What is the Max HP on a sealed GM 604

[autodoctor911]

raceman14: I don't know what I said that makes you think I am telling you how to do your job. For the most part, I have been asking questions to try and either understand how your lofty claims might be true or wether they are ore not. you have not said anything to make me believe that you are lying about these things, but as the claims are hard to believe based on what is commonly accepted, I would need a bit more convincing on some of those numbers. I don't really care about the numbers that much, but rather want to understand the principals that are used to achieve maximum power output for a race engine to win.

I have long suspected that typical dyno does not indicate the true potential for accelleration, since it essentially measures static power output by way of measuring max torque for any rpm, but since they usually spin up slower than a race car accellerates, the actual performance potential of an engine is not accurately measured. So, I can definitely appreciate the methods you use, and I am interested in what you have found out doing so.
I also am very interested in the application of any of the methods you have applied to the 604 crate motor that extract more power from an engine that is restricted by a set of rules and limitations. some of your methods are definitely outside the accepted practices, and as such, I want to try to understand if, why, and how they might work on any engine application.

[stockcar5]

another thing...raceman14 like to drop lots of names to support his claims. he happened to drop names of some folks i know up here in mn. in talking with them they know NOTHING of him. so smokey was wrong..definitely take with a grain of salt.

[CamKing]

another thing...raceman14 like to drop lots of names to support his claims. he happened to drop names of some folks i know up here in mn. in talking with them they know NOTHING of him. so smokey was wrong..definitely take with a grain of salt.

Yep, I called one of the places where he supposedly dyno'd his horspower monsters, and they have no memory of ever seeing a 604 make over 430hp on their dyno.

[levisnteeshirt]

i wonder if GM would be interested in someone mis representing their copyright ,, like ,,, oh ,, who comes to mind ,, Racaman ??

[vortecpro]

i wonder if GM would be interested in someone mis representing their copyright ,, like ,,, oh ,, who comes to mind ,, Racaman ??

It would take all night to shift through all this BS, I dont know what to think, my advice to you Raceman is this: Ive been attacked for dyno numbers myself, THE FIRST THING YOU DO IS LOAD UP AND HEAD TO A RESPECTED DYNO AND PROVE YOURSELF AND BACK IT WITH MONEY if you can, put up the shut up. If your for real this is exactly what you will do. Ive only read the last few pages, but have any of you out there offered dyno time? Got a question Lev, why are you allways involved in trying to destroy someone? Give the guy the chance to prove himself, if he can. Just took a look at the Raceman web site, after my post, what I meant by a respected dyno is not a RWHP dyno. This aint looking so good right now, people throwing around RWHP numbers make me dam nervous.

[vortecpro]

i wonder if GM would be interested in someone mis representing their copyright ,, like ,,, oh ,, who comes to mind ,, Racaman ??

It would take all night to shift through all this BS, I dont know what to think, my advice to you Raceman is this: Ive been attacked for dyno numbers myself, THE FIRST THING YOU DO IS LOAD UP AND HEAD TO A RESPECTED DYNO AND PROVE YOURSELF AND BACK IT WITH MONEY if you can, put up the shut up. If your for real this is exactly what you will do. Ive only read the last few pages, but have any of you out there offered dyno time? Got a question Lev, why are you allways involved in trying to destroy someone? Give the guy the chance to prove himself, if he can. Just took a look at the Raceman web site, after my post, what I meant by a respected dyno is not a RWHP dyno. This aint looking so good right now, people throwing around RWHP numbers make me dam nervous.

Just for the record I am now a skeptic myself, prove your claims. An in depth calibration ck of the dyno would be a good starting point.

[stockcar5]

last year a certified crate re builder in NC offered to publicly purchase and dyno a-b-a his stuff. he offered to post up before and after numbers for all to see. raceman14 suddenly backpedaled and quit posting on that particular forum for months. go figure...

[levisnteeshirt]

i wonder if GM would be interested in someone mis representing their copyright ,, like ,,, oh ,, who comes to mind ,, Racaman ??

It would take all night to shift through all this BS, I dont know what to think, my advice to you Raceman is this: Ive been attacked for dyno numbers myself, THE FIRST THING YOU DO IS LOAD UP AND HEAD TO A RESPECTED DYNO AND PROVE YOURSELF AND BACK IT WITH MONEY if you can, put up the shut up. If your for real this is exactly what you will do. Ive only read the last few pages, but have any of you out there offered dyno time? Got a question Lev, why are you allways involved in trying to destroy someone? Give the guy the chance to prove himself, if he can. Just took a look at the Raceman web site, after my post, what I meant by a respected dyno is not a RWHP dyno. This aint looking so good right now, people throwing around RWHP numbers make me dam nervous.

Just for the record I am now a skeptic myself, prove your claims. An in depth calibration ck of the dyno would be a good starting point.

i'm sorry i hurt your feelings Vortecpro ,,,when i smell BS , i say it ,,, we've lost alot of super late racers , and semi late racers because of this crate crap ,,, now you go to the track , and wonder who is cheating the most thats in the lead pack when the crate lates are running ,,, and jokers like this make it tough for my buddys shop , that puts out legal motors ,,, he's not done 1 this winter ,, i got a feeling i know where they are , at a non Fastrak shop getting cheated up ,, they didn't put up a 30,000 $$ bond to rebuild them legally ,, and have nothing to lose if they don't ,,, i've been at his shop all day switching motors out of his dyno and finishing one up ,,, he might quit doing crates because of crap like this ,, then the guys trying to make the crate thing good , won't be doing them ,,,,

[Calypso]

Still no answer on the Camshaft question??? How do you re-grind a stock GM 604 cam, gain 15hp and keep it legal ???

Offset lobes??

[CamKing]

Still no answer on the Camshaft question??? How do you re-grind a stock GM 604 cam, gain 15hp and keep it legal ???

Offset lobes??

That's the problem.
Juan and Julio grinding those 604 cams down in Mexico have ground all kinds of offsets.

[Calypso]

Still no answer on the Camshaft question??? How do you re-grind a stock GM 604 cam, gain 15hp and keep it legal ???

Offset lobes??

That's the problem.
Juan and Julio grinding those 604 cams down in Mexico have ground all kinds of offsets.

Maybe I'm missing the whole point of the disucssion, but I begun wondering if it would be possible to make a "stroker" camshaft with stock lobe specs for these hydraulic lifter classes. If the cam measurement systems reference to the base circle rather than camshaft centerline, wouldn't it be possible to gain lift by offsetting the whole lobe towards the hi lift? (Move centerline of the base circle away from cam centerline towards lobe peak)

[DaveMcLain]

No. The base circle has to be concentric to the centerline of the camshaft otherwise you would have a cam with 720 degrees of duration, the valve would always be either opening or closing to some degree, sort of like a fuel pump lobe.

[raceman14]

Mike,
I'd like to know who it was that did not remember me from an engine dyno session?
The 2 guys I use to seal my engines are Johnny Pruitt and Darrel Gabriel & every engine at either place over the last 5 years has been dyno'd.
Even though the on the head cam doctor does not reference lobe centerlines, it is pretty hard to change all of those numbers around without grinding some of the cam away and reducing the reference lobe base OD. I guess you could grind some off the front and back without reducing the base circle but the changes in either retard or advance would be picked up by referencing 1/2 on the duration numbers. Assymetrical lobe would probably fool that on the cam doctor but I am not sure that could be done and stay within reference #'s on the Adcole check.
That is the reason I was asking ???


Stockcar
I would also like to know who in MN did not remember me? Only folks I know from up there are Gene Pearson, Jason Line, Jerry Hemmingson, Warren Johnson and I think Todd Tesar was originally from MN. Myron Cottrell from TPIS, was a co-author on an article that Alan Lockheed did for Dave Emanuel did for Super Chevy magazine back in about 1982. Myron was a co-contibutor to the article and designed a manifold for EFI similar to the SmokeyRam I used on the 406 referenced in the article, my engine N/A was around 600hp and his 406 EFI engine was about 500 on pump gas. Bill Jones on here did the Heads and Intake manifold, I did the bottom end, Harold Brooksire did the camshaft for me and it was modeled on "The Engine Analyzer" software package by Alan Lockheed. I was told the cam would not work but it was one of those things where all of the parts were designed around the deal.The headers were done up in MN by "Headers by ED", at $3500 back in the day that was a ton but they were special for a Corvette with A/C. I still have the headers as a matter of fact...Dyno results from Keith Dorton at Automotive Specialists confirmed the results the CPU program kicked out. Might be none of these guys remember any of it, but I do because I paid for all of it out of my own pockets and that project from beginning to end cost about $38K from start to finish and I didn't get a penny for any of it. I did sell the engine to a street racer to fund the down payment on my first Superflow Chassis DYno.

Tshirt,
I am sure Dixie Performance, won't mind you talking up their crate engines and your carburetors, heck it might help out his crate business if he has only done 1 this past year. If he has only done a couple engines it would be difficult to determine what parts are there and how good they are compared to a baseline of the different series of parts that have come along in the last 10 years. Just so you know, there has been 3 different intake manifold versions, 4 different cylinder head versions, 3 changes in the timing chains and gears, 2 changes in the oil pans, 2 changes in the oil pump P/U, 2 versions of the crank & 3 versions of the PM rods.

The cylinder heads alone have had a variance of +/- 31CFM @ 25". If you can utilize 100% of this in your engine build that alone would be 30+ HP. This means the best set of heads you can find is probably 15-20HP better than an good set of heads and 20-30HP better than an average set of heads. Now if you match the right intake to those heads you will pick-up another 10-15HP if the final result of that is say 40HP and another 10-15HP you pick up by knowing what surface finish the rings like then you have an engine that is 40-50HP better than the next guy not working those advantages. Just because it is 50HP better does not mean it is illegal especially when it has gone thru National tech inspection dozens of times.

I am a true one man shop, no helpers or part-timers and I work 12-16 hours 5-6 days a week just to keep up. All of my engines that run in Fastrak or NeSmith have to be certified by another engine builder so not only is my reputation on the line but their reputation also.

[autodoctor911]

racerman14: Why work by yourself and so many hours? If you have that much work you can't even get to, why not hire some help?

Is it that you don't trust anybody, or that you can't get along with people on a daily basis?

[raceman14]

911 ( Check your PM's ),
I would say a little of both. I ran Serdi for a couple years and had a pretty good crew of about 30 folks. I took them out of bankruptcy to a point where we made a about a million a month in profit, and that was not enough for the greedy French even with the Dollar kicking the Euro in the butt. Now they are lucky if they sell one machine a month here in the US. I was selling 10-15 a year of my on Re-Furbs until I decided to buy and sell Bank of America stock to make real money. It was a struggle to make $5K on a $30K machine and about 100hours of labor to complete. With the same investment in a Fidelity trading account I can make that much in a couple hours in the morning before I go to the shop.

I have had a couple folks help me out recently, one turned out to be selling engine parts from the shop on e-bay. Another one could not keep off of his cell phone long enough to get anything done with texting and girlfriends etc., and a couple just could not understand what on time and clean was. If you wash engine parts it is pretty easy to know what clean is but it is not every body understands how get there. Everybody wants to be an engine builder but 99% of them never make it past the parts washer. If I have to follow behind someones work, inspect it and then re-work most of it, there is not a good use in hiring or having help.

I am not complaining at all, I love to keep busy, especially when it is for folks that are 100% committed to winning races with my engines, carbs and other parts. I have never slept more than 4-6 hours anyway so I figure why waste the rest of the day. The work I do at my shop is a stress release and it is what I love to do, it does not make a lot of money, but it is what I know and I still like to build stuff that dominates and wins races.

Right now I have my 8 year old son helping me on the weekends and some after school and he has a better handle on how things are supposed to look than anybody else I have worked with in the last 10 years. His only problem is he gets bored after splashing around in the solvent tank for 30 minutes and want to go back to racing his moto-x bicycle around the shop, it is about 12,000sq.ft so he has plenty of room to race, I set up orange traffic cones and fuel barrels and he has a blast.

This year I hope to teach him how to plant and tend to a small vegetable garden so he can grow his own food in the future when Tomatoes and Lettuce are $5 a pound. I am also teaching him how to weld but his head is small for the helmet and his hands are pretty small for the mig torch. I am prepping up a helmet insert and a smaller 130amp welder for him to use that will be a much lighter lead, finer wire and easier to learn with.

He already knows how to cook most meats, eggs and potatoes so he will be prepared to make his own food after he gets married...hahaha!!!