6-71 vs 8-71 for BBC?

[quickie70]

cool.gif
love to see blown cars around. With all of the turbo hype, it's cool to have huffers sticking through the hood still! Get with your buddy that runs the dragsters. Best advice I could give is to use his trial and errors to your advantage and set up your stuff so it doesn't break. The points I made before about the cam and stuff is pretty sound advice. Even for high end drag cars, it's easy to overcam, but get a cam with more exhaust duration and lift than the intake. The blower forces air in, and the engine has to work harder to get it all out. Good headers are a plus for this as well. Don't over-tighten the belt or use tons of drive-belts under the blower pulley on the crank or you risk breaking the end off of the crank (expensive). I run an alternator kit from the link below (RCD engineering makes it) to run the alt pulley off of the end of the blower pulley, and not under it. Run a good balancer, it'll keep your bottom end happy. ATI sells an internal and an external balance BBC blower balancer that has the blower drive (chrysler) bolt pattern on the face. It's spendy, but it's worth it for a street motor. There's no such thing as too much ignition with boost. Spend your money on a decent balancer, a good spark box (I like the digital 6 with a good coil for a street car), and a modest roller (I hear that the hydraulic rollers work awesome in the street BBC's). Oh, and get blower retainer straps. Check out http://www.goodvibesracing.com for used ones. If you get in a wreck, it'll keep your blower from going through your windshield and jacking you up (and they look cool as heck). And lastly, get a good gear-reduction starter. There's a lot of stuff moving around and the stock starter will burn up quickly with a blower to spin.

 

[hp3445]

cool.gif
love to see blown cars around. With all of the turbo hype, it's cool to have huffers sticking through the hood still! Get with your buddy that runs the dragsters. Best advice I could give is to use his trial and errors to your advantage and set up your stuff so it doesn't break. The points I made before about the cam and stuff is pretty sound advice. Even for high end drag cars, it's easy to overcam, but get a cam with more exhaust duration and lift than the intake. The blower forces air in, and the engine has to work harder to get it all out. Good headers are a plus for this as well. Don't over-tighten the belt or use tons of drive-belts under the blower pulley on the crank or you risk breaking the end off of the crank (expensive). I run an alternator kit from the link below (RCD engineering makes it) to run the alt pulley off of the end of the blower pulley, and not under it. Run a good balancer, it'll keep your bottom end happy. ATI sells an internal and an external balance BBC blower balancer that has the blower drive (chrysler) bolt pattern on the face. It's spendy, but it's worth it for a street motor. There's no such thing as too much ignition with boost. Spend your money on a decent balancer, a good spark box (I like the digital 6 with a good coil for a street car), and a modest roller (I hear that the hydraulic rollers work awesome in the street BBC's). Oh, and get blower retainer straps. Check out http://www.goodvibesracing.com for used ones. If you get in a wreck, it'll keep your blower from going through your windshield and jacking you up (and they look cool as heck). And lastly, get a good gear-reduction starter. There's a lot of stuff moving around and the stock starter will burn up quickly with a blower to spin.

Thanks for the blower insite it is greatly appreciated!! I like the look of the blower sticking out of the hood also... I checked out the attached site and there are alot cool stuff on there. I am still working on the body and wiring right now. But I have to make basic plans for the blower motor. I figure to ask now and get parts as I go.. this is swap meet season and I'll be checking Englishtown and a few others in the NJ/PA area for some deals.. I want to really make this BBC standout.. I'll keep ya posted on the progress..

 

[quickie70]

the best advice i ever ever ever got was
"Hollywood parts don't turn on the win light"
I run iron LS-6 heads, a filled GM iron block, a steel GM crank and eagle rods with L-19 bolts and an off the shelf howards roller cam and run bumper to bumper with guys that run aftermarket blocks, aluminum GRP rods, heads with 360cc intake ports and huge "secret" cams.

shoot, I have used, mismatched rocker arms. The intake ones are comp stainless 1.7 ratio, and the exhaust are some blue aluminum 1.8 no-names, and a grab bag of pushrods that are the right length. Mine is like a bracket car. I run, turn it off, and sit and wait for the next round, and the guy with "hollywood" stuff is thrashing between rounds. I'm .01 slower than he is, and I ran the same pistons and rods for 4 years. lol. The end of the year, I was leaning on it pretty hard, and ran bumper to bumper with a 526 KB hemi until I blew up the blower. It went 1.09 60' on the rear tires... and the long block was fine (except the pistons that had blower chunks stuck in em)

 

[beastoakland]

the best advice i ever ever ever got was
"Hollywood parts don't turn on the win light"
I run iron LS-6 heads, a filled GM iron block, a steel GM crank and eagle rods with L-19 bolts and an off the shelf howards roller cam and run bumper to bumper with guys that run aftermarket blocks, aluminum GRP rods, heads with 360cc intake ports and huge "secret" cams.

shoot, I have used, mismatched rocker arms. The intake ones are comp stainless 1.7 ratio, and the exhaust are some blue aluminum 1.8 no-names, and a grab bag of pushrods that are the right length. Mine is like a bracket car. I run, turn it off, and sit and wait for the next round, and the guy with "hollywood" stuff is thrashing between rounds. I'm .01 slower than he is, and I ran the same pistons and rods for 4 years. lol. The end of the year, I was leaning on it pretty hard, and ran bumper to bumper with a 526 KB hemi until I blew up the blower. It went 1.09 60' on the rear tires... and the long block was fine (except the pistons that had blower chunks stuck in em)

i enjoy people like you who will take some knowledge and put it out there for a person like me who is still learning. Thank you again

 

[quickie70]

sure thing man. I've learned everything I know from other people spending all of their money. I watch them scatter their junk on the track, I ask what they did wrong, and I don't do that anymore. If you are just learning, pay the $20 for the entry into the track, and cuddle up to the car you most want yours to be like. Some guys will brush you off if they are arrogant (or really busy), but most will talk to you. They are proud of their stuff, and are willing to give advice. I've learned much of what I know from a local pro-mod team. It's way more wicked than mine will ever be, but I can take what they do, and ratchet it down a couple of notches, and run my stuff.

Heck... offer to help out as a pit helper for a weekend on that car. You'll learn more in that weekend than you'll ever learn reading posts on the internet by "experts", and probably make a few good racing buddies in the process.

 

[DFWMalibu]

I have been told that blower motors like aluminum rods better too..... I have been told that they are more likely to take detonation without breaking...... where steel rods break and take out other parts with them....

Chris K.

 

[quickie70]

aluminum rods provide a bit of relief as a "shock absorber" to the bearings and to the crank, but will not reduce any detonation. However they won't amplify it downward like steel rods can. If you are on the ragged edge of your tune, the aluminum rods will save your bearings, and I've shook mine enough to blacken the center of the bearings with steel rods, but I'm not rich, and over 1250HP/1250TQ you need to check alum. rods every 30 runs, and replace about every 60, and that gets even more often as the power goes up. I've run the same set of Eagle rods for the 5th year now, probably about 300 runs on em, and never had an issue. I check them every winter (50-75 runs), and just throw them back in. I'm tearing the engine apart in a couple weeks, and fully plan on jamming them right back in with new H bearings. Better in my opinion to run a little fatter tune, or a little less boost to not have to spend $800 on rods every 3-4 months.
And we're talking a street BBC with a small(ish) blower. Running alum rods in that kind of engine would be as good as flushing a g down the toilet. If you want to do that, write me a check, and I'll put it to better use. Street motor, 6K redline, and 8-10 lbs boost... run a 2 bolt block with your favorite steel H beam and a factory crank (heck, I'd run a cast crank with stock ls6 7/16 bolt rods on that setup, and never think twice about it).
On that note, spend your money on a company that'll sell you 1 rod, or 1 piston, or one rocker arm too. If you mess 1 up, and have to buy 8 (or 16!) more, you'll be upset.
Oh, and don't let anyone tell you that an aluminum rod won't saw a motor in half as fast as a steel rod. I've watched a billet GRP rod saw through a dart block at 7,000 RPM at the starting line a few weeks back. It's not quite as efficient at destroying stuff in the motor, but a flinging piece of metal is a flinging piece of metal. It'll break your block, your oil pan, your cam, and your cylinder bores very very easily.

 

[El camino 25.2]

Hay quickie 70 Do you run steel rods or alum ? I have a 10.71 aly in will do a 540 572 ci one day sounds like you car runs great I am doing the chasie now

 

[DFWMalibu]

I never said an aluminum rod would prevent detonation but would better resist the detonation like you said......

Chris K.

 

[quickie70]

With the stroke of the 540/572 you should run the alum rods. If you do detonate, you'll bend your crank with that much stroke. check out www.insidetopalcohol.com keep in mind these guys are big $$$$ guys running top alcohol dragsters and funnycars, but they consistently DEstroke BBC's for Blown/Alky. For instance, take a 454 and make a 427 out of it. The common idea is that, with a good blower, and a good tune, you can more than make up for the extra cubes, and keep it alive.

I run off the shelf steel eagle's with L-19 bolts. Never had an issue. I had a set of Ohio Crank H beams, and burned a piston, and heated the top of one of the rods, but never broke one.

Car is a 25.5 backhalf car (not chassis, full frame, full steel body, cept the hood 70 firebird), and ran 8.08 this year @ bandimere (5800' above sea level).

This is about 2 years ago, I can't actually find any newer pictures... my friends have them all. I'll get some from this year's events from them and post em.