Hi Friends,
A new Ask Ed episode is on the way.
One of my favorite things about these interviews is that Ed doesn’t see the questions ahead of time. I read them to him, and you get his honest first reaction based on decades of building, repairing and racing engines.
In Ask Ed 64, we ask:
Why can too much cam duration make a small-block Chevy barely idle?
Does turning crankshaft journals smaller reduce friction—or just weaken the crank?
What could make one bank of a 1934 Ford flathead V8 run 40 degrees hotter than the other?
Should an engine builder groove the bearings, groove the crankshaft or cross-drill it for better oiling?
Why did NASCAR engine builders compensate for camshaft flex at high RPM?
How did an unusual distributor fire eight cylinders using two coils and a double-ended rotor?
Ed shows us how the DuCoil distributor works
Ed also tells us about big-block Chevrolet engines that bent their wrist pins, the Chrysler Hemi wrist pins that stopped the problem and Johnny Loper grinding weight off a 389 small-block Chevy until some areas were nearly thin enough to see through.
Running through the entire conversation is an important engine-building lesson:
An engine doesn’t care what sounds impressive on paper. Cam duration, compression, crankshaft diameter, oiling and operating RPM all have to work together.
As Ed explains, all the compression in the world won’t help if the valve is still open.
Watch for Ask Ed 64 on BarryT’s Garage this Saturday.
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https://www.BarryTsGarage.com
Have a question you’d like me to ask Ed?
Email [email protected]
See you in the garage,
Barry T
BarryT’s Garage
[email protected]