Valve-Lock Inspection to Save your Engine By Fergus Ogilvy Photos by Moore Good Ink   This advice may only help hard core race engine builders, but any time we have a chance to publish high quality tech like this info from Trend Performance, we'll do it. Wish I would have saw this before putting the valves back into my Falcon! (course that's anything but a racing engine!) Enjoy!   Assemble the valve locks on a valve and using your thumb and forefinger raise the spring retainer to its full height. If the assembly defies gravity and remains in place and doesn't rock, the quality of the valve locking assembly is superior. If, however, the assembly falls apart, the valve locking mechanism is deficient in one or more of its dimensions. The three critical dimensions of the valve lock 1. The outside angle: The precision of the outside angle, which might be 7, 8, 9, or even 10 degrees, is properly measured on a sine vice. For ease of valve lock removal, high revving racing engines often use locks with the greater angle. The greater the angle, however, the more...

SpinTron Roller Tappets, Rockers and Friction Testing From our friends at Goodink and Jesel, here's your chance for an inside look into the highest performance race engine component development and the special equipment needed to break records at Bonneville or in the NHRA. In this case, it's a dyno, it's got a laser... it's SpinTron! - pikesan Story by: Ray T. Bohacz Jesel, one of the best competition valve train specialists to emerge in the past thirty years, owes much of its supremacy to extensive developing and testing of its competition parts. The test machine is a SpinTron. The parts being tested are principally roller tappets and rocker arms. “Ten or twelve years ago when I first pressed the SpinTron into action,” says Danny Jesel, “my immediate response was one of shock—the racket it generated was incredible! I just wasn’t expecting the opening and closing of two valves to be so loud, and initially I thought something was broken.” Once Danny Jesel became accustomed to the commotion, his next challenge was grappling with the phenomenon known as "lofting". Lofting occurs when engine speeds increase, usually above 4,000rpm, causing the...

Trend Pushrods - New Ways to Combat Pushrod Troubles Seeking and finding stories about great engine builders and the high performance parts they use, every once in a while, you find yourself asking. "What makes xyz so special?" In this case, I got to talking about high performance pushrods and didn't know much about them. Luckily, Trend Performance makes pushrods for everybody from the weekend warrior to the best of NHRA and NASCAR. So I asked a few questions... An interview with Bob Fox, founder of Trend Performance By Sam Logan with photos by Moore Good Ink Today the Michigan firm Trend Performance is the largest manufacturer and supplier of pushrods in racing and the performance aftermarket. But in 1988 when Bob Fox founded his pushrod company, after working the phones as a tech rep at Diamond Racing, things were different. During his time at the piston company, he noticed that the performance of competition pushrods was little better than adequate—their lengths varied and their ends failed—both ends! Manufacturers would reduce the material thickness of the cup ends in order to form them, and as a result they would...

Camshaft Assembly Lube & Break in Lube Part of my 1963 Ford Falcon engine build is researching how to build and break-in the engine... the right way. To get great advice, I asked the experts at Edelbrock. They've been building engines and hot rod parts forever... not to mention they've been very cool helping me with my engine build and with MyRideisMe.com. Hope these tips are helpful! Tech with Edelbrock: Camshaft Break-in for Hydraulic Flat Tappet Camshafts Upgrading your hydraulic, flat tappet cam is a very popular performance upgrade. In many cases, cam changes happen independently of a complete engine rebuild. With or without engine rebuild, when changing cams, proper steps must be taken to ensure a hassle-free installation, break-in period, and of course, good cam and lifter life. The following are the basic steps for camshaft break-in. Read and follow the included instructions with every Edelbrock cam and lifter kit. We're skipping the assembly and disassembly steps because there's too many variations to cover it all. 1) Always use new lifters with a new camshaft. Do not use existing lifters with a new camshaft. Cam lobe wear is...

COMP Cams®, RHS® & FASTTM Add $12,000 In Contingency To The 2009 Engine Masters Challenge EFI technology innovator FASTTM sees first visit to annual challenge while the cylinder head-valve train duo look to repeat success for the COMP Performance GroupTM After a successful year in 2008, the COMP Performance GroupTM will once again add excitement to the JEGS Engine Masters Challenge presented by Popular Hot Rodding magazine. In 2009 CPG companies will offer up to $12,000 in contingency awards to the top six finishers of the event. New to this year's event will be the inclusion of fuel injected engines, giving EFI technology leader FASTTM its first chance to enter the competition as the company hopes to enjoy the same success as its fellow CPG members have in years past. For 2009, COMP Cams® will offer contingency awards to those competitors running their camshafts, while those running RHS® cylinder heads will receive an additional payout. As the first year that EFI engines are allowed to compete, the 2009 competition will also feature contingency payouts for those equipped with FASTTM XFITM systems. In addition to contingency awards, scholarships to working...