580 Cubes of Fury
Slide Show
Inside the Bullet that Won Hot Rod Magazine’s Drag Week™
It’s not hard to build an engine that can propel a 3,300 pound car into the sevens. All it takes is cubic inches, careful parts selection, meticulous attention to build details, and your choice of either stupid amounts of boost or equally ludicrous amounts of nitrous oxide.
But it’s a whole ‘nother ball game when you try to build an engine that can push a car down the track in seven seconds and happily cruise on the highway at 2,200 rpm—on 87 octane swill, no less. That nigh-impossible combination is what Denny Terizch Jr. needed in his quest to win the World’s Fastest Real Street Car title at Hot Rod Magazine’s 2007 Drag Week competition.
If you’re not familiar with Drag Week, here’s the Reader’s Digest explanation. The competition covers five tracks over the course of seven days. All cars must be licensed and insured, have street-legal equipment (lights, turn signals, wipers, etc.); competitors must drive to each track and be ready to run with minimal adjustments to the car. No haulers or support vehicles are allowed—everything you need to compete (including crew) must fit in the car or a small tow-behind trailer. There are multiple classes based on elapsed time, and a winner is picked based on average ET. The car with the quickest average ET, regardless of class, is crowned "Fastest Real Street Car in America.”
This wasn’t Denny’s first attempt at Drag Week glory. He and driver Steve Roth showed up at 2006’s soiree with a 1967 Camaro sporting a monster 14-71 supercharged, 580 cubic inch big block Chevy that was clearly more race- than street-oriented. The crew quickly learned that a streetable radiator must be vented. Each tube in the Camaro’s non-vented radiator ended up swelling to the point that no airflow was getting through. This caused the 580 to overheat and puke coolant just four miles into the first road leg.
While lesser men would have slunk home with wheelie bars between legs, Denny called in the cavalry—in this case, Kevin Plecenik of KMP Performance and Machine (www.kmpperformance.com) —for a complete powerplant redo. Out came the overblown, over-compressioned, over-the-top motor and in went the bullet you see here.
Kevin has been building engines for over 20 years—everything from OEM rebuilds to circle track engines, tractor pull lumps, and full-out, blown alcohol race engines. His shop is virtually self-contained, with machines able to handle any stage in the engine building process. Kevin prides himself on quality first and ensures that all that horsepower comes with durability.
Stout, Yet Docile
The build for the Drag Week engine embraces seemingly contradictory goals. After all, maximum horsepower for the track and civilized manners for the street are diametrically opposed, right? Not necessarily, thanks to two things: cubic inches and modern supercharger and turbocharger systems. While engineers routinely perform miracles coaxing power from small displacement engines (GM’s LS engines come to mind), the old saying “There is no substitute for cubic inches” is as true today as it ever was. The larger its displacement, the more air (and fuel) the engine can ingest—which is the recipe for more horsepower.
And when it comes to combining big power with (reasonably) good street manners, boost is your best friend. With a simple pulley swap (supercharger) or a twist of a boost controller knob (turbo), you can crank up the boost to run the numbers at the track, then dial it back to drive home. Electronic fuel injection makes building a dual-purpose supercharged engine easier, thanks to the greater control over fuel and ignition curves it provides. But as you’ll see, you can build a stout, yet docile blower motor with a carburetor, too.
Of course, Kevin’s task was more involved than making big horsepower. He had to build an engine that would survive 1,000 road miles and hard competition at five tracks with only the fluids, tuning parts, and spares that could fit on a small trailer. Only the best parts—World Products Merlin block, Lunati/Manley/JE bottom end, Comp Cams roller stick, Trick Flow aluminum heads, and a big honkin’ F3 centrifugal supercharger from ProCharger (www.procharger.com) --were considered. Careful assembly and tuning were givens and dutifully attended to. The result was spectacular—the 580 put 1,479 horsepower and 1,073 foot-pounds of torque to the Camaro’s rear wheels on Akron Horsepower’s (www.akronhorsepower.com) Dynojet chassis dyno.
The bugaboo of large displacement blower motors—heat—received special attention. A ProCharger water-to-air intercooler occupies the front passenger side of the Camaro (ask Drag Week co-pilot Gary Pocratsky how comfortable that was). Adding a vented Be Cool aluminum radiator (rated to 1,000 horsepower) and running in motor-only mode on the highway also helped keep the 580 humming along at a cool 190 degrees during Drag Week.
The 580 ran what Denny calls the “street” tune during Drag Week; Kevin took five degrees of timing out and specified a 4,000 rpm launch to get out of the hole with as little wheelspin as possible. This setup proved good enough to put the Camaro deep into the sevens. The scary part is Kevin has a “race” tune up his sleeve that would put the timing back into the engine and increase the launch rpm. That could mean an extra 150-200 horsepower and 100 foot-pounds of twist to turn those big Mickey Thompson ET Streets. Imagine if they bolted on a pair of slicks….
Enough blather—let’s get into the guts of the bullet that helped win Hot Rod's Drag Week.
Short Block
Block: World Products Merlin III iron, tall deck, 4.530" bore
Crankshaft: Lunati Pro Blower Series billet, 4.50" stroke
Connecting Rods: Manley Pro Series I-beam, 6.535" long
Pistons: JE forged blower, 8.5.1 compression
Piston Rings: Total Seal plasma moly 1/16" top and secondary pack, 3/16" oil ring
Bearings: Clevite 77
Oil Pan and Pump: Moroso 7 quart aluminum pan and billet pump
Camshaft: Comp Cams solid roller, custom ground by Steve Morris Racing Engines
Lifters: Comp Cams roller
Gear Drive: Milodon
Harmonic Damper: ATI for supercharged big block Chevy
Cylinder Heads and Valvetrain
Cylinder Heads: Trick Flow PowerPort Race heads, 360cc intake ports, ported and polished
Valves: Manley Severe Duty, 2.300" intake/1.800" exhaust
Valve Springs: Comp Cams 1.640" dual springs with titanium retainers
Rocker Arms: Jesel Sportsman shaft mount, 1.7 ratio
Pushrods: Comp Cams 3/8" diameter
Induction System
Intake Manifold: Weiand Team G single plane
Carburetor: 1,050 CFM Holley Dominator, modified by Carburetor Solutions Unlimited with dual needles and seats, blow-through style
Supercharger: ProCharger F3 R reverse unit with water to air intercooler
Ignition System
Ignition Box: MSD Digital 7
Distributor: MSD Pro Billet
Coil: MSD
Crank Trigger: MSD Flying Magnet
Ignition Wires: MSD Super Conductor
Spark Plugs: NGK
Other Items
Headers: 1 3/4” to 2 1/2” step headers by Kromerkraft
Mufflers: Flowmaster collector style
Starter: Powermaster XS Torque
Alternator: Powermaster
Water Pump: Meziere electric for engine and intercooler
Radiator: Be-Cool aluminum, rated to 1,000 horsepower
Fasteners: ARP
Gaskets: Fel-Pro
Valve Covers: Granatelli Motor Sports billet aluminum, chrome plated
Burn-Down Box: Steve Roth Racecars with Summit breathers
Ice Cooler: Summit aluminum fuel cell
Transmission
Transmission: Rossler T210XHD Pro Mod 3-speed automatic
Converter: Neal Chance 10? Pro Mod, 3,500-4,200 rpm stall
Overdrive: Gear Vendors Race Series 6-speed over/underdrive
See Denny Terzich's Drag Week-winning Camaro in action at Streetfire.net!
