Popular Hot Rodding's recent issue (Feb 2010) gives a lot of details on the engines that competed in their most recent 2009 Engine Masters competition.

For 2009 the rules were changed to allow dual carbs, tunnel ram intakes, etc., Also the RPM range was raised (the range where power would be measured and compared) to 3000 - 7000 RPM. This is up 500 RPM from the 2008 competition.

There were 30 engines that showed up for qualitfying; GM, Ford, Mopar, and a small sampling of Fuel Injected power plants.

Here are some interesting things I saw, at least to me they are:

1. Of the 30 entires, 20 of them were running CompCams camshafts. Two engines ran ISKY cams and three engines had Cam Motion cams. Two cams were solid flat tappets but the remainder appear to be solid rollers.

2. Out of all the 30 engines, only two made peak power at 7000 even though there was no restriction on camshaft selection, etc. Since average power was the critical component, apparently shooting for max power at 7000 was a losing proposition.

3. A LS1 (TPIS offering), LS2 and two LS7s competed. One of the LS7s took 2nd place but both of them were running a carb.

4. Also very interesting was the cylinder heads the engine builders chose. I didn't see the one's I expected to see; you know, the ones we read about so often on this and other Forums.

The 2nd place LS7 actually BLEW AWAY the winning small block Ford engine in power, but was handicapped by needing 32 more cubic inches to do so (403 Vs 435). So because of the formula being used, the Ford won by something like 1.4 points.

All in all it's an interesting article and if Popular Hot Rodding does as it has in the past, there will be subsequent articles giving more details on the engines, like LSA, cam phasing, head specifics, etc.

Just thought your guys would be interested.

Jake

 

A lot of it has to do with prize money. If you use a Comp Cam for instance and are in one of the payoff spots you will get prize money from Comp Cams with the amount depending on how you placed.

 

How'd you come up with that? Where's your evidence to support that conclusion?

As far as I know JEGS sponsored the competition.

Jake

 

"How'd you come up with that? Where's your evidence to support that conclusion?"

Joe Sherman and how long it took him to collect his prize money from certain vendors. You need to visit www.speedtalk.com and do some research on the subject from the posts made by the participants in the Engine Masters Competition.

 

More proof that carb engines make more power, even the engineer behind the LSX 454 said that if he could pick any induction setup to run on his own it would be a four barrel holley.