when did you realize how truly complex an internal combustion engine's 'system' is?

[Beagle]

I was contemplating the engine I put together a dozen years ago and thought about my thinking of the time. Every magazine article was E cam this B cam that. Ford offered a 320 hp crate 302 at the time and I thought, I'll get a flat top 347 (342, stock bore) and enjoy the torque.

I should have gone with dished pistons, but having been a Chevy boy I thought Flat top and E cam.

I'll never know if that engine would have pinged it's brains out, and George Klass from Coast warned me that I didn't have enough cam. I kind of ignored him, he said it might be close to being a ping monster.

I never really gave much thought to things like deck height, cranking compression, very long runner heated intakes contributing to all of this.

When did you start really thinking about engines in terms of a System and not parts you stuck together based on what the magazines told you?

I remember DF talking about strange engine stroke / piston combos with different parts, like Chrysler rods in a Ford, 3 9/16 stroke 350 Chevy's, that kind of thing, and it started me thinking more and more about what it was I was actually sticking together.

I'm getting kind of old to just now figure out there are more than 4.030 bores for example. I've always been kind of blindered I guess - I was "learned" by the mags that anything less than a 4" bore was a waste of time. Dulcich did a 305 Chevy that would lay that theory to rest in my mind, and a 318 or two that backed it up quite successfully.

Man, what I don't know. Engine Masters may have done more to ruin me than anything. I'm blaming DF and Dulcich for my sickness, and it's hell trying to unlearn all the stuff I "KNOW".. Do you guys ever feel this way?

[skullbucket]

I soon realized how simple an engine is on my first rebuild that I then knew why lots of high school drop outs became mechanics.

[A/Fuel]

Probably when you start taking pride in your ride, when you want something above average.

[Bamfster]

I kinda always looked at them that way .... my mentors 30 years ago were super stock and super gas racers. When I built my 1st sbc, we looked at the total package and used parts that complimented each other .... granted it was just a lowly .030 350, but it ran real well.

[oj]

Its' only as complex as you want it to be.
I think of it as a single one cylinder engine and add however many engines together as i need. Just like a 4 barrell holly carburetor is just 4 - 1 barrell carburetors joined together. For example, the High & Mighty Plymouth of the Ramchargers fame had crazy looking trumpet headers sticking out the fenderwells, they were designed by a member using his Norton motorcycle engine that had the same bore and stroke as the hemi. he spent that winter making different length and shaped header tubes until it made the most power, then they made 8 of them for the hemi - and history was made.

[tedly]

Still learning, and I hope to continue learning for a long time.

[dieselgeek]

Things started making sense to me last year when, as part of a development project, I got a copy of the Pro version of Dynomation.

[TheSilverBuick]

I'm still an engine assembler. That's why my junk makes way less HP than it should Sum of parts do not equal horsepower, the sum of the correct parts equal horsepower.

[Barry Donovan]

I learned from my first one, I was 15.

a two stroke kawasaki crammed into a sno jet snomobile frame. it needed a leaf srping from a car to hold it down..and stayed calm where it came from. Why? the aluminum chassis lit it up. I got more involuntray sprites to screaming engines than I can't even begin to let go of.

the reed valves, height of piston, even swell alters it. aluminum chassis, to steel, two worlds...

The only thing keeping my nerdy formula 1 mind at bay is income.

big bore little stroke and a flow...we aren't allowed.

I did learn, all american v8s are 200mph...
today the truth is emerging slowly. even VW has a 1.4l in a tin can going 185. my worst nghtmare in design, and there it is. They got "allowed" to glorify a pile of tin.

[Thumpin455]

About 22 years ago I built a 400 Pontiac with a Comp Cams 305H and stock 6X heads, those cams are [email protected]. The 301 I pulled out of the car was stronger than that 400, and that is when it all came together in my noggin. Since then I have been making more and more power, and getting better mileage from each one. Always learning, I dont know all of it yet. The ethanol project has been humbling, lots to learn there and much of it goes against what everyone preaches on gas.