by moore1 | Jun 25, 2015 | News |
By Mary Maglone: When Robin Buck, wife of noted engine builder Charlie Buck, recently posted “Can anyone identify these men” on her Face Book page accompanied by photographs of two Caucasian males, she succeeded in recruiting 589,000 individuals in short order. Some responded immediately telling of resemblances to persons seen on the television series Street Outlaws while others cast about assembling a reward in an attempt to catch the criminals. Engine builder Reher Morrison’s recent contribution brought the total to $20, 110. Around 10:30 on the night of Thursday, June 18, 2015, thieves broke into Buck Racing Engines of King, North Carolina and stole eight engines valued at just under $500,000. Earlier that afternoon two unknown men had visited the shop inquiring about a short-block for sale. Their photographs had been captured while in Buck’s office area. Although the intruders occupied the building for five and a half hours, they operated in darkness in the attic for the first two hours with flashlights. Crawling along the floor in military style they inspected the wiring to the alarm and phone systems. Once the two systems were immobilized the intruders either sprayed the lenses of the video cameras with paint or destroyed them. Nonetheless, further concealed cameras continued to monitor their movements as they set about selecting their illicit prizes. Although two of the engines stolen were built for high-performance street cars the thieves focused chiefly on the nitrous-assisted engines, the most expensive of which was valued at $100,000. Interestingly, a supercharged engine remained under their scrutiny for an hour and a half, but ultimately they replaced its covers, deciding against...
by moore1 | Jun 19, 2015 | News |
In production from 1958 to ‘62, the allure of the G50 Matchless was simple: it was a 500cc, air cooled, single cylinder, four stroke machine that was competitive, inexpensive, and easy to maintain. A derivative of the 350cc AJS 7R engine that was created in Britain in the post war 1940s, the G50 returned to prominence in the 1970s when resurgence in national and international classic racing took hold. The engine cutaway picture, prepared by former G50 racer Chuck Huneycutt, who heads the restoration division at the Barber Motorsports Museum, allows viewers a unique insight into most of the functioning parts behind the magnesium Elektron alloy castings. Elektron was used to save weight and the anodized gold finish was used to protect it from oxidizing. Unsurprisingly, under George Barber’s development and racing program of the 1990s the G50 was transformed. With Huneycutt’s influence peak power increased by over 25 percent. The single Amal carburetor was replaced by a 44mm Mikuni VM round-slide-style. Although the original Amal produced slightly more power at full throttle it had a tendency to hesitate while cornering at maximum lean. Most notably, as the compression ratio, engine rpm, and power output increased, the original 35-tonne-steel flywheel, now working beyond its design capability, began to crack. The solution was to replace the original design, a pressed-together crank, with a one-piece style. Further development involved the addition of a second spark plug, which led to a reduction in ignition timing. As a result maximum power occurred at 18 degrees before TDC instead of the original 32-degree setting. Though in low resolution, the deftness of the G50 can still...
by moore1 | Jun 11, 2015 | News |
Irvine, California: CP-Carrillo has introduced new Bullet connecting rods for the 4.6 and the new 5.0 Ford Modular engines. The rods are supplied with WMC H-11 tool steel bolts, incorporate a center-to-center length of 5.932in and feature big-end and pin-end hone dimensions of 2.2394in and 0.8672in respectively. Their total weight is 613 grams. After rigorous R&D, these Bullet 4.6 Ford Modular rods have been torture-tested and rated for 1,100-plus horsepower, 30-plus psi of boost and 8,500rpm. What’s a near-net forging? Manufactured from CP-Carrillo’s proprietary blend of steel on a near-net forging for structural support and durability, these connecting rods are supplied as direct factory replacements, race-ready and available for immediate delivery. CP-Carrillo’s near-net forgings make significant contributions to connecting rod manufacture. By creating connecting rod forgings to almost the finished size, highest quality is maintained yet costs are suppressed because machining time is reduced to a minimum. Part numbers: ID: 8765, P/N: BF50-5932, MSRP: $1234.50 CP-Carrillo 1902 McGaw Irvine, CA 92614 949-567-9000 phone 949-567-9010 fax...
by moore1 | Jun 9, 2015 | News, Press Releases |
By Bertie Scott Brown: Dawsonville, Georgia: Last week MTI Racing revealed they had purchased Razor, the dry-sump pump manufacturer of Phoenix, Arizona. Created originally in Ontario, Canada by the aerospace corporation Windsor Gear, the Razor trading name and designs are now owned by MTI Racing, who has moved all operations, which includes finished product, raw materials, and all equipment including testing apparatus, to Dawsonville, Georgia. Reece Cox, President of MTI Racing, announced that Razor will continue to produce multi-stage dry-sump oil pumps for oval track, drag and road racing as well as sprint and midget applications. “We’re aiming to resume manufacturing activities by mid-June 2015,” explains Cox, “and during the course of the year we plan to expand Razor’s markets, initially by the introduction of a new series of cast aluminum oil-pans for the LS1 market.” These themes are entirely consistent with MTI’s approach, who for twenty years has been a leader in high-performance and racing components and assemblies for Corvettes and Camaros. Plans are also in place for the introduction of a new two-stage pump for the Corvette that connects directly to the differential and cools both transmission and differential components. Russ Flagle of Indy Cylinder Heads, a long-time Razor user, says, “We like the quality of the product and how it fits; we like the gear profile and the O-ring layouts that separate its different stages; and we like the fact that it produces adequate volumes of oil and pressure and has no leaks or cavitation.” Background Razor dry-sump oil pumps and Ernie Elliott Inc are divisions of MTI Racing, who also recently formed MTI Composites which...
by moore1 | Jun 7, 2015 | Clutches, News |
By Sam Logan: Adrian Gomez, an industrious 27-year old who manages Mak Performance, a Miami specialty shop established in 1995, bought a 2015 Mustang 5.0 and with fewer than 7,000 miles on the clock installed a Pro Charger centrifugal supercharger. It extended the Mustang’s power output at the rear wheels from 376hp to 600hp, an impressive 60 percent improvement. With one of the two vital ingredients in place—225 additional horsepower—he decided that instead of fulfilling the role as a drag race spectator at the NMRA season opener at Bradenton, he would present himself as an entrant in the True Street class. This leads us to the second vital ingredient—the clutch. Doubtless it was tempting to ascertain just how long the original factory clutch might support the additional horsepower…and it didn’t take long to find out. The car slipped the clutch on the first pass, running an Elapsed Time of 11.97 seconds over the quarter-mile distance and by the third pass it had overheated and was on the road to ruin. Undaunted the intrepid young Gomez limped back to Miami where he would replace the failed clutch system with a twin-disc clutch-flywheel set-up. His objectives were to acquire better friction materials, 2,400psi of clamping force and an easy clutch pedal feel for stop-start traffic conditions. For all of that, there is no intrinsic weakness in the original equipment Mustang’s clutch arrangement. It is just that it was neither designed to transmit 60 percent additional horsepower nor to transmit it via twenty-nine-inch diameter Mickey Thompson Drag Radials. Nonetheless, its street-driving capacity contrasts starkly with Ram’s Force 10.5 dual-disc clutch-flywheel arrangement, which...
by moore1 | Jun 6, 2015 | News |
A leader in Dirt Late Model race engine development, Glenn Clements of Clements Automotive offers a brief outline on the salient features of dry-sump oiling. He begins by saying: First it might be helpful to explain that these pumps are located on the Bert mount of Dirt Late Model race cars. This means the pump attaches to the top of the transmission, residing behind the bell housing. Twenty-five years ago the racing transmission manufacturer, Bert, cast a bell-housing that adapted the oil pump for use at the middle of the race car. Pump efficiencies are largely dependent upon close tolerances, including the proximity of the pump’s internal gearing to the pump body. This is imperative for maintaining adequate pressure when pumping hot, light viscous oil at low engine speeds. If the pump doesn’t meet this requirement the alternative would be to spin it faster, which wastes engine power. It is the spaces between the rotors or gear teeth that transfer the oil. The larger the voids between the rotors or gear teeth, the more oil will be moved per revolution. Importantly, it is the volume of oil displaced from the inlet port to the outlet port each time the shaft turns one revolution. To simplify the displacement concept, consider a set of gears with 10 teeth. Thus it follows there would be 9 voids between the 10 teeth. Therefore the total area of those voids would represent the displacement of each revolution. Compare this to gears with only 7 teeth. As a result the voids have increased in size, so with each revolution the displacement becomes larger as the...
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