other than just sealing. We'll talk about that later. - [Ben] Okay. (laughs) Alright, so yeah we're down now we're pulling. And you can see all the milling of this block it's just phenomenal. So these are billet aluminum blocks, same thing. They start with a three by two by two chunk of solid aluminum and mill out a lot of it and-- - [Ben] Did they tell, is it a day or something that a full day or 24 hours or something that it takes-- - Yeah, they can work 18 hours of milling and they're working on getting it down to 12 hours. Because, typically what they've been doing is they've been buying blocks. It's actually dart machine And so they buy blocks, the general group buys blocks for 'em. And so dart machine does all this work and they sell them. And oddly enough, I thought it was a discount. It was like 10 grand, he said, for a block, which I was surprised at. Not that 10 grand is anything to shake a stick at but it was surprisingly cheaper than I was expecting. So they're putting together that big CNC operation one unit where they can basically fill it full of, I think it was seven or eight, chunks of aluminum-- - Yeah they had the big spindle with them all on there. - Yeah, and it'll run for a week before anybody has to touch it again barring issues. But, yeah, they're after like 12 hours of machine time. So big diameter lifters... - [Ben] That aluminum is just so crazy. - [Davin] Oh yeah, yeah. Those blocks are simply a work of art anyway. Look at all of the sculpturing through these areas, right? This is not functional at all, other than weight savings. - [Ben] Now, did they, because the heads are made the same way, right. - [Davin] Yep. - [Ben] It's machined aluminum. - [Davin] Yes. - Is everything, as far as flow goes, from what I understand... When you work on any of the engines and you do mild porting, is all that built into the CNC, or do they have somebody come in afterwards and do all that stuff? - Yeah there's, on a CNC, I'm going to say they come off the machine probably 90% complete, maybe a little better than that, in the ports, but there's always going to be a spot in a port where you just-- - You can't get to it. - Yeah, you just can't get tools to it so you have to go in a hand port. You might clean up like a parting line but it's damn near not. - [Ben] Yes, alright. - [Davin] Alright, so rolling it by the humongous studs. Obviously, a specialty oil pan. This runs a dry sump system. So what that means is it does not have a standard oil pump with a pickup inside like you have off a rear main or the front main. It runs a dry sump, so it's actually, that big hose, it sucking the oil out by where this is system one, that's the oil pump. So it's an external oil pump that is, usually, they're belt driven. And I don't remember how this was driven on this one but, it's drawing all that volume out and then, pushing it back through the topside. - [Ben] That's cool. - [Davin] And the reason you do that is so you're not, A, it keeps the engine or the oil cooler, because it runs through a cooler and then it also allows you to about quadruple the oil capacity. So this runs about four gallons of oil in it. - [Ben] Oh, wow. - Because it has an external tank that you're pumping that back to. And then, also, as the crankshaft is spinning in there, you're not slapping, the crankshaft isn't slapping oil, which creates not only poor lubrication because it'll start to foam or, yeah basically foam the oil, but you're also not hindering horsepower. - [Ben] Okay. - Right, every time it would slap, it would-- - Not provide resistance? - Yeah it would be, yeah. - So we did have some comments with people being like, oh, it didn't even look like this engine was run, and all that sort of stuff. And, to a certain point we were limited to what they had on hand. We did, while we were there, get to see a couple different things that had, - A couple other engines. - Some carnage. Which was cool. - Yeah well carnage from some other teams, too. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah what this one had, though, was this was basically, the block was at end of its life relative to a Nitro car. - Yeah, we're talking about earlier, the tick marks of this has done this many runs and if we push it any further then we run the potential of it blowing up on the track. - Exactly right, yep. Call it preventative maintenance at this point. So yeah, so this was a running engine and had assembled through, all the pieces, parts with it, and we were basically as we were pulling it all apart, that was our main goal, it was to actually that, swap the base block out. - [Ben] And we'll see that later. And somebody, I think, commented on YouTube, was like, oh, did you switch blocks out, and yes. - So you have large main studs through here. But then what you have instead of having a second set of bolts for your traditional four-bolt main, what this has instead of a splay bolt coming this way at an angle, it actually has, call it a horizontal bolt coming from the side pan. Doing essentially the same thing. - And that's what these are down here? - Yeah, yeah. - [Ben] Okay, I didn't notice that. - [Davin] Yeah, those go into the main camps and tied all that aluminum and everything and really truss the structure through there. - [Ben] So right now, you are pulling off the connecting, or removing the pistons. - Yep, pulling the pistons out. And a cool push tool by the way. That tool was pretty sweet. Simple, and again, it is a big slug of steel on a bent rod. That's really what it is, but it's slick. Slick and easy. - [Ben] Meant for speed. - [Davin] Yep. - And typically there's somebody laying under the engine. - Yes, yeah, Brent is underneath the motor catching the oil down his armpit. And hot, by the way. - [Ben] Yeah. - [Davin] Laying on his back. - Just came off the track after goin' 300 and something miles and hour. Alright, looks like we're onto all this, business. - Yes, so at this point, this is where they tear it down after every run. So they're down to, this is the, call it the bare block, if you will. - So they wouldn't go beyond this at the run. Right now, they're ready to put the new set of heads on that's sitting there, new sets of pistons. Sometimes, they have to do sleeves? - Sometimes, yep. And they'll do a sleeve right in the block, in the car. - They've got a cool thing that they just stick in there and just go (whooshing). And because it's hot, that allows them, they just slide out, essentially. - More or less, yeah. - Because we were, I think, they were showing us, and because it had been sitting there, it was cold, it was hard to get them out. Because I think we had to pull them out for this one just to clean it, or just to say, - Yeah I forget what it was. - Hey, get rid of the-- Get this block is leaving or whatever. Because I know they can reuse the sleeve. - Yeah, so can I go back here again where, so this is the oil pump. It's driven, basically, driven off the crankshaft, or a camshaft. And then this is your big, your bottom pulley for the blower. This is a tuning device. They'll put, potentially, a different pulley here. Normally, your pulley up top though is more your tuning piece. That is not a water pump. This is just a, it's actually an extension for the fuel pump because the fuel pump goes off in front of the motor. - [Ben] Oh okay, yep. - So that's just a fuel pump extension, if you will. It runs off the camshaft. And then, there's tensioners in that. That was actually, that big piece is what holds it in the car. Yeah, so it's the end of the day, these 11,000 horsepower motors are held in by four hose clamps. (Ben laughs) This is your timing pointer right there, tiny mark on the balancer. This is-- - [Ben] This just kept revealing more stuff as he popped it off. All of the sudden there'd be like 47 more bolts to take off. - Yeah, and I'll be honest with you. I really didn't quite understand what all this was really doing. I was like, whoa. But this is a fancy timing cover, at end of the day. That's the front of the camshaft, of course, and a lots of bolts to hold it in place. Now, part of all that bolt, on the top of that cam, or for that top cam here, is the fact that it allows you to change cam timing. - [Ben] Oh, okay. - So it's slotted. So you have a lot of bolts to keep it in position. - [Ben] Gotcha, now that's one heck of a puller. - Again this big puller to get the front of that off. - [Ben] (laughs) That's cool. - Now, we're starting, that's the very front of the crank. That's what that was. So you basically, have call that the balancer, or the hub, and then this silver part I'm taking off right now there, that's actually just sealing the hub. - [Ben] So what's the, so obviously, you've got the crankshaft and the camshaft. What's this guy running over here? - That's just a follower gears. So instead of using a timing chain that would wrap around the lower and upper, it uses gear to gear to-- - So it's not driving anything? It's just a gear sitting there in between two? - Yeah, yeah. - Okay. And how come they do it where it's direct-connect? Just because of the gearing ratio has to-- - Well that allows you to, it has some adjustment for engagement where, when you're direct to, like on the flathead, you're kind of at the hope that things are cut in the right spot. (laughs) - If not, there's no way of adjusting one way or the other. - Yeah there's no adjusting. For lash. - [Ben] Okay. - [Davin] And there comes out the camshaft. - [Ben] Also billet steel? - [Davin] Yep, billet steel camshaft, roller camshaft, obviously. - [Ben] Anything in particular about the... - A crap load of torque on those bolt, or the nuts there. - [Ben] Yeah, so breaking them loose was... We talk about putting them in because we see you wrenching on the torque wrench later. - Yeah, so then, right there last something that you typically don't have. So if you go back or turn the main cap, see they're using a puller to get the caps out of the block. So they're threaded at the very top. - Oh yeah I see where-- - So it's just a slide hammer to pop them up out of there. Now, I shouldn't say it's not typical in that style of block where the crank is actually inside on the sides. Like on a Chevy, the main caps are prowed of the pan rail where this, the pan rail's, it's countersunk amongst the crankshaft. - That's a big crankshaft. - Yeah, now, cool little trick. That's a heavy son of a gun, right? And I was sitting there looking at it going, how am I going to grab ahold of this, not only is this out here where you have, I don't wanna say a lot of strength but a lot of leverage. How am I going to lift this thing out of there because I'm used to (popping), or whatever. That's a heavy steel crank. - I think it says it's roughly 80 pounds. - Yeah, yeah. And Cody goes, I said, "How do you lift this out?" He goes, "Go grab a rag and put it around a rod main." I'm like, what? Kind of that little questioning. And I did it, he goes, "Yeah, cause you're hands, "course your hand can grip that better "because you're a little bit tighter." I am hanging onto the snout, but just using that rag around there, I was like, "Wow, that was pretty slick." - [Ben] Yeah, you learn something new every day. - Yeah, and now, again, because we're changing the block, salvaging every piece we can possibly salvage. So yanking all the studs out. The studs have an external hex on them, most of them, there's a couple that are internals to pull out. - [Ben] They let you use power tools for once. - [Davin] I know, it was crazy. - [Ben] It's a good thing too, it took us a while. - Yeah, it was a good thing because there was a couple of these bad boys that were in there. So they're put in with locktight, they are technically hand-tight when you put them in there but the locktight they use is like, I don't know, weld. (Ben and Davin laugh) And they truly lock in there. And especially given the two different metals because in between rounds as that aluminum expands and contracts, they recheck those and make sure every one them studs are back in there, tight when they pull everything apart. They pull the head off, they'll check every one of them, make sure they're, so they give them a little bit more. So if you think about it, every time, they're a little bit deeper because it's warmer while we're running on a cold block. And it's like no, uh uh, I'm not coming out. (Ben laughs) So, propane torch, nothing fancy, heat the tar out of it and get it to come out. And hope you don't pull a thread because pulling head bolt thread's not the end of the world but not great. - Well in this thing, the block's all done anyway, so not a big deal. - Well, all done relative to Nitro. Cause I loved the fact when he made the comment to me that, "Well this would last forever in a motor like you'd run." (Davin and Ben laugh) You know, a mere thousand horse. - Alright, there she goes. - Yeah so she's, she's down. - [Ben] She has served her purpose and now, onto the, I don't know, recycle bin I guess. - And they actually sell used parts. - Do they? - Yeah. - Oh, alright, so. You could have that in your next-- - Oh man. - Build. - But you better make sure you got some way to cool it. It's not gonna be on the street. (Ben laughs) Yeah, so here's a line up of all the pieces that were in there. Obviously minus the block. - [Ben] A whole lot of stuff. Alright, so onto the pistons. And this is something that they have new pistons ready to go but this whole measurement, everything happens at the races? - [Davin] Brent'll have it all prepped where they have racks of pistons. So, these pistons have been run. You can see that they got call it burn marks on the top, fuel been burned on top of them. So what they'll do is they'll set, they'll have eight sets of these racks they're all, everything's miked out. Yep, these are good rods, they're still within our use criteria as far as run wise. Same thing for pistons. They'll mike 'em for size and they'll make sure, really the big thing is making sure the ringlands aren't collapsing. We got a couple pistons where the top where, it just pounds, that Nitro just pounds the top of the pistons, and it starts to pinch the gap. So they'll have 'em all set up with this with bearings in 'em. And they're ready to go. So in these cabinets above, they'll have 'em staged and set up. So then at the track it's just a grab and go. So in this, so here he's checking diameter of the piston the skirt, mainly skirt wear, but you check all that out. He's got a gauge for it there as well. And that's the top of the piston that he's checking. There he is just kinda looking through the ringlands. Here's mikin' the skirts. He's gonna check... - This is it, yeah. - Yeah watch it-- - [Ben] Up above where his hands are going, it's going to that shot right here in a second I think. Yeah here you go. - [Davin] So if you look, see he's holding it by the pin here, and then that's checkin, exactly right, rod stretch. Cause those aluminum rods move. And that's actually why they use aluminum rods instead of steel rods, because steel rods can't take the punishment of that beating that Nitro gives them. And then here he's putting the caps on. And I'm sure he's-- - [Ben] Probably checkin' them again. - [Davin] Yeah checkin' the, well he's checkin' the diameter of it. - A little implication. - And then that's assembly, yeah the assembly lube that they use. - And then, oh, this is cool in terms of this thing that we sort of struggle with. You've got these custom made-- - So they use tapered sleeves, which is something you can buy. Every parts house sell them relative to size. So if you have a 30 over, a four inch bore, you buy a tapered sleeve that allows you to, how you would normally use these is you would set them on the block and then they're wider at the top. They basically work as a funnel. Then you push your piston and rods assembly right straight down, just (whooshing) lickety split down into the hole, right? But you usually only have one. You don't have one for every piston on the rack of, potentially, what, eight is 64, so you got at least 64 of these ready to-- - Yeah, cause it's, they're, as he has it on the tray there, that's how they are because when they're at the track, they're goin chunk chunk chunk chunk chunk, puttin' those in as quick as they can. - Yeah they put eight pistons in in the time that I usually take to put one in. (Ben laughs) Yeah that is the truth. - [Ben] Alright, onto the heads. - [Davin] Yep, onto the cylinder heads. A big, they have high bell spring pressure, so he's gotta, again, especially toy. Notice it's not a pneumatic. I was expecting a pneumatic tool. - [Ben] Oh, okay. Just hand cranked. - [Davin] Yeah, just the hand crank. Probably found it's easier and less cumbersome to work with, right. - So are these, we continue to talk about components and what is available to mere mortals (Davin laughs) and then what these guys use. In terms of rings, or sorry, valves and springs and that sort of thing, what, is this custom stuff that they make, that they buy, that they, like what's one of these valves cost? - Those are, they're runnin' titanium valves. - Oh jeez, okay. (laughs) - Titanium comes with a pretty heavy price. They're, I know, on my meager level of racing, they're about $150 a piece. - Oh wow. - So yeah, the valves are expensive. But they are readily available to the general public. It's not anything that you can't mail order, quite honestly. Valve springs, I'm sure there's a special mix relative to the material that they're using. And again, there's titanium retainers and keepers and the whole reason there is to keep you valve train light. Because remember the RPM that those are moving up and down to be able to control the valve is what you're after there. - Well the RPM too, your springs have to be powerful and fast enough with they're-- - Load. - Yeah, to actually be able to handle that. Otherwise they would just float, essentially. - That's exactly what happens. They do, they'll hover, almost. (Ben laughs) Which is bad when the pistons come in after the valve. (Ben laughs) Yeah, not good at all. - [Ben] Bad things happen. - [Davin] Yeah, ugly, ugly. - [Ben] So what's he doin there, what's he... Oh, this is another part of the how many times-- - [Davin] How many times the valves have been run, yep. - [Ben] He's got just a little etcher there to put a little line in it and say this is-- - A little Best Buy etcher goin to town. - [Ben] Okay and he's here checking they're still-- - [Davin] Straight. - [Ben] Okay. - Yeah, that's a straightness gauge. And Brent was runnin' the wrist pins, he had a gauge for that, a V-block with a dial indicator right in the center. And he was rollin' it, just checkin' it for straightness. So at right here, what he's doing is he's hand lapping valves in there. - [Ben] Which is funny to see that old school engine building tool in this crazy, modern setting. - [Davin] Yeah, a little wood handled suction cup. - I think he was sayin that he had gotten a new set a couple of years ago or something and they were awful. And the ones that he has are his that he's had for like 30 years. - Yeah cause the new ones are plastic handled instead of the wood so you lose a feel to it and the rubber on the suction cup is probably a little different. - [Ben] So here's the other head. Pulling out all those oil passages? Or what's the-- - [Davin] Well that was all the, that was spark plugs that he pulled out there. But then, yeah clean it up. So all those tubes are your oil passages. Oil comes into the back side of the head, runs down that tube and... - [Ben] New plugs. - [Davin] Lubricating the guides, basically. - [Ben] Torque wrench on all the plugs. - [Davin] And the plugs are interesting. They last exactly one run. - Oh yeah, well up above where he's working right now, he opened the cabinet and I was like, oh my gosh. It was a giant cabinet with but nothing but spark plugs. And then he had 'em sort of organized, like these are, cause I think they test 'em. They have some sort of tester where they-- - Well they read 'em. They read all the plugs, so how they look at it is, basically, how much of the electrode loop or the ground strap round loop is burnt off. Now if you and I were to pull a plug out of our daily driver and saw that that loop was gone, we'd be like, "Oh no" right? No, they're lookin' at it goin, "Oh, half of it's gone? Perfect." - Oh okay, because they want more of a gap, or what's the-- - No, what it's saying is, timing and the amount of fuel is exactly what they want. So it's their lean, rich measurement. - Oh because it's burnin' through there so fast they actually want it to eat through it. - Right, because-- - That's showing that it's burning in that cylinder? - Right, exactly, yeah. So what the fuel mixture is in each cylinder. And they check each cylinder because every cylinder potentially has a different size nozzle for the amount of fuel. So they might send slightly more fuel to one cylinder and then the other. And that's actually pretty normal because there's a couple cylinders that'll typically run hotter side to side than... - [Ben] Alright, super charger. Two people to carry this thing. - [Davin] Yes, and it's heavy. It really is. - [Ben] Even with it being carbon fiber and-- - [Davin] Yep, carbon fiber and aluminum. - [Ben] And then Kevlar to protect it from killing somebody when it inevitably explodes. - It basically wears a bullet proof vest is what it amounts to. - So we'll adjust this right here and just leave it at that, but do you wanna have the honors of our blurb? - [Davin] Yeah, so this is competitive race team. And, you have rule that are very specific in what you can and cannot do. It's in NASCAR, it's in Sprint car racing, it's all the way down to go cart racing for kids. Right, you have rules. This is certainly not saying that this is a rule breaking function, but you're always lookin' for a competitive advantage. And they leave rules open in some areas to say, "You can do whatever you want to do here "to make power." This is the area. So, we were asked that proprietary wise, this area of the blower is-- - [Ben] Off limits. - Yeah, off limits. - So there's some conspiracy theories about it and everything else. And this, now that we've addressed that, we can get into how bonkers these things are. - Oh, yeah. - [Ben] (laughs) Those blades are just unreal. I kinda wanna have one and make a lamp out of it or somethin, I don't know. (Davin laughs) They're so cool lookin. - Yeah, yeah they are. Yeah the way they twist through. - And mesh into each other, yeah. That just, and how much air they can move. - Yep, exactly. So, a while back, do you remember, it was all the craze with the kids with the fidget spinner? (Ben laughs) This is the original fidget spinner. (laughs) - Yeah you just have to have two people to operate it. So all these, what is he? - So traditionally, when super chargers were developed for diesel engines, Detroit diesel specifically, they were just these helix with basically, just the mechanical clearance. What racing found out is, "Oh, if we seal this off, it makes a lot more power." - It's keeping that extra air, it's forcing that air down and it's a seal. - It's a seal. And what you're doing is, as these things roll together, it's grabbing air and it's compressing it. So nothing different than like an oil pump does, or a fuel pump does. It's the same exact principle. And it's, again, instead of having a metal, in this case aluminum seal, which obviously, you can't have the aluminum parts hitting each other because that would create friction and particles. - And you'd also lose power. - And right, so you gain power by having it, but then you lose some power. And then of course as it heats up, it changes size and so on and so forth. So what has been added in blowers of today is you have grooves milled in and then you put Teflon screws in them. And that's what he's peeling off here. - [Ben] And it's a wear item. - [Davin] It is a wear item, yep. - Now is this something where, I imagine, I can't even remember asking him, but is he putting in new blades with new strips after every run? Or is this the sort of one that'll just-- - [Davin] No, no. - This'll get him through a race weekend and then they'll rebuild. - They'll change 'em as it wears, I'm sure, I didn't talk to him directly on what his limit is, but yeah, basically. As it's too easy to turn, they're wore out. - Okay. And then this process of, those little things are in here as well. You can see the little grooves. - [Davin] They'll basically seal off the end of it as well. - [Ben] So yeah, you can see him shoving new ones in there, cuttin' them off. - [Davin] And I would guess... I didn't sit with him. That's like a sizer if I remember correctly. - [Ben] It is, that's exactly what, you can see he's got the dial indicator there. And yeah, so again, with all the tolerances with all this stuff and how measured and everything is. You can see the ones here that haven't been cut yet. He's got 'em all installed and ready to go. And then that machine was just a little, essentially a router bit that ran it all through and-- - Yeah cause the seals are oversized and then they're trimmed to size. As opposed to lettin' them wear in. (laughs) - [Ben] Well yeah, I would imagine you would also just have problems with it fitting in there if you didn't trim 'em. So again, he's doin the same thing, adding new strips. And it has this cool, this is like one of my favorite shots watching this thing with the tool here. You have to lip fit. And-- - Yeah it is, basically a router blade. - [Ben] Yeah, zip, zip, zip. Cool. Back together. - [Davin] And the blowers are as simple as that. You got gears on the end that tie the blades together and c'est la vie. - [Ben] I was actually surprised at, when he puts the... - And there he's just checkin. He had fueler gauges up in there just checkin' that clearance making sure everything's good. - [Ben] Add on some lubrication. - [Davin] Put the snout on. - [Ben] I was surprised with with how much oil came out from the, I guess the gears on the end that, keep everything lubricated. Keep them from heatin' up to much. - You gotta lubricate it. What I find is interesting is, I would've expected that to be like a standard gear lube or, engine oil, what have you. But what's used is two stroke oil. - [Ben] Oh that's right. I forgot about that. - And one of the reasons they use two stroke oil, obviously it has plenty of lubricating properties for the gears. But the deal with two stroke oil is, if the seal goes bad, and it sucks it into the blower, cause that's what happens to that oil if the seal goes bad, it just burns. No big deal. However, if, if you're using gear lube, the gear lube doesn't burn and it causes problems with lock up. (Ben laughs) So, in fact, the other thing too is to note on that, so when they make the pass and at the end of the pass you see basically every blower car makes a big poof at the end. And it's kinda always that thing of, I always wondered like, "God, do they all blow up at the end?" Cause that's what it looks like. Big puff of white smoke. What it is, and I think we show it at the very end, it's on there, there's a canister in the very back, and it's say a pint, pint canister. And it's full of castor oil. Like you take for whatever, like your grandma would give you. (Ben laughs) It's full of castor oil and what happens, so when they shut it down, cause fuel is lubricating those rotors in there, right, as they're turning. - Oh right, the injectors. - Right, well how you shut the motor down is you shut the fuel off. You stop giving it fuel. That shuts it down. Well now you got rotors goin in there just turnin, that are hot, with no lubrication. So what that plume is, is you're seein that shot of castor oil down into that blower. - Interesting. - Because it's still turnin, because you gotta remember it's locked up at that point. The clutch is locked. You're not in neutral. So the motor's turning if it's rollin. Well, then the blower has to turn, shoot that castor oil in there, keeps it lubricated, but it's cylinder walls are hot cause you're blowin' some of it in there, and it's burning out of it. But yeah, that was something I learned, because I was like, "What is that?" And they were like-- - [Ben] They think of everything. - Yeah, I'm like, "Oh yeah." Well they think of everything after it breaks, right? That's how the invention necessity is, the world's greatest invention, right. - [Ben] The necessity is the mother of invention? - Mother of, mother of all invention, yes. - Yeah, you think about how many, where drag racing has come from, and they're learnin' new things every single run but they're especially learning new things every time something blows up. - Oh yeah, oh. Let's not do it that way. (Davin and Ben laugh) How can we make this last? So here is the... Now this was not a brand now block, either. This was using up an old block, or a previously used block. If I remember right, when you were talkin' about the cylinder, it did have a cylinder problem. So one of the cylinder walls was burnt and they had just swapped it out and we... So here I'm dousing it with brake clean, everywhere. - [Ben] And every last, if there was anything, out of there. - And the cylinders all get like a gold look to them from the heat. So, Cody was sayin, what the big idea here is not that they're trying to gain, you want some more, you want fresh cross hatch like any engine, but the other thing is you can also see how bad the, if there's any scratches in the cylinder that are more than what you wanna have. And then of course if there's a crack as well. - [Ben] So you're brushing it out to see that stuff? - Yeah, yep. Yeah so in a ball hone is literally a grinding stone. There's a grinding stone every one of those little legs that are little balls. And as you, that's basically trannie fluid that we're sprayin' on there. And, just for lubrication in it. Count to 10, it's a heck of a deal. It cleans 'em up very nice. You get really nice cross hatch to 'em. So, just like we do on every engine, torque all the main caps down and check 'em. - [Ben] Oh yeah there's the side. - [Davin] See there's the side, yep. Pulled the side bolts back out. - [Ben] That's a good build. What we were talkin' about earlier. Crazy that that's-- - I guess the bearings technically were not in there. They check, cause they know what the thickness of their bearings are. - But what's? - That's actually, that, on this, - That's all cut? - The thrust bearing is a center bearing on a Mopar. - [Ben] Oh okay. Now those are your bearings. - [Davin] Yeah, so now the bearings are in there. - [Ben] You got your towel trick again. - [Davin] Yep yep, to which I'll be using forever now. - Yeah, there are definitely a good number of take aways that you got from this of kind of-- - Yeah little tricks-- - Bringin' back to the shop. - So much tricks but yeah some things to. You always learn somethin. There's gotta be somethin gonna be learned everywhere. - And it's a, I don't know, in my opinion, it's a good way to live to not, with as long as you have bene doin this stuff, to go into something like this and be like, "Teach me." And not go in being like, "Hey guys, I build engines all the time." (Davin and Ben laugh) - Right, exactly right. And I always kind of wonder if people think you're stupid. Cause I ask a lot of questions, and it's not because I don't necessarily know anything, but it's like, I wanna ask the question cause, depending on how it's, you might have a different answer than I'm expecting. And if you go in there going, "Well I know everything", which you don't, right, so then you learn. So here, nice little tech tip, I gotta torque these things 140 pounds. Can you imagine putting your foot against it and pullin' it, rollin' it towards you? - Yep, it's not gonna happen. - He goes "Don't do it that way." He goes, turn it on it's side, push down. Duh. (Davin and Ben laugh) Right, but it's like, "Okay, yeah." Now when you're doin 85 and 100, no big deal. But at 140 you're, there's a big jump in there. You know from- - It's a good thing you weigh more than 140 pounds. - [Davin] It is. And that's the other reason why you get on it. (laughs) Use that lever arm. On this, with the studs, too, we always put in a stud, you double nut the stud so you get something to torque in. Now granted, you're only puttin' these in, call it hand tight. But you see there's a little tool that they have right there. - [Ben] Right here. - Yeah, that's nothing more than a dead stop. - [Ben] Oh okay. - [Davin] It's just the dead stop for the end of it. So it's a-- - [Ben] So you thread it on till it stops. - [Davin] Yeah until it stops and then it drives in and then you just kick it real fast and it pulls right back out. - [Ben] Well that makes sense. - [Davin] Yeah, but you don't have to double nut it to get enough drive on the thread. - [Ben] To put it in, but to put it out, that wouldn't work. To pull it out - No no no. - [Ben] Something like that wouldn't work. But, just for ease of-- - No, then they had, then there was an Allen head that goes in the end of it. Just like we use on any of your poly locks on rocker arms. The same principle, then you just use that to back it up. But it's a little more self contained, a little less likely to fall down intake manifold, some things like that. (Ben laughs) - [Ben] On go all your timing gears. Again with the kagillion bolts. - [Davin] Yeah, bagillion little components. - [Ben] Or nuts rather. - [Davin] And the stuff that they're like, "Yeah, leave this a little bit loose, "and this tighten this. "Run all these studs in." - [Ben] You ran all these studs in, what, just like stopped, like that was it? You didn't go, - Nope. - [Ben] Once they were in with that tool, they were in. Looks like you've got the torch out again there. - [Davin] Yeah. - [Ben] Get somethin in all the way? - Yeah, we had an issue, so one bolt, he's like, "Oh yeah, they just run 'em right in, no problem." Well for some reason, that thread, it got about, there's an inch and a half of thread on there roughly. I got to 3/4 and it just (slapping), it just stopped. So there was either somethin on the thread itself that it caught goin down. And then just said, "No way, I'm done." So we had to heat it. And it was right after Cody's like, "Oh yeah, we never have problems with these." Cause I asked, "Did you really wanna use the impact drum?" "Oh heck yeah, this is what we always do." And then-- (Ben laughs) And then boom, this bit bites us in the... So there we are with our tapered tools puttin' everything in. - [Ben] And what are you checkin' here? - Here he's, well, so we put number one piston in. And we're fine on top that's, basically fine on top that's, at that point. - [Ben] So then you're doing that so then you can set your camshaft in. - Camshaft in, yep. - See I learn stuff while I'm workin' with you. - [Davin] That's right, that's right. (Ben laughs) - Could I do it myself? - So here I'm settin' in again that hub and almost looks like a pulley or a water pump pulley there, but that's the timing hub. - Oh yeah I see you're-- - Settin' it at-- - [Ben] Lining up your dash with your mark and-- - And I think it was, it's basically static timing. Everything's timed at, if I remember it was 32 or 34 degrees. So instead of settin' it at, like we set everything at zero, they set it already advanced. - But it looks like you have a couple different ticks there. You had a white one, a yellow one, a red one. - But that's your rotation, so 90 degrees, or 180 degrees out and checkin. And then that timing tab slides the, to get to your zero. So you're settin' zero and then rollin' in. - [Ben] It's fun goin through this frame by frame. I've watched this a kagillion times but, I guess the point of these videos is so we pick out the details like that. But, also we see people on YouTube they're like, "Oh man, I went through it frame by frame" or, "Oh I watched it at quarter speed" or-- - [Davin] Which is great. That's awesome. - [Ben] Yeah you pick out a lot of cool stuff. - [Davin] Just runnin' the cam shaft up in there and this is using a huge Allen wrench to rotate it. Settin' it in position, puttin' the gear in, meshing up the gears. Cause it's got that follower in there. And here what I'm trying to find is, basically where the cam shaft needs to be at and there's all those multitude of holes, well they're not symmetric, exactly, right. There's some play to 'em. So you're tryin' to find out what one lines up the best so you can get the teeth and everything lined up all at the same time. So now I'm just rotating it over and we're watching the, he's settin' timing marks on it. We adjusted it cause it wasn't where we wanted it to be. So, you're settin' the position, you're degreeing in the camshaft here. Slightly different than how we typically, we run it off the bottom pulley with a chain and with the gear to gear you run it off the top. - [Ben] And now you're goin, now you can tighten it all down. - Yep, yep. Now what we didn't catch in here, I guess, but, so something I found that was really interesting is, so, traditionally speaking, you set, you degree your cam in off of number one, and you're done, right? Cam's in, perfect, everything's great. The step in between putting the fuel pump extension on is we took the gauges, found top dead center on number six, and checked the timing on number six. - [Ben] Oh interesting. - [Davin] And while we were doin that, I was scratching my head goin, "Why are we doing this, this makes no sense to me." If it's in, it's in. And so I asked Cody, I'm like, "Why do you check the same thing back on six, "it makes no sense to me." And he goes, "What we're really checkin' for "is if the block is physically twisted." - Oh wow. - Because if the block is physically twisted, when it comes up relative to the cam position, it'll be different, and it's a way to check it. So it's probably, ultimately, a better way to check it than if you were, let's say try to sit and mike everything. - [Ben] Interesting. - But I thought it was an interesting little-- - And when you say mike, you mean trying to mike the whole block, make sure it's square. - Yeah, right. - [Ben] Okay. (laughs) - It's a quicker check than goin through all the inspection procedures. And here you're setting the camshaft, or basically checkin' the camshaft in play. Makin' sure that it's not too tight. - So you pulled that off - Yeah, take it all back off. - [Ben] Okay, so it's a spacer? - [Davin] Yep. - So you checked what that end play is. And then did they have different size of those to take up however much? - Yep, yep. Again, that is nothing more than an extension. So your fuel pump could go directly to the camshaft but then the belt would be hittin' it. So that's a clearance function. And then this is the, that's the Mag Drive. So you still only have one output off the camshaft as far as driving the distributor. Or in this case magnetos. So, what there is is there's a one to one, so when the front one turns, the back one turns exactly the same amount of times. - There's a gear in there? - So there's a gear in there, yep. So, what it does is it doubles the output off the camshaft to run two distributors. And they have to be-- - I didn't realize they were a mechanical thing in there. - [Davin] And of course they have to be timed, cause you don't want them out of sequence. So that's our tray of pistons that Brent put together and we got the sleeves with, assembly sleeves on every one of 'em. Set her down in there and just push her through. It's amazing how slick they were. - [Ben] There's your oil pump. - Yep, that's the oil pump. I tried puttin' it on the other way. I was trying something new, that's the idea. - You're tryin' to really help 'em discover maybe-- - I was tryin' to streamline, trying to streamline the front end. - [Ben] It's kind of in the way right here. - [Davin] Cody's like, "Dude, those bolts "are not gonna line up the wrong way around." Picky picky. - [Ben] What does he know. - [Davin] Yeah. Dropped the other four pistons in. - [Ben] So easy, look how quickly they go in there. - And Cody run... That was something that was surprising too, is based on speed, so they're running all the electric impact drivers. And they're not tryin' to torque them, they're just runnin' 'em up tight. They've done the checks, they know it's 24 pounds or whatever and they're gonna torque these to 60. So you're not relying on the impact wrench to do it. You're still goin back to a mechanical clicker wrench you know the-- - [Ben] Tried and true. - [Davin] The tried and true, exactly right. - [Ben] Now these were still pretty high on this too, wasn't it? As far as the-- - Yeah, I'm trying to remember what they were. Stock's, standard is like 45, I wanna say they were at 60. So a fair amount more. Especially goin into aluminum. This pan was trick. (laughs) Again, so they glue the oil pan. The oil pan gasket is glued to, the rubber gasket is glued to the oil pan. Again, so-- - So it comes in yeah right there you see it. - [Davin] So it's in there. So at the track, it's the same thing. Cause they're doin it upside down, mind you. So it's all ready to go in there, (whooshing) pop it up in there. - So he's under, Brent essentially is underneath goin, zip zip zip zip zip, all the way around, out, and then starts pullin' everything. - [Davin] So there's our short block. - [Ben] Cody standing back there just watchin ya. - [Davin] So at this point, when you're at a race track and it's, I dunno, let's say 10:00 in the morning and they're not gonna run maybe until 2:00 or 3:00, somethin like that. I've always wondered why, it's like, it's the first run. So, do all these teams show up not prepared to race? Because they're all sitting in the car like this. - Oh right, yep. - Just the short block sittin' in the car. Heads are off, it's like, what is? It's one of those things of, what's goin on, - Why wouldn't you just roll up ready to go. - Why wouldn't you roll up ready to run. I understand maybe the blower or the hat up there bouncing around in the trailer, you don't want that so you secure it someplace else. But the heads, why wouldn't you be sitting on the stand ready to roll. The reason is, is as your day progresses and your weather changes, that head gasket is one of the major tuning devices. - In terms of adjusting your-- - Compression. So they'll use the same on each side, but they will adjust them. So instead of sayin, let's say instead of puttin' a hundred thousandths gasket in there they may put in 80, or they'll put a 120. On whatever the increments are. But, that is one of the tuning pieces in there. Because the idea is, you wanna make as much power as you can, (engine roaring) but it has to be what the track'll take, what you're, and of course clutching is involved in there too. But at the same token, if you've got a lot of water grains, you can't run a lot of compression. It doesn't want that, it wants less. So you're playin' with that. So now it makes sense to why they hustle their hind ends off (cranking sounds) (engine roaring) a half hour after they've been, I'll say it, standing around for four hours doing stuff but not putting the motor together. Goin, jeez, why aren't you guys ready to go? Well it's because they make the last minute call and it's a half hour beforehand and say, "Yep, this is the gasket, this is the head gasket, go." - [Ben] Glued on gasket as well, with the head comin' on? Or is that just sittin' there? - Yep, yep. Ah, no I take that back. Those just sit on there. But they're a heavy rubber and a lot of torque. - [Ben] (laughs) Look at that, that's basically what, do they take a socket and just weld on a pipe? - Exactly, exactly right. (laughs) And now you're gonna ask, "Why didn't you roll this on it's side?" Cause at this point it's getting heavy. - Oh yeah if you start rollin' it, it's gonna wanna go (whooshing). - Yep, and now, again, it's not that crazy but... - [Ben] (laughs) Cody here holdin' the other side. - Yeah I got a lot of ballast over in this side to counteract the roll. - [Ben] Yeah you can tell that you're puttin' some effort in there. (Davin laughs) I think you were sweatin' after this. - [Davin] Uh yes, yep, definitely was. And, I forget what we were doin there. - [Ben] Probably droppin' in, oh no tightening those-- - [Davin] Oh tightening down those-- - [Ben] Studs. - [Davin] Those inner nuts, yeah. - [Ben] The nuts on those studs. Okay, so torquing those too. - Yep, so those gotta be torqued down. - You mentioned earlier that they had sort of an extra little, almost a crow's foot type-- - Yeah a little crow's, yep, a little closing crow's foot. And again, you can only go (popping), just a 16th of a turn. And there's like a little lock, square washer in there as well. See what they do, they have what they call peanut butter which is, and you can see some right here. So this tan grease is, so under every head, and you at some point, I'm sure you see the, basically you're using an acid brush to wipe it on. So every washer and every hex nut gets coated on the bottom where the torque surface is mated. Just like when we put 'em together and we make suer they got, you use the ARP grease as far as the bolts are concerned. But what that is, it's a grease relative to diesel assembly. And, at the end of the day, they found that that gives them the most consistent torque. So the idea is you're taking away the friction between the steel, so you're gettin' true torque and clamp pressure. Because that's, torque is all about just clamping the materials together. That's the whole idea. So the more consistent you are on that torque, the more consistent the clamping load is. - [Ben] Lot's of torquing. - And now these mammoth pusher heads, diameter wise, they are huge. So, right here, So you just saw some of that peanut butter. So there's the peanut butter goin on. So right here, you will notice, out of the eight push rods, it is missing one. And it's right here, okay. There's no push rod here. So one, two, three, four five six, eight. Right? So as we're doin this, I say, "Hey Cody we got one more." He goes, "No, no no no, don't put that in yet." I'm like, "What do you mean don't put it in yet." (Ben laughs) Well, and he explained. He said, basically because of the lift of the camshaft and the valve train angles, so you set the shaft on, the whole shaft assembly down on there, because one spring or one lifter is all the way up coming towards the valve train, you would have to basically compress one spring. A lot, all the way. What you've run the risk of, is you run the risk of taking that into your valve and your roller on your lifter, you risk goin (popping) and kicking it off. So you risk damaging a valve. So what they do is they put all but that one on, that one in, you see it's missing, so they put 'em all in there. Cause you gotta line a lot of stuff up when you set all this together, It's kinda tricky. So he goes through, you run 'em all down. - [Ben] Torquing. - Yep, torque everything down. And the same thing on the other head, the same idea. But see the, on a Mopar, the rocker arm is, call it spring loaded. You can just see the spring on this one here. So what it allows you to do, is it allows you to slip the valve train, or the rocker arm over and then drop the push rod in whenever you want. So kind of a slick-- - These springs right here let you slide it over. - Allows you to push it over. So basically, he'll go through and he'll roll the motor over to take the tension off of that, or to basically drop that lifter. - At this point, you're torque down on the other ones, so when you turn it over, it's fine pushing up on another one somewhere. - Exactly right. You drop the lifter down, then you set that last push rod in, and then set your stuff on and then continue on as normal. So here we're puttin' down the intake manifold. - [Ben] Look at all that. Injector, everything, crazy. Got your headers comin' on here. - [Davin] Yeah we put these on separate, we didn't have 'em on already in that. And you can see, real quickly there, you can see where the rotors are all pointin in that same direction. That means we're all set to the same spot. Call it number one. - [Ben] Okay yeah and you're setting your... - Yep and then you're clampin' them all together. Cause there's a clamp that holds 'em together from doin, basically wobblin' all over the place. Cause when you're standing next to this when it's running, why everything's clamped down. (engine roaring) It's violent. - [Ben] Punching you in the face. - Yes, yeah. Yep then lift up the big blower with the Kevlar bag on it. - [Ben] It gets all strapped down. Got pins and everything that holds it-- - And you notice they color code their wires, the ends of 'em. Red and black, it's relative to the, which mag it is. - So each mag drives one plug in each cylinder? - Correct. - Okay. As opposed to like one drive and one side-- - And it's not for redundancy, it's for coverin' all that fuel to burn all that fuel up. And then, part of the, like we were talkin about tuning stuff before, they're, telemetry wise, they're recording exhaust temperatures. That's what those are. - Okay so each of those, each pipe has it's own-- - Every pipe has a EGT on it, yep yep. - [Ben] That's cool. - And there's sensors multiple, all their places around the engine for different things. - And all that stuff is sort of how they have been able to arrive at some type of horsepower calculation because there's no dyno that can hold this. - Yeah, there are no dynos capable of holding the power that... They have a dyno room, but the dyno room is actually for dynoing the blower. So they spin the blower, which is an obnoxious amount of power just to spin just the blower. In the motor they-- - So they have like some crazy electric motor in there to-- - Yeah they have a huge, that thing is like, a foot and a half in diameter-- - And every time they turned it on, everybody in the whole entire shop, massive shock when they turn that on. Everybody stops what they're doing and just puts their hands over their ears. (Davin and Ben laugh) - It's obnoxiously loud, yes. And it has sound deadening in it. So even then it's still loud. But, yeah so they dyno the, basically your injector hat and your blower. And they've learned what the CFM that it puts out, that's a good basis for what kind of power it's gonna put out, or a deciding factor. Back to the blower too, back up just a bit. So you got, like I mentioned before, you got a bottom pulley here crank. And there are different ones, but typically these stay the same. This is just a follower up here. Or a tensioner, a mechanical tensioner to keep that belt tight. And then the very top pulley, they will change that. You change the number of teeth up or down and that changes the ratio of tho driven ration of that blower. So you can, and this baffles my mind, you can over drive it, which means it's turning more than the crank. Which makes sense, right, you're putting more pressure, or you can under drive it and still make power. Lot's of it. - That's crazy. - Which is, when you hear under drive, it's like, "Oh hold it, you're turning the top "slower than the bottom, and makin' more power, "somehow that doesn't make sense." But you gotta remember, it's always more than atmospheric pressure. Anything over atmospheric pressure's making more power than if it wasn't blowing. Yeah, pretty neat, pretty wild. - And even with that said, that, the amount of power that it takes, the amount of power that the engine needs to provide to just run the super charger? - Right, because the air that it's compressing, the resistance of that. - The amount of force that it takes just to drive that unit to then provide more power... - Is said to be 800 horse when it's running. - (laughs) So even like, (Davin laughs) your most hopped up street engine can't even turn-- - Couldn't turn this at wide open throttle. (Davin and Ben laugh) - That's just (explosion). That's crazy, absolutely crazy. Alright, so it's together. - [Davin] It is together. Now the fun begins. - [Ben] And off to the races. Which, get at us with some of our previous builds of whether we ran into some hiccups and we couldn't start it on time. Or, we've got our engine stand now, so we're at least able to start it. But, you build something like this, you want it to go in the car, and you want it to go fast. - Yep, exactly. So somethin that I found was really interesting, and you get that, "Oh wow, what's gonna be the most surprising thing?" And the most surprising thing is when you're in that shop, to me, is the fact that it's just like being at the drag strip because they're working out of the trailers, just in a huge warehouse. At the end of the day. So you have semi-truck pulled into your garage, and you're working outta that. That's just like, wow. You know the size is just remarkable. But it makes sense because you've got six to eight guys workin' on this car and when it really counts, you're working out of the trailer. So why not practice in the trailer. Why not always be out of... And you don't have to worry as much about, like I've gotten to the race track before and forgot the jack, the timing light, because I'm not workin' out of my trailer I work out of the shop. And then, and it's like ah. It eliminates that. - This is the same thing with all our video equipment. We do this project here and then we've gotta pack it up and go to a barn find hunter, and then we're like, "Oh crap. Oh no, I know exactly where it's sitting." So before we get into this, rough cost of an engine like this? - So, the rough cost, just general numbers, you're at 10,000 for a bare block. You're at probably three to four grand maybe five for a crank. Rods are cheap at $150 a piece, not bad. That was $150 a piece. So you got probably another, probably 10 to 20 in heads. Somethin like that. Super charger pushin 30 I guess. But at the end of the day, just in very generic, round numbers, you're 60, $70,000 to put the engine together. - Right, that's not counting this whole entire body is carbon fiber. - It's all carbon fiber body panel, yep. - And the amount of time and engineering and just brain power that goes into making the frames and-- - Yeah there is-- - That whole engineering side of it. - There, even the body panels have a purpose over sponsorship. They do have a purpose for streamlining it somewhat. Dragsters are not the most aerodynamic pieces because you have the, in fact you can just kinda see that you have these canards in here to help deflect the air up over the tires, otherwise, those tires at speed are barn door. Air doesn't wanna go over the top. But everything on this dragster has a purpose, otherwise there's no point. You have a front wing that's giving you a ton of down force to keep the nose on the ground because air up underneath it wants to throw it over. Which you can get only so far where the wheelie bars are sayin, "Op, I'm done." And then at the same token, that big wing is not up there just to be cool. It's not a spoiler on your Subaru. It is there for a real reason. It is, what was it like, two ton. - All the Subaru people are furiously typing something right now. If they've made it this far in the video. (Ben and Davin laugh) - They're still tryin' to figure out what to do with four more pistons. So you-- (Ben laughs) But you have this huge wing up there that's creating, what was it, two ton of down force on the rear tires. Because at the end of the day, it all boils down to how much power can those tires apply to this. And, I think it Tony when I was talkin' to him, he goes, "Yes, we're tryin' to spin the world." (engine roaring) (Ben and Davin laugh) At the end of the day, we're tryin' to increase the rotation of the world. And, so it's absolutely phenomenal when you see what those tires, the contortion the tires do. - He says they grow, in terms of height, they grow like eight inches or something like that. It's... - Yeah so they get narrow and tall by, like say about eight inches. When they're at top speed, when you see the profile across them, they're round on the front side and dead flat on the back. (Ben and Davin laugh) This is the wackiest lookin' thing. But yeah, so... So some of the questions we were asked. We talked about how much power it takes to spin the blower itself. So one of the questions, okay well it's burnin' fuel, it's got a 18 gallon fuel tank. - Which is up in the front up here? - Yeah, way up front, right behind the wheels. In fact, there is a... So right here is a, it's a toe hook to some extent, but it's also a tube that forces air into the top of the tank. And basically it pressurizes the fuel system. To help-- - As it's moving it's got a little, it's just goin (slurping). - Just extra. It's like super charging the fuel tank to force that... Cause I forget what the, the fuel line is literally two and a half inches type size. (Ben laughs) And the fuel pump is more than capable, but anything you can do to help get more fuel is better. So anyhow, it uses all 18 gallons. That is the point. You don't have extra at the end of the track. - 18 gallons in a quarter mile. - Yeah so 18 gallons. And actually they're doin a thousand feet, they're not even goin, they dropped the length of track from a quarter, 13, 20, down to a thousand feet. So they're off the throttle for that last 300 feet. - Oh really, okay. - Of a quarter. But just using a quarter mile as a round number, that's not, it's probably a little bit better than 72 gallons per mile. - (laughs) And this isn't your $2.80, 87 fuel. What a 50 gallon drum goes for-- - Well and a 50 gallon drum you get, I think it was 45 gallons, cause you can't fill a 55 gallon 100% full based on the fuel and safety and blah blah blah. So you get 45 gallons of fuel. And that fuel is right around $1,200 for 45 gallons. (Ben laughs) So yeah, it is not your economic commuter. - So yeah, essentially if you did want to go a mile, you would be going through an entire drum and then some. - Oh two drums to go a mile, basically. (Davin and Ben laugh) Drum and a half. - Hey look, I didn't notice that you were standing, and there you are. - Oh yeah, yeah. And at that distance, when that dragster takes off, it felt like the skin was gonna rip off my arm with the sound waves goin by me. It was amazing. I've been close to 'em, runnin' at the track, but I've never been absolutely on the track. And that's just a phenomenal experience, at the race track, is phenomenal. Standing there is like way over the top. It's pretty cool. - Over all, just a super unique experience from start to finish and, if we haven't said it before, super thanks to DSR for lettin' us do this. It was Kyle, Kyle Cunningham there and everybody it was awesome. - Oh yeah there was, we came across no one that wasn't hospitable, willing to answer that silly question potentially. Or get into the deep details, they know what they're doin and there's no doubt about it. So-- - All that culminates in-- - Yep, exactly, so what that's culminated into... Oh yeah, gosh we gotta get to the-- - [Ben] I know this is-- - [Davin] Yeah this is the best. (engine roaring) (cranking sounds) (drilling sounds) (engine roaring) (engine roaring) - Okay so, we're at the track. In this instance right here, just in terms of how we had to do everything, this engine isn't the one that we-- - [Davin] No, this is not the one that we put together. - But, fill me in on where your build went and how it performed, did it see race time? - Yep so it saw race time. It went into the dragster basically right away. It was the number one qualifier when they went to Virginia. So at the Virginia race they were number one qualifier with the motor we put together. It ran-- - You probably didn't tell anybody. - No I haven't told anybody, hold it, I don't think there's anybody I haven't told that I haven't ran into. (Ben laughs) So it was number one qualifier there. It ran four rounds of qualifying, it was number one. It had a bi-run in the first round which means there wasn't a competitor, they had a bi-run, it was an odd number and being number one qualifier you get to run by yourself so to speak. In round two, Tony went out in round two for tire shape basically. So they put it on the trailer. The next week they went to Bristol and they were only the number two qualifier. - Aww. And this is out of how many cars, in this race-- - I'm not sure how many they had there, there's always six, typically there's at least 16. At Virginia it looks like there was 15 or somebody dropped out, I don't know. But you're typically around 16 to 18, maybe 20 cars. So, number two qualifier in Bristol. And, made four rounds of qualifying there. So we're already, the engine is already up to, let's see six, four, we're at ten rounds at this point. There's four more rounds to run to win. It won first round, it won second round, it won third round, and it won the race. So it came home with a Wally. - That's awesome. - So yes. (laughs) - They didn't send you a trophy or anything for that? - I got a picture with Tony and the trophy for the mantel. - Nice, that's awesome. (Davin laughs) - Yeah, pretty awesome, pretty awesome. - That's, the fact that we got to do this is like pretty incredible to begin with, but to like, for you especially, being the car guy that you are, like that's, that's-- - Oh that was phenomenal, that was-- - You'll be tellin' your great-grandkids about that for sure. - I remember when I built that motor for Tony Schumacher. (laughs) Yes, that was, if I have a bucket list, that is definitely something that was like, "Oh yeah, this would be sweet." That's so over the top for me I couldn't even imagine doin that. And now I have done it. And just the icing on the cake is the fact that it was number one qualifier, and then won the race after that was just like, wow. And to this point in the season, that is the only race they have won. Which is odd because Tony is pretty unstoppable most of the time and just kind of an off year. - Sounds like they need to have you back down there again. - Well there's been some kick around for that so we'll see. - Ah you have the magic touch. The magic touch. - Come in with my little pixie dust and... (laughs) - Well, thanks guys for watchin. Hope that you enjoyed just pickin' through all this. There's a lot to talk about on this. And... - Oh yeah, there's a lot of stuff. - And yeah we're, we got a couple engines on stands over there that-- - That we're hiding. That are our next Redland rebuilds that will be coming to you as soon as we can get 'em to ya. - The unfortunate part, I would guarantee you, they won't make the horsepower of this one. But they're gonna be fun. - One of 'em comes as close as you can get in the real world. - In the real world yes, yes it does. - If you have questions beyond what we covered, I feel like we covered a whole lot, but if there's any other questions, leave 'em in the comments below. Subscribe if you haven't subscribed already and yeah, watch more of our videos. - That's right, till next time. - See ya. - [Davin] Yeah hit that. (engine roaring)
Info
Channel: Hagerty
Views: 1,063,760
Rating: 4.7990866 out of 5
Keywords: Hagerty, Classic Car, Classic Cars, Race, racing, drag racing, dragster, race track, race car, Top Fuel, NHRA, supercharged, supercharger, blower, V8, V-8, Mopar, Hemi, quarter mile, 1/4 mile, drag strip, DSR, Tony Schumacher, Don Schumacher Racing, Army, US Army, Army Racing, BTS, behind the scenes, timelapse, time lapse, rebuild, engine, motor, mechanic, Shell, Pennzoil
Id: xTsphmCn8mg
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 82min 24sec (4944 seconds)
Published: Fri Sep 28 2018
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