Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

Chief, The best SB2.2 I have done was a 438ci with Gibbs oval port heads.It made 867hp but it was only 4" stroke in an Iron Eagle block.The best rebuild 358ci was a flat tappet Hendricks SB2.2 that made 830hp. If I had to do this engine again,it would be a 4" stroke with a 6.250 rod.I don...

One gets the impression from some of this discussion, and many others similar, that excessive quench will cause detonation. I've never understood that to be so. But now the question might be, in an engine with, let's say .090" piston to head (let's keep it NA SBC for sake of argument) and a gi...

I use the weakest springs I can find for cam break in's after 25 min of run time I change the springs out for the right ones to match the cam and go out for some racing. I recently found out the hard way, that you can go too low on spring pressure, for break-in. I would always say, drop the spring ...

At ground level, it's junk, but planes don't care much about ground level. good thing airplanes never have to take off while neeeeding full power to leave the ground. :lol: They're practically dieseling on takeoff anyway. They don't care about throttle response or frequent changes in rpm. They care...

High squish velocity typically increases burn rate. You see many nitrous guys run up to .090 piston to deck height for that very reason. That being said, typically NA engines prefer a high squish velocity/tight deck height, but that can also be rpm/chamber dependant. That's not the question here. I...

The problem with avgas is it doesn't want to readily vaporize. That fuel has a high initial distillation to prevent the fuel from evaporating in the fuel system at high altitude, vapor-locking, and stalling the engine mid-air. At ground level, it's junk, but planes don't care much about ground leve...

I don't know where all these wives tails come from with this fuel. How many guys have to tell you they've run it for decades, with great results for a lot less money than race gas in applications that don't quite need race gas, but need more than pump gas. Boat guys, snowmobile guys, both 2 and 4 st...

Anyone? Care to elaborate why this engine worked so well with such a big piston to head clearance? Is it possible it's just not that important? If anything would be sensitive to this, it would be a 444 inch sb2.2 deal. It wanted a little more timing, as predicted, and made so much TQ they were havin...

This on top of runner length being application specific, taper, plenum volume, etc. Runner length on carburetted manifolds is almost never the ideal length. When it is idealised for low rpm use it comes with tight 90 degree corners. Drag cars being the main exception where there's packaging room an...

Team G's are better than a Victor Jr, even though they don't "look" like they should be. What about a Team G do you think is better that a 2975 vic jr? The Team G. It's a surprising intake, it defies all the logic, and it offers the best hood clearance which can be desirable, and allows a...

I think it's a cool build, and exactly or similar to what I want to do for my Camaro. I'd use 292 turbos if I could find a set that hadn't been to reworked, I'd prefer 034's myself, but I want to do a 377 but do a stock appearing Lt-1, with the Gm dual plane, and a solid roller, wide lobe sep, short...

Yeah, but 100ll is a dry fuel. No one has been able to explain to me why that is. 100ll is high quality fuel, and works well in a lot of applications. And I've been using and recommending it for decades and no one has blown an engine up on it that I recommended it to. And I've many many back to bac...

100+93=193/2=96.5 :wink: Can't wait for the explanation and theoretical formula to show me why I'm wrong. That is easy to do. 100 octane RON + 93 octane MON are based on two different methods of measurement. It is only an index and does not represent an actual octane value. Similarly, 100deg F + 30...

The best inexpensive 'race gas' is 100LL AvGas. If more octane is needed, mix in some octane booster containing MMT. Makes surprisingly good stuff. A small amount of MMT from the octane booster works in conjunction with the TEL in the AvGas to increase the octane significantly. There have been some...

I've been mixing 93/100 unleaded @ 50/50 in my BMW track cars for years. That works out to 96 octane according to the available calculators. It has proven to be enough octane that the ECU (DME in BMW speak) would no longer pull timing. With that it was also worth 20hp as a result. 100+93=193/2=96.5...