JBP's Engine Masters Contender

Ever since its introduction in late 2001, the Engine Masters competition featured in our sister publication, Popular Hot Rodding, has been one of the most talked about contests for fans of normally aspirated, pushrod V-8 engines. If you're not already familiar with what Engine Masters is, here is a brief overview:

The idea is to get engine builders from all over North America, large and small, commercial and private, to show how they measure up against one another in standardized dyno testing. They design and build an engine that conforms to a specific set of rules regarding displacement, intakes, carbs, and heads. The idea is for engine builders to use their expertise and imaginations to science out combinations that make power and are feasible for readers to duplicate.

"This series was developed for street-oriented combinations," said PHR tech editor, Scott Parkhurst. "The engines have to be built with off-the-shelf components and with the intentions of being installed in a '55 or newer chassis. This prohibits the use of custom-made parts--everything has to be commercially available with a part number so no one has an unfair advantage."

Though one might think that the long and extensive aftermarket support for the various Ford and Chevy V-8 engines would have given builders of those engines an advantage, it has actually worked out to be a much more balanced matchup across the board.

With the focus on street performance, the competition placed equal emphasis on torque and horsepower. That means that the engines with the most area "under the curve" would fare the best in this contest, so the inherent strength of the Pontiac V-8, its superior torque production, would have a chance to shine in the competition.

Parkhurst said that another interesting footnote to the Engine Masters competition is that the series has attracted engine builders from various sources. "We're getting people from all different motorsports disciplines participating," he told us. "Where else are you going to have boat racers, oval trackers, and drag racers all competing in the same event?"

In this round of the Engine Masters series, Pontiac was once again represented. For this story, we will be concentrating on the highest placing of the 3 Pontiac V-8s entered, a 467 stroker from Butler Performance. "What the Butlers did was enter an engine combination based on their basic crate motor and turn up the wick about 50 hp, Parkhurst said. "This might be an opportunity to evolve the engines they already offer."

Indeed, the performance of the Butler 467 is impressive when one realizes that very little in the way of testing for the optimum combination was performed. Where some of the other competitors tried as many as 5 other camshafts in their engines, the Butlers were forced by the constraints of time to try only one camshaft, rocker ratio, intake, carb, and one set of headers.

"We built this engine on a Wednesday, broke it in and tested it that Thursday afternoon and carried it to Comp Cams the following Monday for the regional competition, without making any changes, other than timing and jetting," David Butler recalled. "We didn't even change valve lash or spark plug gap. We built this engine just like all of our customers engines and competed with it just like we assembled it the first and only time."

With the sixth place finish overall, the Pontiac hobbyist in general can be proud of how their Ponchos stack up against some of the best Chevys, Fords, and Mopars out there. Follow along as we watch Rodney and David tear down the 467 to see what went into its impressive performance and how well it held up.

ABOUT ENGINE MASTERS
What started out as PHR's annual engine publication has grown into an extremely popular engine competition series that has in turn, expanded the publication into a quarterly title, edited by Scott Parkhurst.

"Engine Masters was the name of our engine publication, so when the competition was developed, we tied it in with the magazine by sharing the name," Parkhurst explained. "The popularity of the series fueled the expansion of the book enough to make it a quarterly."

In addition, the Engine Masters Web site (www.enginemasters.com) is an excellent resource for enthusiasts looking for the latest information and rules, past competitions and an archive of buildup articles, dyno pulls, and photography.

Why not put your Pontiac combination to the test? Anyone is free to apply to compete in the Engine Master challenge, it is not just for professional engine builders. Hobbyists and backyard builders are also welcome to compete as well. This is also as level a playing field as anyone could ever find, as no non-production OE or one-off aftermarket parts are allowed--everything has to be off-the-shelf and readily obtainable. "Several engine builders have made the most of the exposure they received from their participation in Engine Masters," Parkhurst added. "It's an opportunity for builders to make a career for themselves." --DK

COMMENTS FROM THE BUILDER
We have used this long rod combo for many years and made it readily available (with our initial partnership with Eagle) to the general customer at a very reasonable price with the production of the new cranks. We use these long rods for broad power and durability, especially when using cast cranks and factory blocks.

This contest was a perfect fit to showcase what we build every day. Most of the pieces in this combo are parts that we stock in-house and use in our customers engines. We didn't use any coatings, exotic rotating assembly or valvetrain pieces, high compression that would live only through the dyno pulls, or do things that we wouldn't normally do for a good reliable pump gas, street/strip engine.

Because of this, we had to spend very little time from specing the engine to final tuning. The one piece we did use on this engine that we might not normally use on an engine like this was the BOP belt drive. The nice thing about the belt drive is our ability to change cam timing right on the dyno in just a matter of minutes--very important because of the limited time we have to make changes. Otherwise we would use a traditional timing chain, timing cover, and water pump set up.