Back in Volume 9, Number 1 of Perth Street Car Magazine, five years ago to be exact, we covered the build up of a very unique Windsor engine being put together at A1 Hi Performance in Myaree..

Engine Essentials.
The engine was built by proprietor, Leon Withnell, for his own TE50 Falcon as
an R&D project and featured some very hardcore parts. At the time it was
revolutionary because no tuning existed for AU EFI Fords and as a result
modifications to these cars were often limited to cold air induction and exhaust
upgrades. Leon took a stand and built a highly modified engine that had our
readers frothing at the mouth. The engine was dubbed Cat Killer because it
was designed to take on Holden’s 300 kW GTS Commodore. Our road test
from Volume 9, Number 4 proved that not even the Callaway enhanced GTS
was in the same league as this blue oval monster. In fact, the car accelerated
so hard that the tacho and speedo needles collided with each other!
Hidden inside the Ford Motorsport R-Series block is a Moldex/Cola 4340
steel crankshaft, Eagle H-beam rods with 230,000 psi ARP L19 rod bolts and
custom JE forged pistons.

The combination of a 4.125-inch bore and a 3.40-
inch stroke gives 363 cubic inches or 5.90-litres of displacement. A
Competition Cams solid roller camshaft was used in the original engine but
Leon has tried several in the past few years. The camshaft used in the
current configuration was ground especially for the engine and only arrived
days before the dyno test. Cylinder head choice was a pair of highly modified
Edelbrock Victors, which are modelled on the 18-degree Chev head. These
flow 340 cfm of air on the intakes and 279 cfm on the exhausts at 32-inches
of water. Even more impressive is the fact that they do this with a minimum
port restriction smaller than a Dart Chev or a 2V Cleveland. The intake port
actually flows 137cfm per square inch at 28-inches of water. Consider that
the theoretical maximum a perfect 1-inch orifice can flow at that pressure is
143cfm through a straight pipe – not a curved port with a valve stem running
through the middle!

Offset roller lifters were required because of the valve offset in the head,
these feature a tiny oil hole to provide lubrication to the roller which runs on
the cam lobe. At high rpm this roller can be spinning at 30,000 rpm so a little
oil adds life. Jesel built a custom set of shaft-mounted roller rockers for the
engine with a 1.70:1 intake ratio and a 1.60:1 exhaust ratio. Five years ago
the engine was running a 95mm throttle body and a one-off BXR cross ram
intake manifold but that has since been replaced with a Victor Jr. single plane
manifold and a 1000cfm square-bore throttle body. Leon was keen to test the
engine with the Victor’s shorter runners and also to see the effects of using
a throttle body with four smaller butterflies. In the real world, the shorter
runners and bigger camshaft would combine to wash off some of the
engine’s bottom end torque, resulting in less wheelspin and greater
acceleration on the road. The progressive nature of the square bore throttle
body also makes the car more driveable than the huge single throttle plate.

The engine uses a Petersen wet vac external oil pump.	Two coil packs are triggered by an MSD distributorless ignition module.

Oiling is courtesy of a Petersen wet vac pump which scavenges from the sump
and supplies oil to both the main bearings and the rear of the lifter galleries
simultaneously. The system is essentially an externally-mounted oil pump with
an in-built two-stage vacuum pump. The wet vac pump has the added benefit
of producing a vacuum in the crankcase which helps rings to seal and
dramatically reduces windage, resulting in more available power at the
flywheel. Restrictor plugs are used to limit the amount of oil that travels up the
pushrods onto the rocker gear, keeping it below to feed the crank and rods.
Controlling the MSD distributorless ignition (DIS), the two wasted spark coil
packs and the 50-pound fuel injectors is a Motec M800 unit with self-learning
enabled. This helped to quickly establish a base tune in the early days. For
the recent dyno session at C&R Motorsports, in Walliston, well-known local
tuner, Andrew Jordan, was on hand to work his magic. Andrew monitored
the engine’s vital signs and was able to use the real time data logging to
deliver exactly the right fuel and ignition trims to extract the absolute
maximum from the wild Windsor.

Engine Run-In.
As the engine had been freshened just prior to its dyno day, Geoff Chaisty,
from C&R Motorsport programmed the Superflow 902 dynamometer to run
the engine in over a 60-minute period. During these break-in cycles, the
engine was cycled up and down, at first from 2500 to 3500 rpm in 5-second
ramps, for ten cycles at varying throttle openings from 20 to 60 percent. A
quick glance at the torque curves generated during this period shows that
they become closer and closer as the engine begins to bed-in.
While the running-in process was being carried out, the EFI fuel curves were
being gradually mapped by Andrew on his laptop computer, providing a base
for future adjustment. Air/fuel ratio information from the oxygen sensors was
used in conjunction with data from pyrometers located in each header pipe
to build a picture of how each cylinder was functioning. After the run-in was
complete, the oil was changed and the filter checked.

Dyno Testing.
The first few runs included a part throttle (60%) acceleration test from
3800 to 5000 rpm which was performed to check the fuel map at a faster
acceleration rate. This resulted in a maximum of 382 lbs/ft of torque and
367 hp – both at 5000 rpm. The first full-power acceleration test was then
programmed to run from 3500 to 6000 rpm, the ignition timing was set fairly
conservatively at this early stage and resulted in 423 lbs/ft at 5750 rpm and
481 hp at 6000 rpm. The power curve was still climbing steeply at 6000 rpm.
In the next test, the upper test limit was raised to 6500 rpm and no other
changes were made. Power jumped over 40 hp to 522.5 hp at 6500 rpm and
was still rising.

Andrew then tweaked the fuel map a little and with the next test run set to
7000 rpm we saw 430 lbs/ft. at 5700 rpm and 559 hp at 7000rpm with no sign
of the curve leveling off. At this point the ignition timing was adjusted from
its base of 28-degrees to a new maximum of 30-degrees. With the rise in
total timing the starting rpm was lifted to 4500 rpm and the upper limit also
lifted to 7500 rpm.

Adding an extra litre of oil created measurable windage losses.	Opening up the exhaust tappets effectively reduces cam duration which helps low and mid-range performance.

Advancing the ignition timing to 32-degrees made significant gains.

After Andrew raised total timing a couple of degrees higher to a new
maximum of 32, the engine again responded favourably by producing
608.2 hp (453 kW) at 7550 rpm – a sensational effort.
All the tests up to this point had been carried out at a coolant temperature of
160 degrees F. The next two runs were conducted at 130 and 180-degrees
F respectively to determine the engine’s sensitivity to heat. Very minor
differences were noted, indicating that this engine was fairly insensitive to
coolant temperature change, which is an excellent quality for a street engine.
Often engines can demonstrate large power differences across a 50-degree
change in coolant temperature.
The following dyno run was mad after a litre of extra oil was added to confirm
or disprove what was believed to be an issue in the oil pan. Even though the
oil was still below the recommend level, the extra oil caused a loss of as much
as 10 hp at some points and this was with light synthetic oil. This demonstrates
how much power can be robbed by oil windage in the crankcase.

Geoff from C&R Motorsport and tuner, Andrew Jordan, monitor the engine on dyno.

Conclusion.
The engine had cracked the magic 600 hp mark with only 363 cubes
aboard and matched that with just under 450 lbs/ft of torque. But Geoff and
Leon felt that the camshaft was a little too big, as indicated by the engine’s
ability to make power to just under 8000 rpm without dropping off
noticeably. To confirm this theory, the exhaust tappets were opened up
0.006-inch; this resulted in a power increase at all points below 7000 rpm
and by as much as 14 hp at 5200 rpm. Only a couple of horsepower were
lost above 7000 rpm after this change. The engine pulled strongly all the
way to 7750 rpm and at this point had only just started to level out. With
enough road and enough faith in the conrods and other internals the
engine would easily turn well past 8000 rpm and not fall off. Not many
street engines can boast such credentials.
This engine not only produces strong power, it does so very efficiently.
Brake-specific fuel consumption is a measure of the engine’s efficiency and
is defined as the ratio of the rate of fuel consumption to the rate of power
production. Calculating BSFC requires measuring the rate of fuel usage as
a function of the mechanical power generated. Reviewing the data from the
dyno, the Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) average between 4500
and 7700 rpm was a very low .365; indicating that the engine uses very little
fuel to generate its horsepower. In fact, BSFC figures in the mid .3s
are normally reserved for highly efficient race engines. Complimenting
the engine’s efficiency are its manners. Despite its 600 hp pedigree, the
Cat Killer still idles like a kitten.
So, after five years of research and development, the Cat Killer has served
its purpose as a very valuable test mule. The TE50 will be equipped with a
genuine 600 hp, 8000 rpm street weapon, capable of slaying the opposition
with potential 10-second quarter mile times. Oh, and thanks to the trick
exhaust system, Leon will be able to listen to the CD player in comfort while
the scenery flashes past!

Re-printed from Volume 14 Number 1 of Perth Street Car Magazine with permission.