"The fast lobes will work in this engine because it is a low-rpm engine," Groh says. "The fast lobe will also help smooth out the idle quality. We widened the overlap to get the street idle quality. Plus, the cam is opening the exhaust valves earlier because of the supercharged nature of this engine. Some people may think 115 degrees [of] lobe separation is wide, but outside of the Ford world, this type of cam works great. I have used plenty of these with success in LS1 engines as well as other street Ford engines.
We spilled the beans on most of the specs, but there is more to the story. Groh prefers to keep the rest of the information under a veil of secrecy-specifically, the type of lobes he selected for this camshaft. It is not uncommon to get this request from engine builders, as it is proprietary information.
The rest of the valvetrain is from Comp, and it supports the healthy camshaft we had ground for the project. The rocker arms are Pro Magnum and have a 1.6:1 ratio, while the springs are from Comp Cams. The pushrods came in at a lengthy 8.600 inches and are of the hardened variety. They are also the beefier 3/8-inch pieces. It is important the pushrods are hardened to eliminate the possibility of flexing and/or galling. They will be subjected to the harshness of trying to open and close valves under extreme cylinder pressures. The thicker, hardened pushrods will not budge under those conditions.
With the camshaft, valvetrain, and cylinder heads in place, we are nearing the end of our project 445ci engine. Next, we plan on finishing the buildup and conducting some tests on an engine dyno.
New technologies are always...
New technologies are always emerging, and the latest stuff is from Fel-Pro. We are using Fel-Pro's multilayered head gaskets called MLS. These head gaskets are reusable, and their multilayer design adds so much strength that we are not running an O-ring in the heads or block.
The Fel-Pro gaskets lie down...
The Fel-Pro gaskets lie down on the deck of the Man O' War block. Note the cylinder openings in the head gasket are oval-reminiscent of Chevy stuff.
Comp Pro Magnum 1.6:1 roller...
Comp Pro Magnum 1.6:1 roller rocker arms were selected for this engine. "I'll pick rockers based on the cylinder heads. The Pro Magnums work great on the Street Heat heads," Groh says. We went with a set of Comp Magnum tie-bar hydraulic roller lifters also.