Engine Masters Full Episodes – Extreme RPM Engines: High-Revving Power Secrets

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:07]The earliest superchargers in the aftermarket hot rodding world were centrifugal blowers stuffing air through carburetors. And nothing has changed today. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's more popular than ever. And you're seeing lots of people making way north of a 1000 horsepower blowing through a single four barrel carburetor. We've done it a bunch here at Westech Performance. So, we're going to try and have a look at a whole bunch of different products and how they affect the carburetor itself as it's trying to deliver air and fuel. The other thing we're going to do is investigate the problem that you may not even know that you have with your blowthrough carbureted setup, and that is cylinder to cylinder distribution. We're going to have O2 sensors here in every single header pipe looking at the air fuel ratio in each cylinder. Let's review that for just a moment. Under boost, we like to see fairly rich air fuel ratios, sometimes around 11.5 to1. You could be reading 11.5 to1 in your single O2 sensor that you've got on one bank of your exhaust. But the truth is, you could have one cylinder that's all the way up at 16 to1 and ready to melt and destroy itself. and you could have another one really rich at 10 to one.

[00:01:23]You just don't know until you have sensors in every hole. Surprisingly enough, yes, these carburetor hats can affect that. So, let me tell you what we're going to do. I'm going to run through and show you the 1 2 3 4 five different hats that we've got here. And we're going to run each one of them both straight down the carburetor as well as off at a 45° angle because we've seen how that can affect the performance of the carburetor and how it delivers air and fuel to the engine. So the very first one that we've got here is from CSU carburetors. Kind of a straight over and a straight down program. Nothing real special there. also very straightforward, the ProCharger unit that has just a little bit more of a whoop-dedoo in it and also is a shorter height. Moving on to this extreme velocity. It looks very much like the Procharger unit except voila, it's got a big spacer in it dividing air so that when it's directly in line with the carburetor, it's attempting to even out the flow on the front two barrels and the rear two barrels. Then we've got this generic what I'll call a shorty. It has a much lower height than the other ones. And we have seen that height is a big deal. Now, the thing is each one of these carburetor hats, oddly enough, won't fit the carburetor in a straighton sort of orientation because they hit right there on the float level adjuster screw. And so, we've had to run a 1-in spacer under each of these in that scenario. Same is true with this doohickey right here, which is made by Vortex/Paxton.

[00:03:00]I call it a UFO. And what it is is a carburetor hat that goes on there that has sort of an air filter inside it, which is a diffuser. It looks a lot like a KN&N air filter minus the cotton. It is just a screen in there. And the thought behind that is that it diffuses all those pressure spikes and strange air flow that might go across the carburetor and create problems. So, we'll be testing that as well. So, these two discharge tubes that you see right here are to accommodate the different orientations of the hats. And the one thing that you will notice on these is that they have a hole drilled in them, which is really unusual. You've seen it on past episodes. It is an organized boost leak. We're trying to keep the power on this engine down to the mid700s because we don't want to go past 1,00 horsepower because we're pretty sure we're going to see some problems with the tune and run some very lean cylinders and we don't want to go to the limit of horsepower and melt a piston out of our test engine. The test engine, you may ask, is this right here? First, let's talk about the fueling portion of it, which is the most important thing to what we're doing today. The carburetor is a Demon model that's designed specifically for blowth through supercharging. It's rated at 650 CFM, which would be sort of in normal conditions. Obviously, under boost, it's going to flow a lot more than that. We know that it can make more than 1,00 horsepower cuz it's designed to flow that much fuel. On our fuel system, we are going to be running a boost reference setup with our regulator.

[00:04:30]That's all from Aeromotive. The fuel that we're using on this whole test is Synokco 116 octane. So, I think the first thing that we're going to do is get it on the dyno. And you're not even going to see a naturally aspirated test here. We're going to be boosting everything with that ProCharger F1 A94.

[00:04:49]And we're going to start off with what we believe to be the best scenario, which is the CSU hat plumbed absolutely in line with the carburetor. Just like that. All right. You ready for this?

[00:05:03]Let's go.

[00:05:07]>> This is going to be something.

[00:05:10]>> Yeah.

[00:05:11]>> Yeah.

[00:05:12]>> I'm not sure. Well, I think I am sure.

[00:05:14]What?

[00:05:14]>> I think we're going to see the extremes.

[00:05:16]Maybe.

[00:05:17]>> I hope so.

[00:05:17]>> I mean, is it only there really, guys, to connect the supercharger to the carburetor to physically connect it and that's all there is to it?

[00:05:28]>> No, there's a whole lot more to it than that. And I think that's where David and I came up with this originally was back when the boxes were popular.

[00:05:36]>> Uhuh. That's what I used.

[00:05:37]>> We started using boxes because these were so bad.

[00:05:40]>> Yeah.

[00:05:41]>> And and we could put something on at a 45 degree angle. It misfire. You could actually rotate the hat and and hear the misfire part throttle go away >> and rotate it and come back and they would just do all kinds of crazy things.

[00:05:53]It seems like they're a little more squared away now. They've got some height things and a lot of that stuff squared away. We have some oldies and some newbies and and we'll find out.

[00:06:02]Okay, fired up. Let's go with what we presume to be the best one, which is the taller 90° kind of one that we've run a few times and we know that this baseline's actually going to work. And after that, we'll just mow through them and find out what goes wrong.

[00:06:18]>> All right, let's go.

[00:06:40]Goodbye CSU. Hello Procharger.

[00:06:49]Heat. Heat.

[00:07:22]UFO doesn't cut it.

[00:07:23]>> No, it's not that good.

[00:07:24]>> I'll bet you anything it's a boost restriction because of the diffuser in there. I bet it reads less boost in the manifold than the others.

[00:07:32]>> Probably.

[00:07:33]>> Yeah. Before we start talking about all of these, can we just look at why that one lost power and sort of >> take it out of the mix? because I think it is a boost problem.

[00:07:42]>> I think we can relate it to boost pretty accurately.

[00:07:44]>> Yeah, totally.

[00:07:46]>> Yeah. What we're seeing there is that that diffuser inside the what I'm calling the UFO is just a boost restriction. And so clearly we can pull it up and get back there and make the power. So the question is, does it actually diffuse and have better distribution than all the others?

[00:08:03]>> Does it?

[00:08:04]>> Does it? So, what we're going to do here to sort out which one of these hats we like the most is not look at the horsepower because they're all very similar. Instead, we're going to look at how the carburetor reacted to each one of them and how it delivered fuel and air to each of the cylinders in the engine. We're going to find out if any of them created any radical lean cylinders, which is our main concern for killing parts. Before we get to comparing here, let me tell you what we're looking at. This is a graph of all eight cylinders in the engine and what the air fuel ratio is in each one of them. So all the way at the top, they're also labeled here, we've got cylinder number four, and it's the leanest one, which is almost 13 1/2 to 1 at the peak.

[00:08:50]All the way down here, you can see this particular cylinder actually crosses over. I think that one's number twoish.

[00:08:59]and it starts really really fat and then it gets leaner and hangs on leaner. And so we're able to look at this whole graph to see is there one cylinder that's just way off the plot either direction or are they all really spread apart and our main interest here is up there at the higher RPM higher boost higher load that there aren't any that are going into the danger zone which I think for this deal we would call you know we don't like 13 1.5 to one but anything worse than that's really bad.

[00:09:30]Well, and and again, part of that depends on the amount of boost and for how long.

[00:09:34]>> Yeah, how long is a big part of it?

[00:09:36]>> Big part of it.

[00:09:37]>> So, between those two, which would be the CSU hat in black and the Procharger one in red, I think I'm going to give the very slight edge to the CSU.

[00:09:49]>> I'm going to say very slight just because it's it's down just a touch.

[00:09:53]>> Yeah, it only >> pretty close.

[00:09:55]>> It's pretty close. I mean, it's a tie.

[00:09:58]Yeah, because you know, I think if we go back and look at the overall average air fuel ratio of these two, the CSU could be slightly two or 310 richer >> than than the uh >> Yeah, Charger hat.

[00:10:10]>> You could see that.

[00:10:12]>> The only thing that influenced me, I think, was this one cylinder, honestly.

[00:10:17]>> And they're the same. It's not bad. It's got a couple over here, but but >> you know, things are not and with at this power level at wide open, it's not going to be at 3900 RPM very long or 4,000 RPM.

[00:10:30]>> Yeah. So, neither one of these is bad, but I am going to take ProCharger out.

[00:10:38]And currently the CSU is in the lead, but by >> very close, >> by a shrug. Okay. Red is the extreme velocity, which as a reminder is the one with the split in it.

[00:10:49]>> Well, the CSU >> and black is the CSU. And once again, that's clearly going to the CSU.

[00:10:55]>> Extreme Velocity hits the bench.

[00:10:57]>> Yeah, that one was a lot more definite as far as you can see that spread >> at a glance. So, the CSU is currently our winner by a fraction. We're going to compare it with the little short guy.

[00:11:10]>> Ah, look at that.

[00:11:11]>> CSU wins again.

[00:11:15]The red here is the shorty and the black is the CSU.

[00:11:19]>> You know, maybe a couple right in here.

[00:11:21]Tiny tiny bit of difference. I'm really surprised that short one did so well.

[00:11:25]>> Ultimately, as far as how it would affect your life in the car, I would not concern myself with running any of these in the configuration that we had earlier today. Right >> for fun. Let's take the CSU against the UFO.

[00:11:38]>> Okay, now we're going into the one that's different than these regular hats. We're gonna compare our best one, which is the CSU, to the what's on there now, the UFO with a diffuser in it. And that's a blowout. CSU wins again a lot.

[00:11:53]>> That Yeah. And and you know, originally, I think that that hat was designed to help this problem.

[00:11:59]>> And you and I 20 years ago, it was way better.

[00:12:04]>> But I think back then, we probably had the really short one on there with no spacer.

[00:12:09]>> Yeah. And I remember some of those things that we would have to do to get it there. We would go all the way around the outside and come in the side of the hats and things. We did not have good entry angle into the carburetor.

[00:12:19]>> And I'll tell you what we were comparing it with. Wasn't a hat at all. It was the full carburetor enclosure.

[00:12:25]>> Okay, >> remember that >> old school Paxton enclosure. And the UFO was better than that. So, next round is going to be the four carburetor hats at an angle to the carburetor with no spacer on them. This could get ugly.

[00:12:46]Now, we're switching to those crooked hats. They're going to be at 45° maybe this way. I don't know what Troy's got figured out here. We're also going to remove this spacer right here, which we think was helping all of those hats because the taller that they are, the more you've got to turn and the air is going to go down the carburetor instead of across the top of it. So, we're going to take this away now. So, that's going to be two strikes against these hats.

[00:13:10]They're going to be both crooked and short.

[00:13:22]Well, when I went in to just kind of warm it up and do a test run, I noticed that the air fuel ratio was considerably leaner than it was when we ran it with the hat heading straight in. So, I kind of stopped midway in the run, not wanting to damage anything. And it looks like it's almost a full ratio leaner than >> just by taking the same hat from straight to crooked.

[00:13:42]>> Yeah, just by moving it that much, we've leaned it up about a ratio. So, just as a matter of a comfort level, even though we said, "No, let's not jet it. Let's just move it." I feel like we really need to go ahead and add some fuel to it just as a safety measure to get it down into kind of a safe range.

[00:13:58]>> So, you're just going to toss some jet in the secondary?

[00:14:00]>> Yeah, I'm just going to throw a half a dozen in the rear, make it safe, and then we can proceed on.

[00:14:04]>> One thing I'm already noticing though is look how much tighter the grouping is.

[00:14:07]>> I know.

[00:14:08]>> It's crazy. Look at this versus that.

[00:14:10]>> And and who would have thought? I would have thought going straight in would be the best, but you know, so far we're seeing uh a much tighter group.

[00:14:16]>> Well, we'll know more once we jet it.

[00:14:18]Once we jet that might change.

[00:14:20]>> Y We just ran all of the angled carburetor hats and we sat here for 45 minutes amongst ourselves just nitpicking that spaghetti. all of this gobbledegook and figuring out the cylinder distribution.

[00:15:11]We didn't want to bore you with the excruciating details, but I think we can actually wrap it up. We decided that the worst was this guy.

[00:15:19]>> Yeah.

[00:15:20]>> Why? Extreme velocity with the divider.

[00:15:22]And it wasn't so bad when it was on the carburetor straight, but when we angled it, that divider is kind of crossing over between a right front primary and a left rear secondary, and it just does some horrible stuff in there. We saw on that one, I think, a really good lesson, which is there was a bunch of cylinders that were tight together and really rich and then two that were really lean and the point about what happens if you've got 10 O2 sensor averaging all of them.

[00:15:48]>> It's a tuning nightmare because the weight of your average is going to be those rich cylinders and those two outliers that are already super lean are going to go meltdown mode.

[00:15:59]>> Yeah, completely. Next one that was uh I don't know fairly ungood was the real short one when we ran it sideways and took the spacer out. What happened there?

[00:16:10]>> We had one cylinder that was kind of the same thing. It wasn't as bad as this.

[00:16:14]But look, what's the difference whether you blow it up with one piston or two?

[00:16:19]>> I like that. I'm going to make a t-shirt with that.

[00:16:22]>> How about all of them?

[00:16:24]>> Roll the dice. Okay. So, I think we're deciding that of those of us in this group, we're not using either one of these guys, right?

[00:16:31]>> That one's out.

[00:16:32]>> Yeah. Too much of a risk. So, we came down to the nittyritty looking at the data between the Procharger guy and the CSU one and uh it was really really close.

[00:16:44]>> We had to pick it to death. But ultimately, >> CSU rises to stop slightly.

[00:16:52]>> Yeah. Just ever so slightly. Honestly, either one of these is just fine with me. Um, not that any of them are particularly good. My bottom line is still if you're going to do something like this, just get sequential EFI. It's going to make your life so much better.

[00:17:07]>> There are places for it, but you know, there are some guys who are just so uncomfortable with EFI. This might get them by because it does get pretty decent up in the higher RPM ranges.

[00:17:16]Maybe okay for drag racing, bad for Bonavville.

[00:17:19]>> Yeah. Uh, you know, just >> And the other thing is I just absolutely lied to you because if Steve and I were sitting around at Roadkill Garage and I'm like, "Dude, let's throw a Procharger on my 440."

[00:17:30]>> We would just throw it on.

[00:17:31]>> Yeah.

[00:17:32]>> That's all we would do.

[00:17:33]>> Yeah. We'd probably use it with a, you know, thermal quad.

[00:17:37]>> Yeah.

[00:17:38]>> So, we would not practice what we preach, but if you're trying to make this power level, I think you should.

[00:17:43]Okay. So, we've looked at a lot of data.

[00:17:47]We've done a lot of bench racing. And I want to get into final conclusions of what we figured out here because in truth, this didn't come out nearly as badly as I hoped.

[00:17:55]>> They all worked.

[00:17:56]>> They did.

[00:17:56]>> Bottom line.

[00:17:57]>> Yeah. And I will say in our prior testing from all of us, it's been more frustrating that we saw today. We have seen stuff that won't even run.

[00:18:08]>> Yeah. Misfires. You can change the orientation of the hat and it actually will go in and out of misfire by rotating the hat while the engine's running. I mean, we've seen some pretty ugly stuff.

[00:18:17]>> Yeah. And so this is a peachier situation that we saw today than normal.

[00:18:22]So let's go through my list. I think number one, when they were all aligned straight with the carburetor, we nitpicked some differences, but they're all the same. Really >> pretty decent.

[00:18:33]>> Yeah. I mean, they're pretty decent.

[00:18:34]They're they're equal amounts of bad and equal amounts of good. I would still choose either the ProCharger or the CSU.

[00:18:41]>> I agree. The UFO, we didn't give that a fair shake, I think, because it's just sort of in a different category. It was such a boost restriction that it killed so much power and the distribution was not awesome with it, but you could throw a pulley at it and make just as much power as with the other ones.

[00:18:57]>> Agreed.

[00:18:57]>> Yeah. And it was also restricted with a smaller inlet than everything else we ran.

[00:19:02]>> And that's probably the reason I might not use it in the future is that this is a three and a halfer, right? And the UFO has a 3-in hole in it. Next conclusion, and I think this is really the biggie for you at home in the episode, is that carburetor hats do behave differently depending on how they're oriented on the carburetor. So, if you've got a good tuneup and you've been drag racing for years and you're like, "This is no problem." And next thing you know, you go to a different setup and your distributor's in the way on your Ford and you angle your thing a little bit differently, you could be a full ratio out of whack.

[00:19:36]>> We saw it. We saw it today. they had had to go back and put some fuel in the secondary cuz it changed big.

[00:19:41]>> Yeah. And that is a massive takeaway from this is that it really can make a difference. As a matter of fact, if you all of a sudden are cruising at the dyno and you've got your nice happy CSU on it with a 1-in spacer and next thing you know you're home going, "Oof, it doesn't fit my hood. I'm going to get the little short guy with no spacer." Once again, you could be stumbling into absolute disaster. It all matters.

[00:20:04]>> Yeah, it all matters. And to quote Brulee, I had to write it down.

[00:20:08]>> Really?

[00:20:09]>> Yeah. It was genius.

[00:20:10]At higher power levels, you just can't take things for granted. Get to the dyno with any of this stuff if you expect to save your engine. It's >> all you can do.

[00:20:20]>> Yeah.

[00:20:22]Speaking of saving your engine, you know what I think would make all of these way better? I'd put a 150 shot under all of these. Put a nitrous plate under the carburetor and I am betting you, no joke, that it will improve this whole scenario. Look, I'm with you on the nitrous every time, >> right? No, but think about it. We've tested nitrous on dual planes. It improves the distribution. It's forcing fuel down those holes. It's got the fog of nitrous. It's drawing it all together. It's cooling it down. I really think it would be an improvement. And I'm not prepared to do that today. But you know what I am prepared for?

[00:20:55]>> Throwing a ton more boost at this to find out does the carburetor get better or worse when we make a 1000 horsepower.

[00:21:02]How did I know you were going there?

[00:21:05]>> Have you seen this show?

[00:21:07]>> I have an idea. Let's from now on make every episode a 1000 plus horsepower. It put me in a way better mood.

[00:21:14]>> It's easy to do.

[00:21:15]>> It is unfortunately super easy to do these days.

[00:21:18]>> Yeah. And a lot of fun.

[00:21:19]>> And it takes your naturally aspirated 318s out of the picture, which makes Steve happy. All is well with the world as it is every single time on Engine Master.

[00:21:31]What does your street machine really get out of 87 versus 91 octane pump gas? Can you go to the track with high octane and crank up the timing and go faster? All of that and a bonus round of E85 this time on Engine Masters.

[00:22:16]You made me do this. Seriously, since the very beginning of the Engine Masters show, the audience has demanded a showdown of like low octane pump gas versus better pump gas versus race gas.

[00:22:29]What does it all mean to you? So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to run 87 versus 91 octane California pump gas straight out of the station down the street. And then we're going to run SOCO leaded race gas in 110 octane and 116.

[00:22:46]And at the very end, yes, we'll be running E85 to find out if it makes even more power than gasoline. Now, at every single step here, we're going to be optimizing the tuneup for each gasoline.

[00:22:57]So, we're going to be looking at ignition timing and doing sweeps from low to high to find the perfect number for peak power. And then we're going to do the same thing with the air fuel ratio so that we can find out, does each gasoline and E85 make a difference? Now, let's talk about what is different about these gasolines. So, of course, they all have different octane ratings. What is octane? Nothing more than a measurement of the engine's resistance to knocking.

[00:23:27]There's a lot of beliefs out there about how octane can affect burn rates.

[00:23:31]Specifically, people think that higher octane fuels will burn more slowly and therefore affect the tuneup and the power. We're going to find out. Now, the 87 and 91 octane that we're going to use is from here in California. And so, it's allowed to have up to 10% ethanol in it.

[00:23:49]So, technically, I guess it's E10.

[00:23:52]So, what that means is that the manufacturers of the gasoline are going to push the limit of that law and they're going to have like 9 12 to 9.9% of ethanol in it. And that's probably going to change the tuneup just a little bit from what you might see in other pump gases throughout the nation.

[00:24:07]Nevertheless, this is going to be a really interesting episode about how fuel affects the tuneup and the performance. Here's the engine that we're going to be doing it with. This is a Blueprint Engines crate motor. It's an LS3. It's a 6.2 L. It's got blueprints 259 heads on it. It's 10.7 to1 compression. It has a 225 239 cam shaft in it. Obviously, a hydraulic roller. It's advertised at 530 horsepower and 495 lb- feet of torque.

[00:24:37]So, step one is going to be putting it on the dyno and we're going to run it on 87 octane and start our tuneup sweeps.

[00:24:44]And then you'll see that same procedure as we go on down the line. What are we going to find out? I promise it'll be interesting.

[00:24:56]Good morning, guys. Wake up.

[00:24:58]>> Well, been a while.

[00:25:00]>> I know. So, we've never done this before, or at least I haven't. A gasoline test, 87, 91, 110, 116, >> all the stuff.

[00:25:10]>> Yeah. Will it make a difference?

[00:25:14]>> I'd say probably. I say no. Negatory.

[00:25:18]>> I think probably not, but I'm really curious in seeing the difference in timing requirement and air fuel ratio requirement. And so, I'm going to beat Steve up making sure that we actually go and hunt that down for every single combo. The big deal for me here at the beginning is I'm not accustomed to running 87 octane on 10.7 to1 compression with a hyperutctic piston.

[00:25:37]That's new for me.

[00:25:38]>> This thing's obviously designed to run on 91 octane. So, I immediately went into the map on the EFI on the Holly EFI and took 5 degrees of timing out right away. We'll creep up on that until it makes best power. But 87 octane in this is probably not the best idea >> to do. Well, I think on the dyno running it at cool temperatures, aluminum head, it's cold air today, I think it's going to be fine.

[00:26:01]>> If the 87's sufficient to keep it out of detonation, it's going to make as much power as any other fuel. I That's my theory anyway.

[00:26:09]>> I guess we need to clarify for the audience that we're not going to bring it into detonation on the dyno. That's kind of what everybody has asked me to see when they've asked for this episode is like, what's going to make it ping?

[00:26:20]We don't want to hurt the engine. We're not going to intentionally get there because we can't hear it from here. We don't have a knock sensor hooked up.

[00:26:28]You'll see the power go away, but you know, we just don't want to hurt the motor.

[00:26:32]>> And it will be interesting because think about it. Will the 116 need different timing than 87?

[00:26:40]>> I don't know.

[00:26:40]>> Yeah. So, let's fire it up with 20° of timing. And what we're going to do is keep adding timing until it doesn't make power anymore. And then maybe look at the air fuel ratio a little bit to find out where we're at.

[00:26:51]>> Yep. Ready to go.

[00:26:52]>> Run it.

[00:27:18]We're still testing with the 87 octane pump gas. And we've done our timing sweeps. We found that 29 degrees of total ignition timing is kind of the optimum in this circumstance. The next thing that we're going to do is test air fuel ratio. We're going to swing it a little bit leaner, half a point leaner, half a point richer, and see if we see any trend there.

[00:27:43]All right, first pass is going to be half a point richer.

[00:27:48]Sure enough, it's just a little bit tiny tiny bit down when it's half a ratio rich. So now we're going to go half a ratio leaner than it was on our baseline.

[00:28:22]So, it looks like our best pull is going to be 29 degrees of ignition timing and 12.8 to 12.9 AFR.

[00:28:28]>> What a surprise.

[00:28:29]>> I know. Kind of right there. So, our power numbers for this thing actually dead on what Blueprint Engines advertises or pretty close. 539.4 4 horsepower at 6,400 RPM, 498.9 pound- feet of torque at 5200. The other thing that I'm going to do in this episode is run average power in case there are changes at other points in the curve with the different gasolines. And we did that from 3500 to 6,500 RPM. So add up all of the power numbers, divide by the number of data points, and here's what you get. 475.5 pound- feet on average and 452.7 horsepower on average.

[00:29:09]>> So, the takeaway for me is under dyno conditions, the 87 octane met the engine's requirements cuz it all came out in the normal range of timing and air fuel.

[00:29:19]>> I still think if it was me, I wouldn't do it in a car. Neither >> hotter temperature in the coolant, more load, more under hood temperature, worse manifold air temperature. I'm not gonna do it.

[00:29:32]>> All that stuff you just said is all bad.

[00:29:34]Um, you know, in the dino cell, we've got good air flow. We can keep the engine cooler. Just it it all makes it easier and kind of helps suppress detonation. Under the hood, whole different story.

[00:29:46]>> Yep. Right. Okay. So, we're in agreement. Ready to move on to 91 octane pump gas.

[00:29:55]>> What I'm doing here is draining the EFI tower. Troy's already drained the tank.

[00:30:00]And what we'll do is we'll get all of the 87 out of the system. And then Troy will add a gallon or so of 91. We'll purge it again to make sure that the engine has 91 octane. As soon as we start it, we'll warm it up and make sure. We don't want any skew in the data by having a little leftover fuel of some other octane.

[00:30:47]Here's our final data with 91 octane pump gas. We found that it wanted the same ignition timing as the 87 octane, 29°. What's really interesting is that it ended up wanting to run a little bit leaner. We saw about 13 12:1 made microscopically more power than 12.8:1. I'm talking like two or three numbers here or there, but it was better. And so we ran the thing a little bit lean. Here's our peak power numbers. Horsepower 539.6 at 6,400 RPM. Torque 501.1 at 5,300 RPM. Now, that 501 seems like we crusted the 500 number on torque.

[00:31:31]Well, we were running 498.9 before. So, it's very, very little. As evidenced by the average power numbers, which are this, keeping in mind this is 3500 to 6,500 RPM. We saw 476.3 pound- feet of torque and 453.6 6 horsepower, which is like insignificantly higher. The 87 and the 91 are the same.

[00:31:57]>> We're pretty good at keeping things equal as far as water temperature, oil temperature, all of those things, and trying to make everything absolutely repeatable. I honestly can't say that a horsepower and a half difference is a difference. It's just a number.

[00:32:11]>> Not at all. Well, in a situation like this where running on the dyno, the 87 does the job and stays out of detonation. We're not really seeing the benefit of the octane.

[00:32:23]There really isn't a benefit if you're not under fueling the engine as far as octane requirement, >> which I think is what a lot of people don't understand. I see average people go, "Oh, should I get the 87 or should I get more power out of the 91?" In fact, some of the gas is advertised as like, you know, super power 91 or whatever.

[00:32:41]And the fact is at the pump, if your engine's not in detonation at 87 octane, it's not going to make more power at 91 octane. Do you think that's a fair categoric statement?

[00:32:51]>> I think that's a pretty fair statement across the board. If it doesn't need the octane, it doesn't need the octane.

[00:32:56]>> Yep. And so now we're going to go to the Synokco 110 octane leaded race fuel.

[00:33:07]This is going to be the 91 octane unleted coming out and 110 octane leaded race gas going in.

[00:33:43]We've gone through our whole tuneup plan on the 110 and big surprise, it still likes 29 degrees of timing. No difference at all. And the AFR, it went back to what we saw with the 87 octane, which was that it really likes 12.7 to 12.8 at peak power. Here's the power peaks. 539.9 horsepower at 6400 RPM and the torque 499.1 at 5300 on our averages 475.1 pound- feet of torque and 452.5 horsepower. So once again, nada the same. Yes. How come?

[00:34:25]>> Well, all the fuels do the job they're supposed to do. So, it's not like you're going to be a teenage kid and pull up to the airport and put the >> a gas >> the a gas in there cuz you have the big drag race and you need the extra horsepower. I remember doing that when I was in high school.

[00:34:43]>> Oh, yeah. I had a gas.

[00:34:44]>> Agass has a lot to be said for it. It's actually not too bad.

[00:34:47]>> Yeah.

[00:34:48]>> But the 110 nothing. And I think that goes back to the whole theory of, oh, pour some octane in it so you can crank in some timing and make more power. does not make any more power with the higher octane with more timing >> because it doesn't change the timing requirement that the engine's asking for.

[00:35:06]>> Yeah, I think timing requirement is based on like compression or boost cylinder bore stroke and chamber design and probably piston dome design.

[00:35:16]>> Yeah, absolutely. All all of those things together. But once it's kind of optimized there, if it's got the octane, then it's >> it just is what it is.

[00:35:24]>> Yeah.

[00:35:24]>> Yeah. Choose your octane based on detonation tolerance, not trying to gain some power edge that isn't there by cranking the timing in. The other thing that I think we just saw is that the whole higher octane burns slower. If that was true, wouldn't you have to ignite it sooner in order to reach peak cylinder pressure at the same point? And so, in this case, that's not proven either.

[00:35:50]>> Another myth busted.

[00:35:51]>> Busted.

[00:35:52]>> Yeah. So, next up, we're going to take the 110 out of the tank and put the 116 in. And what do you bet? It does exactly the same thing, but we're going to find out.

[00:36:05]All right, that's all of the Sonoka 110 out. And now Troy is going to pour the 116 in.

[00:36:43]Okay, Steve, I apologize for wasting your time. It's been a whole lot of dino ples to figure out. It doesn't care.

[00:36:50]Guess what? 116 octane likes 29 degrees of timing just like every other fuel.

[00:36:56]And uh pretty much 12.8 to1 AFR. Also, here's the power peaks with the 116.

[00:37:02]They'll sound surprisingly familiar to you. 541.3 horsepower at 6,400 RPM, 497.4 pound- feet of torque at 5300 RPM. on average 474.7 lb feet and 452.1 horsepower, which is less than one horsepower on average different than the 87 octane.

[00:37:26]>> I guess uh gasoline's >> gasoline. Exactly. It's all the same.

[00:37:32]So, on that note, let's go through some of the myths that I think we busted.

[00:37:36]>> Okay, >> Dolich, >> can you make more power cranking up the timing?

[00:37:39]>> It depends. If you have a crank back to start with, then you can't. And that's a very true thing because you might be running the thing, >> you know, at a conservative timing level on the street because it may be prone to detonation with whatever fuel you're using. In that case, you step up the fuel, crank up the timing, and you will make power.

[00:37:56]>> Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. But if you're making peak horsepower at, let's say, 29°, is there any advantage to putting in more octane and then adding another 5° of timing? Does that make power anywhere? The engine's going to want a certain timing setting for optimal power performance.

[00:38:14]>> Yep. So, I would say that's one myth busted. Second myth busted, more octane burns more slowly.

[00:38:22]>> Obviously not.

[00:38:23]>> And the reason we say obviously not is because if that were true, it would take more ignition timing to make the same power with a slower burning fuel. So, we think that the aside from the scenario that you said about being wrong to begin with, the cranking more timing in to make more power just isn't a thing. The chamber, the engine design wants what it wants.

[00:38:41]>> Yes.

[00:38:42]>> Yep.

[00:38:42]>> Yeah. And like Steve mentioned, the burn rate of the fuel, which kind of takes me back to the scenario you just mentioned, the piston going up and the timing working against making power.

[00:38:54]I'm a little ambivalent on that because if it's working against making power, then that's probably not the correct timing for max power as well.

[00:39:02]>> Well, correct. That is the final conclusion.

[00:39:05]>> Yeah.

[00:39:05]>> Yeah. Cuz therefore, if you put in more octane and crank in more timing and it doesn't make more power, >> that's the wrong timing. Okay. That's the wrong timing.

[00:39:14]>> We're in agreement. We are sympotico.

[00:39:16]>> Exactly. Go fry burger.

[00:39:18]>> Perfect. So, the last thing I want to bring up is I think for an engine like this, the bottom line conclusion is if you don't have a knocking problem with the fuel that you're running now, more octane is not going to make more power.

[00:39:30]>> 100% agree.

[00:39:31]>> So, now we have to find out if E85 makes more power as we drain the gasoline out of our LS3 and load it up with some ethanol mix.

[00:39:44]So, what we're going to do here is we're going to remove the 116 leaded race gas and replace it with E85.

[00:40:26]So on that one, you actually swung the timing all the way to 33, right?

[00:40:30]>> Yeah.

[00:40:30]>> Because >> Well, I've heard the E the E85 guys say, "Oh, no, you got to add six degrees. You got to add 8 degrees." I mean, I've heard like some crazy timing numbers.

[00:40:39]So, I wanted to go past where we lost a little power to show that if we went further, we lost more. So, we went over the edge. Oddly enough, it still wanted the same timing that it had. Yep. That's what we found. 29° of timing again, the same as the gasoline made the best power on E85. Now, the air fuel ratio, of course, we also tuned it all over the place, and we found that on a gasoline scale at like 12.6 6:1 on a uh lambda scale actually 4 E85 that would be an 8.4 to1 air fuel ratio. Here's the peak power numbers. Finally, we're seeing some improvements. 551.5 horsepower at 6,400 RPM. The torque 506.5 at 5200 RPM. We also took our averages, which is another big jump up.

[00:41:25]The torque was 484 and the horsepower 460.9.

[00:41:30]So, those are good gains. I like E95.

[00:41:32]>> Yeah. Can we look at the overlay of this? Which gasoline do you want to run it against?

[00:41:37]>> 91 was probably just fractionally the best of the gasolines.

[00:41:41]>> Show the 91. So that would be like pump gas to pump gas. What a normal guy could do. Meaning 91 to E85. So this overlay is going to tell you how much better the E85 is.

[00:41:52]>> Whoa.

[00:41:54]>> Okay. That's unusual based on what we've seen before. We did an episode with a 12 1/2 to1 big block with a carburetor and we did E85 versus race gas and it made me meet in the middle had improvements right in the middle of the curve but nothing at the top. This surprises me too. I thought maybe with a little more time down low to cool the combustion chamber. We might see bigger changes there. But man, it's just railroad tracks all the way up. It just makes more power. It's got oxygen in it. More oxygen in it. Hm.

[00:42:24]Not what I expected, but still pretty good. I mean, it's obvious why people run E85. And this isn't even boosted. We know it. Boosted applications, it makes a way bigger difference. You can run a lot more compression ratio, NA, than we have here. Or like you said, a boosted application, you can run more boost with uh that fuel >> cuz it cools the intake charge.

[00:42:46]>> Yeah. Higher octane, too.

[00:42:47]>> Yeah. So, why is it making more power here? Na. because it has oxygen. Yes.

[00:42:52]Because it's cooler.

[00:42:53]>> I think it's primarily because of the oxygen. It has much greater oxygen content even than the quote oxygenated >> 91 octane that has 10% 9 12% ethanol in it. And then you take the percentage of oxygen within that 9 12% it's it's a minimal amount. When you've got 85% E85 and only 15% gas, there's a lot more oxygen in it.

[00:43:16]>> Very cool.

[00:43:17]>> So I think it was cool.

[00:43:18]>> Yeah. So there you go. So, I guess here's what we learned today. E85 way better than expected in naturally aspirated application. And octane versus timing does not matter. No one cares. So, there you go. Myth busting some stuff, proving other things. It's what we do every single time on Engine Masters.

[00:43:46]>> I see their eyes. They watch me fall.

[00:43:49]They laugh and think I've lost it all. I shut the doors, locked up inside.

[00:43:55]Believing I've nowhere left to hide. But I'm drowning in my own doubt.

[00:44:03]I built the cage and locked it out.

[00:44:09]Trapped in failure, I can't escape.

[00:44:12]Stuck in the past, bound by fate. I scream for help and no one hears. I'm drowning in my deepest fears.

[00:44:45]Trapped in failure, I can't escape.

[00:44:48]Stuck in the past. Found my face. I scream for help and no one hears. I'm drowning in my deepest fears.

[00:45:10]They forgotten who I am. The one who rose and took a stand. Now I'm silent, broken, small. But I refuse to lose it all.

[00:45:31]I built these walls. know I'll break through.

[00:45:37]No one can control what I do.

[00:45:43]I built these walls, now I'll break through. No one can control what I do.

[00:45:49]No one can control what I do. No one can control what I do.

[00:45:56]Trapped in failure, I can't escape.

[00:45:59]Stuck in the past, bound by fate. I scream for help, but no one hears. I'm drowning in my deepest fears.

[00:46:35]It's another Engine Masters intake manifold showdown. This time it is single plane versus single plane and dual plane versus dual plane on a 514 big block Ford.

[00:47:16]It's Another episode for you big block Ford lovers who nag me all the time going, "We need more 385 series big blocks on Engine Masters." And here it is. I wanted to do an intake manifold shootout. And I'll tell you, this time it was limited by what was available on the market in the days that we were setting this thing up. I was able to get these four intake manifolds. And I'll tell you all about them in detail. And once I knew what I was able to get, I had to like fit them into the type of engine that would reasonably be used with these intakes. And it actually ends up perfect because it's right in the middle of the road. See, the bulk of the market, the right down the middle of the road guy is going to be a street strip unit that could use any one of these intakes. Either the high-rise dual plane or the midlevel single plane. Are you going to want to like build your thing that runs 6,500 RPM or less and use it in a big old heavy truck? Or are you going to use it in a drag car? Well, either way, you're going to have answers out of this episode. You see, the engine that we're going to use is a Ford Motorsport 514 cubic inch crate motor.

[00:48:23]It's nearly stock. It makes in the neighborhood of 640-50 horsepower and 630 to 40 pound- feet of torque depending on the configuration.

[00:48:35]It's only 9.8:1 compression ratio. In some episodes, you'll see Doulich and I sort of, I don't know, not ridiculing the thing, but wanting more. Wanting our big block Ford to make like 750 horsepower, but instead this is a pump gas tame, drive it anywhere kind of engine, but it does have a solid roller cam shaft, but it doesn't RPM above about 6,000. So, it is the perfect player for what we're doing here. Let me tell you specifically what we've got.

[00:49:06]First of all, in the dual plane side of things, the ones that are going to favor the lower RPM, the more truck oriented manifolds are going to be the Edelrock Performer RPM. This is a high-rise dual plane. I'm going to say that this is significantly better for this application than an Edelrock Performer, which is a much lowerrise dual plane.

[00:49:25]The thing is we also have the Edelrock RPM air gap intake. The key difference visually, of course, is that this is all cast as one unit, whereas you can pass your hands underneath the intake runners on the air gap. They advertise these as being able to flow cool air under the runners to make more power and potentially have less vapor lock. So, that's the story on the dual planes.

[00:49:48]Then, over here on the single planes, interestingly, we have an airflow research intake. Now, that is designed specifically for the airflow research bullet cylinder head. And as such, it has sort of a rectangular port, which is differing from the rest of these, which are oval or nearly round. Let me talk to you about what we're using for a cylinder head and how that relates to these intakes. The cylinder heads that we're using on this crate engine were called a Ford Super Cobra Jet. They were designed by John Kazzy way back in the day, maybe 20 years ago. And these heads have altered valve angles and things that have improved flow, but they also have a much larger port window than you would see in a regular passenger car cylinder head. I can show you that by showing you this. This gasket right here is for a regular 429 or 460 up to about 1987 in a car or truck. This is a Super Cobra Jet intake gasket. Now, if I overlay them here and line them up perfectly, you can see on this side that there is a big difference in the size of the ports. And you can see how it's not only the size, but it's the location as well. And so, that's what we're dealing with are cylinder heads that are this size and three intake manifolds that are closer to this size. The important part being that the head is bigger than the intake manifold. And so in no case do we end up having a problem with a step offset in the wrong direction. While the head might be capable of more than some of these intakes are, we're still going to be able to demonstrate the capabilities of these. So there's our story. We're going to run all four intake manifolds. First, the two dual planes. Is it true that the air gap is actually different than the performer RPM for the big block Ford? I don't know. Can an AFR rectangle port intake make power on a Super Cobra Jet head? I don't know. Can the manifold that was originally delivered with a Ford Motorsport crate engine actually top all of them? I think kind of probably. Let's go.

[00:51:57]How much do you guys love intake manifold shootouts? I love them because they're brainless.

[00:52:01]>> Okay.

[00:52:02]>> Brainless? What? What do you mean brainless? Well, other than you two looking at them, I mean, I just get to bolt them on, push the handle, and say, "Here's the number.

[00:52:10]>> It's power."

[00:52:10]>> Oh, yeah. I got screenless.

[00:52:12]>> I love them because nobody does like head-to-head comparisons of this stuff, or at least I don't see it anymore. No.

[00:52:17]>> You know, I get emails every day about guys saying, "I picked this because I watched the episode."

[00:52:21]>> Yeah. We're going to have good answers.

[00:52:22]And this time, we're going to do two dual planes and also two single planes on the Ford. So, our first test is going to be the regular Edelrock RPM.

[00:52:31]>> Performer RPM is actually their designation, >> right? the performer RPM. I always call them just RPM, but that's right. There's a performer and then there's the RPM air gap that we'll get to later on in the episode.

[00:52:41]>> So, the first victim's the performer RPM.

[00:52:59]Here are power results for the performer RPM intake manifold. We made 636.6 pound- feet of torque at 4200 RPM. And at 5700 RPM, we saw 615.7 horsepower.

[00:53:23]>> Pretty good stuff for a little dual plane.

[00:53:25]>> Is it?

[00:53:25]>> I think so.

[00:53:26]>> We were going to offer it a milk bone, honestly, when you weren't here. Yeah.

[00:53:29]>> Yeah. We were going to take it for a walk. I guess we're sitting here going, "If we had 514 Ford with these heads, honestly, this has 9.8 to1 compression, so it's low.

[00:53:40]It's a street motor. It's a pump gas motor, and it needs another 20° of cam shaft. But then we wouldn't really be able to do this story with the dual plane intakes." I think that is what it is. Our next step is to find out if in fact the RPM air gap is going to be better. So, we got to go swap it out.

[00:54:06]All right. The trick on the big block Ford intake installation is to tuck under the distributor and plug it into the water bypass and then go for the plon straight down.

[00:54:23]That was pretty good.

[00:54:33]We just did our intake swap. Now we get to go find out the power of the Edelrock RPM airgap.

[00:55:00]And now the results of the RPM air gap intake manifold. 638.6 pound- feet of torque at the same 4200 RPM. Also the same RPM that we saw with the other manifold up at the horsepower end. 5700 RPM is 614.8 horsepower. We know nothing until we see the overlay.

[00:55:22]What? This is unacceptable.

[00:55:25]>> I know you don't like it, but what is the trend that you kind of see there?

[00:55:29]>> I don't like it because it's counter to my preconceived notion.

[00:55:34]>> Cuz I'm telling you, you and I tested the RPM versus the air gap on small block Chevys and saw nothing. Which is the danger of drawing a global conclusion over one single test, I will admit. But here's my other thing.

[00:55:49]Standing here on the counter with both these intake manifolds, the port window at the opening is the same. Measured it with a caliper. Measured multiple ones with a caliper. The depth of the plenum on both sides is the same. And visually there's no difference in the runners at all. But Edelrock says that the ones in the air gap are bigger and that would support that.

[00:56:10]>> Yeah, it would kind of tilt that curve just like it's doing. I mean to be clear what we're seeing here is the black lines are going to be the RPM air gap that we just tested and the red lines are the performer RPM the first test and you can see that the performer RPM is making a bunch more torque at the bottom end but when Steve said it tilts the curve you can see exactly that because it's the air gap that makes more horsepower at the top end but >> but only making more horsepower past peak >> that's an interesting point too which supports the fact that it is really more air flow But I'm really really surprised at that result.

[00:56:47]>> But you know that's that's exactly what they said is it has a larger volume which I mean that's exactly what I >> but for that to be true it means that if the plenum's the same and the port mouth is the same it means that the runner this far between the plenum and the port mouth has to be bigger.

[00:57:03]>> When they say that it's larger does it give a percentage?

[00:57:06]>> It gave it told me 3.3 square inches total. It doesn't tell me what it is. in that sort of volume in that area. I don't see that as being a big deal. That could be thousands literally on on walls and floor and just kind of >> well in general >> square inches is only a point measurement at a certain position along the runner, >> right?

[00:57:25]>> And usually it's a minimum cross-sectional area and we don't have a data to compare >> with the other intake manifold. But that would indicate like Steve said, >> yeah, >> a bigger manifold.

[00:57:35]>> It comes back to what you always say every time we test intake manifolds.

[00:57:39]What is it? You know what you always say?

[00:57:41]>> Oh, you can't tell a thing until you've run it.

[00:57:43]>> Well, you know what? Every episode we test these, I go, the manifold we always recommend is the Edel Brock RPM. And now I have to question what's the difference between the RPM and the air gap cuz my knowledge comes from the Chevy mostly.

[00:57:59]All right. Whether I like it or not, the dyno doesn't lie. We have to conclude this time that for low-end power, the Edelrock RPM is superior to the RPM air gap, but the RPM air gap is going to be better if you have high RPM, bigger cam shaft, bigger engine, anything like that.

[00:58:17]>> All of those things.

[00:58:18]>> Fascinating. It's why we do this stuff.

[00:58:20]And the next thing we're going to do is try the single plane intake manifolds.

[00:58:24]The first one up is going to be the airflow research.

[00:58:31]Next up is going to be our Airflow Research single plane intake manifold.

[00:58:34]And I'll remind you that this is a little bit of an unfair deal because this manifold is designed specifically for the Airflow Research head. And you can see that the port window on it is more rectangular than anything else that we've got here. And if you look at the head, that is a big oval. And that's a rectangle. So I'll just give you a refresher on how this is going to fit.

[00:58:55]This is the same gasket that we've got on the cylinder head. It fits the port almost perfectly. If I hold it up here to this manifold, you'll see that the manifold, despite being a rectangle, is not being shrouded by the cylinder head at all.

[00:59:11]Swoop her in.

[00:59:17]We're going to test this with the same Holly HP 950 carburetor that we're using on the other intakes. The HP has slotted base plate bolt holes so that you can bolt them onto a manifold designed for a 4150 Holly with a smaller pattern or you can bolt it to a manifold that's intended for a 4500 series Holly which is a Dominator. You have to use a Dominator gasket to do that. So, here we go. Bolting on our 4150 carb onto our Dominator intake manifold.

[00:59:49]Our power numbers are at higher RPM points than we saw with the dual plane. For example, we're now looking at a torque peak of 4,400 RPM instead of 4200. And that peak is 639.6 pound- feet of torque. The horsepower has now jumped up to 6,000 RPM and it's 628 horsepower. We're going to compare this to dual plane intake manifolds which almost naturally are going to make more bottom end but maybe not as much top end. So let's first compare it to the RPM air gap.

[01:00:35]Textbook difference between a single plane and a dual plane intake manifold.

[01:00:39]The red lines here are the dual plane air gap making way more low-end torque and less top end. The black lines are the AFR bullet single plane making less torque and more horsepower.

[01:00:50]>> Yeah. Do you notice that the crossover on the power is right around peak torque?

[01:00:55]>> Uh yes, it is right around peak.

[01:00:58]>> Yeah, >> it's 100 RPM lower than peak torque.

[01:01:01]Let's compare it to the regular performer RPM, which should actually make more bottom end beef.

[01:01:07]>> The blue lines that we just added are the first intake manifold that we tested. It's the performer RPM and you can see it's making even more torque down here, much to my surprise and just a spec less horsepower up top.

[01:01:20]>> It would certainly be application specific between the single plane and a dual plane.

[01:01:25]>> But if I'm going to pick a dual plane, I think I'm going with performer RPM. I mean, it picks up enough bottom end. I'm not take I'm not trading off that for the for the bottom end it gains. And if you don't buy the air gap, you don't lose tools under the intake manifold.

[01:01:40]>> We call it the bolt gap. Yeah, >> knows you always drop stuff down in there and it always fills with oil and gas for us.

[01:01:46]>> It's a nice catch.

[01:01:47]>> Yeah. To this point, we think that we're going to argue that the performer RPM, not the air gap, is our favorite dual plane. And as far as the single plane goes, right now it's dealer's choice.

[01:01:57]Whether you want low-end or whether you want to drag race the thing and RPM it.

[01:02:00]Our final answer is going to be when we install the final Edelrock manifold, which is the one that finally has the same size port window and same shape as the cylinder heads. Our final player, the Edelrock Victor 460 with the Super Cobra Jet port on it.

[01:02:29]There we go.

[01:02:32]Once again, the 950HP 4150.

[01:02:38]Perfect.

[01:02:57]Here's the power numbers. We made 638 lb feet and 638 horsepower. The torque came in at 4600 RPM and our horsepower peak is still landing up at 6,000. That's pretty stout peak numbers from what we've seen so far. It's all to be seen.

[01:03:12]>> We got to compare it to the Airflow Research Bullet single plane. This may be the one time where visually the intuition was correct.

[01:03:22]>> Really black lines the Super Cobra Jet intake manifold, the Edel Brock unit, and the red lines are the airflow research. And it's weird. The Super Cobra Jet or the Victor 460 made a bunch more power above peak torque, like above 4,500 RPM. And really, it's a trade-off. Why is it that they performed about the same down here and not up there?

[01:03:45]>> You know, the bottom end on this particular manifold actually, I think, is exceptional that it did hold on to the bottom end and still made more top end. You know, visually, it's a larger manifold.

[01:03:56]>> The Victor 460. Yeah. So intuition wise, it's like, okay, it's bigger than the AFR. It's a single plane. Maybe it'll make a little more peak, but I'm impressed it was able to hold on to the bottom end. So the Victor 460 ended up making more power than the AFR up top.

[01:04:10]But is it possible that when we're doing a port offset, meaning the intake manifold is much smaller than the cylinder head? Is there any kind of turbulence in that offset that actually slows down air flow? Uh, I guess a fluid disruption would be a pretty logical explanation for what we're seeing in a dino curve up top.

[01:04:27]>> I think part of it might be too is where the port is located in the intake manifold versus the intake port. Maybe it's actually entering the air in a not very good area of the intake port itself where a port that's aligned properly would come right off the floor and have the nice turn. It might be that it's coming off of a wall or something because the port alignment as far as position is not very good.

[01:04:48]>> Interesting. So, I bring that up basically to say what we're doing here is not as much an intake manifold shootout on the winter as it is an investigation of what's available on the marketplace and what happens. Exactly.

[01:05:00]>> And in this case, we think there's a couple of reasons why the AFR is not moving as much air up at the top end as the larger Victor 460. Well, and in all fairness, we know that that manifold works because we've done the head comparero and we know that the AFR head and that manifold make better power than the >> which is a match team because the AFR head is designed around that same port shape as this.

[01:05:23]>> So, the head can't make better power if the intake manifold won't support it.

[01:05:26]So, >> also a solid conclusion. What I would like to see now is we know that for this combination the Victor 460 is our favorite single plane and we know that the performer RPM is our favorite dual plane. So can we have a look at both?

[01:05:40]>> Wow, that's pretty massive actually. The black lines are the single plane and the red lines are the dual plane. I got to be honest, there's no way I'm choosing the dual plane on this thing. I can go ahead and give this all up because I'm going to be making more than 550 pound- feet of torque from the step. So, who cares? I want the horsepower.

[01:05:59]>> You know, we talk about this all the time about contouring the engine.

[01:06:03]There's no special blower cam. It's just that you can give away some bottom end for some top end. And this is kind of the same situation. The engine's big enough that I don't think you need more than 550 lb feet at the bottom.

[01:06:14]>> Mhm.

[01:06:15]>> But you can sure use that at the top.

[01:06:16]>> That's a big difference. You can really see where the air flow starts to lay over on the dual plane. There's no way you disagree with that, right?

[01:06:23]>> No. I mean, you're seeing a textbook example of single plane versus dual plane right here. I mean, it's pretty evenly matched. So, if you wanted a lot of low-end torque for whatever reason, the dual planes got it.

[01:06:35]>> Yeah. Like we talked about earlier, application. You're not going to pick the single plane for your pickup truck.

[01:06:40]You're not going to pick the dual plane for your drag race car.

[01:06:43]>> And that's a clear conclusion for the episode, but there's a couple of other things. We were able to compare two dual planes, two single planes, and dual plane versus single plane. And so our final answer is I found out that there is a difference between the RPM air gap and the performer RPM on the Fords and more RPM, more horsepower, more displacement. You want the air gap, but this benefited with the performer RPM.

[01:07:09]That's that was the light bulb moment for me in the episode.

[01:07:12]>> Yeah, the whole thing is good. I always love these intake manifold tests because >> we go in presuming we know all of what's going to happen, but we always learn something coming out of it.

[01:07:21]>> For sure. Yeah.

[01:07:22]>> And I feel more than ever that the things I learned here were not that shootout thing of, "Oh, this one's the winner. It's more an application thing and some knowledge about what happens with different port shapes."

[01:07:33]>> So, pretty cool.

[01:07:34]>> Yeah, I liked it.

[01:07:35]>> I really want to build a larger displacement, bigger power Ford big block Ford that, you know, 600in Fords are not out of the question at all.

[01:07:44]>> Super easy in a stock block. Some of the stuff I've seen with the Fords, some of the builders say, "Oh, this thing was way easier than building a Chevy."

[01:07:51]Really?

[01:07:51]>> So, yeah. I mean, it was surprising to me, but it's a possibility.

[01:07:55]>> We'll call that guy because we need to test that junk on a future episode of Engine Masters.

[01:08:02]>> But I can't live with myself till we do one more thing.

[01:08:05]>> Let me guess. Dominator.

[01:08:08]Last test. We're going to find out if we can make a few extra horsepower with a Dominator carburetor.

[01:08:17]Now, we're super happy. We just made 650 649.5 pound- feet of torque and 650 1/2 horsepower. Let's just say at 600 horsepower, you should probably be looking at a Dominator.

[01:08:28]>> That's why they called it the Dominator, right?

[01:08:30]>> The greatest name ever conceived for a speed part. I love it.