2018 FS showdown posted.

[D.Johns]

Took a lot of email, phone calls and discussions with NHRA to get the old combinations approved to run in Stock after the new lbs/hp breakdowns emerged. NHRA was very receptive on several requests(others not so much :-) )

[Jim D'Amore]

Originally Posted by D.Johns

Took a lot of email, phone calls and discussions with NHRA to get the old combinations approved to run in Stock after the new lbs/hp breakdowns emerged. NHRA was very receptive on several requests(others not so much :-) )

NHRA has been very accepting, respectful, helpful, and in fact they even pointed out to Ford that this combination is legal for stock. They are as well a bit confused as to Ford's response.

[D.Johns]

I’ll admit I was getting nervous every time they(NHRA) said the guide would be in a particular date 2x and those dates came and went. I was simply just trying to get a more competitive engine combo for the shoot-out without having to build another car. Heck this one took me 4yrs to build. Lol. But the NHRA certainly has been great to deal with.

[ssdoug]

Originally Posted by Jim D'Amore

-Ford 5.4 331 cu inches at NHRA maximum specs will be 342 cu inches
-Chevrolet 350 cu inches at NHRA maximum specs will be 370 cu inches
-Mopar 354 cu inches at NHRA maximum specs will be 374 cu inches

Now coming into play, adding another 2 atmospheres of air with the use of a supercharger at approximately 26 psi boost.

Ford 5.4 NHRA max specs 342 cu in with 2 atmospheres of air is 1026 cu inches
Chevrolet 350 NHRA max specs 370 cu in with 2 atmospheres of air is 1110 cu inches
Mopar 354 NHRA max specs 374 cu in with 2 atmospheres of air is 1122 cu inches

So under boost Chevrolet is 84 more cubic inches and the Mopar is 96 more cubic inches than the Ford engine combination.

The 2.9L front entry Supercharger spinning to 9,000 engine RPM will produce 26 psi boost in both the GM and Mopar.

The 4.0L Supercharger with the 4.00” pulley on it at 9,000 engine RPM will produce 24 psi boost on the Ford 5.4L motor.

Some say the Ford has a better flowing set of heads which is true but we are limited with camshaft lift. Which the 500 and 510 HP combination only have a .471 max lift cams.

GM and Mopar are well over .640 max lift cam specs, which allows there heads to flow more.




HELLO!

where do you get one of the 26 PSI superchargers .

[Rob Wright]

How do curtain areas compare between the Ford, Mopar, and GM with each at max lift?

Originally Posted by Jim D'Amore

Some say the Ford has a better flowing set of heads which is true but we are limited with camshaft lift. Which the 500 and 510 HP combination only have a .471 max lift cams.

GM and Mopar are well over .640 max lift cam specs, which allows there heads to flow more.




HELLO!

[Todd Gross]

Originally Posted by Rob Wright

How do curtain areas compare between the Ford, Mopar, and GM with each at max lift?

Interesting exercise Rob.

If I calculated right.

Chevy with .641 lift = 4.349 sq.in Int / 3.185 Ex
Mopar with .591/.589 lift = 3.891 sq.in Int / 3.008 Ex
Ford 5.4 with .473 lift = 4.255 sq.in Int / 3.682 Ex

The 4 smaller valves of the Ford increases the curtain area at a lower lift vs. a 2 valve with greater lift.

[Rob Wright]

Off the top of my head that looks reasonable Todd, and it clearly shows that with current legal lift specs the Ford has more combined into/exh airflow potential than the GM and.the Mopar.

Throttle blade area is same/same on GM and Mopar and no surprise since they share the exact same 109mm round bore throttle body.

Ford has an oval-shaped throttle bore & I'd bet it has about 25% more area than the COPO & DP.

In 1997, the high volume production Ford 4v valvetrain was capable of running continuously at 8,000 RPM.....My bet is they got better over the past 20 years.

Not sure how the efficiency maps look for Whipple blowers.....when I asked I was told their data was on a laptop that was in a vehicle that was stolen & never recovered. Unless the 4.0L is horribly inefficient compared to the 2.9L, it has about 38% more capacity....makes sense since 4.0L with 25%-ish slower drive speed matches power output of 2.9L on same/same engine.

Just thoughts........

Originally Posted by JMan;549615[FONT=Georgia

Interesting exercise Rob.

If I calculated right.

Chevy with .641 lift = 4.349 sq.in Int / 3.185 Ex
Mopar with .591/.589 lift = 3.891 sq.in Int / 3.008 Ex
Ford 5.4 with .473 lift = 4.255 sq.in Int / 3.682 Ex

The 4 smaller valves of the Ford increases the curtain area at a lower lift vs. a 2 valve with greater lift.[/FONT]

[bsimms89]

http://nhraracer.com/content/general...362&zoneid=132

Seems they issued a correction stating that the Cobra Jets with the 4.0L Whipple aren't actually permitted.

[Jim D'Amore]

Originally Posted by D.Johns

I’ll admit I was getting nervous every time they(NHRA) said the guide would be in a particular date 2x and those dates came and went. I was simply just trying to get a more competitive engine combo for the shoot-out without having to build another car. Heck this one took me 4yrs to build. Lol. But the NHRA certainly has been great to deal with.

This eats away at me every day. NHRA was going to accept two different platforms from Ford to be able to keep the 08,10, and 12 Cobra Jets competitive in the shootout. It's tough on the people who invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in their Cobra Jet's and Ford won't help their own racers to keep them competitive. I went right to the top with this to Dave Pericak. He basically told me that Mike was in charge. Which scares the hell out of me! He personally sent emails out to the older Cobra Jet owners and said he would help those who wanted to race the shoot out class. Then when NHRA approved it his response to NHRA was that Ford is not interested! It was a stiff kick in the face... When Mike demanded the 500 and 510 HP combination be deleted from the shoot out engine combination NHRA had no choice but to delete it because Mike represents Ford Motor Company. It was on the books for just over a week and Cobra Jet owners had already spent a ten's of thousands of their hard earned money to build that combination and Mike knew this.


A couple of years ago at the PRI show I was standing with a group of Ford Racers at the Ford booth when Mike made a comment about how he extremely disliked the Cobra Jet program. After that Ford released Mike from his previous program, then Dave later put him in charge of the Cobra Jet program...?


This does not work for the guys who have been supporting the Ford name since the beginning when they purchased their 2008,2010, and 2012 Cobra Jet's.


Jim D'Amore

[D.Johns]

Jim,
I have no personal dealing with Mike so I can not speak on that front.

While talking with Don Fezell at his shop in PA when I was buying his stick stuff from him for my CJ he stated items that he had requested that NHRA/Ford said no to. When I was speaking with NHRA I also was requesting items for my combo and even the TVS cars to make the class more competitive amoungst the combos I was told a similar item for the 08s. My request for the TVS was weight, pulley change(Don said what he ran in testing) or blower.

I was also turned down on some service replacement parts accepted for my combo as well.(Believe someone else was behind that one) I can’t blame Ford for wanting their latest and greatest to be limited to the car owners. It keeps the guys who can afford to have 4,5,6,7 of these cars keep buying new ones. Plus it showcases what Ford currently offers. Brand loyal racers will generally remain brand loyal regardless.


As time marches on architectures become obsolete. It’s a tough pill to swallow though when you have $250k in a car that before was going to require you to build a whole new one. (With the current rules it will still cost $55-65K to switch architectures. Same would bring it down to $10-25k reusing most parts.