EngineLabs’ Engine Performance Expo Daily Recap: Day 3

After two full days of high-level exchange of automotive technical knowledge, the bar was set quite high for the third and final day of the Engine Performance Expo. Luckily for everyone watching, it equaled the awesomeness of the previous two days as a star-studded lineup of presenters shared knowledge of various facets of engine technology.

The day started off with turbo talk from Mike Moran of Moran Motorsports. While discussing a number of different facets of the power adder which, only a few short years ago was considered black magic, Moran shed light on some of the finer points of the whirly snail that spins at more than 100,000 rpm.

Following that was something often accompanying a solid turbo engine, and that’s block sleeving, with Tim Eichorn of MPR Racing Engines and Joe Creason of Creason Racing Engines. The two discussed some of the more granular details of the block sleeving process and even touched on the still-black-magic art of vibratory stress relieving the block after being sleeved.

Then, one of the industry’s biggest characters, long-time racer and engine builder Pat Musi gave a seminar on the power adder some still consider to be “cheating”, good ol’ nitrous oxide. Musi dived into subjects such as nitrous saturation and how to make a nitrous engine durable and safe, while reminding everyone that at the end of the day, a nitrous engine is still a naturally aspirated pump and should be treated as such.

Moving into the machining side of things, the next subject covered was lifter bore and lifter bushing machining. The importance of getting the lifter bore right was impressed upon the audience, along with several methods for accomplishing the task efficiently with superior results.

From there, we were treated to an interview with industry-veteran John Callies, who told the story of developing the Pontiac Fiero Indy Pace Car. Now, before you snicker at the idea of a Fiero driving around Indianapolis Motor Speedway at 125 miles per hour, you should really give the interview a listen.

Jon Kaase’s shop tips and tricks presentation was one of the most popular of the day, judging by the audience feedback in the chat.

Next up was a deep dive into Choate’s diesel parts machining program, not only highlighting their ingenuity, but also the features of all the Rottler machinery they use to make the parts, as well as some solid machining tips and tricks applicable to any form of manufacturing. Then, it was another key speaker, Jon Kaase.

Not what you might expect from the legendary engine builder and founder of Kaase Racing Engines, his seminar was covering shop tips and tricks, in which he highlighted some of his homemade tools that have been used in his shop for decades, even though some were made from other broken tools, simply as a proof of concept. That was followed by a Q&A session that not only touched on the tips and tricks he shared but, of course, some engine building theory.

As the day started to wind down, we got a seminar on LS steam ports from Robert Yates Racing, followed by a talk from Total Seal‘s Lake Speed, Jr. on a number of facets of piston ring gap theory. That was followed by an incredibly thorough piece on dyno testing, comprising everything from methodology to tips and tricks on how to have a more consistent dyno session.

Wrapping the event up was a roundtable discussion from the in-house presenters, discussing the importance of the next generation of enthusiasts in our industry and how to capture the attention of today’s youth. The final feature of the show was to announce the winner of the $10,000 short-block: congrats to Steve Kristofferson (I hope that’s spelled right!).

Remember, if you missed any of the seminars, all three days of the content from the Engine Performance Expo will be available at watch.engineperformanceexpo.com. With over 8,000 viewers and an average watch time per viewer of 80 minutes, it’s hard to say that the first Engine Performance Expo was anything other than a resounding success.