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Episode Transcript
[ Pat ] You're watching Powernation!
[ Frankie ] Today on Engine Power it's blue oval versus bowtie, small block Ford against small block Chevy, 302 versus 305. [ Pat ] We are putting some serious numbers behind this endless debate between these two platforms, and we will see what happens when they each get a fair shot. If it burns gasoline we like it. [ Music ] [ Frankie ] Hey everyone, here in Engine Power we have an awesome show planned for today. It's gonna be a lot of fun, very relatable, and covers a highly debated topic. It is the timeless argument between 302 small block Ford and 305 small block Chevy. Today we're gonna put real data behind those arguments. [ Pat ] And the way we're gonna do it is we have two running takeout engines, and they're both runners/drivers and we're gonna base line them in the stock form. Then we're gonna make some modifications as close as we can to the same type of parts and we're gonna see how they affect our stock engines. [ Frankie ] For the 302 we have a 1990 model 302. It is a factory roller. It has a factory cam in it and is completely stock except for a Weiand Street Warrior four barrel dual plane manifold, but that's not a big deal. That's actually gonna make it pretty easy to dyno. This engine has a Fox Body pan on it. So it probably came from a Mustang, and it has earlier style but still factory exhaust manifolds. So we kept them as stock as we could. We did get rid of the accessory drives in place of an electric water pump to make it easy to dyno, but this is as bone stock as it gets. [ Pat ] We have the equivalent on this side. This is a 305 and this is out of a 1984 car because of how the air pump situation looks. Again Weiand intake manifold already installed but instead of being a factory roller this is a flat tappet engine. Now I don't think that is going to be a factor in these configurations. So we're gonna get these rigged up on carts, get them in the dyno cell, and see where we're starting from. [ Frankie ] So our 302 is on the dyno, and to get it running we have put some parts on it. Topping it off is an Edelbrock AVS-2 800 c-f-m carburetor. To make it match the Chevy we have an ATI distributor for a small block Ford, a set of wires we found on the shelf. All this stuff is just things that we had lying around, and to give it a fair show we did give it a new set of plugs, and the Chevy will get that as well. Now it's time to start it up and see if this thing will run and what it does for power. Now it ran when it was pulled. So we shouldn't have any issues but you never know until you hit the key. You ready? [ Pat ] Just getting my stuff plugged in here as fast as I can do it. [ Frankie ] I'm interested to see how much this makes. This is what we do it for. [ Pat ] We have oil pressure. You have your timing plugged in? 2,500 to 5,500, we're good! That's probably in the range of where it should be. [ Frankie ] See what happens! [ Pat ] Here we go! [ Frankie ] Look at that! That's pretty good for torque. [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] Oil pressure went up all the way. I wasn't watching torque. [ Frankie ] It wasn't bad, 300. [ Pat ] Didn't drop off. Look at that beautiness right there, 300.6 and 250.4. [ Frankie ] Nothing fell off of it. It didn't smoke, doesn't leak. [ Pat ] Oil pressure went up the whole time. Only thing I would do is go jack some timing in it and see if it does anything. Put two degrees in it and if it doesn't go up I wouldn't be surprised. [ gun fire ] [ Pat ] Here we go! [ engine revving ] Frankie ] Runs smooth though. [ Pat ] Oil pressure's good! [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] Look at that! 303 pound feet and 251.6 horsepower. If that is not a tune-up I don't know what is. [ Frankie ] That's a win! [ Pat ] One down, one to go! [ Music ] Blue oval breath. [ Frankie ] Easy there bowtie Billy. [ Pat ] We're getting our Chevy on here now. Same configuration basically as the Ford right. We are going to run an h-e-i distributor. We are gonna run the exact same carburetor, and we have exhaust manifolds. So we're gonna see what our old 305 can do. [ Frankie ] Same r-p-m here. Give it a fair shake and see what happens. Here we go! We tried to run our 305 small block Chevy in the same r-p-m range but a set of 40 year old wasted flat tappet valve springs wouldn't let us get there and they started floating the valves around 4,800 r-p-m. [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] That was very floaty. [ Frankie ] We got enough data to jack some timing in the 305 just like we did on the Ford, and we'll lower the r-p-m range to try and get a clean run out of it. We'll stop it at 4,600. [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] Drag her through there. Stacking numbers in it. [ Frankie ] Actually it picked up I think. 209 and 301. It's nice and smooth. That's what you get with factory stuff. Always so smooth. [ Pat ] They spend a lot of money making a power curve look like that. That's two engines with a solid baseline. [ Frankie ] What happens when they have the same cam, same style of intake, same carburetor again? [ Pat ] I think there will be some data to be collected. Our favorite, data collection. [ Frankie ] Up next we tear into our small block Chevy, and we just might not like what we find.
[ Frankie ] Our 305 is out of the dyno room and into the assembly area so we can start working on our upgrades. For the upgrades these are gonna be relatively mild and easy. We're not even gonna pull the stock heads off. We're only gonna take off the parts that we need to. As far as upgrades that we're talking about we're talking about a cam swap, a spring swap, and an intake swap, and we wanted to make these upgrades as similar as possible. For cams we have basically the exact same cam for both, a Comp Cams Extreme Energy cam. Both cams have durations at 50 thousandths lift of 218 degrees on the intake and 224 on the exhaust. They have advertised numbers of 270 on the intake and 276 on the exhaust. The lobe separation angle is 110 degrees, and as far as lift that is where they differ just very slightly. The small block Chevy one has 495 lift on the intake and 502 lift on the exhaust. The Ford one has 514 on both the intake and exhaust. So very, very similar. We will be retrofitting the small block Chevy for a hydraulic roller with a set of link bar lifters, but other than that basically the same. We even got the same style of intake manifold. This is an Edelbrock Torqurer-2. This is a small single plane but it's gonna work great for the r-p-m range that we are dealing with. We're gonna be topping that with one of Edelbrock's new VRS-4150 carburetors. These have been out for a very short period of time but we are super excited to try them. We got a 650, a 750, and an 850. We're gonna keep these as dyno carbs but we're also gonna be running them on these engines. They are a four circuit carburetor. The 650 comes with down leg boosters and the 750 and 850 come with annular boosters. They have idle speed adjustment screws on the sides. They have 20 percent larger bowls. They can be bolted to a 41-50 or a 4500 flange and they have a ton of vacuum ports on the bottom for street applications. Speaking of street applications they even built in a throttle position sensor mount right here on the side for a GM style t-p-s. If you are running a carb engine with a late model transmission you can get a t-p-s signal right there. We'll be running the same carburetor on both engines but we're gonna test them out and see which one works best first. Before we can do any of these upgrades we obviously have a lot of work to do. Some of the parts will be reused. So we'll just keep everything organized until we're finished. Minus some broken exhaust manifold bolts we'll fix later it comes apart pretty smoothly. After breaking the valve covers loose we got our first real look inside this engine. Crusty! [ Pat ] After prying the intake off we can get a good look at the amount of gunk in the lifter valley and the cam shaft itself. We remove the valvetrain next, keeping everything in order since we plan on reusing the stock rocker arms. A crusting of old oil deposits keeps us from getting the stock lifters out the top. So we gently tap them out later once the engine is disassembled. Our electric water pump can be removed, and then the stock damper can be pulled off. We are pulling the entire oil pan off so we can thoroughly clean it. Then we can get the timing cover off the engine revealing a very worn out timing set, which gets removed before the cam shaft can slide out for final inspection. That lobe's wasted, that one's wasted, that one's goofy, that one's wasted. [ Frankie ] The last bit of disassembly is using a brass punch to punch the flat tappets into the cam tunnel where we use a magnet to catch them and they pretty much match the worn out cam shaft. Without fully disassembling the engine we can only get it so clean but we will do our best using a screwdriver, some brake clean, and a vacuum to get as much of the old oil deposits out of the engine as possible. We'll make sure to tape up the intake ports and cover up the lifter valley during this to catch as much of the gunk as we can. [ Pat ] With some assembly lube on our new roller cam shaft we can slide it into our freshly cleaned engine. We'll also be using a new timing set with a nine keyway adjustable crank gear so we can set the intake centerline of both engine's cams as close as possible. This one will get set at 105.5, which is four and a half degrees advanced. With a Summit Racing roller cam thrust button in place the stock timing cover can be resealed to the front of the engine. That's followed by our freshly cleaned oil pan with a new one piece gasket to help prevent leaks. [ Frankie ] The stock damper is lubed up and pressed back on, and we will verify that its t-d-c mark is correct. The stock flat tappet valve springs that were severely valve floating on the dyno aren't going to cut it with our new hydraulic roller cam. So we will change them out on the engine for a set of Trick Flow drop in single springs. Filling the cylinders with compressed air holds the valves in place, and this Moroso spring changer makes it go quick and easy. We have set up the springs for our application with 125 pounds of seat and 345 pounds of open pressure. [ Pat ] Our new Comp lifters have been soaking in oil. So we can slide them into their bores in the correct orientation before we seal up the lifter valley with our new Edelbrock single plane intake. [ Frankie ] With that our intake is sealed on our 305. Because we are using a new lifter setup we did have to order a different length pushrod. So we have a set of Trick Flow 7-300 long pushrods on order from Summit. They should be here in a day or two, but in the meantime we are going to stop on this and get on our 302 to get both of these engines done. [ Pat ] Coming up, does our Ford look better or worse than our Chevy? Stay tuned to find out.
[ Pat ] We are continuing on our small displacement showdown. Our bowtie's pretty much ready to go. So we're gonna get our blue oval to the same condition. What we're gonna do is tear it down to the same state as the Chevrolet. We're gonna take the pan off, get the front off so we can replace the same components, the cam shaft, the timing set, and the induction. Now keep in mind this engine was a little bit better on power on the baseline but it seems to be in way better condition, but you just never know until you tear it apart. He's ready to go. [ Frankie ] It's like a mystery! We're gonna find out together! [ Pat ] The disassembly process for our Ford is pretty much the same as our small block Chevy. After removing the exhaust and the distributor draining the oil reveals the first interesting find on this engine. That seems like a lot of oil. About four quarts too much oil in the pan. [ Frankie ] The good news is popping off the valve covers reveals a much cleaner lower mileage engine. With the intake ripped off as well we get another confirmation of how nice it is. After removing the water pump the front pulley pops off and the harmonic damper gets pulled. Then just like the Chevy, we'll drop the entire oil pan for cleaning. The timing cover coming off reveals a factory double row timing set in much better condition. [ Pat ] Like the bowtie, all of the valvetrain will be kept in order since we plan on reusing the factory rocker arms. The factory lifter tray and dog bones are removed, and then we can pull the factory roller lifters out in order. The timing set it slid off, the cam thrust plate unbolted, and the factory roller cam gets gently pulled out of the engine. [ Frankie ] Well this is a roller engine. So we're not really looking for wasted flat tappet lobes, but it does look really good. Just normal wear and tear on all of the lobes. So I call that a success. [ Pat ] Now we're gonna do the same thing we did with the Chevy. We're gonna get this one cleaned up and get it ready for our fancy new parts. With the engine backyard cleaned our new Extreme Energy roller cam can be lubed and installed. The factory thrust plate is torqued in place, and our matching new nine keyway adjustable double roller timing set follows. To get the cams as close as possible on valve events we degreed this cam intake centerline to 105.25 degrees, which is 4.75 degrees advanced. Some r-t-v helps seal the key timing cover back on, and the factory damper can be reinstalled and t-d-c verified. [ Frankie ] A new one piece oil pan gasket seals the factory pan and closes up the bottom end of the blue oval. The valve springs will get changed just like the 305 using compressed air in the cylinder to hold the valves in place while we swap the factory springs for a new Trick Flow drop in spring pack that we set up to similar specs as the Chevy. Once they are all changed new roller lifters are lubed and installed followed by the factory dog bones and spider tray. New intake gaskets and r-t-v beads seal up our Torquer-2 intake manifold, and like the Chevy we have a new set of correct length pushrods on order. So the next time you see this engine it'll be in the dyno. It's dyno time and we are gonna find out which of these small blocks comes out on top. [ Pat ] That is science and physics.
[ Frankie ] While we wait for some pushrods for our 302 we have wrapped up our 305 and we have it on the dyno. Before we get it running there's one last system we want to upgrade and that is the ignition system. We were using a stock replacement h-e-i, which works fine in stock applications but since we're making more power we want a better ignition system. So we got complete ignition systems from FiTech for both engines. So we have a ready to run distributor for our small block Chevy and a ready to run distributor for our 302. These are brand new distributors from them. They're super easy to wire up. It only has three wires, power, ground, and coil. It has a nice, tight body for clearance inside the engine bay, and we can adjust for all the mechanical advance and vacuum advance or lock it out if we want to. We also got a matching cannister style coil and a mount to fire off our spark plugs. Speaking of spark plugs we needed a way to get the spark to them. So we got a brand new set of universal wires for our Chevy with a 90-degree ceramic boot and a 45-degree ceramic boot for our small block Ford. These are really nice. They're really long. So if you're making custom wires you have plenty of room to play with. They come with the tool to put them together and three different styles of terminal. Whether you're doing a Ford, an h-e-i, or even an LS coil they've got you covered. It comes with the wires. So we're gonna get our distributor in, get some wires made, and we'll be hitting the key on our 305. We have locked out both distributors and we'll drop the Chevy in around 32 degrees for start-up. After making some custom plug wires and hooking up the entire system we can hit the key and fire this bad boy up. So our 305 is running on the dyno and we've been making a few preliminary pulls just doing some timing loops trying to figure out what this thing wants for timing. What we have landed on is 38 degrees of total timing. What we're gonna do here is make a rip and see what numbers this thing can put down. Now this is gonna be a huge jump because we have drastically changed the cam shaft, we've drastically changed the intake and the carburetor. So it's gonna be pretty interesting to see what this thing actually makes. [ Pat ] I think it's gonna like it! [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] More torque! [ Frankie ] Hear it come alive. [ engine revving ] [ Frankie ] That is the literal definition of 305 come alive at 4,000. Wow, 302.7 at 5,500 and 328 pound feet at 3,900. [ Pat ] That is dangerously close to one horse per cube. [ Frankie ] That is a smooth graph. [ Pat ] Super nice graph! This did not drop any torque. Just crushes it into the Earth. We are down no torque. [ Frankie ] Basically just makes more torque, carries it farther in the r-p-m range, and makes more power. We have made 350s that make almost the same power. [ Pat ] They just make more torque. The Ford is not gonna be as much but this one went from a 177 at 50 flat tappet to a 218 at 50 hydraulic roller. [ Frankie ] Lets get this bowtie off and get that blue oval on. [ Pat ] We have our Ford on the dyno and keep in mind. This is as close as we could get it to the Chevrolet as far as everything is concerned. Oil, timing, carburetor, air hat, temperature, header size, everything is as close as we can get it so it's a direct comparison. [ Frankie ] We're gonna see what this thing does. [ Pat ] 38 degrees of timing we are ready to rock! [ engine revving up ] [ Pat ] It's the same on load-in. [ Frankie ] See if the cam kicks in the same. There it is! [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] What I thought I saw happen. [ Frankie ] For the Ford we have 302.2 horsepower and 328-pound feet. Overlay that with the Chevy and they're virtually the same. [ Pat ] That is literally the same run. [ Frankie ] If you were looking at both of those runs and they weren't labeled you would not know which was the Ford and which was the Chevy. [ Pat ] From a scientifical aspect they're as close as we can get them and they printed the same number. That is science and physics. [ Frankie ] If you have a similar displacement engine and they have similar v-e, head flow and cam specs, they're gonna make virtually the same torque and virtually the same power. [ Pat ] The air and fuel doesn't know what kind of engine it is, and we love them all. We are air pump people. We're engine people. We're not any sort of brand specific. I don't care what it is. If it burns gasoline we like it. I think we've just proven that doing the same thing to the same displacement same results. Great success! We had a great dyno session today but unfortunately we also have to deliver some very sad news with the passing of our friend, colleague, and mentor Joe Elmore. [ Frankie ] Joe was an industry icon for the automotive world and for car culture as a whole. He brought a wealth of knowledge, learning, and entertainment to a lot of us as we were getting into cars and we are eternally grateful. So we put together a quick memorial of our favorite clips of his time here at Powernation. [ Pat ] With that we celebrate the life of Joe Elmore, not only what he's done here for us at Powernation but for millions of gearheads around the world. God speed Joe. [ Music ] [ Joe ] Are you hungry for some super serious horsepower? Then you've come to the right place! [ Music ] That's got it! I don't know if I'd eat that. [ Music ] Well Pat I've had a blast helping you out on this thing. [ Pat ] Joe glad you're here. [ Music ] [ Mike ] Good job! [ Joe ] Time for us to head to the house. See you next time!
Show Full Transcript
[ Frankie ] Today on Engine Power it's blue oval versus bowtie, small block Ford against small block Chevy, 302 versus 305. [ Pat ] We are putting some serious numbers behind this endless debate between these two platforms, and we will see what happens when they each get a fair shot. If it burns gasoline we like it. [ Music ] [ Frankie ] Hey everyone, here in Engine Power we have an awesome show planned for today. It's gonna be a lot of fun, very relatable, and covers a highly debated topic. It is the timeless argument between 302 small block Ford and 305 small block Chevy. Today we're gonna put real data behind those arguments. [ Pat ] And the way we're gonna do it is we have two running takeout engines, and they're both runners/drivers and we're gonna base line them in the stock form. Then we're gonna make some modifications as close as we can to the same type of parts and we're gonna see how they affect our stock engines. [ Frankie ] For the 302 we have a 1990 model 302. It is a factory roller. It has a factory cam in it and is completely stock except for a Weiand Street Warrior four barrel dual plane manifold, but that's not a big deal. That's actually gonna make it pretty easy to dyno. This engine has a Fox Body pan on it. So it probably came from a Mustang, and it has earlier style but still factory exhaust manifolds. So we kept them as stock as we could. We did get rid of the accessory drives in place of an electric water pump to make it easy to dyno, but this is as bone stock as it gets. [ Pat ] We have the equivalent on this side. This is a 305 and this is out of a 1984 car because of how the air pump situation looks. Again Weiand intake manifold already installed but instead of being a factory roller this is a flat tappet engine. Now I don't think that is going to be a factor in these configurations. So we're gonna get these rigged up on carts, get them in the dyno cell, and see where we're starting from. [ Frankie ] So our 302 is on the dyno, and to get it running we have put some parts on it. Topping it off is an Edelbrock AVS-2 800 c-f-m carburetor. To make it match the Chevy we have an ATI distributor for a small block Ford, a set of wires we found on the shelf. All this stuff is just things that we had lying around, and to give it a fair show we did give it a new set of plugs, and the Chevy will get that as well. Now it's time to start it up and see if this thing will run and what it does for power. Now it ran when it was pulled. So we shouldn't have any issues but you never know until you hit the key. You ready? [ Pat ] Just getting my stuff plugged in here as fast as I can do it. [ Frankie ] I'm interested to see how much this makes. This is what we do it for. [ Pat ] We have oil pressure. You have your timing plugged in? 2,500 to 5,500, we're good! That's probably in the range of where it should be. [ Frankie ] See what happens! [ Pat ] Here we go! [ Frankie ] Look at that! That's pretty good for torque. [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] Oil pressure went up all the way. I wasn't watching torque. [ Frankie ] It wasn't bad, 300. [ Pat ] Didn't drop off. Look at that beautiness right there, 300.6 and 250.4. [ Frankie ] Nothing fell off of it. It didn't smoke, doesn't leak. [ Pat ] Oil pressure went up the whole time. Only thing I would do is go jack some timing in it and see if it does anything. Put two degrees in it and if it doesn't go up I wouldn't be surprised. [ gun fire ] [ Pat ] Here we go! [ engine revving ] Frankie ] Runs smooth though. [ Pat ] Oil pressure's good! [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] Look at that! 303 pound feet and 251.6 horsepower. If that is not a tune-up I don't know what is. [ Frankie ] That's a win! [ Pat ] One down, one to go! [ Music ] Blue oval breath. [ Frankie ] Easy there bowtie Billy. [ Pat ] We're getting our Chevy on here now. Same configuration basically as the Ford right. We are going to run an h-e-i distributor. We are gonna run the exact same carburetor, and we have exhaust manifolds. So we're gonna see what our old 305 can do. [ Frankie ] Same r-p-m here. Give it a fair shake and see what happens. Here we go! We tried to run our 305 small block Chevy in the same r-p-m range but a set of 40 year old wasted flat tappet valve springs wouldn't let us get there and they started floating the valves around 4,800 r-p-m. [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] That was very floaty. [ Frankie ] We got enough data to jack some timing in the 305 just like we did on the Ford, and we'll lower the r-p-m range to try and get a clean run out of it. We'll stop it at 4,600. [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] Drag her through there. Stacking numbers in it. [ Frankie ] Actually it picked up I think. 209 and 301. It's nice and smooth. That's what you get with factory stuff. Always so smooth. [ Pat ] They spend a lot of money making a power curve look like that. That's two engines with a solid baseline. [ Frankie ] What happens when they have the same cam, same style of intake, same carburetor again? [ Pat ] I think there will be some data to be collected. Our favorite, data collection. [ Frankie ] Up next we tear into our small block Chevy, and we just might not like what we find.
[ Frankie ] Our 305 is out of the dyno room and into the assembly area so we can start working on our upgrades. For the upgrades these are gonna be relatively mild and easy. We're not even gonna pull the stock heads off. We're only gonna take off the parts that we need to. As far as upgrades that we're talking about we're talking about a cam swap, a spring swap, and an intake swap, and we wanted to make these upgrades as similar as possible. For cams we have basically the exact same cam for both, a Comp Cams Extreme Energy cam. Both cams have durations at 50 thousandths lift of 218 degrees on the intake and 224 on the exhaust. They have advertised numbers of 270 on the intake and 276 on the exhaust. The lobe separation angle is 110 degrees, and as far as lift that is where they differ just very slightly. The small block Chevy one has 495 lift on the intake and 502 lift on the exhaust. The Ford one has 514 on both the intake and exhaust. So very, very similar. We will be retrofitting the small block Chevy for a hydraulic roller with a set of link bar lifters, but other than that basically the same. We even got the same style of intake manifold. This is an Edelbrock Torqurer-2. This is a small single plane but it's gonna work great for the r-p-m range that we are dealing with. We're gonna be topping that with one of Edelbrock's new VRS-4150 carburetors. These have been out for a very short period of time but we are super excited to try them. We got a 650, a 750, and an 850. We're gonna keep these as dyno carbs but we're also gonna be running them on these engines. They are a four circuit carburetor. The 650 comes with down leg boosters and the 750 and 850 come with annular boosters. They have idle speed adjustment screws on the sides. They have 20 percent larger bowls. They can be bolted to a 41-50 or a 4500 flange and they have a ton of vacuum ports on the bottom for street applications. Speaking of street applications they even built in a throttle position sensor mount right here on the side for a GM style t-p-s. If you are running a carb engine with a late model transmission you can get a t-p-s signal right there. We'll be running the same carburetor on both engines but we're gonna test them out and see which one works best first. Before we can do any of these upgrades we obviously have a lot of work to do. Some of the parts will be reused. So we'll just keep everything organized until we're finished. Minus some broken exhaust manifold bolts we'll fix later it comes apart pretty smoothly. After breaking the valve covers loose we got our first real look inside this engine. Crusty! [ Pat ] After prying the intake off we can get a good look at the amount of gunk in the lifter valley and the cam shaft itself. We remove the valvetrain next, keeping everything in order since we plan on reusing the stock rocker arms. A crusting of old oil deposits keeps us from getting the stock lifters out the top. So we gently tap them out later once the engine is disassembled. Our electric water pump can be removed, and then the stock damper can be pulled off. We are pulling the entire oil pan off so we can thoroughly clean it. Then we can get the timing cover off the engine revealing a very worn out timing set, which gets removed before the cam shaft can slide out for final inspection. That lobe's wasted, that one's wasted, that one's goofy, that one's wasted. [ Frankie ] The last bit of disassembly is using a brass punch to punch the flat tappets into the cam tunnel where we use a magnet to catch them and they pretty much match the worn out cam shaft. Without fully disassembling the engine we can only get it so clean but we will do our best using a screwdriver, some brake clean, and a vacuum to get as much of the old oil deposits out of the engine as possible. We'll make sure to tape up the intake ports and cover up the lifter valley during this to catch as much of the gunk as we can. [ Pat ] With some assembly lube on our new roller cam shaft we can slide it into our freshly cleaned engine. We'll also be using a new timing set with a nine keyway adjustable crank gear so we can set the intake centerline of both engine's cams as close as possible. This one will get set at 105.5, which is four and a half degrees advanced. With a Summit Racing roller cam thrust button in place the stock timing cover can be resealed to the front of the engine. That's followed by our freshly cleaned oil pan with a new one piece gasket to help prevent leaks. [ Frankie ] The stock damper is lubed up and pressed back on, and we will verify that its t-d-c mark is correct. The stock flat tappet valve springs that were severely valve floating on the dyno aren't going to cut it with our new hydraulic roller cam. So we will change them out on the engine for a set of Trick Flow drop in single springs. Filling the cylinders with compressed air holds the valves in place, and this Moroso spring changer makes it go quick and easy. We have set up the springs for our application with 125 pounds of seat and 345 pounds of open pressure. [ Pat ] Our new Comp lifters have been soaking in oil. So we can slide them into their bores in the correct orientation before we seal up the lifter valley with our new Edelbrock single plane intake. [ Frankie ] With that our intake is sealed on our 305. Because we are using a new lifter setup we did have to order a different length pushrod. So we have a set of Trick Flow 7-300 long pushrods on order from Summit. They should be here in a day or two, but in the meantime we are going to stop on this and get on our 302 to get both of these engines done. [ Pat ] Coming up, does our Ford look better or worse than our Chevy? Stay tuned to find out.
[ Pat ] We are continuing on our small displacement showdown. Our bowtie's pretty much ready to go. So we're gonna get our blue oval to the same condition. What we're gonna do is tear it down to the same state as the Chevrolet. We're gonna take the pan off, get the front off so we can replace the same components, the cam shaft, the timing set, and the induction. Now keep in mind this engine was a little bit better on power on the baseline but it seems to be in way better condition, but you just never know until you tear it apart. He's ready to go. [ Frankie ] It's like a mystery! We're gonna find out together! [ Pat ] The disassembly process for our Ford is pretty much the same as our small block Chevy. After removing the exhaust and the distributor draining the oil reveals the first interesting find on this engine. That seems like a lot of oil. About four quarts too much oil in the pan. [ Frankie ] The good news is popping off the valve covers reveals a much cleaner lower mileage engine. With the intake ripped off as well we get another confirmation of how nice it is. After removing the water pump the front pulley pops off and the harmonic damper gets pulled. Then just like the Chevy, we'll drop the entire oil pan for cleaning. The timing cover coming off reveals a factory double row timing set in much better condition. [ Pat ] Like the bowtie, all of the valvetrain will be kept in order since we plan on reusing the factory rocker arms. The factory lifter tray and dog bones are removed, and then we can pull the factory roller lifters out in order. The timing set it slid off, the cam thrust plate unbolted, and the factory roller cam gets gently pulled out of the engine. [ Frankie ] Well this is a roller engine. So we're not really looking for wasted flat tappet lobes, but it does look really good. Just normal wear and tear on all of the lobes. So I call that a success. [ Pat ] Now we're gonna do the same thing we did with the Chevy. We're gonna get this one cleaned up and get it ready for our fancy new parts. With the engine backyard cleaned our new Extreme Energy roller cam can be lubed and installed. The factory thrust plate is torqued in place, and our matching new nine keyway adjustable double roller timing set follows. To get the cams as close as possible on valve events we degreed this cam intake centerline to 105.25 degrees, which is 4.75 degrees advanced. Some r-t-v helps seal the key timing cover back on, and the factory damper can be reinstalled and t-d-c verified. [ Frankie ] A new one piece oil pan gasket seals the factory pan and closes up the bottom end of the blue oval. The valve springs will get changed just like the 305 using compressed air in the cylinder to hold the valves in place while we swap the factory springs for a new Trick Flow drop in spring pack that we set up to similar specs as the Chevy. Once they are all changed new roller lifters are lubed and installed followed by the factory dog bones and spider tray. New intake gaskets and r-t-v beads seal up our Torquer-2 intake manifold, and like the Chevy we have a new set of correct length pushrods on order. So the next time you see this engine it'll be in the dyno. It's dyno time and we are gonna find out which of these small blocks comes out on top. [ Pat ] That is science and physics.
[ Frankie ] While we wait for some pushrods for our 302 we have wrapped up our 305 and we have it on the dyno. Before we get it running there's one last system we want to upgrade and that is the ignition system. We were using a stock replacement h-e-i, which works fine in stock applications but since we're making more power we want a better ignition system. So we got complete ignition systems from FiTech for both engines. So we have a ready to run distributor for our small block Chevy and a ready to run distributor for our 302. These are brand new distributors from them. They're super easy to wire up. It only has three wires, power, ground, and coil. It has a nice, tight body for clearance inside the engine bay, and we can adjust for all the mechanical advance and vacuum advance or lock it out if we want to. We also got a matching cannister style coil and a mount to fire off our spark plugs. Speaking of spark plugs we needed a way to get the spark to them. So we got a brand new set of universal wires for our Chevy with a 90-degree ceramic boot and a 45-degree ceramic boot for our small block Ford. These are really nice. They're really long. So if you're making custom wires you have plenty of room to play with. They come with the tool to put them together and three different styles of terminal. Whether you're doing a Ford, an h-e-i, or even an LS coil they've got you covered. It comes with the wires. So we're gonna get our distributor in, get some wires made, and we'll be hitting the key on our 305. We have locked out both distributors and we'll drop the Chevy in around 32 degrees for start-up. After making some custom plug wires and hooking up the entire system we can hit the key and fire this bad boy up. So our 305 is running on the dyno and we've been making a few preliminary pulls just doing some timing loops trying to figure out what this thing wants for timing. What we have landed on is 38 degrees of total timing. What we're gonna do here is make a rip and see what numbers this thing can put down. Now this is gonna be a huge jump because we have drastically changed the cam shaft, we've drastically changed the intake and the carburetor. So it's gonna be pretty interesting to see what this thing actually makes. [ Pat ] I think it's gonna like it! [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] More torque! [ Frankie ] Hear it come alive. [ engine revving ] [ Frankie ] That is the literal definition of 305 come alive at 4,000. Wow, 302.7 at 5,500 and 328 pound feet at 3,900. [ Pat ] That is dangerously close to one horse per cube. [ Frankie ] That is a smooth graph. [ Pat ] Super nice graph! This did not drop any torque. Just crushes it into the Earth. We are down no torque. [ Frankie ] Basically just makes more torque, carries it farther in the r-p-m range, and makes more power. We have made 350s that make almost the same power. [ Pat ] They just make more torque. The Ford is not gonna be as much but this one went from a 177 at 50 flat tappet to a 218 at 50 hydraulic roller. [ Frankie ] Lets get this bowtie off and get that blue oval on. [ Pat ] We have our Ford on the dyno and keep in mind. This is as close as we could get it to the Chevrolet as far as everything is concerned. Oil, timing, carburetor, air hat, temperature, header size, everything is as close as we can get it so it's a direct comparison. [ Frankie ] We're gonna see what this thing does. [ Pat ] 38 degrees of timing we are ready to rock! [ engine revving up ] [ Pat ] It's the same on load-in. [ Frankie ] See if the cam kicks in the same. There it is! [ engine revving ] [ Pat ] What I thought I saw happen. [ Frankie ] For the Ford we have 302.2 horsepower and 328-pound feet. Overlay that with the Chevy and they're virtually the same. [ Pat ] That is literally the same run. [ Frankie ] If you were looking at both of those runs and they weren't labeled you would not know which was the Ford and which was the Chevy. [ Pat ] From a scientifical aspect they're as close as we can get them and they printed the same number. That is science and physics. [ Frankie ] If you have a similar displacement engine and they have similar v-e, head flow and cam specs, they're gonna make virtually the same torque and virtually the same power. [ Pat ] The air and fuel doesn't know what kind of engine it is, and we love them all. We are air pump people. We're engine people. We're not any sort of brand specific. I don't care what it is. If it burns gasoline we like it. I think we've just proven that doing the same thing to the same displacement same results. Great success! We had a great dyno session today but unfortunately we also have to deliver some very sad news with the passing of our friend, colleague, and mentor Joe Elmore. [ Frankie ] Joe was an industry icon for the automotive world and for car culture as a whole. He brought a wealth of knowledge, learning, and entertainment to a lot of us as we were getting into cars and we are eternally grateful. So we put together a quick memorial of our favorite clips of his time here at Powernation. [ Pat ] With that we celebrate the life of Joe Elmore, not only what he's done here for us at Powernation but for millions of gearheads around the world. God speed Joe. [ Music ] [ Joe ] Are you hungry for some super serious horsepower? Then you've come to the right place! [ Music ] That's got it! I don't know if I'd eat that. [ Music ] Well Pat I've had a blast helping you out on this thing. [ Pat ] Joe glad you're here. [ Music ] [ Mike ] Good job! [ Joe ] Time for us to head to the house. See you next time!
