Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

"nothing ever made power above 5500 until 1972"

Oh???

Public service announcement. A glass of wine To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine, and, those who don't and are always seen with a bottle of water in their hand: As Ben Franklin said: "In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria. In a number of carefully controll...

Speaking of valve springs, did anyone here ever see a set of Isky SBC desmo heads when they were available?

"5 + 5 = 10 grams. 50% of weight for reciprocating is 5 grams." Roger on that. After 4 martoonies, thingz get off a bit. For vintage circle track engines, we go for as light a bob weight as we can get. I have taken more than that off of forged pistons many times. From just looking at the picture, I ...

Get the lighter pins. The rest can be easily taken out of the pistons.You will need a mill for that.
If you can hit the old weight within 5 grams, (10 on bob weight) it will run with no problem.

The GOV did do it. The GOV mandated catalytic converters and the zinc kills them. There isn't one single moron in the government with the brains to pour piss out of a boot, with instructions on the heel and yet they want to tell automakers and everyone how build what they build. The government IS t...

How popular is Pro-V?

What a crock. For a certain price they will do a half ass job and for another $125 they will do it better. Notice I said "better" not right.
A company that does it that way is most likely not capable of doing it right.

"A titanium camshaft sounds like an awful idea, after having experienced the early days of Ti bike parts."

Well, it depends on what the application is. This one which is a scale model 8 inches long, with a lifter, of a flathead Ford 404A grind, makes a perfect paper weight.

"This crank must have been very light. Then they added 25 slugs of Mallory. Needs around 2000g bobweight. Not sure why they do that." That is done to reduce the OD of the crank. Moves the weight closer to the centerline. Lets the engine spool up quicker. Been doing that to flathead Fords since the 5...

https://www.dragzine.com/news/flashback ... hydrazine/ In this article he says he wasn't sure he was running hydrazine on that 204 run. Having run it, I think he was. It can make 20 mph difference. In 5 minutes talking to him in the pits one time, I learned more about hydrazine than there was to kno...

Small 404a..png Yes, but not in the near future. CNC technology is improving daily but as it does, the machines get more expensive at first. After awhile the cost comes down for a given machine as the technology moves on. A lot of grinding is done by CNC now but it is expensive because it generally...

I had the pleasure of talking, even if briefly, to Bruce several years ago when I learned he was working on a 6 cycle engine similar in principle to the one we were producing. It was easy to see why his stuff always went fast.

You have several alternatives. 1 - Buy a new cam with similar specs from Mike Jones. 2 - Buy a new cam from Mike with a modern grind that will do what you want it to. 3 - Have your core reground to something Mike says you need for your application.. (assuming the core is salvageable) DO NOT try usin...