Cam timing was made easier with the use of Comp's cam-timing tools. Note the head in place on the opposite bank. This was there to make a check on valve-to-piston clearance. It proved to be right on the money.
Dyno Time
As one might expect, Keena-Levin was really looking forward to dynoing the finished project engine. We were now in the new UNCC Motor-sports building, which has a dual-installation dyno cell. This was looking really good, and the gleaming 901 Superflow dyno was nearly ready to do battle with our engine. It all looked so photogenic, unfortunately one small, but highly significant detail, was to be our undoing here. The water supply to the dyno cell proved to be too small, and a new, bigger system could not be installed in time to meet editorial deadlines. This caused something of a panic. Although we know plenty of people who have dynos, they are all busy doing race-car stuff (Charlotte is Cup Car country central). In addition to availability, we also needed a bigger-than-average dyno cell that was light and photo friendly (most are not).
Accel's Universal-style ignition wire kits come with the boots on the plug end. Here, Mike Keena-Levin spends time cutting them to length and connecting them to the Performance Distributor's cap terminals for a neat installation.
Here is where what could have been a bleak situation reversed direction. Your author knew that his friend Lloyd McCleary, Busch engine builder (he has had as many as 25 engines in one Busch race) and boss at T&L had just the photo-friendly cell (three, to be precise) we were looking for, but is usually too heavily booked for an immediate test session. Well, we got lucky. When we called, McCleary said to "be here Saturday morning at 11 a.m. We can run your engine 'til 4 p.m., but you must be out by 5." That may sound like a high-speed deal where it leaves us little time to do much, but McCleary's shop is geared to dyno a lot of engines. He sometimes has four engines through a cell in one day.
We arrived at T&L at 10:30 a.m., and by 11:00 we were wheeling the engine into the cell. About 20 minutes later, the engine was on and the Kooks headers were installed. The only problem we ran into was that the CSI electric pump was not instantly compatible with the hose arrangement on the dyno. Rather than spend time heading off to hunt down parts, we elected to swap out the CSI pump for a mechanical one McCleary had on hand. With that done, we were ready to go.
T&L's dyno facility is just what you would expect of a Cup Car shop. It was spotlessly clean and made highly functional by attention to detail.
By 12:15 the engine was primed and ready to start. The BG Demon was given a half-dozen stabs to put fuel from the accelerator pump into an otherwise-dry manifold, and the starter was hit. After a couple of revolutions, the fuel hit the cylinders and the engine roared to life. Timing was set to about 5 degrees less than was expected to be finally used, and the break-in was carried out. Because of time constraints, it would have to be a short break-in, and we would have to forego an oil change to a more powerful synthetic like Mobil 1 or Joe Gibbs Racing's new synthetic race oil.
While the engine was breaking in, McCleary asked what the engine spec was. We told him what was contained within and that, with a few minor variations, it was essentially a D.S.S. build that we had done. "Well, those guys at D.S.S. must have a good handle on things" he said. "We build a crate-motor spec for those race customers of ours who want a reliable street motor, and it is really close to that. If you guys have done a good job, you should see better than 370 lb-ft and 375 hp. If you are really on the ball, it should better 380 lb-ft and go right around 400 hp."
Here Lloyd McCleary, T&L's boss, runs the tests on our project 5.0. Once a few carb problems were ironed out, things moved along fast.
After only a 20-minute break-in, our first pull was done, and a huge miss instantly made itself apparent. Pulling the plugs revealed two cylinders were running unbelievably rich. This led us to suspect a blocked jet. A subsequent rebuild of the carb revealed debris probably acquired during our move into the new shop at UNCC, but we had no time to do a rebuild. McCleary had a number of Demon carbs on hand, so we grabbed the first-available photo-perfect 750 off the bench and bolted that dude on. Things got better, but it was still way too rich. We were about to go into it when McCleary remembered it was a customer's carb and had been set up a day or two before on a 550hp-or-so 383-inch engine. The next carb was one of McCleary's dyno specials (i.e., it never goes on a car). It was ugly from extensive use but had been on an engine that McCleary thought might not be too far off from what we wanted. Time was ticking away, and it was not until about 3:30 that we got to do the first real pull.
The carb was close but not spot on. The engine made all the right noises on this pull and cranked out 378 hp along with 367 lb-ft-not bad for only 24 degrees of total timing. Now before you go thinking we should have set the timing at 34 degrees right off the bat, remember that one of the reasons the Edelbrock heads were used is that they have good swirl. This means a faster burn and, as such, less timing is needed to get the job done. Previous experience with heads having adequate swirl have shown they rarely need more than 29-30 degrees of total timing to maximize the horsepower. For the next pull, we ran 26 degrees, and output jumped by 12-some-odd horsepower and 14 lb-ft. This prompted going to 28 degrees total timing advance. The result was 385 lb-ft, 395 hp, and our deadline of 4 o'clock all at the same time.
Even though we missed the 400hp mark by just a few horsepower, it can be seen that our D.S.S.-inspired bolt-it-together 5.0 dealt out a pretty mean power curve. Note how, for an out-of-the-box hydraulic valvetrain, it hangs on well at the top end.
Achieving 400 hp would have been nice, but no one was disappointed. Why? Because it was pretty much certain that another degree or so of timing would have netted a couple of horsepower as would the change to a synthetic oil. On top of that, a look at the plugs indicted some minor jetting changes would also have helped to an estimated tune of 3-4 hp. Given all these factors and a longer break-in, it looked fairly certain that this engine would have topped about 403 hp. As for it's streetability, we found that the dyno, which was set up for high-rpm race engines, would not lug our 5.0 down lower than 2,200 rpm because of its strong, low-speed torque. At 2,200 it showed a steady state 289 lb-ft. That's more than a stock 5.0 peaks out at.
At the end of the day, we think we can say that not only did we get a good-looking engine, but also a cost-effective one that met all our needs for a true street machine as well as high performance on the track.