We’ve been planning all year, and our competitors have been building their competition engines all summer long, and now it’s time for the rubber to meet the road. Our 2008 competition gets underway at 8am this morning at the University Of Northwestern Ohio in Lima, OH, which houses a potent combination of DTS engine dynos, and a capable staff of faculty and students. Thirty competitors will face off over a four-day period beginning today, with the top six finalists going into eliminations on Friday. For those competing, it’s an intense week, full of strategy, tuning, and exchanging ideas with fellow competitors. It’s an environment of camaraderie that mixes a fair amount of technical exchanges with some good ol’ story tellin’.
This year’s contest pits stock-displacement muscle car engines against each other. Engines must retain the stock bore and stroke, as per manufactured. Additionally, all engines are limited to 10.5:1 compression ratio, natural aspiration, flat mechanical lifters, a single four-barrel carb, and an as-cast intake manifold. Commonly available cylinder heads must also be used. Fuel is spec Shell V-Power 91 octane unleaded. Scoring is as follows: three competition dyno pulls are made, and the average torque and horsepower between 2,500 and 6,500 rpm is added together. This number is divided by the total claimed cubic inches to get the final score (engine is subject to displacement verification). This last move puts all engines on a level playing field.
Check back for daily updates as the week progresses—scores and daily results will be posted at enginemasters.com, but I’ll be bringing you some inside stories to complement those competitor reports. Stay tuned!