I want to start planing a build up for a road racing enigne. But I'm not to sure about what would be different from any other motor... Can some one please help lead me in the right direction?

 

Build up a 383, tons of low end torque. Perfect for a street race motor.

 

Is this for the 'Stoplight Grand Prix' or actual road racing? If its real road course racing, i would suggest a really high winding engine, like a 302 or a 327.

 

if ur building a road race motor and u dont want to ive up cubes from a 302 go for a 377...

 

Are you building the car for just 'track days' or to actually compete with?

If you're actually going racing, I'd suggest getting in touch with your local branch of Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) or National Auto Sport Assocication (NASA), and find out what class you want to compete in. Most likely you will want to go to the American Sedan (SCCA) or American Iron (NASA) Puchase a copy of the rulebook for your chosen series and build your car around that.

For example, American Sedan has a 310 cubic inch limit on displacement, so your 327 would be illegal.

On the other hand, if all you want to do is 'open' track days, then anything goes.

 

i'm building the motor for the unlimited class in the silver state challenge (180+ mph) there are no restrictions on the motor. but i would like to stay with a small block

 

oh yeah, the races are up to 100 miles
for better info here are the sites
http://www.openroadracing.com/index.html
http://www.silverstateclassic.com/

 

1. All sorts of things that you never even thought about, not related to your engine, will (a) limit your speed to less than you think it will be, and (b) fail when you least expect it. Plan on a top speed of around 145-150 mph with your stock body, no matter how much power you put in it. Expect things like your wheel bearings, axle bearings, rear end gears and bearings, U-joints, etc. to give out. They run pump-driven rear end grease coolers in NASCAR, even at the short tracks; you'll need that sort of thing to avoid catastrophe.

2. Even in the engine compartment, all sorts of stuff you wouldn't think about on a quick blast up a freeway ramp will bite you. Fuel starvation at sustained high RPMs, cooling, all the oil ending up in the valve cover, ignition system component overheating and failure, valve springs breaking, accessory bearings (alt, WP, PS, etc) failure, are all possibilities. None of that will care what your bore or stroke are.

It looks like one hell of a blast!!! One of those "classes" where you pick your speed and hit it on the nose could be fun; I don't think you'd stand a prayer of any kind of record or any of that with a street car though.

Still, I'd start with prepping the car, a long time before I'd worry about what kind of motor to use. Otherwise, you'll end up sitting by the side of a real long road in the middle of nowhere in the desert with a very fried car. It really won't matter that much what motor you use, since you'll be able to get enough power to reach the body's top speed easily enough with any of the stock small block motors, let alone some of the other combos.

 

after typing a half page explaining about the build up of the car, i try to submit it and comes back with the site login screen losing the whole thing i just spent about an hour typing... i'm so pissed right now! computers *&^%ing suck.. i'll retype it tomarrow when i'm not so pissed off....

 

Oil management is the name of the game in selecting engine components for that kind of useage. Kinda like ski-boat duty, sustained high-rev service.

You'll want an oil pan that can manage the oil sloshing around (trapdoors) and scrape the oil "rope" off the crank (scrapers). Canton makes the gold-standard road racing oil pan.

You'll want an oil pump that can keep up with the volume demands of the engine, without emptying the pan into the valve covers. The centrifugal force at the rod journals literally pulls oil out, increasing the demand over what you'd see in street or drag racing. Ensure you have a nice return path from the heads and lifter gallery to the pan. If you run a big external oil cooler, your volume budget goes up also.

The stuff RB mentioned is also part of the equation...fuel delivery shortages that you never see on the street/strip tend to pop up when you sustain high revs.

 

RB is right about the accessories too. After about 1 hour on a road course the bearing on the back of the alternator blew off. It was completely gone!!

I was planning on running the Silver State too but in the 110 mph class. With my T56 that would be only around 2500 RPM. Another thing is tires. At those speeds when a tire blows you're in trouble. A bunch of people have died in that race from having that happen. Since I can't afford the good tires and brakes right now I'm going to have to wait until next year.

Oh yeah, it would be a good idea to run the event once in a normal car in a lower speed class to get an idea of what needs to be done. At 180 mph you don't want any surprises.

 

alright, i'm going to start off with a gutted firebird, 12 point cage will be installed, 5 or 6 point harness, 15 pound fire system, large disk brakes on all corners, tubular a arm and k member, 12 bolt rear, carbon fiber drive shaft (still thinking about this one), large external oil/trans/powersteering/and rearend cooler, as well as separate reservoir for the oil/powersteering and possibly the rearend too, and a 6 or 8 speed trans. this is what i've come up with so far, to deal the the accessories, an underdrive pulley would do the trick wouldn't it?
i plan on running in the GT class my first time in, but want to build it for the unlimited