Horsepower Is a Matter of Inches (or Thousandths of an Inch, In This Case)

Greetings fellow speed freaks, in today's installment of Tuned, I won't be discussing what's making the news in the auto world, but we'll get into the nuts and bolts instead. I 'm blessed enough to be able to drive a race car during summer weekends, and we're currently building a new motor for it. It's a 502 cubic inch (that's 8.2 litres for you Euro types) Chevrolet engine, that should produce 620bhp before we add nitrous. Today we were supposed to start assembling it, as the block had returned for the machine shop(I didn't expect to post today, had to get the lump together!). However, the old man had purchased pushrods that were 3 thousandths of an inch too short. This would prevent the valves from opening correctly and basically lead to catastrophic engine failure (we'd done blowed it up). Three thousandths of an inch, stopped us dead (the correct rods will take 3 days to arrive).

I'm a pretty competent driver on the technical side of things, and I'm usually pretty good with a wrench, but the seer math involved overwhelmed me. This wasn't motorsport, it was a calculus lesson. George Miller, local guru of speed, arrived to help us out with a vast assortment of laser and digital instruments. Measurements were taken (to the ten-thousandth of an inch!) parts checked, cigarettes smoked, measurements retaken, heads shook, more cigarettes smoked. Racing has always involved a lot of math, the sheer physics it  requires to get a one-and-a-half-ton object moving at several hundred feet per second from a dead stop in only ten seconds in immense. However, that math is in the background, mentioned but rarely discussed. Today's math was the center of attention, and was so inanely detailed, I blanked out. I'm pretty disgusted today to be honest. To be brought down by numbers, on a instrument screen, that technically don't exist, is tough to swallow.

However, I did get some good pictures: First a shot of the new Aluminum Head being assembled. (Note the test springs on the two valves to the far left)/

Next, a shot of the other side of the block, showing the exposed pistons:

Finally, a look inside the intake port of the new head, showing off the massive intake valve that will dump fuel into the motor.

Rebel sends his love, he's gone back to the South for two weeks. He sent me a picture of a pick-up truck driving through Maryland with a cannon in the bed. Yeah, that's about right, all things considered. I'll probably post it Monday.