Creason Racing shares its recipe for a potent, yet affordable, flat-tappet small-block.

The Traditional Muscle class at the 2017 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge was designed for pushrod, carbureted engines using a flat-tapped cam and off-the-shelf headers, intakes, and heads. The goal was to eliminate exotic parts, intake manifolds that were filled with epoxy, and combinations that were impossible to duplicate to show what can be done with careful part selection and judicious engine building. To keep the valvetrain more in line with a street-going engine, valve lift was limited at 0.600 inch at the valve. Given those restrictions, we were eager to see what kind of power could be coaxed from an old-school V8.

When it came time to select parts for its entry, Creason Racing team leader Rick Ferbert—along with Joe Creason, Randy Ferbert, Rick Haynes, and Chad Gladney—already had a basic parts outline. The team had come together years before when Creason Racing learned of an impressive small-block Chevy wearing a set of Vortec heads that Randy had ported and flow-tested on his homemade flow bench. Rick and Randy Ferbert have been building cars and engines ever since they've been driving. Their local drag-racing class was based on displacement and penalized larger engines by increasing their minimum weight as the racers added cubic inches, leading the Ferberts to build efficient small-block Chevys. When the Ferbert brothers' porting was combined with Creason Racing's engine building and tuning skills, the end result is a class-winning small-block that would make a great street engine.

With a 3.5-inch stroke and a 4.005-inch bore, Creason Racing's 353ci small-block entry is very close to the traditional 350 bore and stroke we're all familiar with. Notwithstanding, the Chevy factory never rolled out anything like this beast. Topped with hand-ported Profiler heads, the small-block managed to produce more than 450 lb-ft of torque from 3,400 to 6,600 rpm and hit 570 hp at 6,500 rpm! The torque curve looked amazing, especially for such a small engine, and the team took home the win in the hotly contested class. Here's how it was done.

Short-Block

The team developed two test engines and rigorously tested multiple combinations, moving parts from one short-block to the next. Rick Haynes told us, "We almost wore the bolts out on the dyno swapping stuff." Starting with a seasoned pickup truck 350 four-bolt, the first engine was given a 0.005-inch overbore and a 3.5-inch stroke, growing just slightly to 353 ci. Meanwhile, Joe Creason purchased a new Chevrolet block with a 4.125-inch bore and built it to 390 ci.

Top End

Two head options were selected for testing: a pair of Profiler's smallest 23-degree heads, and a pair from Dart that looked to have superior exhaust ports. The Profiler 185cc heads were hand-ported by Randy Ferber to around 190 to 195 cc and flow-tested on his homemade flow bench. Based on the engine's size, the team had a port cross-section in mind and worked around that to even out the port velocity. The short-turn radius was worked so it would tolerate high-velocity flow and be efficient over a wide rpm range. The final result was 290 cfm on the intake for the Profiler heads. Tested back-to-back on the Creason Racing dyno, the Profilers returned a higher Engine Masters score than the Dart heads, and work proceeded in maximizing the Profiler combo.

See all 9 photos Profiler cylinder heads use 2.065-inch intake and 1.59-inch exhaust valves.

See all 9 photos A large quench area makes for an efficient combustion chamber. The compression ratio is 11.0:1.

See all 9 photos The Creason Racing team's strategy was to focus on valve-seat profiles to enable high intake and exhaust velocity and low-lift flow while preventing reversion with the goal of creating a broad torque curve. The initial valve-seat angle is 50 degrees.

Winnowing down the top-end options, a Victor Jr. intake was developed in conjunction with the heads and was ported to match. Rick Ferbert also worked on a Motown intake that had been sitting on his shelf after he'd competed in the 2011 Engine Masters Challenge. Still in the box, it was unported, so it hadn't been hogged out. This allowed Rick to make it the right size. The port match isn't perfect, but that obviously wasn't a problem. The intake mating surface on the head seemed a little too big, and epoxy was out of the question, so Rick left the intake almost as-cast on the pushrod side. The top and bottom were very close and required only a little massaging. The Motown intake that Rick ported was never flow-bench tested on the head, but eventually turned out to be the better performer. Aside from the intake-manifold swap, the final combination wound up close to the initial test the team had planned.

See all 9 photos The Motown intake was a leftover from Engine Masters 2011, where the intake was a team favorite.

See all 9 photos Sitting atop a World Motown intake is a Braswell B-4825 carb with 1.75-inch throttle bores.

Valvetrain

A custom-ground Comp cam was ordered with duration at 0.050-inch lift, split at 238/244 degrees. Trend lifters and pushrods combine with 1.80/1.85 ratio rocker arms from Crower to deliver 0.595-inch lift at the valve as the Engine Masters rules limited lift to 0.600 inch. Because the spring forces were high, the team used 1.3 ratio rockers to break in the cam before going with the quick-ratio rockers that snap the valves open quickly. The team dyno-tested the engine with the lower-ratio rockers and reported that the engine was down only about 60 hp.

Exhaust

Initial dyno testing used Sprint Carstyle 4-into-1 headers with primaries that step up from 1 inch to 1-7/8 inch and end at a 3-inch collector. Because Traditional Muscle class rules called for off-the-shelf headers built for a street-car application, the team searched far and wide for a design that would work over a wide rpm range. Knowing that a Tri-Y header would broaden the torque curve, the team tried the only version they could find, a pair from Doug Thorley with 1-5/8-inch primaries and a 2.5-inch collector. The team anticipated a big hit in top-end power, but that wasn't the case. Rick Ferbert told us, "We picked up 30 lbs-ft at the bottom and didn't take any from the top." On their 390ci V8, they did see the engine run out of breathing room with the smaller Doug Thorley Tri-Y headers. That was what led the team to ditch their larger V8 and go with the 353ci version for the contest.

See all 9 photos Doug Thorley Tri-Y headers proved to be the right tool for the job, picking up a ton of low-end torque without hurting the top end.

No one guy did this, it was definitely a team effort." — Rick Hayes

On the Dyno

353CI Small-Block Chevy

EngSpd Torque Power RPM lb-ft Corrected HP 3300 441.4 277.3 3400 450.1 291.4 3500 456.3 304.1 3600 462.7 317.2 3700 470.1 331.2 3800 477.6 345.6 3900 483.5 359.1 4000 487 370.9 4100 489.6 382.2 4200 492 393.4 4300 494.9 405.2 4400 497.3 416.6 4500 501.1 429.4 4600 504.5 441.8 4700 506.6 453.3 4800 507.6 463.9 4900 507.6 473.5 5000 507.4 483.1 5100 506.9 492.2 5200 505.4 500.4 5300 503.3 507.9 5400 499.6 513.7 5500 496.7 520.1 5600 494.3 527 5700 491.6 533.5 5800 489.1 540.1 5900 486.5 546.6 6000 483.6 552.4 6100 480.1 557.6 6200 476.8 562.9 6300 472.7 567 6400 467.5 569.7 6500 461 570.6 6600 453.4 569.8 6700 444.8 567.4 6800 437.3 566.2 6900 429.6 564.4 7000 421 561.1 Show All

Recommended Reading!

Want to read more on Creason Racing? Check out their 600hp iron-headed pump-gas 383ci small-block Chevy from the 2011 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge here!