Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

Long time friend of mine has a crate Chevy 454 LS-6 that he bought at the local dealer back in early 1980's. It was never used and has sat for years and the only thing he did to it was a swap to hydraulic cam. He still has the original factory solid cam it came with. The engine was never fired up or...

Intake and heads off of Ernie Irvan's winning 1991 Daytona car!
https://youtu.be/IADOqM5VCi0

Can you take more weight out the car? Back in 2008 I had a mild 351W with 9.5 compression TFS Highport 185 heads out the box and a Comp XE 274 hyd. roller in my 2900 lb. 85 Mustang LX with C-4 auto. 11 inch 2500 convert. and a 3.89 gear. It would run 11.50's at 120.

That is a thought! A running engine acts much different that a steady flowing flow bench.

For most non pro use performance needs why bother porting a low flowing intake manifold even when using good flowing heads? Digging thru some older magazine test projects I came across this stout Chevy small block 410 build. Look at the flow number of the Edelbrock Performer AG from runner 6 as cast...

This was a big block engine that was built for the Factory Stock Appearing racing that we were looking at. However for the same money a larger cube engine with street type 10 to 1 compression and camming may better suit the needs.

Any folks here have any feedback from their crate engine builds? From what I read they look to build some high quality big inch engines for street/strip use be it Chevy, Ford or Mopar.

Looking at a purchase of a 480 cube engine that makes 750 HP N/A @ 7500 RPM. Cam is of course a solid roller of top shelf quality being a roller camshaft bearing type and +750 lift. Compression is 13.5 and all top quality parts in the build. Has some limited drag strip use. Would say a "High Ma...

A good hydraulic roller setup IF this is for mostly street cruising! Mine running fine after 12 years.

Well here is my guess on the lifters. For better durability Chrysler said they used a special low taper cam lobe and a special flat faced lifter to go along with the Street Hemi valve springs on the new 440 6 Pack engine. Why would they not use the same idea on the 1970-71 Street Hemi with the new s...

Machined up a .904 tappet and also a retainer block. Results Duration at .006 was 284 degrees and 228 at .050 for those who may want to know.

No problem with mine that was just an engine stand that I made up a new center mast with bellhousing plate and made up a square tube piece that was bolted across the 2 leg extensions that go forward. To this was a pair of upright tubes that had the block engine mount locations. This square tube exte...

Well I don't know what a new factory lifter of this design would look like. So would this be a lifter beginning to fail....go flat after 10,000 street miles? Anyone out there that had a 440-6 pack or 70-71 Hemi car have there stock cam/lifters fail? There was no internet back then so any issues woul...

I took one of my engine stands and with some square tubing made bolt on parts to turn it into a engine run stand. Did this about 12 yrs, ago to run my new built 427windsor build. Everything worked out well. Here is a small picture of the back of it and I may have some others. The front tube had adju...

Here is the 1970 Hemi cam with 10,000 miles of use from 1970-71. Little if any wear and can go right back in since we have the matching lifters.
Check out that little dab of Hemi orange paint on front of cam! No numbers at all on the camshaft.