Raunchy Rat - HorsePower on the Cutting Edge of a New/Old Trend

Today, a horsepower heads up on performance headers.

The search is on for a new old edgy project ride and we'll see how much bang for the buck we get with another power combo on our engine, dyno.

Hey, welcome to the horsepower shop.

I don't have to tell most of you that a set of performance headers is one of the best bolt ons you can take on to improve your engine's performance.

They don't make horsepower and that's the engine's job, but they do free it up by eliminating back pressure. Now you might be blown away today by all the choices and styles available next time you shop for a set. Well, today

in the horse power shop, we thought we'd try out a bunch of different ones on our Mule motor back there in the

dyno Cell,

the motor still has the same intake and carb combination we tested last week and the headers. Well, they're from Doug's and they're an inch and five eights 4 to 1 design that dump into a three inch collector. Now, we're also using an exhaust pipe that measures in at 2.5 inches. The most recent run we got with this combination was

314 horsepower, 342 ft pounds of torque.

Ok. The first header rule test are try wise also from Doug's

and they use a four into two into one configuration that's proven to make some pretty impressive torque numbers. Now, they are more expensive than what we've been using. But here's a neat feature. They work with 2.5 inch collectors which make for an easy fit in your engine bay

with the try wise bolted up at either end, we're ready to install our gaskets. Now, we're not using a paper set. We're gonna go ahead and use these copper ones we picked up from S ce now they're reusable and will work well for us doing these multiple header swaps.

All right, let's see what kind of power we can loosen up with these new tri wires.

A pretty impressive stuff. In fact, just take a peek at the graph here on Mutt's computer screen.

Peak horsepower is up a five. But the real story is the torque. Our peak is up by nine here. Right? And we got six more foot pounds of torque for the whole average plus at 4100 RPM. We gained 11.

Well,

we can't stop. Now. Now, some of you may already be running a stepped header on your ride that borrows technology from the racing world. Now we picked up these headman from summit that have an inch and a half tube and it dumps into an inch and 58. Now, that's where they get their name stepped header and the inch and 58 tube dumps into a three inch collector half inch larger in diameter than our tri wise

after warming up the engine again and burning the paint off our headers. It's time for a full blast pull

almost 309 horsepower, same as the foreign ones we started with, but the torques up 3 ft pounds at 338.

Now, unless we're talking about big paychecks or big engine displacement, bigger is not always better and we don't care what our girlfriends say about that. Hey, speak for yourself. But speaking of big,

this dyno

Tech header got equal length, one and three quarter inch tubes that feed into 3.5 inch collectors.

That's probably a great choice for a big inch motor on nitrous. But what happens when we bolt it up to our small block mule

about to find out.

We should also mention that we stepped up our exhaust pipe size to 3.5 inches.

All right, let's have a look here. Same horse power as the 4 to 1 set, more torque here at the peak 4400 RPM.

But check over here in the low to mid RPM range that's off as much as five bing is a bigger header in that range is not going to create as much velocity as a smaller proper size header. And that's especially important on the street where this 4 to 1 we started out with is a good economical choice step header. Well, little more torque, a little more money.

And the performance stud today though. Is this try? Why? But they'll set you back from 450 to 625. A pair

big headers can literally choke an engine. The primary tubes need to be fairly small to be effective at all. Yeah,

tell that to your girlfriend. Oh, yeah.

Oh,

easy big boy.

Now coming up, we're gonna kick off a rod build up and just try to guess what kind.

Well, a lot of great memories after 10 years of horsepower,

you know, we've had a lot of great project cars on this show too.

Well, like the supernova here. Big inch motor, big visual statement.

That thing attracted attention everywhere it went. Hey, old man, quit living in the past. You know, some of these project cars were really cool, but we've got one in the works right now that I'm sure you haven't seen built on a show like this. It's a little wild, a little dirty and definitely on the edge.

A lot of people do sneeze at this. But uh but we, we really like the rat rods. It's just something we can bring them out here. Not to worry about ropes and please do not touch signs and scratches and things doesn't really matter

in a way. The first hot rods were mostly rat rods. Junkyard bodies, pillaged parts and homemade horsepower.

The kind of cars that invaded the Bonne

salt plants back in the early fifties.

Like our parents came back from World War Two. You know, they started building hot rods, you know, and that's kind of what this stuff represents.

Yeah. Today rat Rods are back and hotter than ever

and the craze covers many generations.

It's all. Thanks to guys like the owner of this 37 Ford truck that sits on a 36 Ford frame

and it's powered by a flathead, of course. Is it beautiful to you?

Oh, I love it.

Um, I've got some other

cars that are shining and I'm tired of cleaning them when you're sitting behind it, you get some people shaking their heads. Yes. And some people shaking their heads. No.

But, uh, all in all, you know, it's what street rotting came from. And I think that's what it's going back to.

Rat rods are like rusty snowflakes.

And some of the differences come in. The cool creative touches.

The battery in the, uh, military box. It's a gel racing battery. It's, uh, just plain old twine

took us 6.5 hours. Uh, we drilled all the holes and

webbed it and then my mother's got about 13 layers of lacquer on it to make it hard.

Well, this rat is the proud possession of Greg Jordison,

what is it?

A 1927 fon

on a model, a body

and for power, a simple but solid 283

it's a project that converted he and his buddies from Slick Street Rods to the Rat Revolution.

So, hey, you know, this is a lot of fun. Let's just start building hot rods instead of building street rods

and the

a difference.

Probably you don't have to worry so much about the fit and finish. Go for an attitude. Well, some people said, well, what color are you gonna paint it? And I said, man, it's already got paint on it.

You're gonna finish that. I said it's finished.

You know,

I wouldn't drive that, that thing's kind of ugly. And I said, well, heck, we have a lot of fun in them,

but by now my Horsepower Honcho and I were ready to have some fun too.

So back home we set out to find the right rat candidate to start our own project that was sold anyway,

the perfect well worn body among this rusted sea of candidates.

We want rough and not that rough.

What do you think?

2829 roaster.

Yeah, this was it a 29 Rochester party? Still solid enough to enjoy new life

as the beginning of the official horsepower rat ride.

Well, ain't she a beauty now? Some people like to paint them. Some people like to put them in primer, but we're leaving our mono Lake pretty much how you see it.

That's right. Now, our next move though is to find a suitable frame for it. And

well, since finding a safe solid original is pretty tough these days, we got a plan for this rat we'll share with you next week. Meanwhile, stick with us. We've got another bang for the buck combo test coming up after the break. That's right now. We gotta get a name for this thing. What do you got in mind?

Well, time to see what kind of bang we get in horsepower and torque for the hard earned bucks you might spend on an engine power combination.

Last week, we kicked off the series with a simple intake and carb combination on our pump, gas, small block mule motor.

We got an extra 16 horses and 14 ft pounds of torque at Pete.

Yeah, that combination cost about 560 bucks. Today, we got a pricier combo that

should make a lot more horse power. You get all this, it all comes from Edelbrock

and it features among other things, these

tech 170 cylinder heads, they've got intake runners that measure 100 70 ccs

combustion chambers that come in at 64 ccs and that brings our compression ratio up to 9.5. Now, the stainless valve speck out at 194 on the intake, 155 on the exhaust.

The rest of the combo includes this performer RPM, air gap intake manifold, 800 A vs carb with their quick tune secondary air valve.

And they also sent us this hydraulic roller cam shaft, which is actually an upgrade from a flat tap that we used earlier. The cam goes in first

being real careful not to nick the journals.

You need to use a thrust button with a hydraulic roller cam, which by the way doesn't come with the kit.

Neither does the thicker timing cover this one's a two piece which will come in handy for future camshaft swaps.

After reinstalling our harmonic balancer,

we can drop in these hydraulic roller lifters from the kit

that were soaked in motor oil.

Now, we're ready to install the cylinder heads, by the way, all the necessary gaskets come with the kit for the entire project. You also get the right head bolts to cinch them down with. And here's a little tip for you,

not only use thread sealant but also some Molly Lou between the washer and bolt head to get the proper torque reading

for the rest of our valve train. We've got the correct length push rods

and 16 roller rockers.

Well, next with the manifold gaskets on, we can drop our performer air gap into place.

And after torquing the bolts, install the A BS car.

Well, finally the distributor goes back on the motor

along with taller valve covers to clear those new rockers

as a lot of, you know, aluminum heads require different style spark plug than cast iron like these zu platinums we're using from Denso.

Now, remember I told you our compression ratio is up from 8.5 to 1 to 9.5 to 1. Well, we still think we can use good old 87 octane fuel. I guess we're getting ready to find out

there's your peak horsepower and torque numbers. Now a complete rundown, our

combo this time was an Edelbrock top in kit.

Summit Rocker arms and push rides and a crane lifter set

total peak gains from our baseline

122 horsepower and 94 ft pounds of torque on 87 octane fuel. The total combo tab

2800 bucks and 75 cents

and don't forget you can track down each and every bank for the buck test we do on Power block.com. Meanwhile, stay tuned for some track side thrills right after the break.

When horsepower goes to a race, we don't just stand on the sidelines and cover the race.

The camera guys get cozy with the cars to capture the gritty gutsy shots we're known for,

but it's harder than it looks

now to show you what I mean. I'm going to use this little camera to shoot our video, Ace Rob shooting the burnout.

Here we go. Now this dude gets close, really close, breathing in more smoke than Cheech and Chong ever did.

Now check out how he balances the camera to grab one of his patented 180 degree burnout shots.

It's loud rubber in the face work, but he loves it

there. Now, you see what I'm talking about?

That takes

a, why don't you go put that thing in the truck? We've got an awesome event to cover. We're here at Montgomery Motorsports Park for a first time event called Beat the Heat. And here's why it's so hot.

You see early in the day under the hot summer sun, racers have two qualifying runs and in some cases, well, they're just trying to get down the hot greasy track.

Then after the sun goes down the ETS do as well.

And racers ripped the eight mile track in the

nighttime air giving the Spectators an incredible show of quickness.

Beat the heat under the lights was the brainchild of outlaw racer turned promoter, Ken Rainwater.

The

idea was just, it's just so hot down in the south and, and all these races have been daytime. It's been the upper nineties. We get this race in, in the evening and night.

It helped the Spectators help the racers too. It's just hard on these cars as he

this event attracted hundreds of outlaw racers from all over the country to buy for a piece of the $40,000 purse.

Even the promoter himself who debuted a new twin turbo powered Mustang.

No,

dyno and no chassis. Dyno.

Nothing. We rode a straight to the track

rode it out of the trailer on a shake down run, clicked it off early on a 463 at 154.

In addition to 10 5 outlaw, there are Conet in classes like limited street. A 10, 5 higher no wheelie bar class

Easy Street where you put the power down on radio tires and three index glasses where we found Bugzilla and his owner, Ron Clark.

It's a 377 cubic inch small block. Chevrolet got a power glide transmission,

871 blower and an

alcohol injector hat.

It's actually a Chevy Love Truck chassis

and I shortened the frame and then just set the body on the Love truck frame. It's got a 86 inch wheel base

as expected. The Friday night, second round qualifying runs were quite a show with live music to give, beat the heat a beat.

So

when the smoke cleared, Mike Hill had landed the top 10 5 qualifier spot with a 453 at 100 62 miles an hour.

Kind of leery about the number one qualifying spot. But, you know, we, we hadn't won many times from that spot, but we're gonna try to get out the day and hang in there.

At least I got a tent but it's still hot out here.

Well, while the racers pounded the track in hot, humid weather for one more round, some of their cuter crew members came up with their own way to beat the heat.

Oh,

it feels pretty good.

I got a camera and they want to interview you.

Well, let me see that.

He,

ok, so much for fun and water camps.

Hey,

back is great. Turbos. Love the cool air. You're going to see a lot of wheels in the air and, uh, hopefully you see some fast times out here tonight

with the Saturday sunset and eliminations began a packed crowd, witnessed some of the most amazing heads up eight mile racing ever.

And Ken's New Pony was pounding the competition

consistently running in the 470

here, beating Mike Hill in the semifinal

and taking the win light in the final when his opponent from Texas breaks. Unbelievable. All I can say first race we've ever done first race with a brand new car

around 450 every pass all day long

as I

think on to Kate Ks teammate Jeff Cooner won the limited streak class.

Yep, a cool night in Montgomery for the Rainwater team

and a great way to beat the summer heat in Alabama.

Hey, here's some fuel for thought for you BP racing now has a family of fuels especially made for high performance street machines. This is their street blaze 100.

It's environmentally friendly street legal in all states and made 14% more horsepower than premium 91 octane in recent test. Now it's good for iron head engines up to 13 to 1 compression aluminum had motors up to 14 to 1. And the price. Well, just under 52 bucks for a five gallon drum.

Here's something that will fit to a T, if you ever need to use an air chisel. It's a long barrel T handle, air hammer from Matco that delivers up to 2200 blows per minute.

It has a new shock technology for reduced

without any loss in power.

The exhaust is located at the bottom of the handle to direct air away from your work and it's got a variable speed trigger for more precise control. Now, if you want to add one of these to your tool collection plan on spending about 200 bucks. Well, that's it for hot parts and we'll see you next week for more horsepower when we get to work on that thing.