http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/0501pon-kre-aluminum-heads-dyno-results/We did a back to back test that was mentioned in this article.
The way it really went down was that the folks who were writing the articles involved with this testing mentioned doing some carburetor testing to get more "coverage".
We weren't there to test carburetors, but we did some pulls anyhow. My q-jet outran the big Holley, which wasn't expected by anyone present other than myself. This quickly led to just a blurb of the testing being mentioned, and they pulled the best numbers to make the readers think the Holley actually made a little more torque, but the q-jet outran it back to back without a sweat.
I found out first hand that when it comes to magazine articles, you are allowed to compete against aftermarket parts with stock parts, but don't expect it to make print when the magazine comes out.
Since this testing I've tested stock HEI's against MSD billet distributors and outran them. I also tested my Pontiac iron intake against a factory 455 HO intake (re-pop) and the Edelbrock RPM intake, and outran both of them with my iron intake. On that test we were using a 428 CID Pontiac engine topped with KRE 260cfm aluminum heads and custom ground HR camshaft. The HO intake posted 487hp, 491hp for the RPM, and my iron intake made 497hp. Folks who read about the testing IMMEDIATELY cried "foul", simply because my iron intake was "modified", and not stone stock. I called BS on that one, as the engineers who designed the RPM had a clean slate to work from, and it's a solid 1" taller than a stock intake with much taller runners and repositioned carburetor flange. Oh well, you just can't make everyone happy when it comes to this topic.
I've also tested camshafts back to back on the dyno, and you very seldom see that sort of thing due to the time/cost involved. Anyhow, the Crower RAIV cam (60919) outran a much larger custom ground flat solid cam from Comp with 240/248 @ .050" specs and 112LSA. The 60919 cam made 10 more HP and 22ft lbs more torque on the dyno. The custom cam was DONE by 5200rpm's, peak power with the "old" RAIV Crower cam was at 5600rpms.
I also did some more DIRECT testing at an HPP Shootout at Norwalk with intakes and carburetors, where all the results were logged/documented for each run.
My iron with a q-jet and no spacer outran the Tomahawk intake with an 850 Holley DP carb on it, with and without a spacer. During that same testing my q-jet outran the big Holley on either intake everyplace on the track, but the margin of victory was very slight for some of those runs. At times we would only see .02-.03 seconds for the Q-jet and less than 2mph faster on top end.
Over the years we've done a lot of carburetor testing. On one private track rental Ray Klemm and myself took my Ventura and his 1969 Firebird, and 8 different carburetors and flogged on them all day long. The list included an Edelbrock 800cfm Thunder series, a custom built Holley "HP 950" clone, a Holley 4781-2 850DP carb, and 5 custom built q-jets which included one 1971 Pontiac 455 HO carb, one Pontiac Ram Air carb, my own 1977 Pontiac carb, and a couple of late model Chevy style large cfm q-jets.
On that particular day my car ran the quickest ET and MPH with my 1977 Pontiac carb, followed very closely by the 1971 Pontiac 455 HO carb, then the 4781-2 Holley. The slowest on my car and Ray's was the Edelbrock Thunder Series 800.
On Ray's Firebird the quickest ET was with my Q-jet but it ran more MPH with the custom built HP950 clone.
We do most of this testing for our own purposes, to help us build a better product. I gave up LONG ago trying to get any of the "high performance" magazines to follow any of it. Basically it's just not going to help the folks that buy a lot of advertising space in those publications when start parts outrun your "high performance" parts.......Cliff
