Hi Charg-um, In all honesty, I would point you towards the VS-1500 platform. It certainly sounds like you want to do it right, and that package has all you would ever want, maybe more. At 1000+, the only thing that remains negotiable is the rod/piston manufacturers- the block, caps, studs, bearings, machining, timing, crank, etc all have to remain in the VS-1500's native configuration at that level anyway. The problem with cheapening it up is that you quite litterally would have "drop in the bucket" savings going to cheaper components. I could maybe shave 1-2K off tops by going to a couple different manufacturers, but you are going to lose some of the trick features, and cut the safety margin in half. It certainly sounds like you would be heading the headwork route, but If cost remains a factor, I would suggest going the same route as the engine in this post. Go ALL OUT on the block knowing it is the heart of the car, and has the most involved labor. Cutting the portwork out of the equation will save roughly 3-4 grand, and you can easily make over 1000 crank without it. The heads can always be pulled and ported or changed to Strikers at a later date. Better to let the flow efficiency suffer temporarily than the rotating assembly strength permanently. Figure roughly 20K for something very similar to what you see here, as you already have a core engine to start. There is a lot more room to work in this case once you get outside the block. I could still certainly build you a 1000+ capable engine with 1500+ future block potential for the ~16-17 ballpark if some if the upper end trick features are substituted, for example the Jesel rockers and Double Taper pushrods this engine will have on it, you engine can certainly make nice power without those, just not as efficiently. In fact, if you think you may go the Striker route in the future, do not buy any rockers, stay stock for now- the Strikers need special Jesels. The only thing you really have to watch out for is not to creep up too high power wise on stock unprepared heads, regardless of the block strength. Not that it will destroy your engine, but the stock valves, guides and seats cannot handle the kind of heat for very long, and they will wear out prematurely. This engine had this all addressed with new coatings and materials to keep this at a minimum, but if the owner ever decides to go for the gold, future porting would ease the issue as efficiency increases.
Nope, I would never say there are any negative results from PC. The manifolds of both the Viper and 6.1 are Aluminum, bolted directly to a set of heads that are kept at operating temp at all times. Aluminum has very good heat transfer properties, the manifold is capable if transfering heat throughout from the heads much, much faster than it could ever be dissipated in any condition without tons of ribbing to increase surface area. PC is not a very good heat barrier to begin with, heat will be dissipated right through it fairly efficiently. Not to mention, the manifold can never be cooler than its environment, which is under a hot hood. No matter how you slice it, the PC makes no difference, the manifold could never dissipate heat fast enough to matter in the first place.
Looks very good...With that much horsepower on tap are you going to girdle the bottom end? Those V 10 are long and a V8 block will tend to twist under brutal acceleration.
A set of main cap girdles is not really intended to combat block twist, but rather main cap (cap-to-cap) deflection. A block should really not twist, it has no internal tortional forces on it if working properly. However, it will see external forces such as the mount/frame/trans/drive shaft twist in high power applications. The V-10 by design is actually an extremely stiff block, Its cross-sectional shape, thick bulkheads & peripherals, lend themselves to minimal block deflection & twist in any direction. To date, I have not seen any evidence of a Viper block needing more reinforcement at any level, nor have I seen anybody girdle a Viper block at any power level, save a few guys pushing the envelope on OEM Main Caps that needed all the help they could get.
Thanks again Daniel, you are correct about going with stock heads for a while. A good way to save some up front money, without too much sacrifice. Now all I have to do is fit this monster in my car, then I can woory about how much power to throw at it ! I look forward to our future interactions..
That is one hell of a build. No wonder you have been so busy lately. How much of an additional gain do see with the striker heads? Waiting by the mailbox for the gaskets to arrive!
Hi Rob, What are you comparing the Strikers to? Stock or some of the mid range or upper-end ported OEM castings...? Thats a tough question to answer with so many variables, but if you strapped Striker heads to a stock engine, no other changes, you could see 50-75 gain at the wheels. Add a nice cam, and that will approach 100-125 at the wheels. Of course, this would require a nice exhaust system intake setup as not to just bottleneck the heads. For flow, I have seen some ported castings approach and surpass the flow of Strikers off the shelf- however, a set of hand-ported Strikers are virtually untouchable. The big gain on Strikers is the strength of the casting, *IF* that matters to you. OEM Castings have been used on some of the highest HP Vipers to date without issues. However, the Strikers are more sturdy on paper, and have some nice changes that make them easier to work with out of the box. Honestly, they are a viable solution in standard form for most packages, as by the time you factor in porting/jesels of the OEM heads, you are right up there in Striker territory anyway. In short, they are great performers, priced pretty well, and do what they advertise. Are they needed? Not in 99.99% of cars, But hey, what the hell... haha. PS- Your gaskets were held up a couple days, but I should have them in hand and out to you by weeks end for sure.
Thanks Dan, Comparing them to bone stock (since that is what I have). Naturally I would be wondering how they would compare to the stock casting in a Novi 2000 boosted application. The heads I got did not come with the rockers so I was thinking of buying the Jesel rockers for them. Then I heard of a group buy coming up on the Striker's. So just wondering if they lived up to all of the fluff. You know we have all read posts of them being bolted on with a new cam and giving back 200+HP/TQ gains.... Like your above posts I completely agree on the bullet proof bottom end. Strikers are always an option later on in the engines life.
When it comes to a Paxton application, you will run out of blower LONG before you would exceed the OEM casting strength. OEM's have seen 1700+ RW, so that reason is out. You will certainly make more power at a given boost level on Strikers/ported OEM ultimately and introduce less heat doing so, but a set of ported OEM's may be the way to go for dollar value alone. Once you get over 300 CFM's, you are splitting hairs anyway until you get into the 1500+ range.
Havent updated in a while... here you guys go! I'll make damn sure I get some nice photos of it sitting on the pallet with some of the other peripherals before we box 'er in for the long haul. Manifold Installed, Valvetrain finished up, new cover spacers installed Just about ready to go! Out the door tomorrow. Just about ready to go! Out the door tomorrow. Just about ready to go! Out the door tomorrow.
