ever since i had my camaro, i have had people offering to sell me a "350 racecar engine".

now really what do you have to do to make any engine to be considered a "racecar engine"?

and the people trying to sell me this high performance "racecar engine" don't look to be too bright, so i just pull out the mighty mighty detector and it beeps so loud that everyone turns deaf in a 5 mile radius.

your thoughts are greatly appreciated

 

um probably my 305 tbi. its got performance crane valve stem seals and chrome valve covers. so u wunna buy it lol j/k. i dunno i guess a race car engine is any engine that u put in a race car

 

Classify racecar engine first. An oval track race engine has nothing in common with a drag car engine.
Classify race car. There are street cars that race regularly. Are they race cars?

The engine in my "race car" could easily be pulled and dropped into a street car however I wouldn't want to be paying for the gas. The engine idles at 850 and would be very streetable but I still consider it a race engine.

People seem to be stuck on 30 year old terms. If someone tells you they have a "3/4 race cam" start asking them what LSA or overlap the cam has. "Cheater slicks" is another overly used old terminology. The last thing that gets me is when someone says they have a "stall converter" in their car. Every automatic has a "stall converter" The proper term would have been a high stall converter. Again ask them what size it is. Laugh if it's anything larger than a 10".

Find out what this "racecar engine" has. Cam, rockers, intake, heads etc. Just because they throw on a bunch of aftermarket parts doesn't make it a race engine. Your typical race engine would idle at 1500 rpm, spin to at least 7000 rpm and produce over 500hp. Any engine that wouldn't make a good daily driver could be considered a race engine. Then again I've seen street engines that don't make good daily drivers. You know you had a good day when no red warning lights in the dash came on.

Oval track engines are completely different. They're designed to run at high rpms for very long periods of time. Usually built with big bores and short strokes.

 

I'd classify a race car engine as something illegal on the street and not very streetable. I'd expect a high lopey idle and no emissions equipment at the least.

 

In general terms:

It won't idle below 1,400 rpm
It would overheat like crazy in traffic
It's compression ratio is high enough to facilitate the use of race gas or even alcohal
If it runs alcohal is definitly a race car

Those apply in most, but not all, situations.

 

a frind of mines dad drag races a 4 clyinder 4 speed pinto. the engine is stock except for header and a holly. the car isn't street legal by a long shot but i believe the near stock engine is still a race car engine.

 

I can't believe there's another person on the face of the planet that races the old 2.0 and liberty 4 speed. If he ever makes a trip to Indiana he can pick up a bunch of stuff for fairly cheap. We had to give up and go to the 2.3. You would think it would be such a tight fit in a '72, but it is.

For the topic. That 2.0 would launch at 12,000 and idle around 2000. You could drive it on the street, but I don't think it would be very fun. You'd fry the clutch pretty quick too, and the 5.12:1 gears don't help the streetability.

 

WHen I build a "racecar" engine, I do certain things that are different from what I would do for a "street" engine...

In a race-only buildup, I use looser bearing & bore clearances, I adjust lifters differently, I choose parts differently (weight vs. longevity), and so on. The other things that people have mentioned are more the results of the build choices, than essential characteristics of racing engines. For instance, a NASCAR motor is as close to overheating-proof as one can be made; I don't know of any street car that could keep cool with 50 sq in of air intake to the radiator.

I would not want a "race" engine in my street car, or vice-versa. A "racecar" engine wouldn't last long enough or be practical in various other ways such as fuel availability if put to street use (lightweight rings and rods and rockers would fail after a few hundred or thousand miles), and a "street" engine would not last long enough nor be competitive in a racing situation (heavy rods would not stay inside the block, heavy rings would not hold oil and combustion apart, etc.).

Buy your engine from someone else, who exhibits at least a whiff of a hint of a trace of a clue.

 

When I hear race car engine, I immediately think of all the Hondas motors out there.

 

Hey man I resent that. I have a honda and it is very dependable. ofcourse its my lawn mower! :sillylol:

 

there are some hicks out where i live that have to run alcohol in their big block mud running trucks. some of those things are quite crazy.

what about all of those type R's out there? those are race motors aren't they?

 

I guess that would make me a race car

 

I wonder if you could drive a jet powered car on the street......legaly..maybe here in Iowa, no emmissions!!

 

nah, alchohol is just another form of high octane fuel. sure you could use it on the street... of course, there is the problem with evaporating so quickly, I suppose you would also need a huge fuel cell, and of course there is the whole "burns twice as fast as gas" thing... sigh* well no I guess that wouldn't be very nice on the street huh.

 

what if you could somehow get a nitro methane engine into your street car, that would be a joy ride in itself

 

hell yeah 850 horsepower N/A Alchohol / Nitro Small block spinning 11K Rpms. Sounds like Fun! I was in one of those... Around 8000 rpms I took my feet away from the floorboard... Small blocks sound BAD past 7500 rpms...