I won't have any pictures available until I get home 10 days from now, sorry.
I can tell you that the engine is all hooked up on the dyno. All I have to do is add oil after my lunch break and then it's Jake's turn again.
This morning I had to customize a new (Tangerine Evo) exhaust system to fit better in the dyno room, and hook up the dry sump plumbing. That required a trip to the hardware store and welding up a custom fitting since all Jake's stuff is -8 or -10 and I use -12 lines.

Good luck this weekend Jake & Chris

QUOTE (Racer Chris @ Mar 25 2005, 05:21 PM)

Details!!!

186 hp @ 7500 with a Stage 1 Silencer.
We made a total of 2 runs open and 2 runs muffled.
This baby kicks ass.
Mucho props to Len, Jake and the whole RAT crew!!!!

sweet...now bring home one of these :

Congratulations to the entire crew on a great engine build / test.

Good luck this weekend; blow their doors off.

Randal

And everyone says 180 is hard to get from an FP....... Nah. This is a regular season "Mild" engine without any craziness done at all! (atleast what I consider craziness)

The runoffs version will make close to 200 easily!

Now I KNOW we can get Kevin Groot to his goal with his EP engine @ 2.0 displacement.

Chris should have no issues taking a trophy..... He drives like a maniac and has the best heads and overall engine available.

186?
I bet you're sandbagging.

Good luck!!!

congrats Chris, Len, Jake and all involved. Chris go out and give it all tommorrow. can't wait to hear the results.

QUOTE (Racer Chris @ Mar 25 2005, 04:48 PM)

186 hp @ 7500 with a Stage 1 Silencer. We made a total of 2 runs open and 2 runs muffled. This baby kicks ass. Mucho props to Len, Jake and the whole RAT crew!!!!

Geez. Thats a little more power than the last engine .
Congrats Chris, and good luck on the track tomorrow.

I'll post some pics tomorrow night-
I feel really lucky to be here- and the latest weather forcast might be more favorable.

QUOTE

And everyone says 180 is hard to get from an FP.......

I don't know who you have been talking with, but I know some of the cars Brad was working with 5-7 years ago were making 189 through the mufflers.

Good to see you hit the mark that you wanted to hit.

In my experience, comparing dyno numbers is not the best way. Jakes may read a little low or a little high. And HPH may read a little low or high. But 186 is WAAAAAYYY better than Chris had last year. and even if there was a 3 % fudge factor ( I am not saying there is) thats just a plain fast F___ing motor. So good luck to him and sounds like Jake pulled out some of the stops on this motor. Should go like a bat out of hell. Can't wait to see the results. Jake, You need to PM me regarding the cost of a 2.0 liter engine for Eprod.


Erik Madsen

Excellent work Jake!!!

Enjoy the weekend and good luck Chris!

Erik,
Don't you think the venturi increase on the 6 cyl will make that engine better for EP? I'm very excited about the 4 cyl program, but I wonder about the 6 cyl having the same size venturis but having 6 of them.

Go get em Chris! We want those in car pictures as you smoke the field.

I am by no means trying to downplay Jake's results. 186 will be very hard to beat. Chris should have a good run at it.

After seeing the six get the increase in venturi size Ihave started looking at the six for a possible contender. If the heads will flow I think a 2.0 six could easily make 225.

As much as we all love to brag about big HP numbers we all know they should not be the end goal. Last time I checked they don't have dyno races for championships. If I had 160hp and still ran a faster lap time would that be an issue? Transient response is where winners are made.

Okay, just came in from the garage after spending the last few hours scraping and wire brushing the 914 underbelly to see if there were any results from today yet. [ I know give 'em a chance to get out of the car] I'll check back in a while

I just got back from Road Atlanta, had to leave early, and can report that all of these 16 hour days have taken their toll on Chris. They didn't get to sleep until 3:45 this morning and as a result missed morning practice. Last minute tweeking also cost him the first qualifing session although he did get out for the last lap and a half. He was in good spirits at lunch time and has accomplished a huge amount of work in a very short time. I only hope he and his crewman get some sleep tonight. Yes, the RAT motor sounds very strong.

I hope the second qualifing session goes better for him.

Go Chris!

They need to get some sleep before they kill themselves.

1. Crew before 1st saturday practice

2. RAT motor with Chris's corvair based cooling- it sounded awsome.

3. SHEE-II-___
back in two laps- whats wrong?

The lack of sleep did play into todays events..

The engine suffered a mishap in the qualifying session from what appears to have been either a carb leanout condition or a blown spark plug gasket!

To make a long story short Chris came into the pits and the engine was making a sound like a spark plug had blown out... We checked the valves and etc and all was well and the plugs were tight... Upon closer inspection when I removed a plug I found 1/2 of it melted away like a torch had hit it!

Chris was operating on hardly any sleep, New engine (with MUCH more power than he had ever had before) on an unfamiliar track and could not concentrate well do to all these things.

The high CR that the engine has worked its way right up the spark plug and torched a nice trench right next to the plug...... Almost like the plug gasket failed and caused a small leak that got bigger and then caused the failure.... Len has quite a bit of work ahead of him to repair it.

Oh well atleast he can still race tomorrow with the old engine while we start repairing this one for the next races.

As for making power...
My dyno is very accurate. It is so accuarte that at the SE Dyno Day EVERY car there made nearly exactly 18% less at the rear wheels than I did on my dyno for peak numbers and the curves were also very close.... By the same token I have had an engine dynoed in Socal that made 176HP and after optimizing here if was only able to make 165.... I also had one of mine dyno here at 152 at the flywheel and then at 159 at the rear wheels in Central California..

I know from dynoing hundreds of engines on my dyno what "is" and "is not" a bad ass engine... Considering the fact that this engine is not even designed to make over 180 HP I'd say its insane. Our goal for the regular season engine was 175! We didn't get as much CR as we will with the runoffs engine and it will also get a cam change and another set of heads and I'm sure it'll make well into the 190s. The dyno may not be everything, but it also does not lie in tuning the engine- I typically don't care about power I want to achieve optimal tuning under dyno conditions and then the driver can use my assistance in their climate- Engines change with the weather and if you can't tune to compensate you are leaving a huge chunk of your power at the dyno cell. The weather data from a dyno session is just as important as the raw numbers and corrections to replicate that tuning in the car..

No matter what the dyno tells us the fact is that Chris has THREE N.E. Division Championships under his belt with engines less than 150 HP. The absolute raw numbers from this engine are higher than that at 6,000 RPM and I'm at 1320 feet! If he can use the power we put behind him I know we have a serious competitor on our hands in FP.

How Chris will cope with the higher power is yet to be seen. It will take some getting used to and will probably necessitate some gear ratio changes to optimize.

I am not disappointed at all with the engine or power at all. We had a weak link and that was either a carb or the sparkplug and we'll have to work around it and learn from it.... I'll probably stay at the shop tomorrow and work on the head issue and not go back to the track, especially if the weather is bad like the forecast looks....

It was nice to meet the other 914 club guys!

Len holds the evil spark plug...
see that channel that has been scoured out by the exhaust? The head didn't like it either.

Jake theorized that sumthing was unhappy in the carb barrel for that cylinder- lean= hot= hole.

They called it a learning experience.

Chris is a contender! Last I heard he said he would put the other engine back in and take to the track anyway!

But weather is going downhill, so I dunno....

I say

for all of you! Way to go! Now get some sleep and absorb those hard earned lessons. Better luck is sure to follow!!

Yep... That was the first sign of an issue..

That same carb barrel gave me some greif on the dyno last night, but it cleared up before I ever put a huge pull on the engine....

We will probably never know exactly what happened...

As my friends would say UNNNNLUCKY. Still 186 is very good numbers.

Kevin,

As for the Venturi chnage to 38 mm with 46 mm carbs, yes it should be a contender, thats what I was hoping for. This motor makes 194 on the dyno I use. But that number was with the 34 mm venturis, and 40 mm carbs. I "borrowed" a set of 46 with 36 Venturis and thye were'nt even jettted close, and the owner woul'nt let me mess with them. But I would hope to hit 200 with this set up. At 1950 I need to make 210 to be even with the Miatas. The Hewland will be an advantage. I hope this will make a major advantage as far as shift speed goes. But we'll see.

Erik Madsen

Jake, I'm heading out in the morning for Moroso, keep your cel on please...

Shouldn't something have shown up on the EGT/CHT's or was Chris just too busy with the new track and all?

Chris had just looked at the EGT right before it happened..He saw it just over 1300 which would not have caused the issue...

His CHT isn't monitored on that cylinder (that will be changing)

If the carb did lean out with this kind of CR and the RPM he was turning no gauge in the world could respond quick enough and no driver could either..

There is also a possibility that when pulling the engine off the dyno Chris may not have tightened the plugs well enough while he was fighting the clock to get this baby installed. That would explain the entire situation. Chris was working with unfamiliar tools in an unfamiliar shop with unfamiliar people so if he did forget it it would be totally justified....

BUT like I said that carb was also a tad goofy in tuning runs, so its hard to say which happened first.... The loose plug makes the most sense because the gauges showed no problems because there wasn't any until the combustion melted through the plug/head and maybe even a Nickie....

The Nickie can be fixed and replated with no sweat though...... Len is the one I feel sorry for, he had DAYS of work in those heads.. He can also repair them but that will take more days of work....

Those heads were perfect, literally.

Len, Chris and myself are drastically different people. We are the best at what each of us does and this was a practice run for a team that needs to work as smoothly as an oil pump.... We all have the same goal but must work on the best way of attaining it. Len and I work together all the time and are an hour from each other, but Chris is a long ways from here..... Like I said, we have to refine a few things, get a schedule, kill the haste and kick ass.

Well for what it is worth a problem was going to happen no matter what.
Rule NUMBER 1...... NEVER put a motor together at the last minute under sleep deprivation conditions.

then there is the 7 "P"s Prior Proper Planning Prevent Piss Poor Performance.

I NEVER had a successful Gun shoot if me and my guys were fighting the clock to get the gun repaired before a call for fire.

We always did better with when all the maintenance was done, the testing was done twice, and me being a big Prick making sure it was perfect and running the living shit out of the system two days prior.

Beer and sleep were required prior, in order attain more beer and cigars with lots of empty powder cans smoking on the deck after.

First of all let me say that there was nothing wrong with this engine. We were totally thorough with our procedures and didn't let any schedule pressures dictate our decisions. All through this we have had options. When one plan didn't come together we switched to the next.
Jake and Len's work is absolutely top notch and I have the utmost respect for their commitment to my program.
After dynoing the engine we made the decision this engine was ready to race and it definitely was.
Sure Pete and I stayed up late to finish the install, but we work incredibly well together when it matters.
What bit us was something that none of us considered ahead of time. The car had old race gas in it that was supposed to have been burned the day before in the old engine where it wouldn't have created any issues.
The gas had lost some octane and the engine ran a little lean from the elevation change. If I had the same CHT setup as Jake prefers I might have noticed the heat near the plug and stopped the engine before the detonation burned through the head at the thinnest spot, right next to the spark plug.
We have to regroup now, but this experience will make us stronger for the rest of the season, rest assured.

Chris,

Bad luck, better luck next time, Summit National???

Erik

Bummer ...Maybe more reliability and less power is the way to go? Youre expecting alot from a type 4 once you get over 175 HP. As you learned it didnt take much to fry it. But I'm still holding hope out for ya all.

"Remember, sleep is a weapon" Jason Bourne

Sounds like human error of somekind but live and learn...

Good work all around guys!

Geoff

Chris, Jake, Pete, and Len,

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. I got Scott's message late tonight when I got in from the shop. I left messages on both of your cells, my offer still stands so if you need help call me and I will head that way. I think I am going to stay at the shop and do some more work on my car since the weather is headed down hill and seems as though you guys got it under control. Good luck at Summit.

To bad I didn't get to meet you guys.

Thanks for the support guys, and special thanks to John, Scott and Greg for stopping by.
I'm well on the way to having the old engine back in, while Pete gets his beauty sleep.
I won't be as fast but in the rain I'll do just fine.
As far as going with less power for more reliability, I already have one of those. We're trying to make our way to the front of the pack and the new engine will put us pretty close. I just have to control more parameters more tightly, and learn to trust my experts. As the three of us (Chris, Jake, Len) get more comfortable with working to each others' strengths I am confident the Tangerine Racing team with Aircooled Technology and Hoffman Automotive Machine support will make big waves in F Production. Len's heads are a thing to behold, Jake's engine building and dyno expertise is truly impressive, and the new Tangerine Evo Header was a key factor in surpassing our 175 hp goal. (We actually hit that on the first pull to 7000 rpm on the dyno.)
I was near tears for a while this afternoon, as I am sure both Len and Jake were too. In fact Jake had it out (verbally) with a smart aleck neighbor in the paddock.
Unfortunately Len is the one who will have to do the hardest work as the heads took the big hit this time.
If racing was easy though, we wouldn't bother doing it.
Now it's back to work...

I am saddened by this news! I just want everything to work out for my buddies.. You guys put alot of prep work into racing, I mean, hey, it's why you do-what you do.

The best team wins, but they rarely win the first time out.. sorry man..


M

QUOTE (Jake Raby @ Mar 26 2005, 08:08 PM)

-good stuff-

WTG Jake, your enthusiasm alone could take Chris to a championship, in any class.

It's all about the team, you guys have it..


M

Jake and Chris,
I've met both of you guys seperately and I'm really looking forward to seeing you two do well. The knowledge you two bring to the track has to produce a winner. You'll have a lot of support from the members here and we all will be following the progress.

I ONLY WISH I WAS THERE!

Paul

I, with many others, am following this thread with a lot of interest. Encouragement is about all I can offer, and a hope that you guys can overcome the problems. You're living the adventure that most of us, for various reasons, can only dream about.

Keep us up on the thread, as you have been doing. Hopefully, there will be more video to view in Bolton sometime ahead.

Good luck.

The weather is looking a tad better here at the house, so Beth and I are going to head down to catch the race after all.

After Chris told me about the fuel situation it made me feel a bit better knowing that there wasn't anything "wrong" with our engine.... With that kind of CR and power, bad fuel is absolutely dreadful...

It doesn't break my spirits at all. It doesn't make me happy either and actually it is pretty embarassing, but every hurdle makes us stronger...

This program will get even better and we'll make more reliable power... Now that I have seen the power potential that this regular season has we may take a bit of the CR away (not such tight deck) to still make our 175 HP.... and do so for the rest of the season. With such high CR if it ever leans out or has 1/2 of a chance to torch something it will... This engine was one of the few beats that I have built that made MORE power than I anticipated on the first try so we can detune, still make the power and do so more reliably to last the whole season.

The runoffs beast will have even more CR than this engine had and even a nastier cam- It only has to live 2 hours.....

Hi gang,

Hope you did well Sunday

You folks did it with much more class than I did. I flamed a head some years ago on a dyno. (Makes for some neet flame & sparks!) My cause was simpler. Old heads cut too close to the plugs with cracks and helicoils.

(I have Blake's chassis and (later) his motor) On the first outing with his motor back in the car, I apparently fouled up the oiling and expired the bearings in 3 laps-- but what a great 3 laps!)

Hopefully we will have it all together again for NHIS THANKS TO HELP from Jake, Chris, & ALL the rest.

Good luck at summit Pt

Ed Givler 08 FP 914-4

Chris finished the race but hit the track in the back of the pack with no practice time with a new shifter to boot...

He did pretty well in the rain the last few laps of the race.

We tore down the new engine and found the issue. It was definately the fuel that caused the problems and Len is already repairing the heads. It melted one of the Nickies, but thats repairable with a Tig and some machining time and some re-plating...

This engine had MUCHO potential. Chris is going to have to update the way he does some things with the car and it's set up for our work to be effective.

If your race gas is over a month old. Don't run it! (I had no idea the fuel was 7 months old)

We decided not to detune the engine, we are going to make Chris adapt himself and the car to our environment- Else we are not benefitting from the vehicle being at the track at all.

Its all about pushing the limits. You can't push the limits when you detune to make the engine match the environment.

The runoffs engine will be even more scary than this one so Chris has to get used to working with a volatile beast.

QUOTE (Racer Chris @ Mar 26 2005, 07:56 PM)

We have to regroup now, but this experience will make us stronger for the rest of the season, rest assured.

Just read this board for the first time since Friday.

That sucks, but I always have been told that you can't grow better without adversity. I'm sure you guys can resolve any problems.

Its great to hear that Chris ran well for the first laps in the rain today without much experience on this track.

Yes I agree.. This engine is unlike anything Chris has had at his disposal yet and it takes getting used to.

You know, I have seen and heard the old engine in person, and thought it was really cool, but this beast definately beats it Jake I can't wait to see it in person.

Beats it by more than 40 HP!

I'm just amazed. Thats alot of power from a 1.8 (a huge amount more than mine will ever have).

Its all in the combo!

And thats with STOCK size valves and tiny 40mm carbs...

Len and I are now confident that with Chris switching to my DTM that we can get 200 HP from this engine combination within a year. I only did 4 dyno runs with it, give me another day on the dyno and I probably could have gotten another 6-8 HP from tuning alone.

Kevin Groot is the one that will have a bad ass power plant. He is running direct fire and a lot of other tricks and has a 2.0 to play with. I know we can get more than 210 from it now- More than confident!

Chris, you gonna be at Summit this weekend...if so, I'll see ya there.