Today, Nitrus the wonder dog and I took a relaxing drive over to the engine builder to check things out and see how things are coming along. Since the block was finally bored and checked out the pistons were now available so I had a chance to pretend I was 12 years old again and it was Christmas Day as I opened all the neat presents that Santa had brought. Damn, it's fun when I'm good. Even better news was when the engine builder told me of some "good things" he was doing that would net me even more horsepower than originally planed bringing the little 289 up from 480 horsepower to an even better 520 horsepower. Isn't Santa great!
Nitrus and I hung out for a while and watched and learned as they dynoed other engines and my engine builder actually took the time to explain how dynos work and compute horsepower. Then he showed me other engines on the dyno computer that he had built for friends of mine. I just loved the part when he said, "Here is another engine with 505 horsepower... Oh yeah, but your engine has more "good stuff" than this one. During this whole process I just had to keep reminding myself, (1) This is only a 289. (2) This is with cast iron heads and a two-barrel carb! Is technology an amazing thing or WHAT!
On the way home I stopped by the shop to look at my car and do some day-dreaming... Er, I mean research. I found the guys at IMPACT ENGINEERING designing a custom built spare tire holder specifically for this race. Having a spare tire is not only nice to have on this specific race but in fact a requirement. With such an awesome built roll-cage having the spare tire located in the rear seat area would have made it a tedious job to get it out and changed. As a result they have decided to locate it in the trunk area just above the fuel cell in such a manner as to help make an unwanted tire change a quick turn around. Remember California's Best motto... It's all about "What if."
2 comments:
Am I reading this correctly that you're getting 500+ horsepower from a 289 w/ a 2 barrel carb?
Isn't technology amazing? The truth is, engine builders have known for years how to obtain such horsepower. Carroll Shelby once told me, "Horsepower was never a problem. Hell, we could get all the horsepower we wanted. It was simple for the machinist and engine builders we had at the time but the real problem was, what were we going to do with it if we had it? The reason was that back in the 60's we were still racing on little bias-ply tires and there was no way to get the traction we needed to get that horsepower to the pavement. The bottom line was we actually had to de-tune our engines at times to make the car faster.
But as we all know, tires are no longer a problem these days. Of course it would be a lot more fun with tires wider than 7 inches but I can change that after this race. After I get back from Mexico I am looking forward to campaigning this car in some major endurance races.
Post a Comment