Looked online and can't seem to find much info. Kinda want to know what cam specs were, compression, horsepower, etc. Seems like the hemi was the engine of choice with a few sohc fords here and there. Was there any other engine makes that were successfully campaigned?
Couldn't tell you specs but Kenny Safford's Olds did its share of winning. And the Accessories Ltd injected flyweight Chevy ran strong.
I wonder if you could build an engine and run it on e85. Seems like the hemi motors aren't hard to come by. I think it would be cool to run the old mechanical injection and all on a street car. Just don't know if its possible or even practical.
I would love to hear of a basic nitro burning spec sheet for a 392 hemi Riceman on here could probably share that. I will see if he will chime in for us to learn a little. I run my setup on 114 octane gas and its in the mid 7's
"Aren't hard to come by" Where do you live?? The main reason the Hemi style is prefered is that it is very tear-down freindly. You can strip a Hemi down to the shortblock in the time it takes me just to get to the head studs of my Chevy.
Well there are some flaws in your theory. AA/FDs are not street cars to start with, they really don't do corners well. An engine built to AA/FD specs is not going to hold up well as it is a grenade motor and it is just waiting to go off. Mechanical injection is a bitch to run on the street, it can be done and has been done successfully by several over the years, but the learning curve is huge. Even if you could find E85 which is getting more and more unlikely given the drought and the lack of govt subsidies, but even if you could an AA/FD engine is made to run on notro methane, E85 will not come close to the fuel requirements of it. Now if you want to build a blown hemi and run it on the street that is more than doable. If you pockets are that deep drop me a PM and I will help you locate an old whale and build it for you.
Let me clarify, I know you can't drive a aa/fd car on the street. I am wanting to know more about the engines themselves. I have read that the cam profiles and such were awful by todays standards. The e85 thought was due to turbo guys using it and making big power. The thought of building an engine that will work on the street and still give you that sound is what I am after. Both my cars have fairly large hydraulic roller cams but they don't have the lope of an aa/fd engine. When I get bored I watch cacklefest videos just to get my fix. Can you share alittle info on blower size used and how over/under driven they were? Heck, I win't to clear on the under and over driven side of a blower.
You will never get the "cackle" with out the nitro, you can get one to sound cool as hell just not cackle.
I noticed on some of the cacklefest vids they seem fairly docile apon start up. Then they mess with something and they get really radical.
Hello, first off very few of those cackle cars would even make through the 1/8th because they are detuned when they build them and have real light tune ups just to make noise and smell and lots of the recreation cars have WAY less caster built into the front ends so old guys can steer and push them around. This would be your BASIC 60s fuel motor,but there about million diff. combos that have been run 392 hemi block ,heads dry or wet stock 392 crank,stroked 5/8 or 3/4 swing aluminm rods(Mickey Thompsons usually) pistons 4to1 to 6.5 to 1 max stock rockers and stands/donovan exhaust rockers or modified rockers high 5s to high 7s for cam lift lots of duration roller weiand/cragar intake 6-71 blowers mostly stock cases some aftermarket Enderle,Hilborn,Scott,ect.... mechanical injection 100% nitro fuel to very 90s% this is very,very basic idea and is very very expensive Good day Chris
Some start on alcohol and then they switch to nitro. Then they start to turn up the fuel until they are too fat to run anyplace but WOT. When the headers get hot the upburnt fuel is ignighting in the headers and that is what makes them cackle. The blowers on a nitro burner is over driven that means that it is turning faster then the engine and making tons of boost, street driven blower motor are normally underdriven to keep the boost down below the 8 psi range and most of what you see will be closer to the 3-5 psi range on an engine that is only making 8:1 static compression to start with. A top fuel engine will not run on the street period, they are lucky to make it 1320 feet. The nitro burns so hot under so much pressure @ WOT that it melts the rings and the pistons, it knocks the rod and main inserts out. They use aluminum rods to try and cushion the blow but if your engine is competative you pack it between rounds. Nitro burners normally have concrete in the block where the water jackets used to be to stabilize the cylinders, they don't have a radiator. Now getting back to E85 ethanol is not methanol. It is made from Corn just like whiskey is. The only reason that you have E85 at all is because the Federal Govt subsidises the ethanol industry IE the farmers that make it. That subsidy is either already gone or soon to be gone. Compound that by the fact that the drought has all but wiped out the grain crop this year, enough that there is not enough grain to feed livestock and you will see less to no ehtanol production. Enough of a little to no ehtanol production that the govt is considering a moritorium on the alcohol requirement in standard fuel (10-15%). If you live where there has been E85 you have actually been lucky there never was any here. You could certainly run a methanol engine on the street but you would have to have an endless supply of methanol, everything will need to be made of steel your fuel lines, your fuel tank, your fuel pump; or everything will need to be hard anodized as methanol is very caustic and eats aluminum, as well as lungs. When I was young we figured that the fuel requirement for an alchy burner to be approx. 3 times that of a gas burner. An alchy burner with mechanical injection will be an eye burner as a rule, you cannot drive it around anyone with respiratory problems, like asthma or emphesama. Can you run a blown injected engine on the street, well if you are willing to learn to tune. Even a naturaly aspirated gas engine with mechanical injection is a work and drive situation. Or you can build a real healthy streeter, they have a very pleasent sound when properly built and some are even a hand full to drive. Get yourself a CD of cackle fest and a bumpin stereo if you must have that cackle sound and you are golden.
I been around the top fuel cars when I was younger. I remember watching the owner mix his fuel, etc. He was an old racer, kinda wish now I would have had the sense to pick his brain. Built his own chassis and everything.
I have been around my fair share of blown nitro stuff, and all of ours was based on the early hemi architecture. Cam specs are typically proprietary, although the specs posted earlier are well within the range. We ran ours with as high as 7.5/1 compression, and almost never below 92%. Horsepower has been estimated between 3500-4500 hp, depending on who you talk to. As has been stated, the nitro will be required to get the 'cackle' you are after, and even blown nitro at that. An A/Fuel car has a different sound than a blown car, for sure. Can you run a blown and injected deal on the street? Absolutely, but it won't happen by accident. And forget about the nitro. The cackle cars that you see now are usually set up to make noise, and throw some header flames, not to make a balls out pass.
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