Heads, Cam, and Ignition Testing on a Small Block Chevy - Danger Mouse Part 24

Testing Edelbrock's E-Tec 200 Heads

By Mike Petralia

Pt. 27 - It's A Very Stout Combination
Last month Danger Mouse (DM) went on a really big power trip running a Weiand Hi Ram, twin Holley 650s and a custom solid roller cam from Lunati. Those parts netted some awesome power figures, but they'd be pretty radical on the street. So we figured right now would be a good time to get back to basics and test some of the hottest new street stuff we could get our hands on.

In this month's test, Test 44, even though we'd downsized the components substantially, we still made a lot of power, which gives massive credit to the science behind the products involved. In the past we've tested many different size cylinder heads on DM, but Edelbrock's E-Tec's are the first heads we've used with 200cc intake runners. Not to confuse the issue, but Edelbrock also makes a 170cc version of this head, which is better suited to low-end grunt and we'll be bolting a set of those on DM next month to see how they compare. This time around, we wanted to see how much power the 200cc heads could cook up and the results were delicious.

Heads Affect Power
What is it in cylinder heads that can make one set produce tremendous power, while another set flops? The truth is in the design, but we're not just talking about port shapes and volumes here. Everything from port entry to exhaust short-side radius to combustion-chamber shape to the ratio between intake and exhaust flow plus about a billion other things all have an effect on the power a head can produce.

Edelbrock has a serious advantage over a lot of other cylinder head companies in that they've been making induction systems practically since hot rodding was invented, and they've learned a thing or two about how to get the most from the least. But, there's even more to it than that. You could take the best cylinder heads in the world and combine them with the wrong cam or a mismatched intake manifold and your engine would totally tank. That's why research is so important and that's why we're doing this stuff for you.

When planning your next engine project, don't just talk to your buddies, read about what's going on and see what kind of power has been made with some of the parts you're thinking about. With all the magazine dyno testing going on today, it'd be hard not to find the perfect combination spelled out for you in black and white in the pages of a magazine somewhere, hopefully in SUPER CHEVY.

Hr Cam Technology
The real deal this month is that we properly matched the camshaft to the heads, to the intake manifold, to the carburetor, to the ignition, to the headers, and out the exhaust. This is something we've been preaching all along with DM and can't stress the importance of enough. It was pretty easy this month, since all we had to do was pick up Edelbrock's catalog and order several key components right from it.

Even though Edelbrock does not call the hydraulic roller cam we ran this month a "matched" grind to the E-Tec heads and manifold, we knew from its specs that it would work very well. The lift and duration figures were right in the middle of the pack, not so big that they'd make the engine unruly on the street and not so small that they'd wimp out on the track. In fact, this cam, heads, and intake package produced a very broad torque curve rivaling any of the best DM has made in the past. And the 485 peak hp it delivered tells us that this thing can really scream.