History of Dodge's NASCAR Small Block Engines: Secrets Up Close With Danny Glad

This is an R5 and this is an R six. >> We're here with Danny Glad and we're going to show you everything you never knew about Dodge's small block NASCAR engines. >> How y'all doing? I'm uh My name is Danny Glad. I've been building engines all my life. This is all I've ever done. I was fortunate enough to be in on the early development of all the Dodge when it came back to the truck series and then on to the NASCAR Cup Series. Arrington Performance in Martinsville was really the point people when we first started and then they got Abraham and Chip Ganassie and other couple other people on board. We had a pretty good core group of guys uh Joey Arrington, myself and and the Dodge engineers. There was a lot of really good Dodge engineers. We started from the ground up building the race engine in the truck series with the the small block that's similar looking to a to like a 340 or a 360. >> You know, Glenn, I think one of the big stories in this resurgence of Dodge, if you will, is that not that long ago, they might have been 40 or 50 horsepower down to everybody else, but their engine program has really come along here in the last couple three weeks. Really, >> we ran that in a truck series for a couple years. Then Dodge designed a new motor and we helped develop it and that was the R5 P7. >> He's done it today at Homestead. Elliot is your winner. And boy is this going to be a popular victory. >> How about these two guys? Oh man, I'm telling you, they've made my life. I'm telling it was uh you can't ask for a better weekend. They did a great job, both of them. >> And then eventually went to the the last motor they had with an R six P8 cylinder head. We'll take you through all the little nooks and crannies and try to uncover some stuff that you probably never seen before. >> So, we got four different platforms here. The factory one, the first one, the second one, and the the most recent one. >> Correct. That is correct. >> Okay. So, which one of these are we looking at right here? >> Okay. This is a 340 block. So, this would be the same block that would come in like a 1970 Challenger. So after the big block stuff went away in NASCAR, if there were Mopar teams left, they had to use >> Yeah. This is the factory production block basically was was all you had to work with, you know, you had to put the fourbolts blade caps on it and of course sonic a block and find one thick enough and that's what you had to work with. Uh you know, it was a whole lot of work went into a factory block to make it work. Chrysler, Dodge, they knew that they had to do something cuz you know that this couldn't handle the horsepower no more. So they come up with a I'm sure there was a iteration R1 and R2. I know that I've seen some R2 blocks, but the the one that was kind of sorted out all the issues was a was the R3 block. This block, you know, 4050 bore 460 was about all you could get out of it. So, when they made the the uh R3, R2 and R3 block, which is what this block is here, >> that Bob Keslowski told me that has really helped that. They're working on some new cylinder heads and some new engine blocks. These engine blocks that they're running now are basically the same engine blocks that Richard Petty and the Dodge guys ran back in the 70s. They've had to use the old molds, the old foundry to build new blocks, and they're now starting to get those. So, they're able to do a little bit more R&D to the uh to the engines now to find out what makes them go a little bit faster. So, uh if today is any indication, boy, Dodge might have something for these guys for the rest of this year. They're only giving away about 15 horsepower now on a short track like this, you're hooked up to the corners. You can do without that. >> They they fixed a couple issues. First thing they did was to shorten the deck because this was a tall deck block and they shortened the deck to 9 in. And then another thing they did is they corrected the lifter angle. Normally the small block Dodge was 59°. This wasn't pushing in a straight line and it lost a lot of motion. So when they they went to this and they went to 47° and the later ones were 48 where the push rod was a lot straighter and the action was you didn't lose no motion in the action, you know, it wasn't disjointed. It was a straight push. Uh, so we we fixed the lifters, shortened the deck to 9 in, and also the cylinder walls were thick enough to go to a 4200 bore. And then when we went to the 4200 bore, that opened up a lot of options on your cylinder head. Now you didn't have to stay with a a 2 in and 20,000 valve, you can go to a 2180, 2190 diameter intake valve, which really opened up the flow, and you you couldn't put that big a valve with a 4060 bore. It had to be like a 4200 board. This is a W2 cylinder head. This was the performance cylinder head that Chrysler offered and it was used a lot in a lot of drag racing and then unported version was used in the NASCAR late model stock. This is what there was to race if you was going to race in a NASCAR series back when they used to run a you know like a old bow tie head on a Chevrolet you know probably in the 70s you know this is what you ran if you was going to run a Dodge. This was their performance head back then. It had a you know the materials weren't besides we didn't know better but the the materials weren't good enough to make smaller valves and uh smaller stems but you can see here this is a current valve like we run now. That's a 6 mm stem and you can see the difference. This is this one's 1132. This is what we would have run years ago and this is what we currently run right now. This is the same valve that you would run in a Toyota race cup motor or a R7 Chevrolet or even the Fords. They're pretty much all now 6 millm stem on the intake. They run a 7 mm on exhaust cuz a little little more robust. When we went to the R3W8 where we went to the bigger bore, we talked about we could run a bigger valve. So, here's the valve you were stuck with before on a small bore motor compared to the 2180 valve that you can run. >> That's a massive difference. >> Yeah, it's a big difference. Yeah, it's unbelievable. >> So, when Dodge joined the truck series, this is what they were using. >> This is what we were using. Yep. This is the head we were using. And it was a It was a really, really good cylinder head. Uh you know this one here has uh you can look even back then this one had uh 7 mm valve stems in it. Now it's got 5/16 exhaust and 7 mm but it has a uh it has a lash cap on it. >> And this is the same headbolt pattern that could you could put this head on a factory Mopar block. >> But what they did was this is a 10bolt cylinder head. Okay. You can see, I know it's hard to see with because you got water holes, but you know, you had five five on the bottom and five on the top. You had a big span to try to clamp. And just like on the on the Fords, uh, you know, we used to have trouble. We'd push out this head gas cuz there wasn't enough clamp load right here. And and a lot of that goes back to the heads weren't maybe weren't thick enough and they, you know, structural integrity wasn't there. But when you know to avoid all that, Dodge put an extra headbolt. If if you get anybody's, you know, fools with a LS, the LS is the same way. A high performance LS like a aftermarket block, a dart block or LSX block has the same extra bolt hole in between the cylinders. >> I was just thinking that it looked just like an LSX block. >> In between, you know, this is a cylind bolt hole. This a head bow hole. And now you've got another fastener for more clamp load. And you've got one at the bottom, too. Real similar to an LS. >> Really? I didn't never knew that before. >> See, everything comes from somewhere in Engine World. >> You know, that's where we went to when the truck series we ran this. We're going to go cup racing and we're going to develop a new motor. Uh cuz then the the Chevrolets were running a SP2 engine, which was a a polypheric motor also with the valves were canned in it. What was the horsepower range of this versus this? Like how much power were these truck engines capable of back then? Okay, this motor probably the best you could do 580 590 horsepower, you know, uh that would be like in a cup car, you know, of course drag racing with more radical cams and stuff, but what we would run in a cup car probably, you know, 580 590 range on horsepower and with the big with the, you know, the heavy valves, the big stems, uh, you know, it was probably 78 7900, you know, >> so that's If this engine could have been built to a cups back in the early 90s, that's all it could do cuz it never ran in cups. >> Right. Right. Well, I'm sure they I'm sure the Dodge guys, you know, when they ran a Dodge, if they didn't run a big block, you ran a small block, this is what you ran. >> Oh, back in the 70s or >> Yeah. Yeah. This is the head you ran. Yeah. Yep. >> Okay. Yeah. I wasn't even thinking about that. >> Timmy Petty and them, you know, works the children. I'm sure they could shed a whole light a lot a lot of light on what they did back then. But >> well, I call that the unicorn. You're not going to find another engine like that with all the complete stuff. The bell housing, the rat roster intake, which is all magnesium. >> I didn't have much to do with it then. We, you know, we get them from time to time in the shop now. >> But, you know, this is that that was the W2 head. That's what they ran. >> That could be a whole different video of the the early early days of all that. >> And then so so you're looking at 580 590 with this motor. And uh this one here, you're probably looking at 700. You know, we went to a big bore, went to a shorter stroke, cuz at 358 in at at a 4030 bore, you had to have a 3 500 stroke to make 358 in. Well, when you went to a 4180 bore, you could run a 3250 stroke. The biggest driver with the stroke is, well, the big bore, it just breathes better. You can run a bigger valve and it breathes better. Uh but also the stroke takes away all the friction from the piston going up and down cuz it takes uh it takes energy to move that piston in the bore. And you people say, well, you know, all the big drag motors, they got, you know, they're big stroke motors, you know, but in in in the series in the NASCAR, all the NASCAR engines now, every single one that races, I'll guarantee there's not one out there that has bigger than a 3255 stroke, you know, just a little over three and a quarter cuz they all want the big bore, you know, cuz that's where the power's at, you know, in the realm in the realm that they're working on. Now, if we was going to run at 56, 6,500 RPM, 7,000, you know, you could run more stroke and make more torque, you know, but if you want to make power up high, you have to pull the stroke out of the motor. >> If you're enjoying this, make sure you hit thumbs up and subscribe because I was talking to the camera. A lot of people on YouTube think subscribe means you have to pay for it like a magazine, but it's just a follow button. And we've done videos like this uh on the Chevy platform and the Ford platform already. So, if you're interested in this, make sure you watch those afterwards. >> If you had a 3 and 1/2 in stroke, that piston is going to go from the bottom to the top, it's going to be 3 1/2 in. Well, that that piston doesn't get there by itself. Something has to move it, and it takes energy to move that piston. So if you had a if you had a three and a half inch stroke and you switched to a three and a quarter inch stroke and you set the you kept the same cubic inches because you went to a bigger bore that piston actually has to travel an eighth of an inch less on on each stroke. You know it eighth of an inch less top eighth inch left on the bottom. >> So it's a/4 in time 8,000 relative to your overall piston speed. >> Well that piston doesn't get there by itself. So even though even if it's not on the fire, you know, the fire stroke, it pushes it down. Okay? But still, if there's drag on it, that's that's energy that's getting used, it's not going in the crankshaft out to the wheels. So there's a you there's a lot of power with the shorter stroke. Now, I know guys are going to say, "Oh, yeah, but my motor I run a you know, I got a drag car and I run a a you know, four or 500 stroke motor." Yeah, but you probably don't turn at 9,000 either. you know, uh, all this stuff was geared to 8,500 and above, you know, not this stuff, you know, this was in the 60 800 7,000 7200 range, you know, but when we went to this, everything moved up cuz, you know, it when you get when you talk about horsepower, okay, torque is the number that the crankshaft actually generates in foot-pounds of rotating force. Horsepower is actually a calculated number. You take the torque times the RPM and divide that by 5252. That's a constant. And it'll come up with the horsepower number. So the the more torque, the higher you make the torque, you know, cuz you're multiplying by the factor of the uh RPM, it'll make more power. So you know, to make more power, you have to turn more RPM. Basically, if you can get rid of the friction, that power that you freed up goes out the crankshaft. It's just physics. If that particular piston is not on its power stroke, then it's being towed around by the other one that is right >> somewhere else in the engine. >> That's correct. Right. And you know, you got and you know, years ago, we used to run like this is an old piston and you can see the difference uh what they look like now. Uh you can see how massive this piston is. And these rings used to be a 16th of an inch thick ring. And you had two of them. And then you had a you know a a 316 oil ring, you know. Well, now what's in millimeters, but basically now the top ring is 26,000. And I hear guys even going smaller now. >> So, even the R3W8 setup was still using the bigger pop-up pistons. >> Yeah. Mhm. Well, yeah, we went we ended up with a flat top. We did work our way to a flat top because we got the chambers shallow enough. >> You can see here. >> Were there multiple versions of this R3? like multiple versions of heads for the R3 block or >> no there was a you know there was an R2 which is I'm pretty sure that's the the head they ran in like the iRock series back in the8s you know and then it was an R3 that come out with the R3 and uh I don't think we had to run a dome on this. I don't I don't think we did. So >> it would have been interesting to see what this platform was capable of within the Cup series cuz the trucks had different rules. They made less power than the booster, >> right? They were restricted on a carburetor, right? They had to run basically a 390 carburetor with like a unlimited booster. You know, you could you can massage the booster and make it real small as compared to a stock 390. You know, we were allowed to run a roller cam in them. They were 12 to1 compression. And I if I remember right, I thought they might have been around 680, but I don't remember exactly. You know, >> even since the truck series started in 1995, two years later in '97, there weren't that many Dodge trucks in the field. The Pettis had a truck. Bob Keslowski had a truck. One of those trucks was a number 19 Penso truck driven by Tony Reigns. I think it's pretty cool. Even back then, they made an effort to have the same paint scheme across multiple series, even after Rorig switched to Ford the following year. It basically matched Steve Park's Penso cup car with the same pearl yellow metallic paint and everything. Penso has been involved in supporting racing for a long time. And if you're new here and didn't know, Penso supports what we do here too with these videos. I use Penso Ultra Platinum in my race car, which is a Dodge R5P7 engine that we show here in this video. We use Penso Platinum or Ultra Platinum depending on what's needed in every car we have. and you should too if you like these videos because odds are you have a car that needs motor oil and you got to put something in it that's good. Without sponsors, race cars don't go to the racetrack and it's our job as race fans to support the things that support things we like. So next time you go to the part store cuz you need an oil change, put some Pens oil in your car and you can feel good about it. If you do your oil change with Penso, tag me on Instagram and I'll share it. So that was sort of even though they were restricted that was sort of the foray for Dodge to get in there and establish a program and be reliable to then build the >> it was all this I don't know how to say but there was a revolution in manufacturing you know CNC was really coming on board in the 80s you know and in the '9s and and '95 you know that's why we were able to make valves like this that would that would run 2,000 mi in a motor. >> So that's the R3 block that's the R5 block. >> Correct. Right. This block had the 9 in decks which is where this block was two and a quarter inch mains which is where this block was. The main brings two and a quarter inches which is the for a forward side like a 302 size. One major difference that they went to on this is if you look here if you notice the decks this is a closed deck block and this is an open deck block. If anybody's taken a cylinder head off of a Mitsubishi or or a a uh you know a foreign car, all those are open decks. And the main design for that is to get water to the cylinder head quicker. The ideal is most of the combustion heat goes out the exhaust pipe. Uh but there's still some that you know in the piston and and when the piston goes down, it gets in the cylinder walls and it's in the cylinder head. The heat it has to get carried away. You have a solid deck like this one and you know that deck is probably 400,000 thick on top. Well, the w the heat has to transfer through that deck before it can get to the water. Well, in this block, the head gasket sits right on there and it's it's pulling it right out. And you're going to look at that and say, "Well, you it looks like them cylinders would move around a lot. You know, it doesn't look like they're supported." But it it doesn't. They've uh they're really really rigid for what they are. I mean it's it was really surprising when we went to that. >> Now you were around and involved in the like the origins of this didn't just you didn't just show up and this is already here. You were you were in the loop when this was happening. Right. >> Right. When we built it, right? Y >> I've heard this before, but I don't know for sure. Maybe you can clear it up for me. Did these blocks get cast in a Caterpillar foundry? The first ones might have been I'm not sure. Uh I know I know when we went to the R six blocks we went to Granger and Warl in England and they cast them. But uh I'm not I'd have to ask Pat Bear, one of the Dodge guys, really where those were cast and we can do that and find out. >> So I thought I read a story somewhere. Maybe this will help you figure it out that they were having something with wherever they were being cast and then cuz Bill Davis had was coming to Dodge and had the Caterpillar thing. He connected the Caterpillar to them and they did. >> That's a story I never heard. It could be, but >> I'd like to figure that out cuz that's that's pretty cool. It's like >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would that would be pretty cool. >> But just looking at these two here, the biggest thing that stands out to me would be the the skirt rails on the bottom. Capture the >> the cap. So this this is like…