The crew dives into a lively discussion filled with racing news, engine modifications, and car culture. Highlights include updates on upcoming racing events, including the Austrian Grand Prix and NASCAR's first street race in Chicago. Conrad leads a detailed car clinic on engine intake modifications, explaining the importance of airflow and various intake designs from classic to modern engines. The episode also touches on automotive recalls and the ongoing debate about engine performance and regulations, making it a rich blend of information for car enthusiasts.
Topics:racing newsengine modificationsintake manifoldsNASCAR street raceAustrian Grand Prixautomotive recallscar clinicperformance debate
Get ready to shift gears with us as we kickstart the conversation with the latest buzz in the automotive world.
We turn our attention towards the Red Bull racing engine program and we also touch upon NASCAR's debut street race in Chicago - a milestone for the city that's causing quite a stir. From the windy city, we divert to the less glamorous streets of San Francisco and then to the Texas Modified Productions race at Extreme Raceway Park in Ferris, Texas.
In the third segment, we invite you to our car clinic, where we dissect engine modifications and explore the details of how the engine intake ports work. We'll also discuss the impact of EPA regulations on power and performance, and take you on an insightful journey from the intake manifold of a Ford Model T, to a two-barrel flathead, a small block Chevy, and a drag racing torque manifold. If you're passionate about cars, this is a conversation you wouldn't want to miss. We wrap up the segment by sharing some tips on how to safeguard your car with services from Gulf Coast Auto Shield, a Houston-based automotive detailing facility. Don't forget to tune in to our award-winning car talk show, now served in bite-sized 30-minute episodes. You can catch us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, and a dozen more platforms.
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You celebrate another day in the air Generally, yeah, Generally, Angela and I are waiting for Wheel of Fortune, so we're watching the end of the news on channel 11 and they do this birthday thing.
Or the waterfall, the waterfall wall.
Somebody walking to the beach or Don flying over somewhere in Houston over a wreck.
Chasing or mayhem chasing a helicopter murders and all that stuff.
You have a busy week this week.
Oh my God, you have no clue.
They get the air conditioning fixed, no one day this week I flew five hours, sit in the back of a helicopter for five hours.
Now you should bring Jeff's piece to your to your station and say Hey, you know you're exposing me to this.
The station has nothing to do with that.
They could care less.
No, I wouldn't say that, but I can.
They have no control.
No they have no control over it.
I work for a contractor.
Helicopters incorporated No big outfit.
They are helicopters incorporated, not helicopters air conditioned.
No, correctly, yes, exactly, all right, okay, so do you want to do the racing car now?
I forgot what we're doing.
The Australian Grand Prix sprints are this weekend.
Wait a minute, let me formula one.
The Australian.
Austrian Grand Prix sprints are this weekend.
Austrian Grand Prix sprints, so it's a couple of short sprint races in the out for points Yeah, through formula one Are they drag racing?
formula one No no, no, no, no, no, it's a.
It's a different format than is it a roundy round?
You know, i think a sprint cars, i'm thinking a dirt track.
No, this is Yeah, it's actually the shortest track, the Austrian Track for the, where they run this.
It's the shortest lap time in F1 And they just do you know they run short time, sprints around it and earn points on it.
So did you hear the latest that Hamilton is complaining to the FIA that They should do something to Control, or Red Bulls dominance of F1 the last couple?
of years.
Hey, he should put his purse down and quit complaining.
You whiny little hoo-ha.
Yeah, you know, it was okay when Mercedes dominated for seven years, but oh gosh, you know Red Bulls dominating, so we got it to stop.
What?
kind of?
what kind of engine does Red Bull run?
Well, it was a Toyota at one point.
Toyota, yeah, toyota at one point.
Now It's called a Red Bull, but it's the same engine is called a Red Bull Right.
It's like Prujo, or are you?
serious.
That's what they call.
Well they, they bought all of the engineering rights to it and the engineers all went to work for Red Bull And it's a Red Bull.
You've got to be kidding.
An energy drink has turned into a racing engine program.
Well, you know, you got to think the Mario Andretta or Michael Andretti's Cadillac team is thinking of leasing that engine for their engine, for their cars.
You have to think of them every day.
So the Red Bull engine.
So no Cadillac engine in a Cadillac, no, no.
But I don't get me going.
I don't know.
And Mary Barra makes 29 million dollars a year.
For what?
the destruction of what was at one point the greatest.
Okay, so what we got on the racing calendar there today?
No, I don't want to continue.
This guy.
He's in a Mary Barra.
He's gonna go off.
Indy cars in mid Ohio tomorrow We should use to take your jock strap off and nevermind Sorry.
Tomorrow night is Chicago streets, the streets of Chicago.
It's gonna be interesting, is it tomorrow?
night, tomorrow night, tomorrow night on the street evening five o'clock.
It starts five o'clock Eastern time, so four o'clock hard time in the streets of Chicago.
I know that I think it's cool, but apparently this is a big big deal for Chicago, yeah, and they ran on the iRacing, the computerized version, and they had some laps they were doing.
It's actually a pretty tight course.
There's not gonna be a lot of passing Well there's not.
It's gonna be a lot of concrete Yeah and they say the walls are really close, it's really thin there.
Yeah, they're all well, it's like a right, so that should be a lot of fun.
Well, it's the first time NASCAR has done street.
You know city streets.
You know formula one has done city streets.
You know since its inception.
You know, like Monaco, you know they're racing through the streets of Monaco.
Well, this is I love.
Monaco.
One of my favorites is Monaco always has been yeah, some of it because of the movie Grand Prix, yeah, but some of it just because the challenge of going that fast in those small little city streets in the tunnel, well, I know that Somebody was going.
Well, what are they gonna do?
They're gonna have to put security guards around all the race cars at night.
So they imagine the tires and wheels, all I imagine they already have.
I imagine there's very tight security there.
I'd like to think so, you know?
yeah, because this is a big deal not only for NASCAR, but it's also a big deal for Chicago.
Oh yeah well, chicago is kind of, as are lots of the major metropolitan areas, are kind of losing a lot of their And ash and ash because of all the crime issues that are having in there.
How about that, sir, in Cisco?
Isn't that great?
Oh, it's a sewer.
It is a sewer best thing that happens to San Francisco is rain, because that's what washes all the feces and urine.
All righty, then enjoy your breakfast out there.
It's awful.
All right, so what else?
well, that's it.
And then Texas modified production.
I believe they're running next weekend as well.
Texas is down, did you Texas?
is down.
Yeah, did you happen to look at their Facebook page?
No, do you all mean to do that if you would please, because you don't have a computer.
I Is this.
Mars is my computer.
I.
Thought that I had them on a point.
Again thought that they thought I had them on a favorites.
But Texas, modified Texas, nostalgic.
Oh sorry, Productions and they are go on the clutch.
Yeah, no, there's no trans breaks Nothing.
Everything's mechanical, by the way, racing out of the 60s I went and saw a Dale Holquist this week.
How are you doing?
Yeah, great, he's doing great.
We had a very interesting conversation about gassers and There are some gassers on the NHRA circuit that he runs Mm-hmm, two or three of them, and they've made room for them and they're very popular and they are very expensive.
I I'm Fascinated by this mechanical thing and you got going on three computers.
He's got an adapter.
Oh My god, he's got two or three adapters and three computers.
Yeah, exactly, it's kind of like stacking a carburetor on top of a carburetor, isn't it?
He's got um oh, let's see that wire is not long enough.
He's got a tripower going Yeah.
Golly.
Well, there's the in-will time thing.
Yeah, it says here July the 8th.
Let's look, texas Drag Racing Association.
I don't, i don't really, i can't really see it very well.
I don't know where it is.
It's event number six, extreme Raceway Park.
Where is Extreme Raceway Park?
Ferris, Texas, which is I guess that is suburb, That's south of Dallas.
Yeah, somewhere south of.
Dallas And what's it called Extreme Raceway Park.
Well, we're just going to look that up real quick, okay, And it ain't going to be real quick.
Let me see.
If is it, maybe they have a Facebook page, okay.
Get a switch, that one, any ham.
There it is, extreme Raceway Park in Ferris.
I think it's just north of Ennis, if I'm correct.
It is an eighth mile drag racing facility located off of I-45 in Ferris Texas.
Okay, actually, i think you can see the track from I-45.
Really Yeah, right after you go north of Ennis.
It's on the east side of the highway.
Well, i don't know who made the poster, but the poster doesn't give the date.
Oh, coming up this weekend to XRP Pro Extreme Junior Drags, extreme Junior, extreme Index Motorcycle American Drag Racing League, no, yeah, no, it's too confusing for me to do this on the air.
Yep, it doesn't take much to get me confused anyway, so we just move on from that.
But anyway, if you want to go see the Gassers Texas, nostalgic Drag Racers Yeah, leave on the clutch, no electronic gearing, no fuel injection.
Everything's carbureted.
At Dale Hulquist's place, i will tell you that he had a Gasser and there was a 55 Gasser.
I didn't hear it run, but it is a blown engine.
Straight axle, i can just imagine.
Yeah, And you know the front end sitting up on red and he was doing the interior of it And it is really something to see.
I'd love to see one of those on the street.
Oh, they probably put them on the street every now and then.
I don't know that that's where they belong.
but Well no, they don't belong there.
but how fun.
Yeah, yeah, pull up to the stoplight and all of a sudden, next to you rolls up this 1955 red Chevy.
And you're looking up to it.
up at it, looking up at it, and is this ginormous chrome blower?
going chrome places, going to work in the guys in the suit.
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
With the kid in the back seat.
Yeah, and it has slicks on it, but it does have one group so it can be legal.
A little cheater slick, a cheater slick, couple little dots in it.
Yeah, love those.
Did you have those on your Corvette?
I did not have those on my Corvette, no, no, i've never dragged race the Corvette.
Well, i say that last year intentionally, you never dragged.
Well, he did once when he was on the Texas.
No, he's talking about the other Corvette, that court.
Oh, no, no, no, no, never.
No that was his show.
Actually I did, i did run it down Houston, uh, houston.
Raceway Park.
You know, as you can't see, there's a picture in front of us.
behind the camera, don's Corvette, the 77.
The 77 Corvette.
That's a bill Sight's presentation there.
Good drawing, it's really faded, really bad, but it was a watercolor that he did for me And I showed that with the car and it gave all of the stats The 77 coupe 350 cubic inch, l82, four speed, power steering and brakes, tilt, telescopic steering, ac, leather, am, fm, stereo, jim Connors, suspension, front and rear spoilers that I put on there.
And it was an absolute slug.
It was, but I couldn't get out of its own way.
That's the car review for the.
Corvette, That's right.
Well, I think it had a like 182 horsepower or something out of all the cubic inches.
pathetic, but hey, back in the day it's all that was before Mary Barra screwed up GM Here we go.
Yeah, that was the United States government that did that.
Yeah, epa regulations smog controls.
Let's see What I want to do.
You want to do the car clinic?
Sure, i got it all ready to go.
Okay, well, let's do the car clinic, conrad's car clinic.
What are we doing today?
We've been.
I gave Conrad the charge of going a little bit deeper into the car clinic And let's talk about, you know, engine modifications, how ports of the engine work and that sort of thing.
So last week we did exhaust systems And remember I talked about how basically an engine is an air pump, Yes, And as an air pump it's how much air can you get in, how much air can you get out and how loud the bang can be between getting in and getting out, which is what creates the power.
So last week we talked about intake or exhaust manifolds.
This week we're going to talk about intake manifolds.
So this intake manifold is off a Ford Model T.
Even Henry Ford back in the back in the teens understood air flow in the engine So he tried to keep it from having real sharp bends and turns to create the most power it could.
Now that was for a four cylinder.
It just had two ports, went into the cylinder head and then inside the cylinder head it moved the individual cylinders.
So very simple.
That was actually cast iron in its day.
So very simple.
The next is this one here.
That is a two, two barrel intake manifold for a flathead.
You know most flatheads came with a single, two barrel.
Well, the modifiers they, you know they wanted to go jump up to two, two barrels because way back when it first came out, four barrels didn't necessarily exist in any volume, so they would just put two, two barrels on it and then moved to three, two barrels and then four barrels.
What timeframe was this in?
This was probably back in the 30s.
This intake manifold was designed for 36, 37, 38 38.
Yeah well, ford flathead.
And then, of course, everybody remembers the small block Chevy intake manifold and the small block Chevy intake manifold very common.
Now, this happens to be a Edelbrock version of a small block shape, but you know the I want to briefly.
Would you talk about the plenum and the and the divider between the two, because Some people have things about the divider and some they grind out a little bit, or some of them don't have any.
And so what it's trying to do is control the airflow to each side of the engine.
The divider is so that you know You're getting the fuel isn't mixing because, as the Or the airflow isn't mixing because as each valve opens up, it creates a, a rush of air, and that rush of air is what draws The fuel out of the carburetor.
So they want to keep that as metered as possible.
Carburetors it's a lot harder to meter than it is on fuel injection system.
But if you look at this it's relatively low, relatively flat.
My opinion is it has some real sharp bends in it.
And those sharp bends Do you talk about?
the orifice, the opening, the for the air right now, the, the opening there.
That's right underneath a, yeah, that's right underneath the carburetor, the runners that you see, that go from the opening over to the cylinders.
You know those are kind of short and squatty and and kind of have some sharp bends Which aren't good for power and are high RPMs, but they do the things that the Engineers wanted, which was a little bit more about torque.
They wanted that feeling of torque in that engine.
So I'm still good questioning that.
You've got the upper on the shot.
You've got the upper that's more rounded on The top versus the oval.
On the bottom side of it.
The openings are different and that's because the the bottom one, the air has to travel further to the bottom to get to the other Intake runners.
So again it's the engineers trying to design the airflow to be even on both sides And control the temperature of the of the intake manifold as well.
Because a lot of these intake manifolds would have a Heat crossover right underneath the carburetor, because the the intention of the carburetor is to produce atomized air That's drawn into the cylinders.
Well, if the air isn't atomized because it's cold, then the engine doesn't run properly, so they run heat crossovers underneath them.
So the next thing is a.
You know this was a Kind of a street version of what's called a torque or intake manifold.
So here you can see that the intake, the carburetor, is higher up in the air, which goes back to what Don was talking about How now it doesn't fit under the hood.
The intake runners are all about the same length and they're much straighter.
All of those sharp bends are gone And again that's to create more power at higher RPMs, very common back in the 60s.
To put what I call the torque or intake manifold, it didn't matter if it was a small block, chevy, also feel, ford, whoever it was.
You know, the torque or manifold was the one of choice in its day.
And then you know, then we'd go drag racing.
And drag racing gets even more extreme because I want to create even more power.
So they created something called the tunnel ram.
Yeah, so now you can see, the intake runners are extremely straight and very long and that length of that intake runner is Tuned in to create a certain amount of power.
Now This has two, four barrels on it.
You could replace that upper plenum piece to a single four barrel or three, two barrels.
Whatever you wanted to do, you just had to pay the price for that.
So very, very common at the drag races for a tunnel ram intake manifold.
So the manufacturers were like, well, heck, i can do that.
So they had built this is a Cross-ram intake two, four barrel cross-ram.
That came on the Z 69.
Z 28 was available on a 69 Z 28 with the DZ 302 motor in it.
That's a lot of carburetor for that.
Yeah, too much big old ports, but again the.
The intent is to shorten the runners down to get fuel into the engine Immediately and create a lot of fuel availability for the engine.
Very rare piece of metal right there, very expensive Honey babe defined, and by you.
Yeah, i found that picture on eBay.
And then you know Chevrolet wasn't the only one.
The original CrossRam intake manifolds were provided by Mopar on the old wedge engines the 413 and 426 wedge.
Not the Emmys, but the wedge.
You can look at that and think wedge.
That's what I think of.
And you know, john Hovis happy birthday, john.
He's got one of those CrossRam intakes on a Dodge Polara.
I think there's a red one out there that he has.
that has an original CrossRam intake on a pretty cool, very, very cool car.
And then of course, you know that wasn't the only place they did it, they also did it on the Hemi.
So Hemi's generally were two four-barrel car engines.
So the two four barrels on the Hemi's were they offered them in a CrossRam version as well.
That's the one that I remember.
Yeah, well, I think the next one's the one you're going to remember because they were in line.
These are CrossRam.
Then the Hemi is actually two, four barrels that were in line.
Pretty well, i guess that one didn't show up either way.
So now that, as technology advances, now they do these molded composite intake manifolds, you can still see how long those runners are and how straight those runners are.
But now you know that's an intake manifold off an LS3 Chevy and then the hot rod version of the tunnel ram that you see on some of the hot rod LS engines.
here again, going back to the tunnel ram.
Now, in Don's honor, remember we hear his story about his blue flame six and it had a single two barrel on it.
So this would have been the intake manifold on a blue flame six.
And you look at that and you're like, oh my gosh, how far did it have to go to get to the outside cylinders?
and they generally ran very lean.
There's my often house.
And then there's an often house or that Don talks about that.
He put on his and now you have two, two barrel carburetors that were actually closer to the cylinders, and that's what.
That's why it created so much.
And all I did was I went out and bought another Rochester carburetor, which is what it originally came with.
I just put two of them on there, clearly the original one and the new one.
And it took that much more fuel, and fuel was Swallowed at a price closer and created more power.
So, it probably made a big Along with the what the high low guy said well, you want a three quarter race camera, full race cam.
I said give me the three quarter race cam because you didn't have four quarters.
Yeah, right, Yeah, And I put a new cam in that thing and it'll look like a mule And that's an honor of Mr Mars over there.
Calling donkey.
And then I put a Mallory dual point distributor in it which was you made a lot of work out of that.
I did, and I will tell you that that was hell to tune.
It was still a dog.
There was a stump, or it was a stump.
They pulled front wheels off the ground.
Yeah, and you think manufacturers have gone full range from single carburetors to two barrels, to four barrels, to three, two barrels to two, four barrels.
There was actually a series of three barrel carburetors that were out there at one point as well.
So that's.
I vaguely remember that, yeah.
The second.
The secondary, was a big long thing.
Yep, yeah, Kind of an odd shape, yeah.
So how fun was that?
It was good, that was good, it's good.
That's why I had to make sure I put your blue flame six cylinder intake manifold The name.
Mr Mars, how are we coming over there?
How you doing, michael?
Not coming at all.
You're working on it, we're working on it, so we got some more recalls to tell you about.
They're never ending.
Mazda CX 90 for 2024.
loss of vehicle control.
What They don't give specifics, that's all that says.
Okay, that's not scary.
Unintended vehicle movement from a brake fluid leak on the Acura, integra, rdx, accord and Civic for 2022 and 2023.
Toyota Camry and Camry hybrid for 23 wheels made detached from loose lug nuts.
Go out there and check your lug nuts.
There you go.
I know you do frequent often.
Can you check mine?
Defective pyrotechnic battery disconnect on the Tesla Model 3 and the Tesla Model Y for 2023.
I did not know pyrotechnic battery disconnect.
So I guess and I'm just kind of reading into this If the vehicle is in a certain kind of wreck or condition, they want the batteries to disconnect so that it may already be on fire, yeah, so how else would you disconnect it other than blow it off With pyrotechnics?
Pyrotechnics, but you think there's a lot of pyrotechnics in cars already.
You know there's pyrotechnics in the driver's side and passenger airbag.
There's pyrotechnics in the pretensioning seat belt systems, so there's a lot of things that blow up when you have a wreck.
Well, that's soothing.
Rear view camera image may not display on the Volkswagen ID4.
Deformation of the strut mount in the Volkswagen Golf R and GTI for 2023.
That's not good.
I'd wear some tires out.
Yeah, can you imagine How my strut mount bent.
Yeah, yeah, how about the engineer on that project, sir, your strut mount the engineer thing that you did on that.
You're fired.
How?
do you fix that?
You don't, you have to build some kind of yeah, Well, yeah, but if you're deforming the strut tower, well, it depends.
Is the strut tower?
it's not.
it's not.
Is it engineered to do what it's supposed to do, right?
I can only imagine that that's not formed into it.
It's probably a riveted on piece.
Oh, yeah, yeah, Spot welded on.
Yeah, so one of those kind of things Yeah, all right, oops, oops, another oops Yeah.
And Mary Barrett still makes 20.
Oh man.
Okay, hey, you're on the in wheel time car talk show.
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back after this.
When passing through Beaumont or college station, stop in and have loopies, award winning beef fajitas and frozen margaritas.
There's always a celebration of loopy tortilla.
Loopy tortilla founder Stan Hold and his wife Sheila are winning racers on the NHRA drag racing circuit and have a collection of hot rods and classics that everyone appreciates.
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The day will be announced soon and will once again be held at the loopy tortilla Tex max on 99 in Kingsland Boulevard, just south of I 10 and Katie.
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