Rat Race: Trick Flow Assembles and Dynos a 572-Cube Big Block Chevy!

Trick Flow engine builder Todd Hodges lowers the Manley Pro Series crankshaft into the block. Forged from 4340 steel, the 4.250-inch stroke crank is heat-treated and nitride before being stress relieved, shot peened, and Magnafluxed. Other features include micro-polished .125-inch radius journals, gun-drilled mains, lightened rod journals for weight reduction, and fully profiled counterweights.

Once the crank is seated and the four-bolt main caps are torqued to 100 ft.-lbs. with 30 weight oil, Todd checks crank thrust. It came out to .005 inch.

Wiseco and Manley parts make up the piston and rod assemblies. The Wiseco Quick 16 Series forged pistons feature ArmorGlide™ anti-friction coating on the skirts. Wiseco says this coating allows much tighter piston-to cylinder wall tolerances than other spray-on coatings do. The Manley H-beam rods are 4340 steel, fully machined and stress-relieved. The wrist pin and big end bores are honed to a +/-.0002-inch tolerance, and each rod set is weight-matched to within 2 grams.

Here you can better see the Wiseco piston’s vertical gas ports and the big 50cc popup. Each piston weighs 636 grams, which is pretty light. Trick Flow’s static compression goal for the engine (with the PowerPort 365 heads’ 119cc chambers) was around 14.3:1. Since the pistons sit about .010-inch down in the cylinders, Todd went to a Cometic MLS head gasket with .040-inch compressed thickness to gain back some extra squeeze.

The solid roller camshaft is from Bullet Cams. The duration specs out at 285-degree intake/296-degree exhaust @.050. Lift is .918-inch intake/.874=inch exhaust with 114 degrees of lobe separation.

COMP Cams provided the Hi-Tech belt drive system. Belt drives are better at absorbing crankshaft harmonics than chains or gear drives. That helps reduce valvetrain instability that robs you of horsepower. The Hi-Tech drive has a unique camshaft thrust adjustment system that doesn’t require shims, plus an infinitely adjustable Vernier cam sprocket for spot-on cam timing. Double lip seals insure no leaks—very important on engines that use vacuum pumps like ours.

Todd degrees the cam to 110 degrees as specified by the cam card.

Todd degrees the cam to 110 degrees as specified by the cam card.

The Moroso crank scraper is designed to accommodate various crank strokes. That means you have to trim it to fit your particular setup. The best way to do this is to make a cardboard template, transfer the pattern to the scraper, and carefully cut to fit.

This is how the scraper should fit when you’re done whittling it to size. While it takes longer, it’s better to cut material a little at a time to get the scraper to fit as closely as possible to the rotating assembly. Removing excess oil off the rotating assembly helps free up a few horsepower by reducing windage around the crank. On a race engine, gaining even a couple of extra horsepower is worth the effort.

The Moroso Blueprinted oil pump features smooth anti-cavitation slots and enlarged feeder grooves, providing steady oil flow to each side of the gears even at high rpm. The pump is high volume/standard pressure. That means the pump can circulate plenty of oil at high rpm without creating additional oil pressure. Remember, we’re working with an engine with a crankcase already under vacuum via the Moroso vacuum pump, so you don’t want any more oil pressure than is necessary.

Moroso’s Drag Race oil pan is fabricated from aluminum and holds seven quarts of oil when used with a high volume oil pump (six with standard volume pump). The double kickout design can handle engines with up to 4.75 inches of crank stroke. Billet aluminum end seals ensure consistent sealing surface to front covers and rear main caps.

Todd lowers a Trick Flow PowerPort 365 cylinder head onto the block. A lot of work was spent balancing and maximizing airflow among all eight intake runners. On a factory-style head, the runners for cylinders one, four, five, and eight are “curved wall,” or dogleg style. These runners flow less than the other “straight wall” runners, meaning their respective cylinders get less air. Trick Flow reworked the curved wall runners on the PowerPort 365s to increase their airflow capacity. The result is more equally balanced airflow to all cylinders, which produces more power.

The ARP head studs are torqued to 70 ft.-lbs. in three steps. Don’t forget these bolts under the heads. There are two per head; they get torqued to 50 ft.-lbs.

COMP Cams also provided the shaft mount rocker arm system. It features 1.7 ratio full roller aluminum rocker arms that ride on hardened steel shafts bolted to steel stands. In other words, these rockers won’t flex like stud mount rockers can (even with stud girdles). That greatly increases valvetrain stability and allows more accurate transfer of camshaft motion to the valves.

Looking like a real engine now, isn’t it? A 1,250 cfm Holley Gen 3 Ultra Dominator carburetor is perched on a Trick Flow R-Series single plane intake manifold. The headers are Trick Flow by Stainless Works stainless steel headers. They have 2 1/4 to 2 3/8-inch stepped primaries with 4 ½-inch merge style collectors.

On the front of the 572 is a MSD Flying Magnet crank trigger, Meziere electric water pump, and a Moroso vacuum pump. Todd still has to make a front motor plate to properly hang these components.