Taking my big spoon in hand.
Although I lost all of Tom;s dyno results when my hard drive took a dump I remember the premise of his tests.. It was not to test race engines but to compare components that we might use on our street engines. So Tom set up a couple of short blocks, a 250 and a 292, and under took a grueling task of head & cam swapping, test runs, and tuning that gives me the he-bee-jee-bees just to think of. Knowing that a dyno is really not a daily driving simulator but is the best compromise to allow the massive tests to be done in a given time frame and with a modicum of control he took it on. He took things in stages much as most of us do and bolted on mostly components we are familiar with. A few odd ball pieces were thrown in just to see what worked or didn't. It was never claimed to be a definitive work or the "know all end all" so to speak but a lot is evident and some folklore was at least put up for serious questioning. No amount of proof will will ever totally dispel the myths and memories of our youth. There were a few things that absolutely did not work and one of those was a stock 194 head. None of the pundits in possession of one of the magic and mystical modified wonders would chance giving up their secrets and allow Tom use their power monster in the tests. That alone makes the 194 head useless for us. The reason there is so much confusion here is because every generation of Inliners has to reinvent the wheel because some folks take their secrets to the grave. It must be even darker and colder down there alone with your now useless information. It won;t open the gate. It also discourages a lot of young people.
So are Tom's tests a prefect compilation of facts to use to build every future 250 or 292? Probably not. Do they give us more comparative information than we have ever had? YES, they do. For me, my 292 will rarely see 4000 rpms. It will run mostly around 2000 and do a lot of work between idle and there. Things I learned from the tests will make my build easier and cheaper because I know some things to avoid.
Before my credentials are challenged I'll tell you I am not a racer but I've built some pretty respectable inlines in the past almost 50 years that like Hank's have embarrassed the crap out of some V8 guys. I built the 270 in my '53 Chevy pickup in 1978. I chose to use the small port head because Bill Fisher told me it is the best choice for a street engine. After all these years and a couple of rebuilds I still believe he was right. It preforms well and keeps out of other people's way. I'll race anything you have if I get to pick the race course. It won't be the same course for everyone. A few of you will beat me. All races will begin and end in my yard and if necessary some will be thousands of miles long. It is not a driver until you make it to my house.
Hank was that the engine that Douglas blasted into so many tiny pieces that he sold the car? I think some shrapnel beat him to the finish line. I was really fast while it lasted
