FlatCad Racing's Quest for 200 MPH-a Cadillac Flathead Story!

Tim, Dale is our humble team member!

Um, Dale? Did you forget that at Bonneville, we had the same issue on the passenger side, although to a lesser degree, and we found it when we tore down for engine verification??!!

Mark, that IS something I'm going to chat with Don about when I get to Cali!

 

I hope these problems with the heads are not due to the amateur marine shop that tried to help whittle them up for you.

 

Haha! Damn that's funny!

No, Kevin, you're work is first class! You know how appeciative we are, and how great they turned out!

I think it's a combination of things, and we just haven't got the procedure perfected yet. I think the blasted copper gaskets are an issue, as they never seal water good. Cosmetic will make me gaskets, but only up to .059' thick-not the .072" we need.

Add over 16 psi boost, heating and cooling several times, blah, blah, blah!

We torque the heads, get them hot, cool them off, and re-torque. It takes several times before we like the torque readings. I don't think having head bolts with 2 different torque settings help, but we don't have much choice.

We'll make it work-it's just a pain in the rear!

 

http://jalopnik.com/5952568/explore-the-secret-underside-of-a-modern-formula-one-car this has a lot of good air management ideas for the underside of the car. You can get a better, closer look at the same thing in the Nov 2012 Road & Track magazine, pages 106 & 107

 

Well Buddy looks like you guys will have to run that thing like a fuel car, tearing it down between rounds, er Runs but after a few dozen times it gets easy, but don't let it get too easy, thats when dumb mistakes happen, Nothing worse than kicking the rods out of a motor because of a stupid mistake, Believe me I know Tim Jones

 

Buddy
What about tossing the heads back on to the mill and recuting another .023 deeper so you can use the Cosmetic gasket.

 

Wouldn't that result in requiring an even thicker gasket?

 

I think he means cut the chambers deeper not mill the gasket surface.

 

Yep

 

Didn't even think of that. I'm such an idiot.......

 

What Shape Is the Patient In

Okay, this won't be my normal babble with 10 pictures - you're probably all breathing a big sigh of relief. I'm in an airport bar - heading to Colorado for a short hunting trip.

Amy, Buddy and I tore the FlatCad apart on Wednesday evening - or maybe Thurs morning. Given that this whole engine is an experiment, we were all wondering what shape the lower end was in?

Cam: When we pulled the valley covers off we immediately noticed that a bunch of the lifters had backed off. Hmmmmm - looks like the cheap repop lifters had crap adjusters, 5 of them had backed off until the lifter adjuster bottomed out. Essentially, they dejusted to about .250 open. That is 1/2 what they should be. So the FlatCad ran like a beast with 5 out of 8 cylinders only having .250 valve lift - with no duration. I can't wait until we really can run with 100% cylinder filling - will be a HUGE beast.

Bearings: We were really curious about the lower end - with only 3 mains and big horsepower, what would they tell us? Well, they were all in fantastic shape. Even the center main was not stressed and didn't show signs of 'side wear' - which is a sign off a lot of crankshaft flex. The front had just a bit of side wear - due to the pressure of the blower belt, but really a small amount.

All I all, we are extremely happy how the engine has held up - better than can be expected.

Now, we're going to work some more design magic on the lower end - in hopes of making it even stronger. We want it to be able to handle 700+ HP - so Don and I have some more girdle tricks up ou sleeves. Is it necessary? We have no clue, but we're going to do everything that modern design can do to shore up the lower end.

This engine can definitely make some very big power - even on gas, so hopefully we can make it live.

I'll post pictures next week - will be busy carrying a 'fire stick' around the Colorado mountains for a few days.

Stay tuned gang!

Thanks to Amy and Buddy - tearing the FlatCad apart at 4:30in the morning was actually a bit of fun!

B&S

 

sunds great Dale, thats what time and thought will do Great job!!

 

Interesting story about the lifters. Didn't damage the cam with that much slack? Ran amazingly well for that kind of lift but you were "stuffing" the A/F in weren't you.

 

that's right......limit the flow at the engine and the boost will go up to compensate. It's a positive displacement blower so one way of the other the air is going in

That measn the hp probably didn't drop all that much, it also means you've proven more boost is ok

 

Yea, with all the boost-17psi, I don't think we dropped much HP, and you're Right Mark, we got a new pressure check on the engine!

Tim, we got lucky, and barely scarred 2 lobes, but nothing that can't be polished out.

The Dodge/Chrysler lifters are good ones, but these are Turkish repops. If I was going to do it again, I'd use the original ones, with jam nuts.

So, now I'm headed to California, to see Rich Fox, Pops29 for the girdle, Dema for the cam, and Barry and Craig for the flow work. My goal is to pick up 30-50HP at the same 14.2psi we had this year.

 

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The FlatCad had gone international! Lol![/FONT]

The first magazine was sent from Norway, by my buddy Kjell- Thanks Kjell!

The second was sent from OZ, by my buddy Wayne-Thanks Wayne!

Look Tim- you're pickup made it too!

 

Congrats on the ink Buddy!

 

Cool Buddy on the mag time, but just think what will happen when all the valves open and close correctly........Watch out here comes Flat Cad!!!!!

 

Hi B&S.Best of luck in all of your efforts.Lovin`this thread.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Another Y-Bloke from Aussie land emailed me thet my truck was in Cruzin' mag so we may be on the same pages again.

Not to hijack but I'd like to add that I just got back from Elmo and while looking for a 140 run in the mile of dirt I came back with a 141.707. Just about the same as I did at Bonneville. Not bad eh. New carb I got from Trent and an X pipe. To many people "poo pooed" the idea of an X pipe saying it was for low to mid range, well that helps you get to the high range quicker, right? Felt real strong.

 

Tim, That's awesome-congrats! Sorry I missed you while I was out there!


I've just returned from 5 days In California, on a quest for more HP in the flathead- wow, did I ever get my arse kicked! More on that later!

Tuesday morning, I met Rex Schimmer for breakfast, then we headed over to Dema Elgin's, and spoke with him about a cam. Rex, thanks for taking the time to meet with me-it was good to see you again!

From Dema's I headed down to Rich Fox's, to pick up a tranny he loaned me. Always good to see you Rich!

Then, on to Don's (Pops29) place, where I picked up the test chambers he cut, so that I could modify them, instead of our real heads. Don's always on top of this stuff!

Tuesday night I was in Arroyo Grande, having supper with Garry Odbert. Garry was an immense help on everything- he even had his test block there, so we could compare the porting to his. Garry runs the Retarded Spark Special, a record setting Caddy flathead powered roadster. Thanks Garry!

Wednesday morning, Garry and I headed over to Race Engine systems, in Santa Maria, owned by Craig Gerfen. Craig was Alan Johnson's top fuel port and flow guy for 8 years, and had also ported Garry's Caddy flathead.

Here is where the arse kicking started! I'm not going to post every number, test, and dye test we did, but I'll tell you what we found out. Plain and simply put, the ports are too LARGE, therefore velocity suffers, and they don't flow as well as they could. Across the board, we're down about 20 CFM from Garry's. We flowed my engine, then Garry's, back to mine, etc', so the data was current and reliable.

After, trying everything to increase flow- different valve angles, different valves, different chamber designs, blending the valve guides, etc., to no avail, we tried a different approach. We added material around the short side radius. BAM- an instant 10 CFM gain! We played with this for a while, and determined we need to add material back to the ports, then do another port job. We also played with the relieved block, but that only reinforced my previous belief, and that belief is that it is a waste of time.

So, I called Frank Morris with the Salt Cat guys, to find out what epoxy they had used on the Buick engine. Frank and Doug are great guys! Frank gave me the info I needed, sold me a set of 29" tires, so it was a win/win conversation for me! Thank's Frank!

So, it can't get any worse, right? Wrong! We flowed the exhaust, and they sure do flow- too damn much! The exhaust out flow the intakes, and that is not good! That correction will come with the cam choice- my guess is we'll end up with a dual pattern cam.

We did a couple of dye testS, to see what was going on in the chambers. With our current setup, the A/F mixture swirls around in the chamber, running back into itself- basically creates a traffic jam in the chamber. We took the angled ramp out, and straightened that transfer area out. On my engine, we see a small inrease on flow, but a lot better flow pattern out of the dye.

At the end of the day, the stock block, ported, with a stock 106 CC Caddy head, flows better than the FlatCad head and either of the 2 mods I made, better than Edmunds, and better than Cyclone! The stock head has several complex contours and ramps in it, and flows well- it appears the Caddy engineers really knew their stuff!

So, to gain the CFM I went to California for, we need to add material to the ports, re-port the block, and change our chamber design. Here are numbers from the #8 cylinder, which is the best flowing cylinder on Garry's car- he flows 200 CFM on the intake side. Our best cylinder was # 3

................#8 intake ........#3 intake .........#8 exhaust

.100 lift .........69 .................64 ....................73
.200 .............121 ...............118 ...................120
.300 .............154 ...............157 ...................145
.400 .............175 ...............173 ...................165
.500 .............173 ...............180 ...................174
.525 .............173 ...............179 ...................176


Here is what is typicle of our worst ports, intake only

...................#5 intake ..........#5 intake modified with clay


.100 lift ............63 ......................60
.200 ................114 ....................110
.300 ................150 ....................151
.400 ................162 ....................169
.500 ................163 ....................174
.525 ................163 ....................174


At this point, I had the knowledge I had came for, and I loaded up and headed back to Don's place to spend the night. After a nice dinner, Don and I retired to the garage, to smoke, joke, and bench race. Don, as usual, it was great seeing you and Dar- many thanks!

Friday I headed for the house, but stopped in Salt Lake City to visit Kenny Kloth, as I had some specific questions for him about roller lifters and his chamber design. Kenny is a great guy, and a wealth of knowledge, He was very helpful, and informative. I stayed a couple of hours, but easily could have stayed several days, had time permitted.

So, the HP quest continues!

 

so the quest continues eh, can't wait till the next version hits the salt!!!!!

 

Well guys and gals looks like im going to be posting a bit here and there as aero progress is made. I had a shop full of great minds yesterday helping me with the aero design and thought process wzjunk (john kimbrough) hooley (Lloyd huffman) doug lee and colorado bill all of which have been to bonneville and been involved with record setting cars. As we make progress on this please dont hesitate to offer advice or constructive criticism as the flatcad crew welcomes any thoughts on design and or fabrication ideas. The crew helping with the aero design are not professional designers but have experience with what works and so far as hooley says "they've never steered me wrong" and i have to agree. Buddy will be posting some pics in the near future of progress as it happens. So stay tuned to the flatcad channel as our quest for 200 continues

 

Randy, you had some pretty heavy hitters there! For those that don't remember, WZJunk did our fiberglass 'lights', and our nose cone 'grill', Doug Lee did the dry sump oil pan, and Hooley loaned us the tires for our runs at the Ohio Mile!

Those of you that know me, know that I'm pretty stubborn when I get something in my mind.

I keep thinking about our flow, and I truly believe we are leaving some available HP on 'the table'. I inquired about having the exopying and porting done, but it is cost prohibitive.

So, I've decided the only way to be successful at this venture is to get a flow bench. As time allows, I'm going to find and purchase a flow bench, and epoxy and port this beast, to get the most out of her!

Yea, it's a her- a guy could never sound that angry! Lol!

 

Don't worry about the flow, just raise the boost and tip the can.

 

Hi Buddy , Years ago I worked for a guy in St Louis named Jim Nelson , Jim made is own flow bench I don't know if Jim is alive still , but it was a pretty simple design his was a wooded box epoxyed in the inside ,If I remember right the hardest piece to find was the flow meter, i would think an industrial supply house would have something that would work, and with the guys you have helping on the car it should be no problem to build Tim Jones

 

I wondered if you knew somebody smart, if you could use a Mass airflow meter from a late model EFI to measure flow. You might not be able to compare your results to anybody else. But you could look at before and after on yours. Or maybe not.

 

It looks like for about a grand, one could purchase the starter electronics kit
http://www.flowperformance.com/system.html

Way cool Buddy!

 

following closely ! such an impressive build.

 

Ok, so now we have a flow bench headed our way! Thanks Sparky! It's always great, and informative, to talk with you!

Here is the final list of changes and mods we are going to do before El Mirage in May.

Test, epoxy, and port block for maximum flow
whittle new chamber design on heads
design, fab, and install new coated and wrapped headers
design roller lifters and blocks, install roller cam
design and install one piece main girdle assembly
install water injection-dyno test for gains
new gears/tranny installed
dry sump tranny and rear differential
narrower front axle for comp coupe class
hidden door hinges
removable drip rails
hood scoop for comp coupe class
new, more aero friendly front body panels for comp coupe class
wind tunnel time to 'tweak' and test aero design
dyno time- 650 HP goal!

It's going to be a busy off season, to say the least!

We we're discussing the roller lifters, and trying to decide on a suitable solution to keep the lifters aligned. We were leaning toward double keyed lifters, but then Don came up with a brilliant idea- oval shaped lifters!

So, this engine will have custom made lifters and lifter blocks, with oval shaped lifters and block bores!