“You never know until you know”. That brand-new car that followed you home should work perfectly fine…it is brand new after all, right? What’s to say that the transmission isn’t faulty, or that some trim might fall off because it was installed improperly? You put that engine together by the book, checking every last torque spec, being careful with the sealer on every last gasket, but what’s to say that you won’t have to go back into the engine to fix one stupid little thing later on down the line? The only true test of how something works is real-world use and time, but the next best thing is a full-simulation torture test that goes above and beyond the call of duty. If you can mark a line in the sand that says, “we survived this point, so keep it below that and you stand a chance”, that’s peace of mind. Or, at least, the determining point where you know you have now moved into dangerous waters and that you might want to tread carefully.
Before you start groaning about another twin-turbo LS build, hear us out, because this isn’t the normal. What you are looking at is a 260-cube verison that is sporting twin snails…and will be heading for a river-racing boat. Normally, a 470-cube naturally-aspirated engine would be called upon, but when Nelson Racing Engines found a note in the rules that said that twin-turbochargers were an option for an engine 260 cubes and under, the plan was to see if the concept would work. This engine is a prototype of sorts…it will never know an easy life, not in the nearest sense whatsoever. It will be revved to the moon and back, it will be called on to perform, and if it’s not going to tolerate the stress, it’s better to learn before it goes into the boat than after, right? Right. So we come to this moment…the little LS is on the dyno and for the next five minutes, it’s going to see max RPM, under max load, while being fed max boost. Small wonder why the dyno cell got some “modifications” before this test went down!
Thanks to Tubbed Pacecar for the tip!
I’ve been following Nelson since his first appearance in Hot Rod. I personally wonder why no one has run one of his combo’s in a RMRW or Dragweek event. It surly cant be the expense, seeing the setups the unlimited guys are running.