Engine wish list.

[Werling]

About to pull out the 302 engine and install a new engine ??? have not decided on what to put in to replace the 302. For those that have done this how about some suggestions. Is there a problem putting in a 351 base engine in a school car? Sorce to install long tube headers, where to get them? Any probllem with hood clearence with a 351?

[Blue Streak 21]

Panoz Engineering has a set of custom headers, Headman I think, that are made for the 351 motor. They flow well.
Don't know of any problems with clearance between the hood and the air cleaner on a 351 motor. Is the deck height taller on the 351 motor? I figure if you can get an EFI system under the school car hood, the 351 otta fit too.
I've only considered what motor to replace my 5.0 l. Leading candidate is the Chevy LS1 or LS6 motor. They are lighter than the 5.0 l motor since they are constructed around an aluminum block. I think you can save about 100 lbs by going this route. I think the someone told me that the Penske guys have gone this route with their remaining cars. Things to consider when going this route are clearance between tranny and tranny tunnel, bell housing fitment, hydraulic clutch access, and headers. I'm pretty sure the motor and transmission mounts will have to be relocated too.

[Werling]

Have a Z06 and I love the motor. I was think about a Dart Ford block, they are about 100 + pounds lighter that a stock block 302, maybe more if you have iron heads on your 302. I was looking for something easy, the cheve just seems like a lot of work. 302 have a deck height of 8.2 vs 9.5 for a 351 I would think a 351 would fit right in. Any idea if those 351 long tube headers will fit on a 302? Thanks for the info.

[panozracing]

Originally Posted by Werling

Have a Z06 and I love the motor. I was think about a Dart Ford block, they are about 100 + pounds lighter that a stock block 302, maybe more if you have iron heads on your 302. I was looking for something easy, the cheve just seems like a lot of work. 302 have a deck height of 8.2 vs 9.5 for a 351 I would think a 351 would fit right in. Any idea if those 351 long tube headers will fit on a 302? Thanks for the info.

My GTS came with a 351W ford motorsports iron block and edelbrock performer heads with the long tube headers. Those motors blew too easily. We replaced them with 351W Dart iron blocks and 225AFR heads (kept the headman headers just with a diff. mounting flange). Big displacement with small carb to keep the power down and make the engine last longer. Engine lasts a long time, has huge torque off the turns, and fits right in the stock mounts. Dart makes the same block in aluminum too. Stay true to Panoz and stick with the ford!

[NZGTRA17]

I am also a fan of keeping the Panoz Ford powered (albeit that I have owned and raced GM cars for the last 20 years).

There are pros and cons with choosing either an 8.2" (302) Vs a 9.5" (351)deck height Ford smallblock. With the 8.2" you get compactness (lower C of G) and lighter overall weight but at the expense of less favourable con rod / stroke ratio and smaller overall capacity (max of 370 Vs max of over 427 cubes). Conversely the 9.5" deck block is considerably heavier. I am unsure about hood clearance issues with the 9.5" deck block combination but note that my 302 had the aircleaner touching the bottom of the hood with an Edelbrock RPM airgap manifold and 1" spacer. Depending on the hood you have, there is not a lot of spare height in some cars.

My personal pick would be an alloy Dart 8.2" deck block taken out to around 360 cubes. This could easily be tailored to produce approx 600hp and around 500ftlbs of torque with the right heads and solid roller cam. This would be more than enough power for most applications and would also result in a very good handling and light weight package. There is no reason that you could not get the cars weight close to 2500lbs with this combo as my iron block/alloy head 302 combo is 2570lbs (with no gas).

[NZGTRA17]

Originally Posted by panozracing

My GTS came with a 351W ford motorsports iron block and edelbrock performer heads with the long tube headers. Those motors blew too easily.

Brian, what was the achilles heel of the 351's? Was it blocks letting go or were they blowing due to oil starvation leading to bearing failures? Assume that you were running the 351's wet sumped?

[panozracing]

Originally Posted by NZGTRA17

Brian, what was the achilles heel of the 351's? Was it blocks letting go or were they blowing due to oil starvation leading to bearing failures? Assume that you were running the 351's wet sumped?

Well....keep in mind that we do almost no DE events. They are all sprints and enduros against 996/997 cup cars, corvettes, radicals, etc. so we have to push hard to win. the sealed panoz motor with the hydraulic lifters didnt last long...when racing sometimes you miss a gear, sometimes you are braking hard for a slow speed turn (down shifting from 5th to 2nd) and the fast way is to not go thru the gears and you let the clutch out just a tick to soon and the rear wheels drive the engine (mechanical overrev). Stuff happens!!!! Hydraulic motors cant take the punishment even occasionally. Plus the large main bearing size. We then built stroker motors (also purchased a ford stroker motor) and the issues were more drastic (still with hydraulic and windsor main bearing diameter and wet sump). So after 3 diff. engine designs and 3 diff. builders we did a bunch of reasearch. Our spec was something that maintains the same motor mounts and tranny housing. We want STRONG, reliable engines that could easily go 100+ hours without refreshing and we wanted plenty of torque way down low in the revs.... 4-5 nationally known engine builders (roush, lazonno (I think thats the guys name its been 2 years), etc.) all recommended a 351W Dart block (cleveland main bearing and 4 bolt main) drysumped...most said afr 205 or 225 heads with jezel bar mounted solid lifters. So we had well known builders all telling us the same thing...SOLD lets build it. Our first design had too much power so we put a smaller carb on (we already had a restricted intake). Since then we have done nothing but change the oil! We run in tough florida summer conditions and everything is great. We refreshed the motors to make sure they were in good shape at 100hrs and our builder said we could go longer the next time. We love them I wouldnt even consider anything else. After spending what we did on "less expensive" designs whats the point. They all cost us way more in the end.

[Cobra4B]

Well... we bought this car to have fun on a modest budget vs. running our Z06s so we decided to build up the 302 to about 400 horse w/ afr 165s and a swap to carb (edelbrock performer RPM, pro-systems carb etc.)

I I were going to go nuts w/ the car I'd put a 418 ci LS3 in the car w/ a big farkin cam.

Brian... not sure why you say hydraulic motors can't take the racing... LSX motors are used in all kinds of motorsports w/ great success retaining the hydraulic setup.

[Blue Streak 21]

Brian;
You've probably said in other posts, but please tell us again what's the cost of the motor you've spec'ed? Obviously worth the cost since they've lasted over 100 race hours in Florida's heat.
The NASA ST2 class I'm looking at racing in will limit my wt / hp ratio to 8.7 to 1. With my car weighing about 3000 lbs with driver and 1/2 tank of gas, I can make about 350 hp at the rear wheels. Assuming 15% loss thru the tranny and diff, that translates to ~400 hp at the crank. As we all know, torque is what accelerates you out of corners, and so the game is to maximize torque while limiting hp to the allowable limit. That can be accomplished by smaller carb or restrictor plates. Those hp limits are easily reached with a 351 motor. They are not that hard to hit with a 302, you just have to spin it faster. That's where I'm coming from. Just playing the game.

[Cobra4B]

^ Um... we've got about $4500 in parts tied up so far for the top end etc. We bought the good stuff! You could do it far cheaper w/ some ported GT-40 heads and a cheap manifold and cheap carb, but power would be limited.

To have a reliable 400 horse in a 302 we went with the AFR heads which were ~$1800, the Pro-systems carb which was ~$1000, Edelbrock manifold custom ported, all gaskets, new timing set, new dampener, new air cleaner, new ingnition system, new fuel system, etc.

The thing to do would be get a LS1 out of a wrecked f-body and slap a cam in it and fab up some headers and roll! It'd just take more time/fab work.

We're setting ours up for ST2 also. I think you're right about using a 351... you could build one crazy torquey motor and keep the revs down.

I'm trailering the Panoz up to PAS on Saturday so I'll have some updates when things get started. I'm going to have they weigh and dyno the car before/after.

[panozracing]

Originally Posted by Cobra4B

Brian... not sure why you say hydraulic motors can't take the racing... LSX motors are used in all kinds of motorsports w/ great success retaining the hydraulic setup.

Just our experience over the past 5 years with the GTS....we had 2 sealed 351 panoz motors, 1 ford crate 392, 2 locally built 396's all using hyd. heads all have had bottom end bearing failures and or top end valvetrain failures...all over 2.5-3 years...we switch to dart blocks/drysumped and jezel solid rockers resulted in 2 years of no issues!!!! It could be the combination but the combination works.....Most of the guys who I know that run LSX motors dont get 100hrs of racing between refreshes but I am not the expert....I will say those LSX motors we race against sound F...in AWESOME and scary to run against. What is funny is our engine build is a die hard LSX guy but he designed and sticks by the 427 he built for us. He never even mentioned going the GM route. I had to ask he his response was, WHY. they are more money (keep in mind we wanted 600hp initially and be able to detune easily) and they dont bolt in so why bother.

[panozracing]

You've probably said in other posts, but please tell us again what's the cost of the motor you've spec'ed? Obviously worth the cost since they've lasted over 100 race hours in Florida's heat.....

When we built these motors we reused the victor jr. intake, long tube headers, all the msd pcs., wires, air cleaner, water pump, balancer and other dressings/accesories.....I think the motors were 17k ea. inc. the ext. 3 stage drysump oil pump, oil tanks, drysump canton pan, new carb, and all the main engine parts. We wanted a tank of an engine that would take abuse. We were tired of buying engines! The refresh on the engine cost about 3k. Now I know I could have bought engines for much less (LSX's, fords, any) but we went down that road. For racing you want bullet proof! I also know that none of those less expensive motors have 450 ft.lbs. of torque at 2800 rpm and with a simple carb swap we can add power and dial it in all the way up to wicked 700hp+ (intake manifold needed after 600hp). Now thats flexible.

...Assuming 15% loss thru the tranny and diff, that translates to ~400 hp at the crank. As we all know, torque is what accelerates you out of corners, and so the game is to maximize torque while limiting hp to the allowable limit.

I would go with a similar setup as ours....dart block, afr 205's, jezel solid, victor jr, 390 cfm carb (buy a 650cfm to have fun ), drysump for long life, stroked to around 380-400ci.....the trick that everyone told me is if you want a certain HP build a motor capable of 40%+ MORE and detune and the engine is a tank...none of this is necessary but if your racing and we have the freedom why not do it right. I learned the hard way with 5 blown motors.....

[Cobra4B]

^ That's true... once you're into building a race type motor the cost goes way up anway so it's really moot when doing a ford vs. chevy motor... plus like you say the Ford drops right in. The LSX advantage would be a bit cheaper to get to 500 or 600 horse.

All those vettes you're racing against in ST1 like the Aaron Pfadt and Danny Popp have hydraulic lifters

[panozracing]

Originally Posted by Cobra4B

^ The LSX advantage would be a bit cheaper to get to 500 or 600 horse.

All those vettes you're racing against in ST1 like the Aaron Pfadt and Danny Popp have hydraulic lifters

Why are the LSX cheaper? Are the block or heads cheaper? I would expect that the pistons, cam, crank, etc. are all pretty close? The guys in NASA all run fuel injection which has to be more money than my holley? Dont forget to be the same as us they would have to build a 700+ hp motor (not 500-600) and then take air and fuel out to get down to 5-600 to be the same as our engine. That is how you get the strength and long life.

Those guys rebuild much more often than we do (at least I think I heard danny say 50-60hrs. when I asked). I will say their engines sound NASTY and threatening...I am not scared

[Cobra4B]

^ I have no clue how often the rebuild... I know T1 race cars that have been around the block countless times that will still put a solid 370 rwhp out of a stock LS6, but those are limited to stock long blocks.