Crate Engine Super Build - Blown Brawler In A Box

Nice bearings! How often has anyone ever uttered that phrase? We're guessing never. But take a look at these 270-degree bearings compared to the typical 180-degree bearings. For blown and stroked motors, the oil galley from the crank to the connecting rod will be lubed a total of 270 degrees of rotation compared to the standard 180 degrees.

Smeding uses a custom-made, custom-ground hydraulic roller cam with .510-inch intake lift at 231 degrees of duration and .522-inch exhaust lift at 236 degrees of duration and a 113-degree lobe center in all his blown engines. All duration numbers are measured at .050-inch valve lift.

Once all the machining is done to make this a performance engine, the bottom half of the block can finally come together. There's nothing special about installing the rotating assembly, so we decided to include this obligatory "crank going into the block" photo.

In the safety of the dyno room's control center, Martin fires and takes several minutes to seat the rings and run the engine through its paces. Then the final pull happens and we get to see what all this meticulous work Smeding puts into each build produces.

We snapped a photo of the screen just after the engine made its pull. Take a close look at the first three columns on the left side of the screen. The far left side is the rpm speed, the second columns on the left side of the screen. The far left side is the rpm speed, the second column is the torqued at any given rpm, and the third from the left is the horsepower. You can see that at just 2,500 rpm the engine is already at 481 lb-ft of torque and hits peak torque at 583 lb-ft @ 4,600 rpm. The horsepower at 2,500 rpm reads 229, then has a steady climb to a peak number of 601 hp at 6,000 rpm. All in all, this is a stoutly built blower in box that should be fun to drive around the town roasting any street machine's hides.