Power Adders for a Pair of Chevy's

Man, it's gonna be a cool show. But first we got a little bet to settle on your mark. Get set blow.

Hey, buddy, the winner win a blow.

Well, we got a balancing act with engines going on in the shop today too. First we're going to try something new with the tried and proven ever popular LS one. We got this one new from a TK high performance engines. But since they've been around, since 1997 chances are you can find a good used one on the internet that or even at the local Bone yard

as we've seen over the years. They make great platforms for all kinds of hot rods, street broads and even daily drivers. Yep, plenty of reliable, small block power. Of course, to get one to go.

You gotta deal with those three magic letters that still strike fear in the hearts of a lot of carb guys. Yeah. You know it,

man. It's not that scary. Now, here's an A ok way to get your LS one up and running without having to deal with the hassles of finding the right fuel injection system you want to run or dealing with the headaches of having it tuned.

It's called the perfect engine management system from painless a complete plug in place system that requires no tuning to the ECM.

It comes with OEM connectors that are clearly labeled.

And here's how simple it is to install,

hook up the throttle position and idle air control sensors,

engine coolant temp sensor

driver and passenger side coils along with the injectors for both sides.

Then the knock sensors

followed by the sensors for the map cam position

and crank position.

Finally a couple of grounds. Now for the final connections, we need to roll this 5.7 L LS one into the dyno Room

N

and relay. We don't need a fan,

of course, with a fuel injected engine, we have to use a different fuel delivery system than we do with the carb set up. Now that involves changing the regulator and this gauge, the reason we do it is because a fuel injected engine takes more fuel pressure to run

and the gauge, well, we're changing it so we can observe it from the dyno console. After a quick reference from a diagram I drew, we can hook the lines up in the correct orientation.

We should point out that we're running the LS one with the cold air kit headers and without the accessory drive.

So our baseline horsepower numbers should be well above G M's rate of power

and it is

416.2 horsepower

that's very impressive numbers. And to think with a little bit of help from him, we got this EF I system installed and the engine up and running in less than an hour and that's not TV, time.

But let's say you'd like to have a plug in place system like this, but you just gotta have a little bit more power. Well, painless offers a high RPM system

that comes with the wiring harness, a roller cam shaft with more lift and duration

and the specially tuned ECM to give you more horsepower and torque

to make the cam swap, we have to remove the front cover and remove the oil pump,

then remove the valve covers

so we can pull the rockers

and push rods

using the cam gear like an old rotary phone. We're spinning the cam to capture the lifters and the retainers for the cam removal. Now we can pull out the stock cam shaft being careful not to nick the bearings

and with some oil on the journals, we can install the new cam from the kit.

Then after the ECM swap, we're off and running again. Let's see what a little work and a few more dollars yield an extra

pony

that time, an extra 30 horsepower for a grand total of 445.

Now, you might be interested in knowing that the basic painless set up goes for about 1300 bucks.

The high RPM version with cam another 220

and I hear they got them for other applications which probably will cure some cases of

EF I

Phobia. Here's another example of how the LS one is a great platform for building high performance hot rods. Now, this one is loaded with over 12 new LS parts from Edelbrock and just to name a few are there 90 millimeter throt

body,

ultra low profile inlet elbow RPM XT aluminum cylinder heads, Victor series water pump, two piece front timing cover and the set of their long tube headers. Now, later on in the show, you're gonna see how these guys are building a better big block engine with a little help from a big name in drag racing

time for a dyno

tech segment here on horse power. Now, frequently we use our DTs engine

dyno to test various components like cylinder heads and cam shafts. But today it's all about the most important three inch component of any engine. The spark plug,

the principle has been the same since day one force electricity to arc across a gap which in turn ignites fuel in the combustion chamber.

But in recent years with changes in technology, a lot of manufacturers have stepped up to premium plugs

using different designs and metals, all with claims of creating a better spark for more efficient fuel combustion

with today's prices at the pump. If you can get better fuel economy and still make good horsepower just for change in plugs.

That's a change worth making.

We've done side by side tests with the leading brands using this tester box checking to see which had the most powerful spark

and visually the winner is E three. Here's an E three on the left against a top competitor on the right.

They use something called diamond fire technology which involves an edge to edge electro design.

The result they say is an optimized spark bath with a faster larger flame front

that adds up to more complete combustion.

Well, tester box, aside, the real proof of performance is in the engine. So we're going to use that 383 test engine of ours to do a little shootout between E three and one of its leading competitors. We'll install and test the competitors plugs first.

But before we do that, let me tell you a little bit about the engine. It's set up with Dart Pro one cylinder heads, one of their single plane intake manifolds, a rower cam shaft and it's topped off with 770 Street, Avenger from Holly, a pretty street, a little small block. Now, after me and buddy get this buttoned up, we'll be ready to make some dyno Poles.

Yeah. Why don't you guys hurry up. Hey, shut up, old man.

What we're looking for is not just horsepower but what the computer identifies as brake specific fuel consumption, which sort of equates to

MPG. Now, technically, it's the amount of fuel it takes in pounds to make one horsepower.

Now, for the shoot out, we're going to make three pools using each set of plugs from 2500 to 6000 RPM using 93 octane fuel.

And to keep the playing field level, we'll make all pools at the same water and oil temperature.

After letting the engine cool a while, we remove the plugs and install the

eres

and here's the results of our vag

dyno

Tech spark pl shootout.

The first set of plugs made 407 horsepower on the average with a brake specific fuel consumption of 0.6 to six.

The ere

spark plugs made an average of 412.5 horsepower

and the brake specific fuel consumption 606.

Needless to say both premium plug brands perform better than standard plugs would have. But

man, I gotta tell you, I was a little surprised that that 5.5 extra horsepower. Yeah, and using slightly less fuel, talk about the best of both worlds. Now, these plugs might cost you a little more than a standard plug, but in the long run, you could end up making that money back at the pump. Plus you're gonna make a few more horsepower out on the street.

Absolutely not.

It

ain't happening today.

The cool thing about this Gibson guitar here is well, not the way I play it but

the made in America craftsmanship that goes into it.

The kind you can't knock off overseas.

Well, recently we saw that same made in America pride and perfection going into the making of high performance parts

all at a legendary location

out of Southern California.

You know, when you make something, make sure it's gonna do what you say it's gonna do, make sure it's gonna be what you say it's gonna be. And in order to do that

even on a simple manifold or whatever, you've got to be on top of it. Since 1990 Vic Edelbrock company has operated its own aluminum boundary,

pouring its own intake manifold, cylinder heads and water pumps in green safe, a

vital link in the process of making it right

and making it right here in America.

Fast forward to 2007.

That's when groundbreaking began on what promised to become one of the most sophisticated permanent mold boundaries in the world.

And here we are to witness this new technology at work on an initial run of a new high performance cylinder hit.

Well, it all starts right here with uncoated dry sand.

We have a chamber, uh nomadic chamber right there. The sand drops in

closes. The butterfly valve takes us pressurizes that tank and blows it up these pipes

that go up into our day hopper which is holding what we're mixing for the day.

What it does from that point drops the dry sand down into a batch mixer.

We put a predetermined amount of resin, two part resin, it mixes in

with the san mixes for approximately 28 30 seconds.

The amount of resin depends on the core being produced. More delicate pieces like this water jacket require more resin.

It goes inside the blow chamber and as the machine operates, it goes in,

it blows the sand in at a certain pressure. Depending on what kind of core we're going to make.

Determines the P SI that we're blown in. There

blows the sand in, retracts the core boxes out of the way, brings that gassing plate in

core box goes back,

it blows the gas

into the core

which catalyzes the core makes it hard,

which is a very short cycle. Right now, we run this cord in about 15 seconds and it's catalyzed,

moves the plate out. Core comes out. We have ejector pins in our boxes, pops the core out automatically where the operator pulls them out.

There's no cool down needed and hardly any clean up.

This core making method is not only fast and efficient, it's environmentally friendly as well.

The gasses used in that process are drawn into a scrubber where sprayers neutralize the vapors, sending only clean pure air into the atmosphere.

But here's the cool part to watch

after the raw ingots are loaded into this furnace

and heated to thoroughly liquify the aluminum.

It's time to fill the metal mode with the cores for all the head's internal passengers.

Now, that's when the robot takes over

first. He loads a bucket with a precise amount of aluminum

that carries it to the mold, fills it up. Oh, and he's not finished, he automatically changes handles in order to lift the freshly poured mold onto the conveyor belt.

And as you can see, it takes very little clean up because

it makes such a beautiful casting, a

beautiful casting for sure. But to complete the process, aluminum components have to be heat treated to relieve internal stress and give them optimal strength.

Now, that's where this mammoth automated in house heat treat machine represents a big breakthrough.

Here's a load of those special cast cylinder heads going in

and after they complete the heat free process, they're quenched

and stacked for cooling

and then this is what it looks like coming out.

And uh this happens to be a load of Toyota manifolds for their NASCAR

cars. Well, after taking the grand tour, I was pretty amazed at Dick's commitment to raising the bar on high performance sports production.

But later on the inevitable question had to be raised and let's be real rather than making this huge investment here in the States.

Couldn't you have these things made in China and save a lot of money?

Well, I could do that like a lot of people are doing, but I'm not going to do that. I mean, there are certain things that are really critical of me and that's United States of America.

That's the problem where a lot of our industry is leaving and going over there.

And I think in the field that I'm in that it is not necessary. We can do it here and I'm gonna do it here.

Well, here's something new and made in America coming out of the foundry. It's part of what happens when two legends of high performance team up to make the ultimate street a

big block.

This

is the future.

What? An old muscle car.

No, an old muscle car with this kind of new muscle.

I love it.

What happens when an eight time door slammer drag race champ and engine builder

hooks up with an icon of the high performance industry, a racer in his own. Right.

Well, it's the Edelbrock patent

UC 555 trade, a

brutal big block good for 650 horsepower, carbureted

another 25 with the Edelbrock Pro flow fuel injection.

I don't know about anybody else but when you have a muscle car

back in the day, you open the hood and it didn't have a big block. It was your mother's car.

And I think we've got the best fuel injected big block

power plan on the market right now today.

One with not only big horse power and 650 ft pounds of torque, but also with street friendly drivability

and wallet friendly fuel efficiency.

I can go on the freeway

and uh with a fuel injection on here

at, at a, at a speed of 6570 miles an hour.

I'm gonna get

over 25 miles a gallon.

That's amazing. And that, that is totally amazing.

Now, you have the performance when you go to full throttle, this thing's got power

but

you can drive it

well, back at the Edel Rock dyno Department where engine testing is ongoing.

Vic gave me a quick tour of his vintage motor collection.

This is out of our uh Smoky Uni uh

Camaro

before I discovered how these two famous gear heads from opposite ends of the continent got together to build this beast of a big block

and I've always been a muscle car guy and I wanted a package that the consumer can get and enjoy drive it

and still have the kind of power that I'm used to. I absolutely jumped at it because he was

the perfect guy that we needed

to tell us

in various things going on cylinder heads, nitrous, stuff like that. And he's right in the middle of it.

The Motors Dart big M block is filled with premium brands like Scat Je Barroso and Eagle plus an Edelbrock total power combo on top like Victor 24 degree heads massaged by Muy

himself.

We hand ported it, dyno,

it flogged it

until we got a port. That was right. And then we did a program for it and CNC ported it

again. It's putting together a combination of power package that we call it

that really puts this thing together with his knowledge and our knowledge coupled. We've, we've got it. We've already got a winner, Edel

Brock's new EF I technology is also waking up a lot of old small blocks too.

Well, like the one feeding the 350

vs

74 Z 28.

Hold on.

Not bad for a little 350. All right.

Not bad for a 70 year old performance company that was born and racing

and still racing to be the best and baddest.

We're always on the lookout for products that improve performance. And here's one way you can improve the performance at your shop. The next time you need to drill through some metal Ken Cutt has introduced a new twist lock drill bit design that has 100 and 35 degree split point which gives you four cutting edges.

Another good feature with these bits is they don't get hot. Now, you can find out more about Ken Cut drill bits by visiting Power block tv.com. There's a whole lot involved in turning a muscle car into a serious yet safe race car. And one of those modifications has to do with the windows as you know, the glass has got to go

and in its place, you might consider this polycarbonate replacement from shield. Now, these are for a mustang fast back quarter windows and side windows and each is treated with a material called super coat that's resistant.

The UV rays,

ras and of course, fog. Now, this material is tough enough to cut punch holes in whatever is necessary to clearly get your car down the track.

Well, we've just about lost track of time here in the horsepower shop. Gotta get busy on next week's show and

that's when we'll see you again.