The move to Top Dragster is almost complete!

4/8/04

he upgrades we had to make to "Project 4-Link" are just about complete. The engine is done and has returned from the dyno. The Jim Pulliam chassis has received the helmet bars as needed to re-certify, the transmission has been rebuilt and received some stronger parts, and the tire and wheel package has been changed to handle the additional power. The throttle stop has been removed for the first time in three seasons and to not worry about hitting the 8.90 index every run will be a nice change. Back to running it flat-out and dial it to run that way.

The entire process has been pretty smooth and I have a lot of people to thank for their help and efforts to put our "Project 4-Link" into Top Dragster. I couldn't have done it without their assistance, advice and terrific components. This month I am going to cover the decisions surrounding the engine and the assembly of the engine by Jay Roeder at Roeder Performance Machine. I am also going to cover the details to watch for and to check during assembly and finally the actual dyno test of the 572" Mopar at Stealy Machine in East Moline, IL. Time for all the time and efforts to either show their stuff or...

We arrived at Jeff Stealy's shop in East Moline, Ill. for the dyno session. We found the shop very organized and full of the best equipment available. Seeing a couple of dozen race engines "in the works" is always reassuring to me that the shop is "race ready".

We hauled the engine over to Jeff Stealy's dyno on a Friday morning and it was hooked up and ready to go in about an hour. It is always interesting hooking up my belt drive to someone else's dyno. Aeroquip would be proud of the trick work we did with some hoses, adapters, reducers and wire ties. We started the test session with the single alcohol King Demon we ran the last two seasons in Super Comp. This will let us see the gains in just the engine package. It was on there for a warm-up and two pulls. Last year that intake and carb made a peak rating of 817 HP and 710 ft./lbs. of torque. The best pull with the 32 additional cubic inches, about 1/2 a point higher compression and a different camshaft netted a best pull of 835 HP and torque increased to best of 754 ft./lbs @ 5500 rpm. A pretty substantial gain for having the exact same cylinder heads on it with no changes but new Ferrea valves.

Finding Top Dead Center is the first step in any camshaft installation as you have to start at the right point to get it degreed in correctly. Jay uses this "positive stop" method to be sure he is at TDC.

Then we took about an hour off to remove the alcohol King Demon and install the new Indy tunnel ram and the matching King Demon TR 1090s. After some interesting "design work" to get the tunnel ram linkage setup, we made a pull with timing set as it was with the alcohol (28 degrees). The results were outstanding and surprising to everyone peeking through the dyno room window. The first pull was 899.9 HP and just over 790 ft./lbs. of torque! I never dreamed it might actually go over 900 HP. We made a back-up run to make sure it was the same and it was. Then we made a couple of small timing changes.