I don't know that beveled pin ends and round wire locks were around in the mid-eighties. As far as I know the only available pin locks were circlips and spiral-locks. While OK for drag racing neither is durable enough for an endurance engine.

 

I had completely forgotten about that one.... cobwebs I guess. I believe you are right, the origin was Bill Jenkins. We also used that trick in the mid to late seventies on stock production Chevy "pink" rods at Zorian Products and Machine Co. in Tampa where I was an apprentice at the time.

I am trying to remember exactly how we used to do it as I sort out the old memories. With a Sunnen cap grinder I think we just cleaned the rod parting surfaces and pressed the studs in. For the cap, we clamped it with shim stock under one end, ground the other end till clean and flipped it around and repeated for the other side to purposely grind it off-parallel. When the rod was torqued up it would pull the big end out of round and be about .002 under at 6 and 12 o'clock and about .004 under at the parting lines. We would then hone the big ends back to round to about .002 over, disassemble and cut the caps again, this time without the shim stock so that when reassembled the rod big ends would be on-size at 6 and 12 o'clock and about .002 over at the parting lines which would build the Delta Wall feature into the rods.

I always thought it was just an extra unnecessary dog and pony show operation the boss could add to the customer's work order as it was far easier to grind the backsides of the bearings to make any shape you want without playing games with the rods.

In the pre-restrictor plate days you would find out pretty quick whether you were an engine builder or not when you brought something to Daytona.

 

Yep!! Talladega was tough as well did the cylinder heads that won there once when Bouchard came from 4'th to 1'st coming off turn 4 on the last lap. The car hap 5 or 6 mph more in a straight line than anything else there that year and waited until then to show he had it. It was the year the TV cameras went dead on the last lap and i was in CT at home so never did see it but guys on the crew told me it was a sight to behold.

 

Ahh, then you played a role in the early engines for Jack Beebe's Race Hill Farms team? That was about the time just before Jack organized his own in-house program in Charlotte when he bought the building near the Charlotte Douglas airport and moved the team south. Were the engines built in CT before the move? Who was the engine builder then?

 

It's even tougher to build a good competitive restrictor plate engine these days. Five horsepower separates a great engine from an average one now and it takes an incredible amount of time and effort to find that much of an advantage. Everything associated with a restrictor plate engine is placed as close to the edge of survival as you can get it. For example, before NASCAR mandated minimum sizes and weights for internal components several years ago, we ran incredibly small lightweight rods which used Honda motorcycle bearings. Even the Honda motorcycle bearings were machined quite a bit to reduce the width. In case anyone was wondering how you can possibly have a problem with a 450hp engine.

 

Bob Johnson the crew chief did the engines while in CT and I did the heads for a very long time. Man how I hated the original iron heads. They were carved on to an inch of their life we left nothing on the table and cracked a set by the end of the race 90% of the time. Funny thing is they never leaked during the race but cracked on cool down / shut down. I don't remember much changing after the move in that my understanding it was more of a logistics thing to minimize the driving cars to and from the majority of tracks. I have loads of funny stories about that program but would take this thread in a different direction that has little to do with the original thread.
Dave

 

Dave, I was going to guess Bob Rinaldi was the engine builder then as I didn't realize Bob Johnson was wearing two hats and burning the candle at both ends. The one-race heads you we're preparing were the 292 cast iron turbo's weren't they? If I remember correctly about a solid week of hard work to get a new set ready with all that hand porting and only good for one race! Relating more of your background is actually great stuff in support of the Callaway B2K engine specs subject. The account of your NASCAR racing background adds immensely to understanding the experience that was behind all those great Callaway built engines. Thanks for sharing!

 

Rinaldi was at Dick Moroso's race engine shop. Dick hired me to run the place for one season and I placed the one season limit on that. The day we shipped the last engine of the season I was gone one minute after it was loaded. Basically they needed someone to not be everyones buddy per se but to get things out the door on time. It took a bit of retraining and some reality checks but in a few weeks it came around pretty well. I liked Dick a bunch here was a col guy did some proto-type cylinder heads for his Darlington dash car that worked out pretty well. I had so much on my plate at the time I did a coupe of intake and exhaust ports I liked and told him to have someone do them that would not mas produce them so he was racing against himself. Oh well back to work for me.. Dave

 

Throughout your experience (whether doing work for Callaway or otherwise), did you ever come across any L98 connecting rods that were found to be flawed (after magnaflux checking)? If so, was it something that occurred often or was it very rare?

 

I don't think we had more than a couple that had things that caused a little pause if you know what I mean. They were not definately bad but they were not flawless so got changed. If it were me I would limit the rpm to 6k or under have high quality rod bolts and rod bearings that allow for a bit of extra clearance at the parting line if you are going to lean on it really hard. Be sure to have the big end of the rods resized if changing the rod bolts as they could pull the bore out of round. When we magged them we had a machine made by the Magnaflux co that used a liquid green floresent dye that was magnetic and we hit them with a lot of amps with the dye on them and looked at it under a black light. Under those conditions you could see things that were not on the surface. The amps were enough that if you were wearing a digital or electronic watch it was pretty useless right away, God forbid a pacemaker..LOL They had to be demagnitized later most of the guys wanted nothing to do with the machine though it never bothered me. I hope this answers your question.
As an aside to do what you want with it. In all the new and used stuff I have done QC work on the things I would be real sure to spend money on is mag the rods before doing anything other than pressing the pistons off mag the crank with extra care looking at the oil holes rear main and flywheel flange along with #4 main bearing and crank arms the block with special care in the lifter valley by the lifter bores and the main bearing saddles for #1 and #4 it is also never a bad idea to mag valve springs back when i was doing it the rejection rate for everyones was around 30% with flaws in the wire.

 

Great insight into Callaway twin turbo program. Helps put into perspective why cars were costly new. Will help me when I have to redo my intake paint. Thanks Dave!!

 

 

 

3 years ago I had 2k put down on a! Late 87 B2k. I decided to buy a new z06 so I reniged on the deal. I had even talked to Reeves himself about the car! He said it had a great history and the origi nal dark color dymags. It only had 30k miles and I was gettin g it for 22k........wow, if I of known that much blueprinting and craftsmanship went into them aty calloway, I would of definitely bought it!!! I thought they just threw a couple of hair dryers on them