What would a mid 80s sbc nascar engine consist of?

[Krooser]

I rarely watch it now and if a Toyota ever wins the great AMERICAN race I will not watch that race again either.

Why? Toyota is a public company traded in the USA, and employs many Americans to make its cars. I'm sure the NASCAR team has American drivers, pit crew, engineers, and the motors are built there too. I don't see the problem.

Protectionism… When Japan allows the US manufacturers to build and sell their products in Japan (as they did before WWII) maybe some of us will soften our views on the subject.

I darn near started a trade war during the 90's when a Japanese motorcycle racer, through a local contact, wanted to buy Ford van from me to export to Japan to use for his racing team transporter. Evidently word got out in Japan... my boss at the Ford dealer I worked at got two phone calls. One from a Ford VP simply stating that if we sell a car to a Japanese citizen intending to export the vehicle we will lose our franchise. The second call came from the federal commerce department in Washington telling us to back down or face the full force of the US government…

You can guess what path we took...

[Walter R. Malik]

Here's the specs on the cam the fast guys were running in the mid to late 80's.
268/274 @ .050"
.409"/.395" Lobe Lift
108 LSA

we didn't start using the stelite welded cams until about 1990. Until then, we were using standard cast cores, with standard .875" lifters.

Mid and early 80's were mushroom lifters, weren't they...? Camshafts were based upon a General Kinetics 310/318 I thought.
What year did NASCAR make the mushroom tappet illegal in the Cup cars...?

[peejay]

Still, for someone who eats, sleeps, and lives racing engines 24/7, that shop had at least one advantage - there was nothing behind it but a railroad track and about a mile of forest. No need for dyno mufflers; just open up the two metal doors that formed the rear of the dyno cells, turn on the fans, and and enjoy unfiltered that beautiful, magical song that a Cup motor sings when it comes up on the sweet part of the cam around 6800 RPM and starts "doing business". No way you could get away with that now.

Wish I could've been there for that!

[Zebedeehall]

Although the OP requested information in regards to chevy engines, what year did Ford start using the Yates C3 heads and what kind of hoursepower were they making?

[c4mo]

Not to stop the post, but thanks for the responses. They answered some
Of my questions.

[piston guy]

The 80's brought out the use of the phase 6 bowtie aluminum heads and the Pontiac 867 head. Before that it was the cast iron "292" turbo head. Cylinder Heads West( A.K.A. HRD) was THE place to get them. Greg Sipple ( rip) and John Wilson ( rip) worked there then and later went on to work for Joe Gibbs Racing.

[StanJ]

The 80's brought out the use of the phase 6 bowtie aluminum heads and the Pontiac 867 head. Before that it was the cast iron "292" turbo head. Cylinder Heads West( A.K.A. HRD) was THE place to get them. Greg Sipple ( rip) and John Wilson ( rip) worked there then and later went on to work for Joe Gibbs Racing.

John Wilson has passed away? I hadn't heard that. He always seemed like a good guy.

[Pontiac_Puller]

Don't forget about Oldsmobile.

[Adger Smith]

This is a picture of a set of Olds head I have. They were run on Harry Gant's Skoal Bandit car.
Engine builder/car owner Leo Jackson
AKA 18 deg SBC with Olds logo!!

[Pontiac_Puller]

"Oldsmobile"

[pfm1162]

http://s105.photobucket.com/user/lseck1 ... f.jpg.html
http://s105.photobucket.com/user/lseck1 ... 7.jpg.html

Spotted this intake at a racing flea last weekend.
Seller didn't know anything about it. Said it was in a bunch of stuff he bought.
Ive seen pics of restrictor plate stuff and it sort of had this look to it.
Whats the theory?

[ingram]

http://s105.photobucket.com/user/lseck1 ... f.jpg.html
http://s105.photobucket.com/user/lseck1 ... 7.jpg.html

Spotted this intake at a racing flea last weekend.
Seller didn't know anything about it. Said it was in a bunch of stuff he bought.
Ive seen pics of restrictor plate stuff and it sort of had this look to it.
Whats the theory?

I think it was to help "line-up" the column of air between the carburetor and manifold on the restricted engines.

[Adger Smith]

If you don't have volume to work with you need to use the velocity to your advantage. I think some of that was to put the Velocity of the carb/restrictor plate in the correct position in the port. Like Ingram said. I'm pretty sure there are some real creative intake manifolds that are floating around.

[DaveMcLain]

I think that the whole idea is that flow losses come from expansions after contractions so in other words once the velocity of the air is increased by passing through the restrictor plate it's advantageous to keep that velocity up and thus reduce the losses. The closer the tube can get to the bottom of the plate the better and this along with the rules Nascar had about that at the time are what led to some rather "creative" designs.

[gator mccloskey]

What about exhaust? I remember during the late 70s - mid 80s (roughly) that a few cars sounded like they had 180 deg headers. Was that what it was, or something else?