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From the guy (me) who made low compression, pump gas, (93 or less,) reliable engines an

unbelievable ass kicking reality, here's a few of my street monster's dyno sheets.

Rex Gibsons King Street 455. Small Comp Cams hydrauilic roller cam - pump gas.

Click here for Rex's magazine feature.

Then there's Rob Mitchells monster.....

Rob Mitchell is STOKED!

The latest owner of my King Street series 455, a 455-87. Octane is 87.

Small cam to be very streetable.

Anyone can assemble one of these. Just buy the parts from us.

633 lbs. ft. at 4200 rpm.

590 hp at 5700 rpm.

Stock stroke - Stock rod length - Stock block.

This engine demanded so much air and fuel I needed to reduce the

size of the high speed air bleeds. We were up to .097 sec. jets and it was still lean.

After tuning the air bleeds we were able to reduce the sec. jet to .095 and make max power.

Below see our second engine we dyno'd this day - 3/28/03

669 hp

This King Street 455 engine uses a bigger solid roller cam, still uses pump gas 91 octane.

A Victor intake - An 850 Mighty Demon annular booster.

All of our strongest King Street and Race engines use my ported Edelbrock heads.

The increased power as compared to the other King Street 455's comes from the increased duration and lift, and the style of cam

(solid roller,) which allows more useful rpm. Compared to Rob Mitchel's hydraulic roller

design that also made torque in the 630's, this solid roller used .060 more lift,

and of course properly profiled, a solid roller gets the valve open even quicker

than a hydraulic roller. Cam selection depends on how you want to apply

the engine. Or you might say - how you want to drive your car. This is where I can help you select the power to meet your goals.

BELOW IS THE WEATHER CONDITIONS AT WESTECH 3/28/03

THE WEATHER DIDN'T CHANGE THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

BOTH ENGINES USED THESE CORRECTION FACTORS.

The smart guys can see that the weather was lousy. Low baro.

Now, listed below, are the UNcorrected figures for both engines.

Also referred to as MEASURED power. Which means actual power

measured at that dyno, or station as it's sometimes called. Station weather.

This is the actual power made that day. Why would we display the uncorrected

power? We want to educate you.

ALL dyno figures you read about in ads, magazines, etc. are CORRECTED.

Is this bad? No. The corrected figures represent the true potential of the

engine if you were to have a barometer of 29.92, temp at 70 degrees.

Any variation changes the power made. The engine can make even more power if

you get into super air conditions.

Rob Mitchel's is listed first. Impressive.

The "ManPrs" column is manifold pressure. Vacuum in this case as represented by

the minus sign. This is an RPM intake, and as you can see it presents a restriction

of one inch to one and a half inches. The trade off for the huge torque it

makes down low is worth the restriction. Can a manifold be made that would

deliver this kind of torque and present less restriction? I'll be working on one.

Trams's chart is below.

Very impressive.

Usually a Victor intake shows .5, or just one half an inch of restriction, but due to the fact

this engine was very efficient, the restriction was the 850 carb with a spacer. On the

surface it seems surprising to see more restriction than the RPM of Rob Mitchells engine.

To answer your next question, no, an RPM intake would not have improved

the power of this combination. The bigger roller cam and the killer velocity

of the ports topped by an 850 created this situation.

So let's review. We've made you aware of a situation with the manifold vacuum.

It is NOT a situation that you need to think about "fixing."

Go back and look at the power made. Remember the purpose of this engine.

STREET-able. Off idle throttle response. Driveability.

These are just as important as developing a huge raw power

number to brag about.

I develope combinations for all types of driving conditions.

Next - 5/01/03

A neat little 350 for a sixteen year olds first car and an upgrade on

an early King Street 455. First up the 350. The engine was sent to us in pieces

by Ryan Passmore for his son's first car. Ryan didn't want anything too powerful. Just

a nice efficient driver. So he chose some parts he had that included a 100 CC set

of 4C screw-in stud heads from a 1974 350, and on a .040 over 350 that gave him approx.

7.43.1 Cr. (Yo!) That's low. But hey, it will nearly run on kerosene.

I profiled a custom Comp Cams hydraulic cam in the 220's to work

with a low compression combination. Ryans E-bay aquired Q-jet turned out

to be so lean it was tossed in favor of a stock 650 Speed Demon.

We also used a 1965 Edelbrock P4B intake to clear the HEI distributor

Ryan sent us. The HEI worked well in this case - as all Pontiac

HEI's were designed for very low compression engines. 18 degrees

initial timing and 36.5 total gave the following results. Pretty nice torque curve and

everyone was flipped out at the horsepower this super low compression 350 made.

KEY TO PERFORMANCE?

My valve angles -my cam that was designed for low compression -

a better than stock intake, a great carb, and the big mystery proper tuning. Is this unbelieveable? No, it's very real.

7.43 Cr. 350" Pontiac. You can learn with my help.

3600 was the torque peak - so that's where the tests started. 5100 was the power peak.

A 5% power drop will occur when the engine experiences under the hood heat.

NEXT

Bob Shepard decided to upgrade his 570 lbs. ft. and 510 hp 455 by replacing stock

factory rods with our new 4340 forged units. ($400 or cheaper with a complete

engine build.) Bob also wanted me to upgrade the hydraulic roller cam for

a little more horsepower. Something in between my Top Man King Street series, but

a noticable improvement. Another super strong Pontiac

that's designed for, and makes max power on, 87 octane.

Another amazing Pontiac engine recipe from the chief cook and bottle washer.

Available complete or kit form.

Here's what Bob's previous combination made two years ago.

Our famous big bulge torque curve. This combination is nice for "milder"

455's

6/17/03 two more nice ones and LOTS OF PICTURES.

Hi Folks! Back with two more crusiers.

Sorry, no massive monster King Street engines today, but two interesting

daily driver combinations. First up is Ray Aguilar's vintage 421.

Ray has some nice cars. Say nice with lots of i's. Niiiiiiiiiice cars...

Here's a picture of his 57 Super Cheif that this engine is going in, but

a picture doesn't do this car justice. If you live in California and you've been

to our now defenct "Cheifs in Chino" car shows, Ray and his wife were

always there, and always won a trophy. Black on black with ghost flames.

Imagine this sweetheart with this engine and you have Rays '57.

Ray has a nice air cleaner too. I'll get a picture when he drives it over.

Ray had been driving this car for fifteen years with a high compression

421 from a 1966 2+2 with an added pair of AFB's on top. When we first met, probably in 1990, I asked

him what he was doing for gas and he assured me that the 92 octane we had

at the time in California was fine. Although, he admitted, it had a

heat problem, but he was going to change the radiator.

Another year goes by, and I see Ray at the next car show. I ask him

about his "heat" problem and he says the new radiator didn't seem to help.

I told him he couldn't install a radiator big enough to offset the lack

of octane he was attempting to get away with.

Really? He says. Ray just didn't want to believe me. But, he was going to

try a new water pump and hoped that would fix his problems.

Next year - another show - "Hey Ray! How's that heat problem?"

"Aw Bruce, I don't know. It's still running hot."

Another year, maybe two or three goes by and every time I see Ray he

still has a problem. I had advised him that the easiest way for him to

fix the problem was to swap to a lower compression set of heads.

Another year or two goes by. I see Ray and, well you know. But hey!

Ray has good and bad news. "I took your

advice Bruce and changed the heads but it's still running hot."

I'm thinking, "Why is it hot now if he got some low compression heads?" "Timing? Jetting?"

Well, Ray was still figuring out casting numbers and found a nice

looking set of,................ 1962 389 heads. eek!

They're all high compression in 1962. Low Cr. engines in those years used a factory dished piston.

When I informed Ray he had actually raised the compression he was bummed.

It was a lot of work for Ray and his brother to swap the heads and keep

that car scratch free. (Did I mention that this '57, you can eat off frame?)

Ray's dual quad 421 finally made it to my shop this year.

All he wanted was to fix the problem, the easiest and inexpensive way.

I like Ray, and Ray brings me parts every once and a while.

Like a 455 crank and block. And a 1956 factory dual quad

with the original carbs. The entire engine. All kinds of stuff that

he has laying around he brings me some goodies. I think in anticipation

of what we ended up doing for him.

Ray wanted to keep the 389 heads if he could. So we took a set of forged 428

pistons and dished 'em big. Ray's car always had a cool sound, and he mentioned that

the cam was from an old custom cam grinder named Owens. He really wanted to keep

that cam.  I told him ok. No problem. All Ray wanted was for his baby to run cool

and strong like a near stock factory 421 should.

Ray's beast is now 9.0 Cr. It runs on 87 octane. And 442 lbs. ft.

of torque at 3400 rpm which is more than enough to move the old Chief

in a hurry. If the occassion arises. Ray used to race a '41 Chevy coupe four speed with a 1958

Pontiac 370 engine stroked an eighth. He still has it.

Don't ask. No, it's not. (I tried.)

In fact, look at that torque curve. It's above 400 lbs. ft. from 2500 rpm to

4700 rpm. Very beefy. 358 hp might not sound like much to

the power needle-in-the-arm crowd, but to the realists that understand

this is a stock engine with a mild "270" Owens cam, bone stock

1962 389 heads, it's very respectable after all. Wait 'til you hear 'er idle.

NEXT UP

Stan and Judy Bressler, former editors of the local Pontiac club newsletter bought

a super clean '67 Firebird hardtop. They had a local So.Cal. Pontiac dealership mechanic

rebuild the 400 which turned out to be the original block, but someone along

the line had installed #143 castings which are 2bbl 10.5 Cr. heads. So, it was suffering

from detonation like Rays. The dealership mechanic suffered too. From what?

"Lack-of-doing-it-right-ness"

At 2000 miles the 400 was using a quart of oil every fifty miles, and was getting worse.

After taking the 400 back and complaining, (Stan had spent $5500 dollars on the original rebuild,)

the mechanic said it needed new valve seals and $1500 dollars later, or lighter, you might say,

Stan still had a massive oil consumption problem and was finished with the "professional mechanic."

See the black color below the cylinder? That's carbon. I've never seen

blow-by so bad that it was this visable below the pistons. All of the cylinders looked like this.

3000 total miles.Does this picture need a caption? This type of detonation happens without

any audible evidence. We hear this all of the time. "It's ok, I never hear it ping."

"It must have had a bad crank." Not the case.

Massive blow-by is one thing, leaking like a siv is another. This poor 400 had both.

We found the leak. See the chunk missing from the rope seal? Not installed correctly, I bet the crank

yanked the chunk out on fire up.

The balancer was hard to pull off. You could pull it out about an inch

and it would snap right back in to the timing cover! whaaaa??

It seemed possesed. Well, if you ever want your balancer not to work, and you

want it to act like a rubber band when you try to take it off, just smear

a ton of RTV rubber sealer on it like some nitwit did on this one. Besides being a real stupid

thing to do, here's the technical reason why. A balancer must have tight metal to metal

contact with the crank in order to transfer vibrations effectively.

Otherwise you can experience crank or balancer failure, or both.

More evidence of excessive blow-by.

The razorblade in the oil pan was quite a surprise. Oops.

When the Bresslers first showed up they told us they just wanted

the engine "right." After seeing our Edelbrock heads

Stan got the ol' horsepower hungries.

But, I could tell, the engine really needed to idle nicely

which meant not using one of our bigger custom cams.

So I profiled a low 230 at .050 duration hydraulic

at only 530 lift. Stan had just bought a new Q-jet and wanted to keep it.

It will be a real sweet & strong driver. Just check out that torque curve Merv.

420 real hp and 476 lbs ft at 3500 rpm. It's well over 400 at 3000 rpm.

With the 4 speed she'll be fun to drive. Stan and Judy brought their grandson

and his friend to the dyno. When we made the first preliminary pull to check

out the jetting, the secondaries weren't opening. Upon closer inspection

we found that the secondary throttle blades were hitting the RPM intake,

and had been since the Q-jet was installed. Three thousand miles ago.

A quarter inch thick gasket cured the problem.

File that under "WHY WE DYNO EACH ENGINE"

I wish I had a picture of Judy's face when the secondaries

roared to life on the first full pull.

There's nothing quite like an open headered Pontiac

at full throttle when the secondaries kick in.

Bu-waaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

Also under the file "WHY WE DYNO EACH ENGINE."

Check out my buddy Ray's 421 dual quad carbs.

When we went to do the vacuum advance check we noticed

that Ray had only one carb with a ported vacuum source, and he had it

on the front carb. Ray is using the Edelbrock dual quad linkage

(that only fits the Edelbrock P22 intake,) and he was using it

progressively, correctly, by running on the back carb first.

The vacuum advance couldn't work because of the lack of a signal

across the front carbs primary. Here we switched carbs and my janitor is pointing to

the ported source that now in the right place. On the back carb.

Hard to see, but there's one port there, and it's the correct

ported source. It only draws after the rpm's come up.

It's closed at idle.

A real dual quad front carb. (now) It has no vacuum ports.

NEXT!

Hi folks. Back with two more finished engines.

Here's the first engine and I'll put up the second one in a day or two.

Ed Wilkins is a local Pontiac Firebird (1970) owner who figured

out on his own after talking with some so-called "experts" that

we were the ones to take his pile of parts and design a decent

street/strip engine. Ed only had a few parts for the project. A set of screw-in stud

small valve 4C heads from a 7.6 Cr. 350, a new 750 Edelbrock AFB carb and a

RPM intake. He had spent a lot of time cleaning up his 'bird,

painting it, installing a fiberglass hood and an original

T/A shaker scoop. The more he stopped by our shop the more

questions he asked and consequently the more excited he got about building

a solid shortblock to take much more power in the future.

We've got a a new quarter mile track just a few minutes from

us and Ed wants to go there and have some fun.

His basic RRE $4550 rebuild turned into better ideas

by buying better parts for the bottom end. I gave him a 400 block and crank for $200 dollars.

Stock rods gave way to our 4340 forged steel rods. ($400)

Seal Power pistons became SRP's ($485) with Total Seal rings. ($220)

RPM intake - $185 750 Speed Demon - Special trade-in price for Ed $300

We took what would have been a 185 hp 400 inch smog dog and did this with it.

Nice oil pressure too. That's with the stock RA4 sixty pound pump.

I can't say this enough, because of all of the untrained shops out there building Pontiacs -

Clearances are critical! That's just one of the items that separates us from the others.

This was taken just before we changed to the 750 Speed Demon.

It made 26 more horsepower than the AFB.

Ed wanted a good power band and something that would wake up with nitrous.

We didn't test the engine on the dyno with the juice but we'll report

what she does after Ed gets his rear end set up and takes it to the track.

My experience (not a magazine writer guess) with this kind of set up

shows that Ed will go 12's without juice and elevens with. Using a 3:55 gear too.

When you have a base non nitrous torque curve like this there's no doubt

what she'll do when you whack it, shift at 5200 and smile through the lights. Ya-hoo!!

Just a nice daily driver. 1970 Firebird. We did it again. 87 octane........

Oh, why did Ed get a Speed Demon for $300. Because he had a new

Edelbrock 750 AFB that we tried first, and after jetting it up to max

BSFC it was still down 26 horsepower compared to the Demon.

We tossed that AFB on the shelf. Gave Ed 100+ clams for it.

I take care of those who take care of us. Ed's a nice guy.

We'll be back with a couple of King Street 455's next time.

One with an A/B '66 tri-power versus a RPM / Demon test.

Need an engine built?

Email your first questions to me from the from the bottom of the MAIN page.

--

Below: 428 with Bruces valve work, custom hyd. cam and 6X heads

Owner just wanted a nice dailiy driver. Nice torque curve.