Finally got my motor back together & DYNOED!!!
#1
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I finally got my motor done last week and have been traveling back and forth to Tyler Crocketts shop every few days for the most exstensive dyno experience I have ever been part of.
Some history on my motor before I freshened it:2 years ago I set out to make 850 hp from my merlin block, 540 w/m3sc blower,aw504 innercooler,afr 315 cnc heads and a home built twin rail fuel injection setup grafted onto a 502 mpi intake manifold and throttle body. Bob Madera, a.k.a. rm builder,played a large part in that project with tech support and a custom ground hydraulic roller cam. Tyler Crockett did the dynoing and mefi3 programming and we went past my goal and made 944 hp w/3.70 upper pulleys and 930 hp w/.85 pulleys on pump gas. I had also took a few extra steps and had the pistons coated by swain tech and home port matched/modified the mpi lower intake. The motor ran fairly reliable for 2 seasons/114hours with only a few problems,the first few times out I had el cheapo comp cams rocker nuts crack and back off causing no damage the first time and a bent up pushrod and bent lifter tiebar the 2nd time (arp nuts kept this from happening again) and then in the second season I had the bearings fail in the procharger compressor causing it to self destruct but the actual supercharger was 7 seasons old so it was really my fault for not having it rebuilt.
Fast forward to this year,I pulled the motor at end of last season to freshen it and upgrade it slightly more and after consulting with bob madera we set our goal at 1000hp this time. Due to work constraints (I have been working 16 to 17 hours a day at 2 jobs,96 hours a week plus still rebuilding transmissions),I got a late start on the project in the end of march. When I tore down the 540 there was very little damage or parts on the verge of failure with the exception of a felpro std marine head gasket that was almost blown apart. A set of mls style gaskets would have probably been enough to keep this from happening again with the same power but since we were looking for more we decided to switch from a merlin 2 block to a dart big M with the extra head bolt bosses. The crankshaft,rods and pistons were checked and found to still be close to perfect. I sent the pistons back to swain tech and had them stripped and re-coated. To be continued
Some history on my motor before I freshened it:2 years ago I set out to make 850 hp from my merlin block, 540 w/m3sc blower,aw504 innercooler,afr 315 cnc heads and a home built twin rail fuel injection setup grafted onto a 502 mpi intake manifold and throttle body. Bob Madera, a.k.a. rm builder,played a large part in that project with tech support and a custom ground hydraulic roller cam. Tyler Crockett did the dynoing and mefi3 programming and we went past my goal and made 944 hp w/3.70 upper pulleys and 930 hp w/.85 pulleys on pump gas. I had also took a few extra steps and had the pistons coated by swain tech and home port matched/modified the mpi lower intake. The motor ran fairly reliable for 2 seasons/114hours with only a few problems,the first few times out I had el cheapo comp cams rocker nuts crack and back off causing no damage the first time and a bent up pushrod and bent lifter tiebar the 2nd time (arp nuts kept this from happening again) and then in the second season I had the bearings fail in the procharger compressor causing it to self destruct but the actual supercharger was 7 seasons old so it was really my fault for not having it rebuilt.
Fast forward to this year,I pulled the motor at end of last season to freshen it and upgrade it slightly more and after consulting with bob madera we set our goal at 1000hp this time. Due to work constraints (I have been working 16 to 17 hours a day at 2 jobs,96 hours a week plus still rebuilding transmissions),I got a late start on the project in the end of march. When I tore down the 540 there was very little damage or parts on the verge of failure with the exception of a felpro std marine head gasket that was almost blown apart. A set of mls style gaskets would have probably been enough to keep this from happening again with the same power but since we were looking for more we decided to switch from a merlin 2 block to a dart big M with the extra head bolt bosses. The crankshaft,rods and pistons were checked and found to still be close to perfect. I sent the pistons back to swain tech and had them stripped and re-coated. To be continued
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#2
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I had the new block seasoned/heat cycled in a industrial oven for ten days then had it completely re-machined. We added main cap studs to the billet main caps at this time too.I took the afr heads,mpi intake and throttle body to a local head porter I trust to be freshened and modified. It was discovered when the heads were dis-assembled that the shop I had assemble them 2 years ago had ruined the perfect valve job that AFR had done to them originally,they re-ground the proprietary angles that afr uses and left nasty cutter ridges. They flowed less then when they were originally built. My head porter also agreed he could full port my intake manifold and have my throttle body modified. We both agreed that the heads and intake should also be port matched even though afr reccomends against this. Mean while I got the block machine work done and most of my parts together to put it back together. Bob Madera planned on having a new cam ground based on the total flow numbers of the heads with ported intake bolted to them,after a extra 6 weeks of waiting on some flow numbers from the manifold and lots of exscuses, the head porter decided he was no longer interested in full porting the intake as the 502 mpi intake has very long,difficult to reach runners. I was pizzed but decided to move on. Bob went ahead and just had a cam ground based on the total combination and head flow numbers with no regard to the manifold as we had no data or change to it other than perfect match porting. Bob takes this stuff real serious and was just as dissapointed as me that we were going to be stuck with a intake that chokes off the airflow 25-40 cfm when bolted to the heads.Another thing I decided to do was switch to mefi4 ecu's for more accurate fuel delievery under boost and to have the motor dynoed normally aspirated with a second mefi 4 and a single bar map sensor so I could run the boat without the supercharger if I ever needed to or wanted and so I could compare the stock throttle body to the bored out one (plus I always wanted to know what the motor really made on its own). Fast forward to 2 weeks ago,everyones already boating,its warm out,summers quickly passing by and after talking with Tyler Crockett I find out If I don't get on his dyno soon it will be august before he can get enough time to do what we need to do. I slam the motor together,bob starts over nite airing parts (cam,lifters,valve springs etc) to help me meet my schedule. Meanwhile I find a snowmobile head porter that does custom machining on his mill who thinks he can full port the intake so I let him take a shot at it. He says he can have it done in 3 days,this was 5 days before I was sceheduled to go on the dyno. He got the intake done the NIGHT BEFORE I went on the dyno
,we worked on the motor until 5:30 am the same day we went to Crocketts at 8:00 am 100 miles away-dyno sheets on next post
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#3
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After ALOT of programming Tyler was able to make the engine run right normally aspirated,remember-this is a 8.22-1 540 with a hyd roller cam not really designed to be ran at this low of compression-around 250 duration at .050 w/650 lift meant to make power using a blower. 657 hp-5400/665ft lbs tq at 4800-(this was N-A with bored out throttle body)
Last edited by articfriends; 07-15-2007 at 02:11 AM.
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Next we bolted stock throttle body back on to see if there was any tq/hp drop. We saw 647 hp at 5600/662 ft lbs tq at 4600 and if you look around 3600 it shows 666 ft lbs of tq,hacking on the intake might have done something funny to the midrange tq. There is a tq drop of about 3-6 ft lbs/hp drop as high as 10 but overall not as much as we expected comparing the stock throttle body to modified one, There must still be a restriction somewhere else (manifold),Smitty
Last edited by articfriends; 07-15-2007 at 02:27 AM.
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The Blower
,with my 4 inch upper pulley that I NEVER run (it makes boost slow and late) we made 1037hp at 5800 and 971 ft lbs of tq at 4800,this was my "big" pulley I was planning on running to de-tune it to keep the drive together,so much for that!
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the dyno sheet from that run,you may notice the air fuel ratio in LH column looks rich,the o2 sensor was acting up,we confirmed it with Tylers portable rinda but he was out of spares so we tuned it off the rh one.
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We tested and tuned the majority of the fuel tables with the 3.85 pulley-1057hp at 5700 and 1009 ft lbs of tq at5200,the tq peak may seem awful close to the hp peak but if you really study the dyno sheet you'll notice we were making 1003 ft lbs at 4600,1007 at 4700 and 1008 at 4800 so the "peak" is not real defined
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Now we are pretty much done setting the fuel tables and making tuning pulls,we changed the spark plugs from champion RC12YC's to RC9YC's,the 12s are about like a ac r43 or44 heat range,I run them most of the time or the equivilant to keep plugs from fouling when idling,hotter then procharger reccomends but I have never had problems from this.The 9's are like a r42 heat range. I bolt on the 3.70 pulley and we mix a batch of fuel 80/20 of 93 and 110 octane. Tyler turns off his o2 sensors so the race gas won't ruin them.This set-up is what I have ran in the past when I want to go out and make some serious #'s but actually my previous highest speed was with the 3.85 pulley and straight 93 octane. Anyways we made 1115 hp at 5900 and 1037 ft lbs of tq at 5200 with 1000 plus ft lbs from 4400 to 5800,Smitty