I was talking to a guy that owns a local shop a few years ago and some things he told just seem plain wrong. This guy has built some race winning engines and some of those were built dirt cheap like almost using other peoples throw away parts. I don't know if he's strait up lying or if he really practices what he preaches.
Some random things he told me.
Race engines do not use valve stem seals. What would the benefit if any be not to use them?
better valve guide lubrication at HIGHER RPMS, but keep in firmly in mind a RACE engine does NOT see intake plenum vacuum levels nearly as high as a lower rpm transportation engine sees,and they get rebuilt and use fresh spark plugs regularly, so you can get away with this
Race engines do not use gaskets. I have seen some of his work slathered in RTV looking stuff. I don't understand this theory and thinking this stuff used in massive quantity could get inside engine oil passages etc and cause oil flow problems or blockages.
in my opinion this is asking for trouble
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All the engines I have seen this guy produce seem to follow a set of rules that seem 180* of what you would expect. Like rather than building a race engine for top end power he builds these low RPM torque monsters that actually do win races.
maximizing the useful torque curve with the correct gearing can produce surprisingly efficient power curves, , it makes a great deal more sense to build an engine that has a useful torque curve over lets say 3500rpm vs a bit higher peak power over a far narrower lets say 1200rpm PROVIDED the gearing is correctly matched and the peak power is fairly close
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I saw him build a sprint car engine that ran like a diesel. compared to the other cars on the track it was grumbling along at a low rpm while all the other cars were turning some serious revs this was in a car driven by a friend of mine. once again he was winning races.
Ive built several engines that were used in stock car racing and many guys over cam the engines and are limited by the rules to restrictive flow cylinder heads or intakes that won,t allow the engine to breath where the cams designed to maximize power in the rpm band
Another thing this guy is good at is using factory cast iron heads. He has the machines to rebuild these heads so I guess its just time involved rather than money thrown away at a machine shop. He was telling me that 2.02 / 1.60 valves flow less than a set of 1.94/1.50 with all the work he does to them. Seems to me that a if he did the same work to a bigger valve it would flow the best.
pure physics will tell you a larger valve curtain are can potentially flow more air, but many stock car rules LIMIT the potential parts that you can use and if the intake and heads and cam are carefully matched a slightly smaller valve may handle all the air flow available, a larger valve may not be useful in some restricted combos
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I don't know this guy says and does some really different things that in my book is questionable but yet he produces some strong engines that are like below claimer class stuff. From what I have been told he did some work for Mercedes factory engineering.