Engine Building Tips From the Pros

Engine Building Tips From the Pros

We recently attended an engine-building school at the Reher-Morrison race plant in Arlington, Texas. What's the big deal with a school? Simple–Reher-Morrison peeled open the doors of its professional engine building vault, and laid out virtually everything for us (along with the rest of the students in the class) to see. David Reher of Reher-Morrison Racing Engines, along with Bob Colesworthy and Jim Barfield of Education Technology Consultants present the school.

To be honest, we went in with preconceived notions that we might see the inside of one of Reher's popular 500+ cubic inch sportsman race engines and perhaps a non-critical piece or two from his Pro Stock race program. We also assumed that security surrounding the professional race program would be tighter than Fort Knox. We were unequivocally wrong. Every nook and cranny of the shop was wide open, and so were their professional race engines.

So what did we learn? More than we could ever imagine. Certainly the school goes through what many seasoned enthusiasts might consider elementary engine-building practices, but an education is what you make of it. Don't believe it? Look at what follows: We've discovered dozens of different things that might take the average guy years to figure out on his own. Check out the following tips. You might be surprised at what you find. Best of all, virtually everything can be applied to any high-performance engine. Just click on the sidebar title below to check out the tech tip that interests you.