What's under the hood or Where's the beef?

Tomorrow I go up to the north bay to visit my engine builder REBELLO RACING so we can discuss specifics for the new engine for the car. There are many features about this engine that need to have specific needs and attention to detail. Besides the limits of the rules the main reason is simply because of the high altitude. Many teams and drivers have built expensive high performance engines for this trip only to find out they didn't perform worth a damn at these high altitudes. Not only is it important to have an understanding of the difference between racing at sea level versus high altitude but it's very important to have an engine builder who in fact has a wealth of knowledge and personal experience with such engines and details. This is were things begin to get really exciting for Team California's Best.

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Tom who used to design and build engines for Carol Shelby himself on the exact engine we will be running. After discussing the needs of the engine I listened and took detailed notes for almost 1 hour and ten minutes as he broke down what was needed one part at a time. Then I called my engine builder and without telling him who I had spoken to I began suggesting to him what I wanted for an engine. It wasn't long before he asked, "This is incredible stuff. Where did you get this information?" When I asked why he said, "I have been building almost this exact engine specs for a customer who races in South America on a track at high altitude and it is an amazing combination. Wherever you got this information from they really knew what they were doing." I can't express how happy this made me to hear he had an exact understanding and personal knowledge of exactly what I was looking for and that it was not an experiment but in fact something already tried and perfected.

Tomorrow morning we will be plugging all the specific information into an awesome computer program he uses to see exactly what we will be producing with regard to horsepower and torque and so on. His computer program has been very accurate in recent build and has turned out engines that after completed were dynoed to within 2 percent of what the computer said they would be. He has already projected this high performance 289 should be in the neighborhood of 480 horsepower!!! not to mention extremely reliable and strong.