Dry Lakes Racers Australia

Mike's new engine build for the black beast.
After setting his new class record in 2014, and finally getting into the 200mph club, suffering gearbox problems throughout the runs, 2014 was a great meeting for Mike, after returning home the gearbox was removed and inspected, completely rebuilt with an added paddle shift system, to help improve shift times, eliminate miss shifts, and keep the car stable throughout the run.

2015 speedweek unfortunately didn't go to plan as we would have liked, onboard data showed Mike was travelling 45mph faster at the 1st mile mark than previously in 2014, before the engine decided it didn't want to play the game anymore.

After heading back home whilst the team felt heart broken we were still happy with the progress and the improvement on the car, after removing and inspecting the engine and several months talking, weighing up the pros and cons with what to do with the engine we have decided to get the modular 5.4 moving forward with a new engine program.

Several phone calls and emails to MMR in the states, discussing our best option, we all know building a drag engine is completely different to building an engine for salt lake racing Mike has decided let's push the 5.4 litre v8 to a whole new level, however we are up against a few challenges with the design of the factory engine to with stand the abuse and tortue a salt car engine gets put through.

Sure we can just grout fill the entire block and heads, use aluminum conrods and run methanol, but it's a salt car not a 6 second drag car.

So after many months of drawings, designs, calculations, costings, and sourcing parts we are finally well underway in the engine program to get the Mastec Ute back out on the salt. MMR are supplying a billet crankshaft, custom forged pistons, camshafts and a heap of other parts for the combination, however conrods are a weak point, we have organised a custom set of billet 300m conrods to be machined and all going into a custom billet engine block.

Whilst we are waiting on the parts to arrive from America the engine block, girdle and sump are well underway.

We have gone for a 6 bolt main design block instead of a factory 2 bolt main, with a full girdle assembly instead of individual caps, and a custom sump for the dry sump application.

Attached are some pictures of the block drawings and parts being machined

I'll try to keep the thread updated as much as possible during the build

Regards Brad

GAWD !
Top shelf stuff,,good luck

Hey guys, it's been along time since we have done any updates on here.

Here is a few update photos.

Engine block roughing stage

After completing the billet engine block, it was time to move on to the cylinder heads.

Due to going a bigger valve stem and after attempting to fit the bigger valve into the original heads, we came to the decision there simply isn't enough material in the original cylinder heads, to allow a stronger valve and after a lengthy discussion with Mike, we came to the decision of doing a custom set of billet cylinder heads.

So the complexed task of drawing the cylinder heads began.

The drawing side has taken a considerable amount of time, as both left and right cylinder heads arnt the same, whilst making a cylinder head is far more complexed than doing an engine block, things we had to take into consideration was valve guides and valve seats, as Mike has now decided to add another supercharger to the equation and whilst we still haven't used NOS on the track at all, and by adding another supercharger we are now aiming for 2400+ horsepower.
Due to the cylinder temperatures produced, the discussion was made about removing the heat from the stainless valve, and whilst ductile iron seats are great we simply wanted better.
After searching through parts catalogues, Internet and suppliers simply no one does beryllium copper valve seats for the engine.
The decision was made to go Beryllium Copper seats, after spending many hours on the phone trying to locate the material, I decided to ring Mike as he might know, as he's in the plastic moulding game.
After a quick phone call to Mike I left it with him, in a matter of minutes, I got a phone call back "saying Brad I've got a couple lengths coming from overseas" after a week we now have the material to machine the custom valve seats. As it appears not many people have ever machined Beryllium copper probably because it's so expensive. So yesterday I went and seen Mike and picked up the material and spoke to one of his engineers he uses who's had some experience with the material, when machining.

The cylinder heads are now already to be completed, here is a few photos of the heads going through roughing machining stages.

brilliant work brad - can't wait to see it all together at the salt.
Phil DLRA#642

Great work Brad.
Too much to do in my opinion to be ready and reliable for next year's event!!
Time is simply not on your side my friend.

NICE work. I love a bit of machining porn.
Wasn't beryllium aluminium banned from F1? Due to possible health problems when machining it.
Could you do a crank case for a bike

cheers Bones

NICE work. I love a bit of machining porn.
Wasn't beryllium aluminium banned from F1? Due to possible health problems when machining it.
Could you do a crank case for a bike

cheers Bones

Wow, cool.

This opend up a whole ne level for me. Beutiful. As Bones said its like porn haha. Got any pictures of it all together now? Cheers from Sweden!

Nice work guys

G