RPM Project World Domination - The Next Level - July 2021

Taking World Domination To The Next Level – We install cam/ lifters, heads and more on our small block Ford!

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ver the last month the weather has really come around, race tracks are open for business and in many areas restrictions are being lifted.

Last month, we were able to complete the Project World Domination small block Ford short block. We filled our World Products 9.200 deck 6 Bolt Iron Man O’War block with a rotating assem-

bly and discussed the various steps involved in preparing each part, from crank to pistons and rings, for installation. You can view last month’s article here: https://issuu.com/rpmmag/docs/21-06_combo/94 Now it’s time to take World Domination to the next level; long block status!

It was time to slide in the Erson cam for our future naturally aspirat-

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■ This Erson Cams solid roller camshaft came with an easy to read grind sheet and two sets of pins for installation.

■ Our Erson cam utilizes two cam gear location pins, to keep everything in place.

■ The back of each Erson camshaft is engraved with all the pertinent information regarding the grind. Even I can read it, thanks Trisha!

■ The Jesel SBF timing cover gives you great access to the camshaft and easy to change cam timing option. The Jesel kit comes complete with a detailed instruction sheet with photos and torque specifications.

It looks and fits far better than the factory cover.

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ed dyno session. Erson Cams sent us two camshafts, one for naturally aspirated use Part # ERSE212993 and the second was custom designed for nitrous oxide use.

The small block Ford design uses a single locating pin to mount the timing gear to the front of the camshaft. Our Erson cam utilizes a dual pin design, which will insure the cam has no chance of rotating on the cam timing gear. Erson supplies two pin lengths - we chose the longer and modified the length just a bit to mate to our Jesel timing gear. I fit the dual cam pins into the end of the Erson cam, ensuring the Jesel cam gear fit tight and square to the face of the camshaft. Solid roller cams do not require a special break-in procedure and when installing I generally use a heavy oil to lube the lobes and assembly lube on the cam journals. I turned my attention to the camshaft retaining thrust plate which required minimal modification to clear the Jesel belt drive cam timing parts and gives our Erson cam a .007” end play measurement.

We chose the Jesel SBF timing belt kit which has a great design for changing your cam profile by advancing or retarding cam timing, and it also makes cam changing easier with an access plate directly behind the timing gear. Not to mention the patented High Torq Drive™ reinforced belt runs dry, spins with less friction than timing chains or gear drives and absorbs harmonics. The Jesel Belt drive comes complete with a detailed instruction sheet that includes photos and torque specifications for all their hardware. The timing belt drive kit fits better than the stock timing cover and sure looks a lot better, too. We will be using a remote electric water pump in this build which will give us full access to the Jesel belt drive in the future.

It’s no coincidence that we chose Jesel for our World Domination shaft rocker arm system and cam timing parts. Being a high quality manufacturing company specializing in valvetrain components for all popular high performance engines, their 94

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■ The Jesel timing belt uses a Patented High Torq Drive™ reinforced belt that runs dry, spins with less friction than timing chains or gear drives and absorbs harmonics.

■ We used Erson Cams best solid roller lifters that were fit to the block by Cody at KMS during the World Products block machining process.

■ This close-up shows the thin line mark on the top of the valve as close to the middle of the valve stem as ■ The Jesel rocker and shaft kit comes complete with all the possible with very minimal travel off center for perfect hardware and shims to make rocker arm geometry perfect. geometry. drive for innovation, right from owner and president Dan Jesel on down, is impressive and has transformed Jesel Valvetrain from an after hours, 2000 square foot machine service to a 65,000 square foot design, build and test center with hospital-like cleanliness, a complete engineering department, over 35 multi-axis CNC machines and a test facility with two Spintron machines. Of course, service has to enter the equation as well, and our custom order was sitting at the shop door in just 10 days! One thing many people don’t realize is that Jesel also offers a rebuild program where their Certified Performance Rebuild department will inspect, update and rebuild your Jesel rockers, lifters and followers to their original precise tolerances, giving you the confidence you need for your next season of racing. Click here to visit the Jesel website: https://www. jesel.com/ Now it’s time to degree the camshaft. I use the intake centerline method, by first establishing TDC and rolling the engine over to check the opening and closing event of the intake lobe.

There are a few things to think about after installing the camshaft.

Generally, anyone could slide a cam in an engine, but to know exactly that the cam you purchased is what it should be, one should degree the camshaft. You can degree a camshaft with cylinder heads on or off, as our engine is in the assembly stage, I will do it with the heads off. You will need a camshaft degree kit for an OHV engine which should include a degree wheel, piston stop, magnetic base dial indicator and/or a lifter dial indicator, a stiff wire to use as a degree wheel indicator and lastly, the cam card from your camshaft. We will use the intake centerline method to degree our cam, which means we will verify our cam is installed at the listed intake centerline on the cam card.

Then, we will further rotate the engine to check that all the lobe events measured on the degree wheel match the cam card.

Cam Degree #1 finding TDC

With the timing system installed, double check that the timing marks on the cam and crank gear are aligned correctly. Now, install the degree wheel onto the crank with the crank bolt and tighten. Install your dial indicator into the #1 cylinder intake lifter hole. I have a pretty cool tool

for this. If you do not, set up your indicator on the top of that lifter.

Rotate the engine to approximate #1 TDC. Install your wire pointer to the block and bend /adjust to the TDC or Zero on the wheel.

Turn the engine opposite engine rotation, approximately 15-20 degrees.

Install your piston stop, and adjust the piston stop until it contacts the piston.

Turn the engine in the same direction (opposite rotation) until the piston contacts the stop.

Mark the degree wheel with a pencil mark where the wheel stopped at the pointer.

Rotate the engine in the other direction (normal engine rotation) until the piston hits the stop.

Mark the degree wheel where it stopped at the pointer.

Remove the piston stop.

Move the crankshaft to rotate the engine to the midpoint of the two marks made on the degree wheel.

This is true TDC on your engine, and is a good reference for your zero timing mark.

Do not turn the crank and adjust your pointer to TDC or Zero. www.rpmmag.com

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Cam Degree #2 Finding Intake Centerline

With the dial indicator installed, rotate the engine in normal direction until you see maximum lobe lift (the needle will change direction at maximum lift).

Set the indicator to zero.

Rotate the engine (opposite normal rotation) until the dial reads .100”.

Next rotate the engine (normal rotation) until the dial indicator reads .050” before the maximum lift.

• At this point- record or mark the degree wheel Rotate the engine (normal direction) until the dial goes past zero (maximum lift) to .050” on the closing side of the lobe.

• At this point- record or mark the degree wheel • Add the two numbers together and divide 2. This is the recorded intake centerline. (A + B) / 2 = C

■ Looking straight down at each Jesel rocker arm, you are able to see how straight and centered they are to the valve stem

Verify that the number you have is the same on your cam card. The intake centerline could be off and if it is, we are able to adjust it very simply by rotating the cam gear to either an advance or retard notch marked on the gear to correct the intake lobe centerline. Keep in mind that each notched mark represents 2 degrees.

Our N/A Erson camshaft was on the money at 108 degree intake centerline!

Before you leave this pro-

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cedure, you can verify the rest of the lobe to the cam card, check lift at .050” and so on.

With the camshaft installed and degreed, it was time to install the Erson solid roller lifters. They slid home perfectly as promised by Cody at KMS. One of the checking procedures while the World Products block was being machined, was to verify and correct (if necessary) the lifter bore clearance. Cody used a small hone to bring all 16 holes into specification.

Now it’s time to move on to our cylinder heads. We chose Bill Mitchell Products (BMP) 10-degree 310 heads, as they are able to utilize the World Products 6 bolt/cylinder or 18 head bolt design. This part number 023015C cylinder head boasts large valves and big breathing CNC ports which should get us to the power level we require for the World Domination engine. To actuate the valves, we chose the Jesel 1.7 ratio shaft rocker system designed specifically for the BMP cylinder heads.

The specifications on the

Erson camshaft are; Intake lobe lift at .450” ground on a 108 center line, with 276 degrees of duration measured at .050” lift. The exhaust lobe lift is .430” with 282 degrees of duration measured at the same .050” lift. The naturally aspirated cams lobe separation angle is 108. The extra ratio on the Jesel rocker gives our Erson cams intake lobe .765” lift and exhaust lobe .731” lift measured at the valve.

As mentioned in previous World Domination articles, throughout the pandemic many parts have been harder to get. Most of it is a supply chain issue, and some parts were several months wait. For example, when I heard the recommended head gasket for this build would be 6 months of wait time, I called up our friends at Clark Copper for a pair of their copper head gaskets. I sent them a copy of our bolt pattern and specifications and as promised, 10 days later they were in our hands! Thank you J.R. Clark! Using the copper head gasket requires the cylinder head surface to be

■ One of the many parts supplied by World Products/Erson Cams/PBM, this Super Sucker carburetor spacer, will give us the extra plenum volume required for our engine.

■ The World Domination engine looks great! The short list of parts to complete the package includes the external oiling system and crankcase vacuum pump system. Then just add spark and fuel and we should be there! machined for a wire installation, just one more machining task for the boys at KMS, thanks Mick!

Now that we have overcome those challenges, we were able to finally install our Jesel shaft rocker system. First, I needed to establish correct rocker geometry by installing the Jesel one piece rocker stand at the correct height to verify the rocker roller tip contacts the valve in the correct position throughout camshaft lift. Wow, that was a mouth full! Jesel supplies shims for this task and it was easy to verify and install the correct shim. I wound up using the thickest shim to get my contact point to the near center with minimal movement

across the valve stem tip.

Next up was to check the pushrod length, and with correct geometry already setup, it’s a snap. I turned the Jesel lash cup out 2 turns from seated position and turned a checking pushrod out to the length from the seated lifter to rocker arm cup, which measured up to a 9.050” pushrod length.

We’re almost there! After checking, measuring and machining, checking and installing our long list of World Domination engine parts, it now looks like a complete race engine. We received the push rods, which again were a bit of a wait and were then able to install many of the remaining parts provided by PBM, such as valve cov-

ers, hardware, gaskets and small miscellaneous parts.

Bill Mitchell Products The intake manifold, which BMP was custom fit by cutting https://billmitchellprodand welding a cast “off the ucts.com/ shelf ” intake manifold, has 386-957-3009 finally found its home atop Jesel the engine, as well. https://www.jesel.com/ Now we needed a serious 732-901-1800 fuel and air mixing device, PBM/Erson/World so we ordered an 1150cfm Products billet “Dominator” style http://www.pbm-erson. carb which only seems fitcom/ ting for the World Domi- Technical Support Lines: nation engine. Once we get Erson Cams a few more parts and piec800-641-7920 es in order, we’ll talk more PBM Performance 800-588-9608 about induction, valvetrain World Products and tuneup, and from there 877-630-6651 we’ll hit the engine dyno!

Ross Racing Pistons Until then, have a great couple weeks out enjoying https://www.rosspistons. com/ your passion for horsepow(310) 536-0100 er!

RPM

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