Mike C's day job

[Mike C]

Hi guys, thought some of you may be interested in I do to finance my JBL fetish!!
I build automotive race engines for a living, the engine in the pic is our 2004 spec Superstock smallblock Ford. The engine makes a little over 1000hp and 700 ftlbs of torque at over 8000 rpm. The engine will sell for approx $80'000 AU.
Bo and Ian check out the blue ( VHT Ford competion blue ) now there's a nice baffle colour.....................
Mike.

[4313B]

Very cool! Do you build Chevys or Mopars as well?

[Mike C]

Hi Giskard, happy newyear mate!. Yes we build some Chevs as well mainly for the speedway, Mopars arn't that common over here Chrysler got a pretty bad wrap over here after their efforts in the 70's. I do a little on a roadrace viper for a mate and I must say its a good ride ( we got it out on the back streets one night ) the same guy owns a copo Camaro 69 model its also very fast.

[Oldmics]

HUMMMMMMMM,Aluminum heads,tunnel ram and some serious mig or tig work on those valve covers.Whats up with the welding on the valve covers-extended for clearance for roller stuff?How bout the heads-airflow stuff?Gawd I miss those days of cubic money!!!!!!!!!

Oldmics

[Mike C]

Hey oldmics, I thought this pic would filter out the petrol heads among us!!! The cylinder heads on this thing are SC-1 ford castings CNC ported in the states by Bennet Cylinder heads and they flow over 420 cfm @28" the camshaft has around 1" lift. The valve covers are custom made as with the sheetmetal intake. The heads are so highly modified there are no manfolds or covers avalible that will fit. The compression ratio is set at 16.00:1 Drooling yet ? can't say too much the enemy may be listening ( I wonder if their into JBL's.... I hope not ) Thanks for your interest.
Mike.......

[boputnam]

!!

[Steve]

Very nice....
Reminds me of my involvment in the late '70's in SCCA and IMSA GT3 racing... 1600CC normaly asperated VW motors pumping 160hsp. Now...if we had thought about getting a pair of large JBL monitors back then to do noise cancelling we could have run the dyno more often and longer.
I'm curious...what does your motor weigh in at?
Sure was a fun time.
Thanks
Steve

[GordonW]

Killer bullet there... though, I'm more of a fan of the roundy-round and twisty stuff... like, little motors built to insane levels.

One of the motors I was most impressed with, was a normally-aspirated, bridge-ported Mazda 13B rotary that a guy a school had stuffed into a '73 RX3. Something outrageous like 350hp at 11500 RPM!! This, in a car, that after the application of fiberglass fenders, hood, trunk lid and such, probably didn't weigh more than 1750lbs!! It'd out-accelerate a stock Porsche 911 Turbo at speed, all the while sounding all the world like an insane chainsaw on acid!! Talk about near-instant hearing damage!

Also, there's a guy who occasionally shows up at the Walter Mitty vintage races at Road Atlanta, with an Alfa GTZ Junior 1300 "prototype", from 1968, IIRC. How about a 1.3 liter PISTON engine, mostly STOCK, that can do 196hp at 9600 RPM?!?

Mike, you guys ever do any work for any of the guys running the V8 Supercars over there? I try to catch the replays that Speed Channel does of those races, whenever I can. Heck, I probably can name more of THOSE drivers, than I can Indy or NASCAR drivers (let's see, Paul Morris, Craig Lowndes, Ambrose... )

Oh, BTW: this reminds me... I just saw the FIRST TV ads I've encountered, for the new Pontiac GTO... ie, the Holden Morena GTS in different cosmetic trim, IIRC! That's likely to be a real barn-burner over here, if they can market it right!

Regards,
Gordon.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Mick,

Brings back memories of Mad Max ...Beyond Thunderdome.

Ian

[Mike C]

Hi Gordon, yes I spent from 1998 to the end of 2001 doing the v8 supercar tour. I built ford engines for Cameron McLean ( greenfield mowers Racing #40 ) and spent some time doing exhaust and cylinder head development that has filtered into most of the level one teams. You mentsioned Paul Morris, we purchased a fuel system out of one of his cars from last season and installed it into a street car just before the xmas break. I will take some pics for you when I go back to work this week.I have some pics of the engines I have built for the series, I'll scan them for you and post them as well. There are about 10 engine builders of note that build these things and we all came out of the same stable at one time or another. I didn't enjoy the experience much though as the hours were long and the rewards were litte. I guess you can gather from all this I'm a ford nut !!.
Mike......

Ian, I saw a copy of one of those interseptors floating around the coast the other week and chuckled to my self.