[COLOR=black]Balanced Wastegates
Of the entire turbocharging setup, the laggard in technology seems to be the wastegate, and Moran knows this. "On each side of the engine, We have tied the two turbo pressure tubes to one Turbonetics wastegate in an effort to create a "semi-closed-loop" wastegate system. Since the wastegates are simple, spring-tension popoff valves, they act independently of anything else in the turbo system, which creates a variable in controlling the engine. For now, until they try electronic wastegates, hopefully tying the two turbos together will keep the pressures even throughout the intake tract.
Currently the team is investigating electronic wastegates with linear actuators for closed-loop boost control. This is serious stuff.
[SIZE=3][COLOR=indigo]V-Dish Pistons[/COLOR][/SIZE]
In the last decade, domed pistons have gone the way of the dinosaur but the victorious dished piston continues to be refined. The latest technology is pistons with a sculpted dish, like the JE Pistons V-dish examples that Moran prefers. Since he uses a custom combustion chamber design, he starts the process of ordering his pistons by creating a 'plug' using an old piston and some port mold epoxy. This plug is used by JE to create a piston dish that directs the force of the combustion towards the center of the chamber. This theory focuses the power created by the combustion pressure to provide maximum effort on the piston, thus creating more power at the crankshaft with the same amount of combustion pressure. Look for ultra-stout GRP connecting rods in this combo.
Moran focuses a lot of thought on maximizing the use of the combustion pressure in each cylinder. As he says, "Any pressure not pushing that piston down the bore is making me look bad, so I'm going to do what I can to get it working for me." Because of that, he has worked with Speed-Pro to develop a 'L-shaped' top ring and a self-locating, low-tension oil control ring. These Speed-Pro "Hell Fire" heat-treated ductile iron rings require a stepped ring land be cut in the piston, but Moran thinks the extra work and cost is worth it. "The Hell Fire ring allows me to use the combustion pressure trying to get around the piston to push the top ring up against the bore, creating a tight seal. If we used piston gas ports to push the ring out against the bore, some of the combustion pressure would be wasted to create that seal. Moran also likes using the lowest tension oil-ring pack possible, but he says, "A problem I've encountered with low tension oil ring packs has been the expander ring overlapping itself while in the bore. To avoid this, Speed-Pro designed an expander that accepts a centerwire to lock the expander into place. Ever since I switched to that, the problem has disappeared.
Intercooler Refinement
Moran was a turbo-guy long before racing a nitrous-ingesting Pro Streeter, so he's got some experience on what works and what doesn't. "I raced turbo cars ever since the '80s, so I know little things like adding a 'ice screen' inside the intercooler. When running these turbo cars, we pack the intercooler with a lot of ice and a little water before each run to maximize the amount of heat pulled from the intake air. If a mesh screen isn't installed on the front of the exchanger (which Wheel to Wheel's Dan Van Auken did) when he fabbed up the tanks on this intercooler, the ice will eventually smash the fins flat and reduce the ability of the exchanger to cool the air.
"Also, it seems to make sense to mount the backpressure blowoffs on the Spearco intercooler tanks. These blowoffs are needed to avoid bending the blades on the turbos when at the end of a run I lift off the throttle. The resulting pressure spike could easily frag a turbo, but by allowing the pressure to vent through the blowoffs, this problem is avoided.
Cylinder Heads from the professor
Most people would have zero access to cylinder heads from an engine god like Warren Johnson. But, Meaney and Moran have a mutual friend in Jeff Pearley, Kurt Johnson's crewchief, who arranged access for a set of DRCE big-block cylinder heads, CNC-prepared by WJ. While runner volume is a proprietary figure, we do know the heads have a small cross-section and feature very high velocity. Meaney says, "The Professor is very interested in this technology we're working with here.
The Bottom End
The Winberg crank comes with the counterweights machined in a aerodynamic shape to slice through the oil with a minimum of parasitic power loss and to minimize the amount of oil swinging around the crank and mains. Oil control is a must in Moran's book, so he has a Moroso dry-sump pump sucking four stages from a Moroso oil pan along with a Product Engineering vacuum pump pulling air from the crankcase--a system he calls the Moran/Moroso 4 1/2 stage Dry Sump Oiling System. These systems work in concert to create a staggering 20 inches of vacuum inside the engine. Testing has shown the more vacuum, the less oil is inside the engine (in either liquid or vapor form) and the less parasitic loss to whipping the oil around. As any racer knows, reducing the weight of a car is like making horsepower, so Moran is happy to be running this just introduced Eschelmans carbon fiber dry sump oil tank. It weighs less than half of an aluminum oil tank!
This sparse of oil inside the engine means precautions need to be taken to insure metal on metal contact doesn't create a failure. Some of these insurance measures include having the billet aluminum GRP rods bronze bushed at the little end and coating the thrust surfaces of the pistons with a Swain low-friction, moly-based coating.
Valvetrain
Reducing weight in the valvetrain is another passion for Moran. To achieve that, he uses Jesel steel shell/aluminum body roller lifters and Ferrea titanium valves that have the head "tuliped"-or machined down to create a dish. The valvesprings are titanium, along with the retainers. Manton's triangulated pushrods minimize flex, which is important when hoisting valves against the backpressure of four raging turbos. By keeping the valvetrain as light as possible, Moran believes he improves reliability while being able to run nearly 9,000 rpm through the lights.
Camshaft
Moran had been breaking camshafts in the past, so he switch to a custom Crane grind made from a 55mm billet, from a diesel application. The cam also goes through a heat treatment, but it's coated with copper right before. "It's a lot of money to run this type of stuff, but since I've gone to the 55mm cam, I have eliminated the camshaft breakage problems."
Since the cam is the mechanical brain of an internal combustion engine, it's no surprise Moran is tight lipped about his cam specs. But here's what he will say, "In general, I think people use a camshaft with too little duration on these turbo engines. I...I'm not going to say any more than that." Ah, once a street racer, always a street racer.
Plumbing: Air, Oil, Coolant, Etc.
The air, oil and coolant plumbing required on a turbo engine, especially a quad-turbo engine, is daunting. Beyond the cost of having someone build the exhaust and intake tubing, finding the people that can visualize where everything should go to get it all to fit in a tight location and then build it to handle the rigors of drag racing is difficult. For help on this, Moran called on some metal wizards, Dan VanAuken and his crew at Wheel to Wheel in Warren, Michigan, to do the cutting and welding. We got a chance to watch over a few weeks (!) as this system came together and can tell you this process challenges even the most talented fabricators. The results are absolutely amazing in how right everything looks, though, which is a true sign of quality workmanship.
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