So much for trying the “budget approach.”
 |
 |
If you have followed the Project 540/E85 Engine story you might have caught my comment in the last article that I was surprised the engine was making enough horsepower to push our new S&W dragster, “Back-2-Basics III,” to 7.90 E.T.s at 170 mph. This means it was probably making a little over 800 hp with a soft tune-up.
At the time we started to plan the Project 540 Engine it was all but impossible to find a Mopar mega-block or an aluminum block that fit into our “budget approach” for this engine. To be honest, most people that helped on the engine thought it might make 700 to 750 horsepower and be a pretty durable engine considering it was built with a stock 440 engine block. I think between the Ron’s Terminator fuel injection, some great port work by Modern Cylinder Head and precision machine work by Chenoweth Machine on the block that resulted in a very “good ring seal,” we ended up making too much power for the stock 440 block’s cylinder walls. The rotating assembly we got from Ohio Crankshaft was “as advertised” and as you can see from the photos held up well. I probably made a mistake specifying steel rods with the kit and should have went with aluminum rods. Oh well what is that old saying? 20/20 hindsight! Dale and Mike Chenoweth warned me that a stock block has limits, especially the main webbing and cylinder walls. They were right and they will do the machine work for me when we find an aftermarket block worthy of their quality workmanship.
I’ve just finished taking project 540 apart to see if we can determine what failed and all indications it was the cylinder walls/block. The crankshaft end of the broken rod on cylinder #1 still spins on the crank journal perfectly. I backed off the rockers and the engine turns over smooth as can be. We are taking the engines out of both dragsters this weekend and I will update this article with some additional photos.
I hope this never happens to your race team.
In case you hadn’t read about the other engine we destroyed in July in Project-4-Link (we named it “Tough Guy” as the block was on its sixth season). The damage looks almost identical from the outside. On the front left side of the block is a hole about 8” X 8” and the pan rails are broken. That type damage means water and oil were instantly spraying out of the engine and parts were outside the engine as well. We know the heads were repairable on the 572, R&J Performance has them ready to go, the Edelbrock Victors and intake Edelbrock so graciously furnished for project 540 will be returned with our thanks. They appear to be repairable.