I just watched the latest American HotRod on Discovery Channel. Forgive me if I'm posting in the wrong area, but I'm curious on the advanced aspects of a 434 TT all aluminum small block with Twin-Turbos. I think it was Nelson engineering that built it on the show and the guy from there said it was a 30-40K motor.

Here's my question, how can that thing possibly be streetable? Boyd fired it up and looked liked he just let the clutch out easy and the car took off. I don't recall how much boost it was, but it just seems amazing that a car making that much HP can be street driven. I also heard on there that it had a big block cam (I never heard that before in a SB) Is it just a factor of money?

Also, they had it on the dyno and it was making something like 600ft/lb of torque without boost. Pretty amazing and sounded vicious

 

It was built as a dragster/show car... it's not really streetable...just looks it.


But then again you could drive an indy car on the street if you wanted too... just depends on what one would consider streetable.

 

As long as you don't mind turbo lag or filling up with 10 dollar a gallon fuel i dont see why a turbo motor that size couldn't be streetable.

 

A lot of that TV stuff is to show "magic" where it's really standard fare.

Tom Nelson is a good cat and as you can see on the show has a very nice setup there in SoCal..... I applaud Boyd for actually putting a real motor in a car he builds. I'm still iffy on seeing a motor like that shake the snot out of the headers when you rev it do to the excess gasses being burned in the turbos. I wish thye really would have shown the power curves instead of a dyno run that showed 690ft lbs on "low boost" which is what I expect that motor will run on 95% of the time.

You could make that motor streetable, Tom does lots of work on those twin turbo SBC's. He also seems to like big cams on stuff he builds so driveable might be relative. He's been in the Engine Masters a few times and never really seems to have the time to go all out, I would think if you are going to do that, either do it well or go home, but maybe he just likes to hang out with the magazine guys. (Which he knows pretty well)

http://www.nelsonracingengines.com/index3.html

Bret

 

Tom's just down the street, he was a couple years ahead of me in auto shop in high school.He had a sick pro touring Nova when all the mags were still shouting pro street and hadnt even invented the term yet.
there is nothing not cool about the huge power turbo cars around these days, but of the 5 or so "street" cars in mags i can remeber sporting 1000+ hp,only John Meaney put his down the track[10.xx @ about 160 i think with Moran driving ] Tell Boyd to get the car to Famoso or Fontana--he can borrow my slicks.If i had a 4 digit power show car id love hazing the skins at 100,but id be PISSED when a dude with a dialed in LT/LS power adder camaro smoked my $100,000 car at the strip.








That said,If i had one id put nitrous on it anyway.

 

A BBC camshaft won't physically fit into a SBC because the BBC is longer but the idea is still the same. What they usually refer to is that the SBC cam journals have been enlarged to the size of the BBC cam then a special cam is ground to fit into the SBC with the larger journals.

Lobe profile is restricted by the size of the journals. To put a really high lift cam in, it can't be higher than the journals or it would never fit. Ways of getting around that are by using a small base circle cam but that also makes the lobe profile smaller. Using large journals allows bigger cam profiles without sacrificing having to use a small base circle cam.

Just more exotic stuff that most of us would never consider using or doing. Watch those shows for the entertainment factor but don't expect to be able to ever afford what they really do. There's a lot that's never shown that most people wouldn't even consider having to be done.

It's like watching those "low buck buildups" for less than $2000 and they have a set of Brodix heads sitting on the shelf or given to them so that cost isn't calculated. That's not real world.

 

Are there any downsides to using bbc journals? Dart's iron eagle block can be bought with the bbc journals.

 

NO..... It is just extra expence and not needed to build a stomping SBC. Well,maybe if you are running pro stock or something....

 

The larger journals can help cam flex and can give you a larger base circle cam. In the case of the LS1 you can also have more aggressive lobes since the base circle size is so big. It's standard fare in flat tappet racing like Cup to run a 60mm cam journal so you can have aggressive lobes on the cam to boot.

Bret

 

"1480hp. 1100ft lbs or torque @ 3600rpm. Enough said."

Boyd's employees make him look like a world-class fool, and it's no surprise that it took 17 months for one of our friends to get his chassis, or that another customer pulled his car from Boyd's shop because it was showing up on episode after episode, sitting in the background without any progress, while they farted around with the made-for-TV crap. Enough said.

 

turbo motors can easily be made streetable. my 1000hp 383ci LT1 idled great(14" vac or so) with a baby cam. drove around easy, my mom could drive it.. till you hammered down and the turbo made some boost... then it was

 

I don't know if you guys remember "Monty", a member on here, he has a 427 SBC with 18* heads and twin turbos making 1200hp/1200tq in an old corvette. He's got a few videos on his website of him driving it around (in-car vids, low quality vids but neat watching them). BAD *** setup.

I think his website is www.montygwilliams.com . He posted a TON of info on his car bumper-to-bumper. Should be best way for you to see what goes into something like that.

[edit]- i just checked, he hasn't been active on this board since july 2003. Either way, his website still works. I wish he still stuck around, would like to see what he's been up to lately.

 

on nelson's website it says a streetable 1500hp.
i guess its all relative though, just like meaney's vette and chicaynne

also it shows a short list of the "crate engines" he has ....
...thats some rediculously awesome power...

Small Block Chevy starting at $19,500
350cid 1000hp
372cid 1200hp
406cid 1300hp
434cid 1500hp

Big Block Chevy starting at $25,000
509cid 1200hp
540cid 1500hp
572cid 1700hp
704cid 3000hp

 

Bret,
They can build a cam on a standard journal size that is capable of tearing a valve train all to pieces, so why go with larger. If you are running PS or something and running 1"+ of lift and 1000#+ spring pressure I might see it. It doesn't hurt to have but to buy a block,special cam,and all the things that go with that type of valve train is,IMO a waste of money for the normal street/strip engine,even the short circle track engines that I have built don't need it. The sprint car's down here on dirt turn ungodly RPM's and don't use them either. Just asking from a money standpoint.

 

Id like to put that 704cid monster in the camaro that would be kinda fun,lol


-john