Put me in the camp of wanting to know how to make 200 RWHP out of the 2.8 on $500. If it's juiced, then that don't count because SCCA doesn't even allow a bottle on the property at their events, much less hooked up in a car.
Many of you know the story of our 3.4L HT Crate engine in the Finale. Those that don't, the short version is that after about 5,000 miles the engine started using a quart of oil every tank of gas. Even with a VERY cooperative dealer and threats of lawsuits from two of my attorneys, GM held fast that there would be no warranty on the engine because we used the Fiero TPI system on it. My attorneys both agreed that we could beat them in court, but it would cost between $5K and $10K to get through the initial trial, IF they didn't appeal. Not really cost effective on an $1,800 engine. It has taught me a lesson about GM crate engines in the Fiero, though. Hopefully others consider it when making their choices as well.
But, back to our engine.
We swapped it out for a 4.9L Caddy and couldn't be happier with the new engine. This gave me a 3.4L as a doorstop. We decided that since we had the engine/drivetrain, we'd pull the Duke out of the race car and swap it in. After all, if it uses a quart of oil every tank of gas, and we only go through half a tank at an autocross, who cares? While the motor was out, we did pull the valve covers off and put new valve stem seals on the engine because we'd heard rumors that a batch of the 3.4's got out with no seals. That was not true in our case as it had decent umbrella seals on the intakes and quad rings on the exhausts. We replaced them anyway. When we put the engine in the race car, it didn't seem to be hitting on all six cylinders. The only explanation, since it ran OK in the Finale, was that I had a valve too tight. #4 cylinder was the offending culprit so we pulled the front valve cover off and reset the valves on that side. It didn't seem too tight, but when we started it up again it seemed to be better. (BTW, we checked compression before we reset the valves and #4 had 0 compression. After resetting, I didn't put the gauge on it again but it DID blow my finger out of the spark plug hole).
We drove it around the yard a bit and all seemed well. When we loaded the car on the trailer to get ready to go, it dropped out again. I was not amused and decided to just run the little POS until it blew up. We tried our best and it didn't blow, but it also didn't run very well as a V5. When we got home, we dropped the cradle again and pulled the engine down.
The back two cylinders had about a .015" ridge or better on them, the others less. The rod bearings looked very good. The mains showed some wear, but not unreasonable. Cam bearings were completely trashed. The reason we dropped the cylinder was that #4 had in it now a virtually 3 sided valve. It actually has a triangular appearance. If it laid just right, it would seal a bit, but mostly not at all. ALL of the intake guides are shot big time. The exhausts show wear with the old valves, but not bad. I was shocked at how much wear the engine showed considering the few amount of miles but most importantly at WHERE it showed the wear.
I know we ran it low on oil on a couple of occasions with it using that much and I expected the rod and mains to be trashed, but they weren't. With the condition of the rods and mains, you would expect the cam bearings to be OK but they were junk. I'm at a loss to explain the guide wear. We're in the process of rebuilding the engine right now and here's how we're doing it.
One new exhaust seat in the #4 cylinder where the screwed up valve was. All new exhaust valves which puts the ex guide/valve clearance to new specs. New Intake guides and intake valves. New seals, of course.
I'm keeping the factory 3.4L HT cam as it looks perfect and has virtually indentical specs as the Crane 260. Comp cams 1.6 roller tip rockers. Comp cams springs and pushrods. Pistons from ARI which are flat tops, .75mm oversize. Total seal gapless rings. The exhaust manifolds were already ported, so we're keeping them. I'm going to run a true dual exhaust, open, with a new pipe fabricated to come from the rear manifold to the back, not a big trick since the car has no trunk. I did some mild clean up work on the heads. I'm going to ceramic coat the combustion chambers, piston domes, and exhaust ports. Gasket matched the intake. I'm not going to use a bored throttle body and plenum because I don't think it's worth a single HP since nothing is being done to the snorkel area. (I do have a winter plan for the intake though, that will use the stock computer, injectors, and will flow everything the heads can take in. It is still in the planning stages, though, and will require some custom castings or a hell of a lot of CNC time with some aluminum billets. 
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The engine had about 135 RWHP when it was very fresh. With the increased compression, open exhaust, mild porting, and 1.6 rockers I'm hoping that we can have an honest 150 RWHP which, IMHO, is the upper limit of the amount of air the upper plenum can flow (what are your thoughts on that, Oreif?) And that 150 RWHP will come at a fairly low rpm, probably around 4,000 or so.
If that's the case, we should be competitive in EMod on power, if we can get our weight down to minimums. We'll see what we'll see. I will be putting it on the dyno at some point when I'm done to see how much difference it all made.
John Stricker
I would feel more safe juicing a tired 4.9 then a tired 2.8 
