Engine Masters

We test the power differences between 118-octane race gas and Rockett Brand E85 ethanol-blended fuel. There's a lot more to just the horsepower curve, though, as we discuss tuning differences and go over a long list of other considerations.

This time on Engine Masters, it's a horsepower battle with the world's most popular classic V-8s: the Chevy small-block versus the Ford Windsor using rebuilt short-blocks and parts packages from SummitRacing.com.

On this episode of Engine Masters, we explain how oil kills power because it's not about synthetic versus regular oil and not about a brand-to-brand comparison, but about windage and oil-pan design.

We compare dual-plane versus single-plane intake manifolds. While the intakes used here are typical for any carbureted V-8, the lessons about how the length of the intake runners affects the shape of the power curve apply to any four-stroke engine.

If you're conservative and want power and reliability from an engine you can drive every day on pump gas, we'll show where we spent money and where we saved it, and why we chose some lower-power components to get incredible power from a 5.3L single turbo.

You asked and we're here to answer! We take our small-block Chevy 383 and show, piece by piece, how much power a water pump kills. We move from an electric pump to mechanical with all kinds of cooling tricks to show you just how little it matters.

Get ready for "no replacement for displacement" with a massive 598ci BluePrint Engines crate big-block Chevy. We demo two different power combos, one for low-buck and massive street-ready low-end torque, and one for high-buck and high-rpm horsepower.

A junkyard Chevy LS engine with a turbo is a dime-a-dozen concept these days, but how big can it go? The Engine Masters go to the originator of the "Big Bang Theory" dyno test -- Richard Holdener, to find out.

For decades, street/strip racers have been told not to run nitrous-oxide injection on the most common dual-plane intake manifolds because it causes distribution problems. We discover the facts and find out which intake makes the most power on nitrous.

Purists disputed our test with throttle-body injection (TBI) not being real electronic fuel injection (EFI). So we're back with a state-of-the-art 1,050-cfm multipoint EFI system facing off against the 750- and 1,000-cfm relics known as carburetors.

This episode is personal to David Freiburger, as it's his own engine that he built to try to get into the 200MPH Club at El Mirage Dry Lake. We focus on the details that make the engine optimized, specifically for sustained wide-open throttle operation.

In the modern world of bulletproof bottom ends, boost has become the go-to for bolt-on power. David Freiburger, Steve Dulcich and Steve Brule take a bone-stock and test four different combos of build and boosted.