School has crossed my mind...and is still very fresh in my head.

Long story short, I was laid-off last year, and recently found new
work in the PLC field.

If this doesn't work out, I'm considering an apprentice position for mechanic at a local GM dealer, or back to school in September
- co-op for mechanical engineering.

The biggest issue about engine technology is the demand is low
for the area I live. I have to move or commute a couple of hours
to find decent employment (Toronto area). I don' t think I can handle that at this stage.

I figure I'm getting over my head with most of this information,
but I'm determined. Not so much to become an Engineer from
studying text (which would be a stretch ), but rather take my
understanding of engines to the next level.

Maybe I'll step back a little and start playing around in this forum
for a while. This is certainly a jump higher than F-body.com or Fbody.com (with all due respect).

Guess what? You just found yourselves a new "pain in the butt"!

 

Race Car Vehicle Dynamics by Millikan and Millikan. This is the absolute best book I’ve ever seen on driveline and chassis setup but I doubt that you’ll be able to buy it anywhere (couple hundred $ anyway). You’ll need access to a graduate level engineering library at a school that has a race/automotive engineering graduate program to find it, but it’s worth the effort. Anyone with a decent understanding physics (mostly mechanics) and some decent math (not much past high school/first couple of semesters calc) could learn from it. Be warned, this basically ends up being hundreds of pages which point out what a complete load most of what the aftermarket/performance world dishes out (and will make clear why the high end race stuff is nothing like the performance stuff most of us are used to seeing). It’s also the only book that I’ve ever seen that has had an accurate description of how an F-body sliding pivot TA works (and a really KILLER discussion of kinematics).

I haven’t found anything close to that level (and relative understandability) dealing specifically with IC engines, but you can find a lot of information from SAE and similar publications that the public can get at through NACA. You’ll find that most of the best automotive specific IC engine performance stuff out there is OLD, but the fact is that a lot of what we’re currently doing is not a new idea, it’s just finally become technically/economically feasible to tinker with now.

Get your hands on a Mark’s Engineering handbook. It’s sorta an encyclopedia of everything engineering and a great place to look up basic equations and how to work things out.

WRT to the more mainstream/common/layman oriented stuff:

The Lingenfelter book is a good set of basics and a nice picture book, but it really doesn’t divulge any secrets. It’s nice to have on your shelf if you plan on using factory parts to build your engine since it’s got a fairly good discussion of what’s good and bad about them.

Vizard… well, killer information, but it almost is written to give you just enough to do some cool stuff but not enough to fully implement it. Most of what he writes is very centered in the limitations of parts as they can be gotten easily, what would be done to optimize them, but then doesn’t cover how the application of the theory changes when you do optimize things. His SBC valvetrain book (I don’t remember the actual title) is one of the better ones, and will have you laughing at much of the online cam discussion… You’ve got to respect the amount of dyno testing behind his words.

The Carrol Smith, “______ To Win” books (fill in the blank with race, prepare, engineer…) are must read books for anyone intending to build or race anything. They are very road race oriented but have some awesome insights into things that aren’t often discussed like aftermarket parts (construction and design), aerodynamics and cooling, plus some great stuff on materials science, machining and application. What’s nice about these is that you can just pick up any of them and open them to a random page and learn some interesting and useful morsel, they don’t have to be read cover to cover to make sense, making them perfect reading when you’ve got a few spare moments (you know, in the “library”).

I’ve only read bits and pieces of Smokey Yunick’s stuff, but knowing any of his history I’d bet that the reason that it seems controversial is that I’m sure that he withheld just enough information… you have to know that someone who’s had his racecar disassembled during a post race inspection and then started the car and drove away with the gas tank still on the ground disconnected has something up his sleeve that the rest of us don’t know about.

Skip the book stores (lots of fluff, little real meat), find a good librarian and ask the people who know what you want to know what they have got on their desks, it will surprise you.

 

http://www.sae.org/servlets/productD...&PROD_CD=R-146

It sells for $100 to people not members of SAE. I don't have it in my library yet, but it's my next purchase.

 

Hum... that is substantially less then the price that I remember seeing on the onle that I borrowed. Still expensive but worth it if it's knowledge that you're looking for.

 

I found Smokey's book to be a lot like Vizard's; practical theory and some techniques of how to accomplish something. He does throw in a few "absolutes" which might not be, but don't we all?

We ought to get together sometime and talk, Mark.

 

Milliken's book is excellent. It is available new on amazon.com for $110. I also like Fundamentals of Vehicle Dynamics by Thomas D. Gillespie. BTW: both of these are published by the SAE.

Agree that Vizard is a good starting point but that he really doesn't get into theory.

Rich Krause