Guess the dyno numbers

Heading to R&R performance at the end of this week.

Here is the combo:
-'77 440 block .030 overbore, square decked with ARP studded mains.
-Factory forged crank, King XP bearings, Scat H beams rods, forged Mahle powerpak pistons with 1.5,1.5,3 mm ring pack at -.005 deck for .047 quench with Felpro gaskets.
-Compression ratio comes out to 10.31:1.
-ATI two ring damper for stock location pulleys.
-Milodon 7 quart kick out low profile pan and windage tray, 1/2" pickup, melling HV pump. Driven 15-50 break in oil.

-Dwayne Porter spec'd nitrided custom comp solid flat tappet cam with 292/301 advertised, 260/266@.050, 586/585, 108 lsa. Degree'd in at 104 center line with Rollmaster timing set.
-Howard's EDM lifters
-1.65:1 ratio Mancini Harland Sharp rocker arms that will open the valve to .625/.624" after lash. Manton 3/8" diameter, .095 wall, stage 3 pushrods.

The heads are Indy EZ's that have been ported to max wedge and cleaned up and a "mild pocket porting" them and fixed the guide issues and recut the valve seats.
After that they went Wheeler racing engines flow bench and here are the flow numbers:
Lift - Intake flow - Exhaust flow
.100 - 72.3 - 66.5
.200 - 144.3 -126.1
.300 - 209.2 -165.3
.400 - 261.6 -201.4
.500 - 310.2 -235.7
.600 - 347.8 -264.6
.700 - 340.3 -279.3
.800 - 349.9 -281
Not sure how their bench compares to others but that's the data I got.

-The heads are topped with the standard 2.19-1.81 valves and have Comp 928 dual springs, comp tool steel 10 degree retainers. Installed height of 1.95 with 150 lbs of seated spring load. Open spring load of 370@ .620 lift.

-On top of all this is a out of the box Mopar M1 "337" single plane manifold with a Quickfuel 950 4150 carb. I have two spacers to try. One plastic summit 4 hole cheapie 1" and a wood 3/4" open spacer I got free.

-Firecore mechanical tall distributor and plug wires

This is my first dyno and first build that isn't just stock. I'm mainly hoping it lives after break in and spotting leaks and fixing that while out of the car is easy. After that initial worry of possible destruction leaves my brain then power acquisition comes to mind lol hoping for 425+ hemi power.

Curious to see what everyone thinks. Guesses on power, torque and rpm peaks?

That should go 630-640 with those heads and that cam. It should peak around 6800.
Torque will be in the 580 range at 4500.

Pump gas 440 with EZ heads and a flat tappet cam should be around 600 hp with dyno headers and electric water pump.

In the car you might have 450 to 500 rwhp if you check it on a chassis dyno.

To bad you didn’t send that intake out with the heads to get some port work done. Sure nice to have a matched combo.

Id say 600

Guessing about 630 to 650.
How high are you looking to turn it?

Yeah that Mopar 337 manifold does not line up with Max wedge ports it takes quite a bit of work to get there.....

I was tempted for a port match. I got the intake last year after getting the heads done. I figured the intake is easy enough to take off at a later time and do it. I was being cheap lol. Getting it running is more important than getting everything out of it right away i guess. It's only going to be dyno numbers and a baseline to improve upon...eventually

Left some power on the table with only ~.565 lift. I would have liked to see something with .600 net but that always isn't possible.

I'm saying 615-620.

That short stroke will limit the torque more than the HP, what brand engine dyno is it going on?
I'm going to guess conservative based on the stock stroke and say between 550 and 600 HP and more torque than HP
I hope it does better than that, good luck
Anyone want to place some bets on results?

Not sure where the HP will end up, but the moderate CR and big ports are gonna hurt the torque with only 440-ish cubes.

613 HP

If you read what he posted, lift is a good bit more using the 1.65 rockers he has

Well Bon of a sitch, I missed that entire line in the thread. Lift look much better. Thanks for pointing that out.

R&Rs dyno is pretty accurate, he did my 408 and a 455 Poncho I built, and guys run about what they should, based on his numbers.

Dyno numbers can vary a bunch, so I'll quantify my guess by saying its what I'd expect to see out of it if I ran it here.

I've only tested one motor with a 337 on it, and it was a completely different beast than what you built....... So I really don't have a handle on how that will behave in the upper rpm's.

If it had something like a 440-2 on it, I'd expect it to get into valvetrain instability before the power curve reached its natural peak(where it would peak without valvetrain instability issues).

I'm basing that on your 928 springs being installed at 1.950.
Those lobes, 1.65 rockers, that spring set up at 1.950........ I'm thinking something will start to show unhappiness by 6500-ish, and I think the combo would likely peak a bit closer to 7k if everything is good.

I'm not suggesting you change anything......At this point, just run it and see what happens.


All that being said, I'd be looking for 625-640hp or so...... And 550-570tq with my 2-2 1/8 x 4 dyno headers.

Today was dyno day on friday the 13th. The dyno was a super flow 902. Ignition was a Msd digital 6al with blaster 3 coil. The dyno headers we used were hooker old 2" super comps intended for straight spark plugs.

After priming and adjusting the Milodon oil pump pressure the 446 fired to life in instant. We broke the cam in on the outer springs only and then puttzed around adding the inner's and made some pulls.

The first test pull to 5600 with no spacer showed 587.3 at 5600 and climbing with 552.8 lbs ft torque at 5300. Then Ron took it up 6300 rpm for a pull and got: 620hp there and 557.8 torque at 5300.

Ron grabbed a "cloverleaf" spacer out of his collection and decided to go up to 6500. Torque was 558.6 at 5400 but the torque dropped 17 at 4000 rpm vs no spacer. The peak was 631.2 then going down to 630.1 at 6500. The measured cfm went down from 803 at 6400 to 802 at 6500. Dwayne Porter nailed it!

This pull was the pull that I had to contain my self from yelling oh #$%$%$ (keeping it clean). Horspower dropped down to 573.8 at 6500 and torque went to 509.9 at 5700. Ron immediately shut it down and we worried and went in to look at take off the valve covers and see what was up. He grabbed the distributor and it turned. We chuckled and realized timing was retarded lol. Reset it to 34 and all was well with the next pull.

The best was 633.9 horspower and 6400 rpm with torque coming in at 562.9 at 5400 with a 1" four hole spacer and the torque at 4000 4 higher than no spacer. So the 4 hole spacer wins.

Dwayne was spot on about the rpm at valvetrain instability showing at 6500. The dyno showed the measured air in the bell over the carb went down one cfm from 6400 so that set our redline. With that said I'm happy that the engine lived and made power and was a awesome experience. It's not perfect but it'll be a step up or 2 from the stock 383 in the car. What installed height and spring pressures would you have gone with Dwayne? Shimming might be in my future

Yeah I'm sure you're right. I bought the heads in 2009. The options were limited to EZ's, SR's, Eddy rpm's or stealths for simplicity sakes.

I was 26 years old when I bought them direct from indy at mopars in the park. The mistake was buying them from Indy. Needed too much work to justify. Now I woulda went with Trick Flow.

Nice motor, being a 440 RB it might be a perfect application for a mildly ported (lower plenum particularly) Indy 440-2D Dual plane.

The 337 Comes with a port outlet that is (maybe deliberately) 1/2 way between a full gasket 906 and a true Max wedge. I have a Larry Smith full race ported 337 on my 517 and I'm very happy with it. so your 337 will likely be down on torque on a 440 below around 4200-4500 on and application like yours, I'd try a 440-2d to see if you like it better. Peak to peak may be close to the same but I'll bet the torque will be stronger out of the basement.

Cool deal. Nothing broke and you learned some important stuff, too.

Was the QF 950 out of the box? The air-fuel #s look pretty stable, although trending toward the richer side.

Thanks, I wanted to bring my max wedge Indy 2-d intake and see but time was running out. I bought the 2d used that has already been port matched but no deeper porting. But I wanna give it a try in the car though. Adding the inner springs took time and we changed the oil after cam break so the oil wasn't up to it's complete operating temp. AFter break in time flew! Felt like the end was around the corner lol.

Exactly why I did this. A big weight was lifted off me that nothing broke lol.

Yeah pretty much out of the box. We didn't even do a jet change. Just adjusted the 4 corner screws. I bought a QFT 1050 originally. When talking to Dwayne over the phone he said it was too big. So I bought the 950 body and swapped it. I plugged the emulsion so 2 out of 5 are blocked though. I think it's botom, middle and top open like a old school holley double pumper. The cruise test on the dyno under light load showed it considerably richer in the 10.3 2900 rpm to 11.7 range 3000. So a afr gauge in the car will need to be used and much more learning lol.

Looks like I was pretty close........ Numbers are right where I would have expected.
It appears that it's doing what it should....... Nice job!!

The spring pressure deal on street cars can be a catch 22.
More pressure = accelerated wear....... So you have to decide how much more rpm you really want/need.
The 1.950 was the main red flag for me.
I usually see those springs closer to 150@1.900 on my tester.
The catalog shows 135@1.950/365@1.300, which is what I'd expect.
That's a little light for high rpm with a moderately aggressive profile and 1.65 rockers.
I'd have been at more like 1.88-1.90 for a street car, and used a spring with a higher rate for a bracket car.

As a comparison, I just assembled some heads with 928's for a .645 lift cam(with 1.6's), using lobes a little smoother than yours........ 150@1.900/380@1.250.

Thanks! Was very rewarding building this. I told the dyno guy he said that might be the reason but said it was a awesome pump gas 440. He was kinda surprised with the torque curve he said.

The shop that did my heads. Set the springs up that made me wonder "hmm why?" The exhaust has thicker shims under the springs bringing the installed hight to 1.925 with 160 seat pressure. The intakes are 1.950 with 150. I mocked it up with the inners and used a digital caliper to measure since I don't have a spring height mic and found the heights to be what the shops paper said. I remember you saying these might be the indy 928's that are a bit stiffer but I don't know. I wanna double check my measurements though. Maybe bring the intakes where the exhaust are and just let it be.

The I asked the porter he said the guy that did the guides and seats must have a reason and not touch it. I told him your guess at 6500 it would start to show. He was amazed and said you were spot on. Do you think the power woulda kept climbing more closer to 7000?

If the springs are the Indy G928's, that's a completely different spring.
When they stopped using Comp springs, I remember there was a period of time when you didn't really know exactly what you'd get when you ordered them with the "928" springs.
Most of the time though, they were a pretty high rate spring that would be over 400lbs @.650 lift if installed at 1.900.

I would have expected the motor to peak closer to 6700 if the valvetrain was rock solid, and would have likely only been down a few hp @7k....... But that assumes you had pretty stout springs in it.
And, that's also assuming the intake behaved similarly to the 440-2 in the upper rpm's.

Before I messed with the installed height, I'd find out what the open pressure is now.
If its already in the 400lb range....... I'd probably just live with it for a street application.


Edit- I see in your first post you say the spring loads are 150 closed/370@.620 lift...... Which works out to 354lbs/in........ Which is what the Comp 928's are....... So those are likely what you have.
If they are in fact Comp 928's, I go by my original recommendation of 1.88-1.90 IH.

If it were going in a "race car", I would have used Comp 929's @1.88-1.90.

Torque was a little lower then I guessed but the hp was right on the money. Good job.

The cylinder head guys sheet says. The springs on the intake are 150 open and 360 lbs at .600 lift and 400 lbs at .700. .110 to coil bind.

The sheet on the exhaust says 160 seated and 380 at .620 lift. Coild bind at .775 lift. So they must be the comp springs. Not sure why they're worded differently. Seems the .025" installed height gives a decent amount more load. My curiosity is: Shouldn't the heavier intakes need a bit more than the exhaust if you wanted them different? Or is there a reason to have more spring on exhaust?

I'm happy as it is. I feel if I were to want too much more pressure then I would just move to a solid roller and maybe a external oil line lol.

Thanks. You were in the ball park for sure. Yeah the peak was a bit lower but that might be the compression difference between the 440 you built a couple years ago. I followed that thread closely and actually ordered my cam from Dwayne a week or so after seeing your thread lol

You got it.

I edited my last post, I don't think you saw it.

Nice numbers for sure but don't agree that the 1000 would be too big w/that power and I put Dommy's on motors w/less that pick up a LOT of power...........All in the tune and I also like to be richer in the high load areas like leaving the line and mid range then go slightly leaner up top...........A skirted big bore 1050 Dommy would wake that puppy up............

What did I win?

I guessed 630 to 650.

Seriously, congrats. !!!

Should put a smile on your face when you nail it.

Ok. Not sure if it was a typo or I don't quite get it lol. You said a race car would be 1.88-1.90 and the same for a street car. Should I make them all 1.9 or intakes 1.88 and exhaust 1.9?

He said a 4150 1050 might make it sluggish on the street. Wouldn't give up power though. But yeah. When I step it up in the future. If I go to a 1050..It'll be a dominator. I'm sure I'll be wanting to get a hold of you when I get the car ready and sorted with a afr gauge with this carb to get a good start suggestion. I read all your posts and have for years on here. I love your car too.

Thank you!

Most people on here guessed it right. A couple said 600. They were right. It's 600 at 5600 rpm, lol better than I thought it'd be. I'm happy it didn't bust in front of me on the dyno! I'll have to get used to it in the car when I pull the 383 that is in it now

You missed the details....... For your cam/rocker combo:
Street, Comp 928@ 1.88-1.90

Race, Comp 929@ 1.88-1.90

If you verify the spring rate of your current springs is like a Comp 928(354lbs/in), then I'd adjust the installed height to be between 1.88-1.90 for all springs.
At that rate, the spread from 1.88-1.90 should only be 7lbs.

The common shims are .015/.030/.060, so you should be able to target 1.890 +/- .010.

Not sure what your car weighs? But on motor the 440 I put together would run 11.30’s on motor at a weight of 4100.
With the numbers you got I am sure you will be happy.
I think I used a PAC 1916 @1.885 with a titanium retainer on my build with Hughes 1.6 rockers.
From 6800-7400 if I remember correct it only dropped 20 some HP. I was impressed.

I'd be happy to help in any way I can and thank you on liking my junk..........

Ah thanks again. I read 928 instead of 929 lol. I work it out and verify my heights and maybe have a shop verify the pressures with those heights

Haven't weighed my car yet. But I found out my 446 weighs 530 lol. My mom joked on the phone she has a 600 pound grand son and Ron the dyno operator had no idea she was talking about the motor then said he was curious to weigh it. People around here said my car could be anywhere from 3400 to 3700. Right now it's a all iron 383 even intake. And 15x8" steel cop wheels from the late 70's, flimsy lift off MAS brand glass 6-pack hood. I want a centerline auto drag type wheel and I am gonna build a aftermarket 9 inch ford rear from quick performance and need to upgrade to disc brakes. My friend and I built trans at least a few years ago, so that should live. Probably gonna call ATI or something for a converter soon.

Can't tell from picture... are those black 5-emulsion metering blocks or red 4-emulsion blocks?

When I hear people talking about duplicating the early Holley emulsion config, that typically means going back to 2 holes, for example the #1 & #3 or #4 on the 5-hole block, or #1 & #3 on a 2-hole block.

I agree with Dwayne that a big-venturi downleg 4150 would make things worse for a combination like yours. When Dominic mentioned improvements w/ a 1050 Dominator, that's not really an apples-to-apples comparison since the Dominator is going to have different venturi-to-throttle bore sizes & ratios, different booster types (annular) and booster signal, etc.

Still not sure why carb companies claim to have both "1050" 4150s and "1050" 4500s (I'm not talking about BLP's BX4X Xtreme hybrid) when they're clearly not going to flow the same.

You're right. It's been awhile since I looked at the blocks. They're red. bottom is open second is plugged. 3rd is open and the top is plugged. Yeah a dominator would be a diffrent beast to learn for me. I wanted to keep this engine "basic". Maybe a 4500 carb in the future but I need to walk before I run. I am right there with you on the 1050 though. Dwayne said too big and I didn't second guess that at all and went with his recomendation on the 950.

I still stand on my Dommy making more average and peak power w/great drive ability...........I test constantly on the street and verify at the track and my junk picked up 2.5 mph going from a 1050 to a big bore 1050 w/skirted banjos that flows 1230+..........Ask Al, Shiloh and others who run bigger than "normal" carbs and go quicker and faster than ever and even get mileage and win Drag Week...........

oh hmm, that sounds like the old holley setup but maybe a bit lower than float level.

I'm sure you're right Thumper. A few guys around here said a dominator would probably be a "20 horsepower deal" on a combo like mine. But who knows till it's tried. The guy at Magnum Superchargers (shop around here) talks like you lol. "Single planes and 4500 carbs are the way to go". I got stuff to learn for sure

Ask Humpty on here who went from 10.70's to 10.18 so far w/a stroker small-block and iirc he picked up 5+ mph..........there's MANY more just like that out there who are now believers...........

I know. I follow you on facebook and have seen posts here praising the dominating dominator. I'm not a non believer at all. Like I said earlier I'll wanna get advice from you for tuning carbs. I'm sure a dominator will be in my future sometime after I make the car readier than it is for the power that this engine makes as is.

Absolutely enjoy it now as is then after you feel it's maxed out, try a Dommy and see what YOUR results are but I'm sure she's gonna fly as is............

Here's a interesting (to me) long winded update.

I found a older Holley Dominator "9375 HP" 3 circuit carb at a swap meet I couldn't pass up for super cheap. I added the QFT bowls and blocks. Then sent it to Dominic Thumper for mods. Great customer service by the way! Thanks Dom. While he had that I had the oil pan off to fix a leak and discovered the boss in the block that the oil pickup tube threads into was damaged. The top two-three threads were broken off. There was iron dust covering the crank counterweights and rods. So I took the whole engine apart and cleaned it and reassembled it with the Milodon 21010 external oil kit.

Then as I had it back together I found another good deal I couldn't pass up even though I probably should have. A comp cam RX296/303 solid roller cam. It's 263/270@ .050, .650/.651 lift, 108 LSA, cam with Comp 96829 sportsman lifters, and original 1.5:1 Harland Sharp rockers. I asked Dwayne Porter if it was a good cam for a street/strip 440 and he said yes. I degree'd it in at 104. Installed Trick flow 16943 springs (which are the same as comp 943's and pac 1243) @ 1.9 with 260 seated and 620 lbs at .650 lift with my tool steel retainers.

Then as I was setting up the rockers with checking springs I found the lift was .676/.684 so the rockers are approximately 1.55:1 but the sweep pattern was .125" wide. So I called up Micheal and B3 Racing Engines and ordered a geometry kit. Another great guy to deal with! His kit made the sweep between .030-.035 wide. Lift checked in at .650/.654 now, so the ratio checks out to about 1.5:1 now. He explained why a loss of rocker ratio might happen before I even bought the kit. Because the rocker is built wrong and the heads have the rocker pedestals in the wrong location, especially considering the increased valve length that are in Indy heads. so after fixing the valve side by relocating the shaft, that the error built into the rocker arm goes to the push rod side which is a compromise but the valve action is less stressful on the valve train now and under control.

After a bunch of grinding rocker shaft bolt holes and clearancing the heads for push rods. I got Manton "series 3" 7/16" straight .120" wall for the exhausts and "series 3" 7/16 tapered to 3/8 with .168 wall on the intakes that are an effective length of 9.75" (9.9" overall length). Lift was now .637/.639 with zero lash after deflection with the actual springs. I lashed the valves to .016/.017 cold (about 20-30 degrees in the garage hah) after the checks.

I figured with a roller and a Dominator this engine would be 650+ on the dyno. But wasn't sure how my Doug's D452 with 2" primary pipes and 3.5" collectors would stack up to the old hooker super comps with the same sizes (but a better performance header that wouldn't fit my car well). I figured with no valve float I'd be happy with even the same power as before. I didn't the the cam and rocker swap was gonna be worth too much for peak power because Dwayne picked a great cam for the 1.6 Mancini/Harland rockers and I read this was mild for a solid roller but I don't know for sure.

What I do know is this upgrade combination picked up the torque 40 lbs feet to 550 at 4000 rpm, dropped the torque peak to 46-4700 and the peak number was down to 555 but still had 550 at around 6000. Ron and Brian at R&R performance said that's as flat as a torque curve gets. Peak power was 6600 at 649 after adding the wooden 1/2" 4 hole spacer on the dommy adapter and jetting the front down two sizes. The power maintained 649 and 6800 which was the highest we went to because time ran out.

A real nice perk to top it off is the AFR light throttle cruise test between 1800-2900 rpm. Thumper knows his stuff!

All in all it looks like a nice 10.3:1 446 with heads that are too big, a carb that's too big and maybe slightly over cammed lol. Thanks to R&R performance, Dwayne Porter, Micheal at B3 racing engines, and Thumper.

Nice. Dom busts his ass every day to help carb guys out if they listen. I've also seen mark Mark Whitener do the same. That's why it pays to pay up front and get your money's worth.

That's a nice combo for sure. With Mikes correction kit your valve train will be so happy you'll never have to mess with it. I keep pushing his stuff because it works and everybody that doesn't have it, needs it.


Very cool.