Popular Hot Rodding's recent issue (Feb 2010) gives a lot of details on the engines that competed in their most recent 2009 Engine Masters competition.

For 2009 the rules were changed to allow dual carbs, tunnel ram intakes, etc., Also the RPM range was raised (the range where power would be measured and compared) to 3000 - 7000 RPM. This is up 500 RPM from the 2008 competition.

There were 30 engines that showed up for qualitfying; GM, Ford, Mopar, and a small sampling of Fuel Injected power plants.

Here are some interesting things I saw, at least to me they are:

1. Of the 30 entires, 20 of them were running CompCams camshafts. Two engines ran ISKY cams and three engines had Cam Motion cams. Two cams were solid flat tappets but the remainder appear to be solid rollers.

2. Out of all the 30 engines, only two made peak power at 7000 even though there was no restriction on camshaft selection, etc. Since average power was the critical component, apparently shooting for max power at 7000 was a losing proposition.

3. A LS1 (TPIS offering), LS2 and two LS7s competed. One of the LS7s took 2nd place but both of them were running a carb.

4. Also very interesting was the cylinder heads the engine builders chose. I didn't see the one's I expected to see; you know, the ones we read about so often on this and other Forums.

The 2nd place LS7 actually BLEW AWAY the winning small block Ford engine in power, but was handicapped by needing 32 more cubic inches to do so (403 Vs 435). So because of the formula being used, the Ford won by something like 1.4 points.

All in all it's an interesting article and if Popular Hot Rodding does as it has in the past, there will be subsequent articles giving more details on the engines, like LSA, cam phasing, head specifics, etc.

Just thought you guys would be interested.

Jake
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1996 Vette, 388 CID LT1, Eagle Forged Crank, Eagle 6" Forged Rods, SRP Forged Pistons, CompCams XFI 467 Cam (230/236 @ .050), Scorpion 1.7 RRs, AFR 190s ported to 212 ccs (304 cfm @.600), BBK 58mm TB, Hughes 3000 Converter, PCMFORLESS Programming.

 

I love that magazine.

 

I had a pretty good view of the engines and can say that for every 1 thing you see there are ten steps that aren't obvious that made the engines just a bit better.

Wish I would have stuck around to see inside Tony's engine but I had a chance to talk with Bret Bowers (see story in latest PHR) about his combo which I think is very repeatable.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on the recent PHR article. I'll grab a copy.

Jake