The Butcher and The Engines
How many engines has the butcher melted? The correct answer is "three". Hee hee. Here is the story. My very first engine was a CHP 427w crate engine. It was years ago and at the time I think it cost right around $6k. If I had to guess, I would estimate it at the 435hp range. I had a lot to learn back then and accidentally reversed the lines to my remote oil cooler. It's amazing how long an engine will run without oil! I always had great oil pressure, but none was circulating in the engine cavities. My first engine blew on the back stretch of the big track at Willow Springs. Tears in my eyes as I limped in, one piston missing. Dean Woodruff from House Of Cobras was always very kind to me and had the engine torn apart at the track less than two hours later! The Trickflow Twisted Wedge Heads were fine...I basically needed a new block.
I called CHP and foolishly thought an engine part had failed (me and all the engineer cobra lads did not solve the oil starvation issue until after engine two broke). Tim at CHP was great and rebuilt my engine at cost and this time we choose to go with a 383, basically to save as much money as possible, using the existing parts. The new 383 had a sweet Crane cam and more power than the 427 due to the aggressive lobes on the camshaft. I know it is hard to believe, but I still didn't know my oil lines were crossed, and this engine would sadly meet the same fate as engine number one. This engine had approximately 450HP. The first engine melted at the track, this engine melted on the chassis dyno at Westech.
When people hear an engine blew, they often think it exploded like a hand-grenade. It's never that dramatic. Usually a part or bearing fails, then rods or pistons start getting loose and wiggling around until one of them rips off and makes a good mess. The sooner you catch it, the less damage. Sometimes you only need a new piston or rod, and other times you need a new block or heads. With my first engine, I needed a block and a rod and a piston. There was a little extra damage since I drove a mile around the track when I probably should of pulled over. The second engine failed on the dyno and we caught it right away so there was very little damage and the repair bill was small.
Finally after the dual engine failure, the engineers pointed their finger at me and made me investigate all aspects of the engine until finally, Grover the engineer and Bruce the engineer said "Ah Ha!" we had found the cause of oil starvation...Operator Error, Butcher style. I called CHP right away and apolozed to them for thinking the engines had a defective part. Coast built me two kickass engines and their Probe pistons are excellent. I decided for engine number three, I would be the builder. I read five or ten books on the subject, and once I read Smokey's Power Secrets...I was hooked on engine building.
Engine three another 383 since I only needed a new piston and a rod, and the crank needed polishing. I decided to ship my heads to Total Engine Airflow TEA and get those Trickflows CNC ported to flow 320. It was time to go after the big power. I also decided to use a sweet Danny Bee belt drive. This engine build was a super experience. Swifty Scott and I took the engine to Westech for pure engine dyno testing. I think I have a screen capture of it doing 569hp, and we had a couple runs as high as 579hp! That engine was for racing and matched perfect to the JBL Cobra.
You might be asking yourself "Where is the third melted engine?" The JBL with my hand-crafted 383 windsor crossed the ocean and now lives with in Norway. A year or so after finishing the cobra project, I entered the Jeg's Engine Masters Challenge with a 408 Ford Stroker. This was a beast of an engine. I had close to 20k in it and it made horsepower. It was over 13:1 compression. Here is one run where it was hit 680HP and was still climbing at 6500 rpm. Engine Masters is like real racing, and when you race, it is often on the edge. 13.2:1 on pump gas is on the edge, and that engine bit a chunk out of a piston on the stand after 80 pulls. I didn't know much about piston design at the time and the thin area on the side of the flycuts got superheated and broke off during a pull.
Once again, engines don't really blow up...one or more parts fail for various reasons. This engine failure was not difficult to repair, but was difficult to repair due to time constraints...I had to ship the engine fedex ground to NY withing 48 hours. Sadly I could not get exact replacement pistons and had to choose a substitute set from JE which dropped compression to a low of 11.5:1. This ratio might sound high for 92 octane, but it is way too low to win Engine Masters. It was all I could get on a rush order. I think this tamer version of the engine made around 615-620HP and I ended up 26th overall at the big show, Jeg's Engine Masters Challenge. If you would like to read more of my 408w historical engine masters stories, check out Pirates Of Horsepower. That is the story of the Butcher and his engines.
