Why The "Latest&Greatest" isn't always great....

A lot of gearheads, in the never-ending search for more power invest a lot of money in the latest and greatest thing that the buff magazines are testing and are often severely disappointed. I'm not bashing the buff mags-they stay in business by testing and promoting their advertisers products. And they accurately report their findings. The problem is the readers either don't read the whole article or don't understand what the writer is saying. All they think is "Wow! This new part is worth 40hp!!" "I gotta have that!" Here's a few exmples of this gone terribly wrong. # 1. "ZZ4 Crate motor Hop-up". If you don't know-the ZZ4 was an awesome street engine sold by GMPP for many years. ( The ZZ5 that replaced it now has "Fast Burn" Vortec heads ). I had one and loved it. They had 10:1 compression, a roller cam, aluminum L98 Corvette heads and an original Z/28 / LT1 style intake with a 770 Holley on it. They were rated at 355 hp and 418 lbs of torque. What made them such an awesome street engine is it made more than 350 lbs ft of torque from 2,000-5,200 rpm! That broad torque range is what makes for exciting street performance and wins races. Anyhow-Hot Rod decided to see if they could get another 100 hp out one-get it up to 450 hp or more with bolt-on parts. The first two things they did was install a bigger carb and intake and a hotter cam. This netted them like 80 more hp. About 30 with the carb and intake and about 50 with the cam. To me-this would have been enough-they were well over 400 hp-and even though the torque peak was higher in the powerband, they hadn't really hurt real-world drivability that much. However, they were determined to hit the magic 100+ hp gain. They installed a set of Trick Flow aluminum heads and gained another 40 hp. Mission accomplished. Or was it? 1st off-the Trick Flow heads cost $1,400 for the pair. And here's the real kicker-the "Antiquated" L98 stock heads were actually better below 3,200 rpm, and above that sometimes the gain was only 1 or 2 hp!! In fact-the L98's were within 5 hp and 5 lbs ft of torque at every rpm level up to 4,700 rpm!! The 40 hp gain was at 6,100 rpm!!  Now in a Nascar racer or a drag racer that's run wide-open all the time that 40 peak hp might be a good investment. But in a daily driver or street / strip machine that maybe goes to the drags once a month-how often are you going to be between 4,800 and 6,100 rpm??!!  And for $1,400 you could get a great nitrous system that would add 250-300 hp all through the range-not just 25-40 hp in a 1,300 rpm window from 4,800-6,100 rpm. In my opinion-the head swap was a waste of $1,400 that could have been spent on a nitrous system, a higher stall-speed converter, stiffer gears, tracition bars, bigger tires-all kinds of stuff that would give you more speed and more "bang" for the buck.  # 2. Edelbrock Performer RPM "Air Gap" manifold test. This one pissed off thousands of people. Hot Rod tested the "Air Gap" Performer RPM intake that keeps the plenum cool and ( at least in sunny southern California ) is worth 15-20 hp over the regular Performer RPM. However a bunch of people in Northern and Rocky mountain states that rushed out and bought these intakes discovered that in cold-weather this latest and greatest power enhancer caused severe cold-starting problems and carburator icing!! Several people wrote in and said that they had to let their car run for 15-20 minutes to get it to not die and sputter-if it would start at all!!  Several demanded ( to no avail obviously ) that the magazine re-imburse them for the cost of the intake and the labor to pull it and re-install their old intake that worked fine!! That 20 hp was definitely not worth it to these people. # 3. Roller Cams. These are all the rage right now. If you have a 1987 and later Chevy, Ford, or Mopar engine that had a roller cam from the factory then yes-these are the only way to fly. But if you have a 1986 and earlier engine that has a flat-tappet cam, they are not the cat's meow. The simple reason is cost. High Performance Pontiac magazine tested one on a hot 455. Yes, the roller setup made more power. But the cost to convert it was $1,800!! Whether Melling, or Crane or Lunati etc-most flat-tappet cam kits cost around $200-300!!  For that extra $1,500 you could buy a carb and intake, a set of headers, a higher-stall converter and some stiffer gears to put all that newfound power to the ground!!  Even for a small-block Chevy which is generally the cheapest thing to buy parts for-An Edelbrock Performer RPM flat-tappet cam kit is $209.71 in the Currnet Summitt Racing Catalog. The Edelbrock Rollin'Thunder cam kit for the same SBC is $1,023.48!!  That extra $800 could buy you a lot more than the 30 hp or so that the cam will make!!    # 4. Fuel-injection systems. Again-if you have a 1985 or later Chevy, Ford or Mopar V8 that was fuel-injected from the factory-the manifolds,throttle bodys,injectors etc sold by Edelbrock,Accel, Trick Flow and others that work in conjunction WITH the factory system are good investments. They offer great power and torque gains for relatively low bucks. What is a waste of money is the aftermarket systems offered by these same companies to convert a carburated engine to EFI. Again-even for a small-Block Chevy these systems start at $2,000. For anything other than a small-block Chevy most are over $3,500!!  As opposed to a simple, $600 carb and intake combo that often makes the same or MORE power than the EFI setup??  Honestly-$3,500 for an induction system?? For $3,500 GMPP, Ford SVT or Blueprint engines will sell you a high-performance crate engine complete from carb to oil pan!!!  So think hard before you run out and buy the "latest and greatest" thing!! Mastermind