Nitemare 455 Pontiac V-8Dyno Test

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Longroof 4-Speed:‘64 Safari Street Machine

Volume 4, Number 10 October 2018$9.99 US $11.99 Canada

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Story by Jason ScottPhotos by Darrin Magro

Blueprinting Basics:

The Big Wrap-Up...Tuning and Dyno Testing the Nitemare Performance455 Pontiac “Raffle Engine”

Tom Sanders, of Higganum, Connecticut is the luckywinner of the Nitemare Performance 455 Pontiac-Congratulations!

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Okay, let’s just cut to thechase: Five hundred andeight foot-pounds of

torque. Four hundred and fifty-twohorsepower. At 462 cubes, that’sjust shy of one horsepower percubic inch. Not bad for a naturally-aspirated, hydraulic-cammed en-gine burning 89-octane via apump-gas-friendly 9.5:1 compres-sion ratio using iron heads and asingle four-barrel.

Sure, it might not scare Hellcator Demon drivers, nor anyone in a

late-model ZR1 Corvette, ZL1 Ca-maro, or Shelby GT350 Mustang.But it’ll sure give them a run fortheir money. The same goes forfolks driving old-school StreetHemis, LS-6 Chevelles, or Boss 429Fords.

This is one potent Poncho. Andit’s more than capable of givingjust about any challenger a goodrun for its money.

And the irony is: it isn’t evenbuilt to be a race motor. This thingis built to survive countless miles of

street duty, burning regular oldpump gas—and not even pre-mium.

More Than The Sum Of Its PartsAccording to Nitemare Perfor-mance’s Darrin Magro, “insanehorsepower was never the goal forthis motor,” he said, describing theraffle engine. “Our goal was tobuild a rock-solid reliable, ex-tremely torquey engine based on aproven combination of compo-nents and meticulous preparation.

Despite being what Nitemare Performance’s Darrin Magro considers a “mild” build, the 462 cubic inch Pontiacturned Exstreme Fabrication’s Land & Sea dyno water brake to the tune of 508 ft-lbs of torque and 452 hp.Plenty stout for a “mild” crate motor.

Opposite page: Here’s the crate motor, all prettied-up and ready to be raffled off, prior to its trip to the dyno.It’s loaded with proven go-fast goodies like an all-forged Scat rotating assembly, a mild .500”-lift hydrauliccam and 1.5:1 roller-tip rockers from Comp, and, of course, a bunch of Nitemare Performance’s exclusive high-performance parts and even more of their engine engineering know-how.

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Then raffle it off to benefit a coupleworthwhile children’s charities.”

So, there are no unobtaniumparts. There’s no rocket science. Nomagic. And no power adders. Justa good ol’ fashioned Pontiac V8that’s been carefully blueprinted,balanced, and tuned to make gobsand gobs of torque from now untilthe cows come home.

The build-up was chronicled in aseries of issues earlier this year, butin case you missed those, here’s asomewhat-brief summary of what’sinside the raffle motor:

Magro and his crew started witha “seasoned” Pontiac 400 blockthat Magro carefully inspected,measured, and prepped before fill-ing it with high-strength internals,including a SCAT forged steelcrankshaft, matching SCAT forged

rods fitted with ARP bolts, andKeith Black forged aluminum pis-tons. A quite mild, .500”-lift CompCams hydraulic flat-tappet cam isturned by way of Nitemare’s owndouble-row, true roller timing set,and pushes on a set of Comp hy-draulic flat tappets and one-pieceMagnum pushrods.

The heads are Pontiac 6X ironunits. Like the block, they’re in-tensely inspected and prepped byNitemare, then flow-tested to en-sure they support ample flow forthe power goals. In this case, theNitemare 6Xs out-flow even thelegendary Ram Air IV factoryheads, which explains how the en-gine out-performs the Ram Air IV.The heads are loaded with stainlesssteel Ferrea valves, Comp springsto complement the cam, and 1.5:1

Comp Cams’ Magnum roller-tiprockers to actuate the valves. AJomar Performance stud-girdlewas added to ensure valvetrain sta-bility. The heads are capped with apair of Nitemare’s fabricated alu-minum valve covers to keep the oilin and dirt and dust out of the en-gine.

A host of Nitemare-specific up-graded components ensure thatthe engine’s oiling system is morethan up to the task of keeping theengine lubricated, including aNitemare-modified high-volumeMelling pump fitted withNitemare’s extra-thick pump plateand Nitemare’s custom pickup tocomplement the Nitemare customroad racing oil pan. The hardenedsteel Nitemare Pro series oil pumpdriveshaft features a steel sleeve to

Check out that (red) torque curve! It’s hardly a curve at all. Nice and broad and flat, just what you want for ahigh-performance street motor.

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prevent the shaft from disengag-ing from the pump’s input shaft.

A Nitemare Performance stain-less steel, braced valley pan sits be-neath a Nitemare-portedEdelbrock Torker intake that’s fittedwith a one-inch Jomar Perform-ance Power-Cone spacer and aQuick Fuel 850-cfm carb. APertronix electronic-ignition dis-tributor, Flame-Thrower high-out-put coil and wires, plustried-and-true AC plugs comprisethe ignition system. And Doug’sHeaders get rid of any left-overgases from the combustionprocess.

Other goodies in the engine areequally proven pieces: Cometicmulti-layer-steel head gaskets;BOP Engineering one-piece oil panand rear main seal gaskets; aBHJ/Nitemare Performance har-monic damper; a full complementof ARP engine fasteners from Na-tional Parts Warehouse; a B&B Per-formance remanufactured powersteering pump; pulleys and brack-ets protected by Central Connecti-cut Coatings; a TCI SFI-approvedflexplate; a PowerMaster high-out-put starter and alternator; and sev-eral quarts of Driven Racing Oil’sHot Rod Oil.

Again: quality components thatare assembled by Magro withmeticulous attention to detailthroughout the blueprintingprocess.

Test PrepJust like in high school or college,it pays to prepare for a big test.

In this case, since dyno time isexpensive (most dynos charge by

In anticipation of the lucky winner of the raffle motor plumbing up a ni-trous kit or perhaps upgrading to one of Nitemare’s higher-performance(and higher-rpm) camshafts, the engine is fitted with Jomar Perfor-mance’s billet aluminum stud girdles, to keep the rocker studs from flex-ing under load.

We really liked Nitemare’s minimalist valley pan that helps improve airflow under an intake manifold to reduce intake air temps and shed a bitof weight. The stainless steel sheet is curved to perfectly match the shapeof a Pontiac V8’s valley area, and the welded-on cross-braces ensure thatit holds that shape.

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the hour), Magro first bolted thecompleted engine to Nitemare’scustom-built run stand to break-inthe engine and verify that thereweren’t any oil or coolant leaks.Such maladies are far easier to fixon a run-stand than after the en-gine has been installed into a carand everything’s been hooked up.

After break-in, but while the en-gine was still on the run stand,Magro reinstalled the innervalvesprings (which had been re-moved for break-in, to minimizethe chance of wiping out a camlobe), adjusted the valves, set thetiming, then spent quality time ad-

Nitemare Performance ported and polished an Edelbrock Torker intake then bolted on a QuickFuel 850 cfmsquare-bore carb, with a Jomar Performance one-inch Power Cone phenolic spacer between the two, to addplenum area, smooth the flow of the intake charge from the carb to the intake, and keep the fuel cool.

Burning the air and fuel charge is the responsibility of the Pertronix ig-nition system, which consists of a Plug-N-Play distributor, high-outputcoil, and shielded Flame-Thrower wires. The distributor stock-like appear-ance conceals the Ignitor III module within, which provides both multi-spark and adjustable rev-limiter functionality, in addition to increasingspark energy and eliminating pesky points.

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justing the carb’s idle mixture, jet-ting, and accelerator pump actua-tion, among other things.

Prepping it ahead of time meantthat there’d be more time to opti-mize things on the dyno, instead ofwasting valuable time just gettingit in the ballpark.

Dyno DayDyno testing was conducted onthe Land & Sea DYNOmite enginedyno at Exstreme Fabrication inNorth Haven, Connecticut, not farfrom Nitemare Performance’s ma-chining and assembly shop.

After transferring the enginefrom a shipping stand to the dynocart and hooking up the fuel,water, ignition, throttle, exhaustsystems, along with various sen-sors, the engine was fired up andrun with no load to allow every-thing to reach standard operatingtemperatures.

As a testament to Magro’s me-thodical preparation of the engineand thorough tuning on the runstand, the very first pull yielded al-ready-impressive numbers: 446horsepower and 502 foot-poundsof torque.

With the air/fuel ratio rightwhere Magro wanted it, severalpulls were made bumping the tim-ing up and down a few degrees,with the best numbers being madeat 36 degrees: 452.4 horsepower at5,300 rpm and 508.0 ft-lbs oftorque at 3,900 rpm.

Best of Both WorldsDespite not aiming for huge powernumbers, Nitemare Performancetook a conservative combination of

Nitemare Performance Crate Engine462 Cubic Inch, Normally-Aspirated, Pontiac V-8,single 4-barrel carburetor; 89 octane fuel

RPM Torque (ft-lbs) HP3100 485.4 286.63200 482.5 293.83300 484.4 304.53400 488.2 316.33500 494.8 330.03600 502.0 344.13700 506.1 356.33800 507.7 367.23900 508.0 377.14000 507.1 386.24100 505.6 394.84200 503.8 402.94300 502.2 411.04400 501.0 419.54500 498.9 427.24600 495.2 433.74700 490.4 439.14800 485.2 443.64900 478.5 446.45000 470.1 447.55100 462.1 448.75200 455.3 450.75300 448.3 452.45400 439.8 452.35500 429.1 449.7

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components and put together anengine that has been proven onthe dyno to out-perform even the

mightiest regular production en-gine that Pontiac had ever installedin a vehicle on an assembly line.

Thanks to Nitemare’s meticulouspreparation of the components,and painstaking assembly process,they’ve shown that you don’t needexotic cylinder heads, a huge cam,or even high compression to haveyourself a Pontiac V-8 that shouldfeel impressive on the street, ableto rocket away from a stoplightwhen called upon, but also able toputter around town in a dailydriver, too, from now until the cowscome home.

And for those track-day activitieswhen you need just a little more …with a few tweaks or the additionof a mild nitrous shot, it can betransformed into an absolute ani-mal, capable of holding its ownagainst any challenger. It’s the bestof both worlds. What more couldyou want? PP

Metallic-ceramic coated Doug’s Headers handle removing the burned gases from the Nitemare Performanceblueprinted factory 6X heads. The coated headers not only look nice and prevent rust, but they trap exhaustgas temperatures within the tubes, which improves flow through the headers.

A Nitemare-specific PowerMaster “upside down” high-torque starter getsthe engine cranking for fire up, but keeps the solenoid down low, awayfrom header heat, to improve starting of hot engines.

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SourcesNitemare Performancewww.nitemareperformance.comBlueprinted cylinder block, blueprinted cylinderheads, rebuilt timing cover, modified waterpump, Pro Series oil pump assembly, oil pumpcover plate, oil pickup, oil pan, oil pump drive-shaft, Pro Series aluminum water neck withjumper line, modified water pump, stainless val-ley pan, aluminum valve covers, fuel pumpblock-off plate, external dipstick tube, full fac-tory pulley and bracket system, final assembly,custom painting, break-in, tuning.

B&B Performancewww.bbperformance.comFan, spacer, V-belts, power steering pump, liftplate, various fittings and plugs.

BHJ Dynamicswww.bhjdynamics.comHarmonic dampener.

BOP Engineeringwww.bopengineering.comOne-piece oil pan gasket; one-piece Viton rearmain seal.

Central Connecticut Coatingswww.centralctcoatings.comPowder-coating for pulleys, brackets; high-temp, dry film coatings for valley pan.

Cometic Gasketswww.cometic.comCylinder head, timing cover, water pump, intakemanifold, valve cover, and carburetor gaskets.

Competition Camswww.compcams.comCamshaft, lifters, pushrods, pushrod guideplates, roller-tip rocker arms, rocker studs, valvesprings, valve seals, valve locks.

Driven Racing Oilwww.drivenracingoil.comBreak-in and Hot Rod motor oil, Defender fueladditive.

Doug’s Headers www.pertronix.com/prod/ex/dougsMetallic-ceramic coated exhaust headers.

Exstreme Fabricationwww.exstremefab.comDyno testing.

Ferrea Racing Componentswww.ferrea.comMax Flow stainless steel intake & exhaustvalves.

Holley Performancewww.holley.comQuick Fuel 850 cfm carburetor; air cleaner as-sembly.

Jomar Performancewww.jomarperformance.comPro Stud Girdle; 1” Power Cone phenolic carbspacer; AN wrench set.

National Parts Warehousewww.enationalperformance.comEngine fastener kit.

Pertronixwww.pertronix.comDistributor, electronic ignition module, ignitionwires.

Powermaster Performancewww.powermastermotorsports.comHigh-performance starter motor and alternator.

Scat Crankshaftswww.scatcrankshafts.comBalanced rotating assembly: forged steel crank-shaft, forged steel connecting rods, forged alu-minum Keith Black pistons, performance pistonrings, performance bearing set.

TCI Automotivewww.tciauto.comSFI-approved flexplate.