580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

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580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by 1bolt »

This is something John Young sent me that he saved off the Yahoo email list, some familiar names in it, I'm surprised I've never seen it dug up before but its very directly related to some discussions that have been ongoing about making more power at higher RPM's. Its a digest post which I've abridged just enough to cut out the unrelated stuff but left enough to make out who's replying to who

Subj: Fw: [strokers] Digest Number 472
Date: 8/7/01 11:31:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: 6 Aug 2001 08:39:56 -0000
Subject: [strokers] Digest Number 472
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

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There are 15 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Re: 4.0 bore
From: "Dino Savva"
2. Re: Torque numbers
From: "Dino Savva"
3. Parts Soure - low price dealer on internet!
From: Frank Swygert
4. AW4 in Maximas
From: Frank Swygert
5. Re: Cracked Manafold... looking for header
From: Frank Swygert
6. Re: Cracked Manafold... looking for header
From: Gene Mowat
7. Mopar 4.0 computer?
From: [email protected]
8. Re: Mopar 4.0 computer?
From: "Robert Salemi"
9. Re: 4.0 Plan
From: Patrick Campbell
10. Re: 4.0 Plan
From: "Greg Friedman"
11. Re: 4.0 Plan
From: Patrick Campbell
12. Re: 4.0 Plan
From: "Greg Friedman"
13. Re: Mopar 4.0 computer?
From: [email protected]
14. Re: Re: 3row core radiator
From: "Fernando J. Rico-Cusi"
15. Re: Torque numbers
From: [email protected]


________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 15:48:18 +0300
From: "Dino Savva"
Subject: Re: 4.0 bore

That post was made by [email protected]
The subject and date were as follows:

Subject :
[strokers] My conversation with Garth Hill (long)!

Date :
Mon, 11 Jun 2001 02:49:25 -0000

Hello all,
I took a few hours today and drove out to see Garth Hill and his 4.0
liter modified NHRA dragster. I have to say that the motor is very
wild looking and that Garth is really great to take time out to chat
with me. He has been drag racing seriously for over 30 years and had
the knowledge and parts collection to back it up. I will try to
address everything he told me in sections.
The block: He didn't use any particular year block or have any
preference. However he did say all blocks are sonic tested before
any work is done to them. He recommended no more than a .060"
overbore, any more than that and you'd have to sleeve it. He
indicated sleeving has not worked out well in his experience but did
say there is a sand racer he met who successfully sleeves to over 4"
without problem. He didn't know what made that guy successful but he
didn't recommend it. In addition he runs 258 or mexican main caps
and indicated the stock 4.0 pieces are junk not to be trusted. He
showed me some prototype pieces he made that shaved the cap flat and
then had a piece of billet steel on top ala old Ford race motors (I
think Jack Roush pioneered that). However he never ran those pieces
and has not had a problem with the 258 caps and a standard mopar stud
girdle. He did tell me that the bores being straight isn't that
important to 7000rpm but anything over that bore straightness is
critical. In addition he said line boring the mains can make or
break the motor. If a machinist screws this up say goodnight. For
the block he said he has a "ditch" carved around the bore .005" deep
similar to o-ringing but doesn't use a ring. With that he uses
Felpro prototype "grey" gaskets. They are grey in color and were not
in production when he got them. He showed me the letter the felpro
engineer sent him about them to verify this. He said they may be in
production now and that they are better than the standard felpro
gasket. He said copper head gaskets yielded no benefit and he
started out using them but soon got away from that. Lastly, the
block suffers from heat problems between the cylinders so his coolant
enters via ports where the freeze plugs go. He has an external
coolant rail that branches off into what was the freeze plugs and AN
fittings in the block that bend upward 90 degrees toward the top of
the block. I couldn't really get a good photo of this but he said it
was key to their success and that it has been copied many times over
by other racers.

The Head: Of course what I wanted to know was what casting to use.
He did not give me a casting number but told me to use the '92-'93
heads. He said that they kept using that casting but the tooling
developed problems and the later versions lost horsepower. Basically
get your head from a '92 or '93 motor and you should be cool. He also
said that his heads have extensive welding on them when they open the
ports and even with his modifications they still break and are
fragile. In addition he shaves off the rocker towers and bolts on a
plate and then Jesel rockers to that plate. Although I didn't see
one all ported out he showed me one with the rocker plate. This is
not a head any off us would use. It has huge valve springs, titanium
valves (2.08" and 1.6") and can flow enough air to make power to
8,200rpm! He says after that they start to lose power. He also said
a 2.05" intake valve might actually be the max and that he felt his
2.08" valve was shrouded. He figures each head to cost him $10,000!

Crank: It was beautiful! Fully cross drilled and lightened to the
extreme. I picked it up and it felt like it was at least 10# less
than production. There was a ton of metal taken out of the throws
and from the sides of the bearing journals. The connecting rod
journals were turned down to 2.00" but I think he said some were
turned to sbc large journal size? The snout gets a sleeve and re-
keyed to use a fluidampr from a chevy. When I asked him if he
thought about using a forged or billet crank he said he ran a moldex
billet piece early on and it was damaged on the #4 main journal.
When I asked him if he's ever broken a modified stock crank he
said "no." Furthermore he pointed out that his current motor has
over 140 passes on it without a hitch and that he's never sure if
he's going to run over the crank. As he put it, "it owes me
nothing." This certainly is a resounding vote of confidence for the
4.0 crank. As I said above in the block section he uses the 258 main
caps and he credits this for much of the cranks longevity. The rods
are Bill Miller aluminum units with a 1.05 width and 6" length.
Pistons are custom JE units for a 14:1 compression ratio. Although
he indicated that it may be too much because he feels the flame may
be having trouble getting over the dome.

Intake: Custom aluminum sheet metal piece. He indicated the hardest
part is getting even fuel distribution to the number 3&4 ports
because they are apart where numbers 1&2, and 5&6 are right next to
each other. He runs three holley 2 barrels basically stock on the
intake and has a special hump designed into the inside of the plenum
between the 3&4 ports to help even out the fuel delivery there. The
carbs he's using are 500cfm units. He's tried 350cfm units and they
didn't work out so well but he isn't convinced they wouldn't have
been better if he had spent more time with them at the track. The
intake and exhaust manifolds bolt through a 1/2" plate that extends
the head port length. Another touch he recommended.

Exhaust: A big tubed wild looking header. That's about all I can
say and exactly what I expected. He indicated that it would be much
better if the head was cross flow but it's not and that's very
limiting for both intake and exhaust. He talked about the ford
inlines and how the australian versions had the very desirable cross
flow heads and that the amc inlines would have been better of if they
had something similar.

odds and ends: The oil system is not a dry sump but rather a sheet
metal pan with an external pump. The water pump looks like an RV
bilge pump and sends the coolant through the aforementioned freeze
plug fittings first. The coolant system utilizes a de-gas bottle.
Ignition is handled by an Electromotive system with trigger wheel.
The motor is mounted at a 20 degree angle towards the passenger
side. The timing cover is aluminum sheet metal as is the valve
cover. Timing chain duties are handled by a gear drive. The
dragster has run a best of 8.60. I belive he said the motor makes
about 480hp, although it might have been 580hp, I should have written
that down or gotten the weight of the dragster to figure it out.

The mexican connection: He said he just recently threw away two
mexican motors. This almost made me cry at first but I felt better
after a few questions. He indicated the blocks were junk and checked
out worse than any of the 4.0 blocks for cylinder wall thickness.
The only things he saved were the main caps. He believed the pistons
were pretty much exactly like the stock 4.0 pistons and that the rods
and crank were the same as a 258. Nothing great and wonderful.

Other things: Garth had two of the new Vortec 4200 chevy engines
sitting on engine stands in his garage. I recognized them
immediately. He's not sure what he's going to do with them but he
got them for free from chevy. One says it's 281ci 4.6L. He hasn't
cracked it open to check it out but it may be a development motor for
their of road series which would be very cool. I asked him to keep
me updated as to what he does with them.
Before the 4.0L dragster he was running a buick v6 turbo dragster and
can talk at length about running 33psi on it. Very cool and very
good info for me because I'm also putting together parts for an
inline turbo project along with the stroker.

Sorry I don't have any photos posted yet of this radical motor. He
even took off the valve cover for me. My digital camera took a crap
and I was forced to buy a disposable at the gas station. I need to
finish the roll and get it developed so give me a few days and hope
they turn out okay.
Just to wrap things up I want to say that Garth was one of the nicest
guys I've met in racing. He was more than happy to share his
information and wasn't annoyed by any amateur questions. It was a
very informative and worthwhile visit. There was so much information
I'm sure I'll remember more later. If anyone has any specific issues
I may have forgot let me know, I may have asked and not remember.
Plus I can always give him a call with anything further.
-Jesse
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Very interesting
--
Simon
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by 1bolt »

Other bits and pieces related to this as I can dig them up (Yahoo email groups search is a friggin mess):

Re: 4.0 stroker racer?

--- In strokers@y..., Frank Swygert <farna@w...> wrote:
> What kind of car was Garth h running the Jeep six in? Rail
> dragster? Certainly not a Jeep, though I guess a Cherokee
> funny car or similar would be possible, and get a lot of
> attention!!
>

Garth ran the car in e econo altered class which is a Comp
Eliminator class.It would be bad to the bone to see a Cherokee go
8.60's in the 1/4!!!!I am still debating about taking mine back to
the asphalt before it gets too cold.We sand drag racers say---Sand is
for racing and asphalt is for getting there!!I just got to make sure
that my buddies don't see me,they might not talk to me for a while!I
would love to find a sponsor to pay for an all out ported head for my
car.We did manage to beat a 306 ci PATTERSON built small block that
turns around 9500 r's on the hill drags at Gravel this year.I've
taken all possible roads for HP and I'm saving the most expensive for
last.Do we have any others that race thier strokers on a reg basis on
this site?Just curious.

Re: [strokers] Garth Hill dragster

Just found this....

46 3138 E/ED Garth Hill, Mt Morris MI, Bantam-Jeep 8.779
9.14 -0.361

The 8.779 is the E/T.

Greg



----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Friedman" <gfried@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: [strokers] Garth Hill dragster

--- In strokers@y..., jessek@c... wrote:
> Just to keep you guys updated. After a week of phone tag with Mr.
> Hill I have set up a time to take some photos. He seems very nice
> and said he could spare an hour to talk with me this weekend. He's
> about an hour and a half away so I plan to go up there Sunday. I
> should have a full report monday. I asked him a few things over
the
> phone and he had the following to say:
> The car hits 8800rpm if he makes a mistake usually it goes through
> the traps about 8400-8600.
> The head is a stock casting (not sure of the number) with extensive
> work done to it. The intake is a custom setup with three carbs.
> All blocks are sonic tested and bored no more than .060" over. He
> said they had bad results going any bigger than that. He indicated
> getting a good block was key.
> That was really all for now but if anyone can come up with some
> questions they'd like me to ask I'd be happy to. I plan to pick
his
> brain as much as possible and take lots of photos.
> -Jesse
>
>
>
> --- In strokers@y..., jessek@c... wrote:
> > After reading the post on the 8800rpm 4.0 I dug up a photo of
it.
> I
> > posted it as the Garth Hill Racecar on the files page. Even more
> > interesting is the fact that I found the guys phone number and
it's
> > my area code. I'm going to call him tonight and hopefully go and
> > check out the car. I'll take pictures if I go.
> > -JK
--
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by TurboTom »

Thanks 1bolt.
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by John »

So much for my skepticism. Wow.
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by Comanche91 »

Double Wow! Thanks.
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by Plechtan »

I gave Garth a call last night, He said he has long since been out of drag racing, and sold the car and motors. I did ask if he had pictures of anything, and he said he would look and get back to me. He did say that he had a Cam harmonic problem.

I also asked about HP, he said that they never had it on a Dyno, but they figured it was about 500HP. This seems more reasonable than the 580. 2hp per cubic inch on a NA motor is very good.
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by 1bolt »

Cool I Had wanted to contact him but hadn't found the time. Plus I'm not that great at calling someone up out of the blue. Did he have any details about how he coped with the Cam harmonic? Any chance you can ask him what valve gear he used to get 8,000 RPM's out of a 4.0? I'm sure that question was already on your mind...

If you notice the original interviewer couldn't remember if it was 480 or 580, I just threw the bigger number up there..

480 to 500 is still eye popping, this just kind of supports the things we were talking about in the Engine Masters Challenge thread and the like... There's plenty of power still to be tapped in a 4.0 it just takes the right build techniques, and head porting... Admitedly he's getting that power in an RPM range that most of us wont ever even flirt with, but the point is there's potential there that doesn't take exotica like sleeving for 5.0 displacement or custom billet cranks, or even moderately exotic HESCO heads (mostly exotic due to the price point).

Seems like the guy did it mostly with picky OEM parts selection and build quality.

Nice to know the 258 cores I have laying around all have another set of parts that are usefull... Main caps
--
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by John »

LOL....I am already scrounging for a set of those caps. It's good to live and learn. Most lessons have hurt a lot more...........
John
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by Plechtan »

The only information have on the Valve Gear is what is in the Post, Jessell parts on a plate. The cam harmonic is survivable if you run the gears, ( which are no longer available) That's what Garth did.

I think most people are happy with about 300 hp out of a 4.0 or a 4.7 If you start looking for 350hp or more, you will have to turn higher RPM. HP = torque over time. so if you want more HP, you can't really increase you torque, so you have to increase your RPM. so if you increase your RPM, you will probably need stronger Rods and pistons, roller rockers, bigger valve springs etc. Then of course, you start running into a problem getting enough air and fuel into the cylinder. The cost per HP will go up dramatically if you are looking more than 300 hp. When the Hesco Block becomes available, you will be able to run a 4" bore with a 4" stroke, a about a 300cid motor, even at 5500 rpm you should be able to get 325-350 hp out of it. Big investment though, probably 4k for the Block, 2K for the head, then add in pistons, rods cam , valvetrain, induction, ECU etc. easy to get to 10K.

I think the eaiest way to get more hp would be to stroke it more, if you went to a 2" rod journal, with a 258 crank, you should be able to offset grind the crank and get a 4.2" stroke. You would probably need custom rods, I am not sure if the standard pistons would work,. This would keep the cost down, but the engine would make a ton of torque. If you red lined it at 5400 rpm, you would not need all that fancy valve train stuff.
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by Plechtan »

Main Caps

After reading this thread, I have been kicking around making my own main caps. it will be expensive, but it would be cheaper the more I made. Does any body have an interest in this? if so please PM me.
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by Plechtan »

An note on Valve train improvment

It looks like a good solution to the Roller Rocker setup would be to put the rockers on a common shaft. On a stock head this woul be hard, but on the Hesco head, since it is aluminum, bosses could be welded to the head to support the shaft. The shaft would make the head stiffer, and valve guides would not be required. Now who want to take a $2,000 cylinder head, machine off the rocker towers and start welding on it.
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by 1bolt »

How much HP are you aiming for on your LSR build? Significantly more than 500? It seems the 258 caps and a stock crank did fine for Mr. Hill... I don't know what the existing MJ or AMC I6 normally aspirated records are... are they so high that you can't get it done with gearing, aero and 400hp? If so then I think we need to dredge up the guy who holds that record and find out what he did to his engine. ;)

If you need significantly stronger mains than Hill I'd guess you also need a custom crank.
--
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by Plechtan »

I am looking at 410-425 hp as a goal. You are correct that the 258 caps worked fine for Mr hill, but those caps were from a motor made in mexico. Mexico did their own castings and did change the design on things. They has larger displacement motors to deal with the thin air. So i don't know if a mexican 258 cap is the same as an American 258 cap.

My thoughts are making caps was based on something Garth mentioned in our conversation. He said that when he had his block on the engine stand, and tried to install the cam, he had problems getting it in, he had to pick up on the front of the motor to make it go in smoothly. This would mean that the block was drooping when it was only supported from the rear. If you look at the front of the engine, the most rigid parts are from right to left, and up and down ( the cylinders) The cylinder block walls are very thin in the crankcase and water jacket areas. So the support from front to rear is mostly by the deck and the area art the bottom of the cylinders. The head will add to the rigidity, and maybe the crank. The crank girdle used on the 99+ motors probably helps as well. But by making new caps, they would be stronger, and they could be designed to accommodate a stronger girdle.
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by John »

I am confused again/still" From the first post of the interview. "In addition he runs 258 or mexican main caps
and indicated the stock 4.0 pieces are junk not to be trusted."
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Re: 580hp 4.0 NHRA dragster motor 8000 RPM!

Post by Plechtan »

I guess i was going by this information later on in the story:
The mexican connection: He said he just recently threw away two
mexican motors. This almost made me cry at first but I felt better
after a few questions. He indicated the blocks were junk and checked
out worse than any of the 4.0 blocks for cylinder wall thickness.
The only things he saved were the main caps.
maybe sombody should compare 258 and 4.0 caps and see if their is any difference.
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