 About 95 percent of buyers opt for the $1695 supercharger. It develops 12 psi and boosts output to nine horsepower.
Gary Conley doesn't build model V-8s. He builds real engines that happen to be only 8.5 inches long and 8.25 inches tall. He manufactures them in his Glen Ellyn, Illinois, shop, churning out dozens at a time. The Stinger 609, his current production model, is a roughly one-quarter-scale version of a Viper V-10 with two cylinders lopped off. With a bore and stroke of 1.00 by 0.97 inch, the 6.09-cubic-inch powerplant develops a claimed 5.5 horsepower at 9000 rpm. It spins to 12,000 rpm.
Putting together an engine this size involves more than just working with really small stuff. Physical properties such as fluid dynamics and surface tension don't scale, raising carburetion, cooling, and ignition issues. Conley modifies chain-saw carbs and feeds them from a tiny diaphragm-type fuel pump attached to the distributor. The 609 burns regular gasoline and idles between 1800 and 2000 rpm. For cooling, Conley circulates water from the block to a multi-quart holding tank. Conley's fellow model craftsman, Paul Knapp, makes the tiny spark plugs, and the thread-like plug wires are the real deal, with RFI suppression because many of these engines reside in radio-controlled machines. The miniaturized pushrod valvetrain, on the other hand, operates perfectly in one-quarter scale. Tiny mechanical lifters, hollow pushrods, cast rocker arms, and miniscule split valve keepers actuate 0.48-inch (diameter) intake valves and 0.39-inch exhausts. You might think there would be limited demand for $5695 miniature V-8s, but you'd be wrong. Though production began just last year, the first 40 are gone. "If I had 100 engines on the shelf, I could sell them all in a week," Conley tells us. If you're interested, the current backlog is about 18 months.  Eat your heart out, stuart littleWhat do you do with a six-cubic-inch V-8? Some of Conley's engines spend their lives trapped in display cases. He much prefers to see, say, a pair of blown V-8s in a replica ocean-racing boat. One powers a quarter-scale Grave Digger monster truck. You can also find them in assorted model sprint cars, desert racers, sports cars, and even motorcycles. Conley himself built a beautiful quarter-scale Top Fuel dragster, and he's gearing up to offer a 1923 T-bucket [at left] that provides a perfect home for the Stinger 609.
from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Engine Downsizing, For Reals: The 6.09-Cubic-Inch, Fully Functioning V-8
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