Group: 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Garrett: 
All right. Nobody's gonna get mad if I don't pick em, right? Everybody's a winner. We all like each other, right?  I hope right? Okay. Alright, first question: What's most likely to break first when you push an engine too far in testing? You guys write your answers down, and when you're ready, flip them over. 
 
Stephanie: 
I got some art going on here.  
 
Garrett: 
Oh, yeah, we got some drawing going. All right, Jeff, what you got for me, man?  
 
Jeff: 
The release engineer.  
 
Garrett: 
Oh dang, that's really funny.  
 
Rod: 
It goes along with my components. 
 

Garrett:

That's really funny. We're off to a good start here. We're throwing jabs already. Okay, cool. Stephanie, what do you got?  

Stephanie:

I picked valvetrain. 
 
Garrett: 
Extra points for drawing.  Have you seen anything, like very noticeable? Have you seen springs split in half? Have you seen valves?  
 
Stephanie: 
Whenever you want to get easy horsepower out of an engine, first thing you do is, you know, slap a cam in there. 
 
Garrett: 
Right. 
 
Stephanie: 
You do have to consider that the rest of the valve train can operate within the now new spec that you've that you've given it… 
 
Garrett: 
Right. 
 
Stephanie: 
But I think that what's in most peril to go is definitely valvetrain.  
 
Garrett: 
Yeah. Prashant, what do you got?  
 
Prashant: 
Pretty generic, but it's really all the internal moving parts. It really depends on what you're really, what parameters you're really pushing when you're when you're tuning trying to push the engine to make more power. Right. So…  
 
Garrett: 
Makes sense. Makes sense.  Rod what do you got? 
 
Rod: 
I kind of went with Prashant. I have multiple things I got yeah, I got connecting rod, valve, and pistons. So, again, when you're playing with things, you always find the weak link, right? So, any one of those are your current weak links out of the out of the gate. And then you move around that for more robustness.  Right?  So into your crankshaft, into your blocks. But this is the main, the main things that you really got to watch when you start building power, is those pieces there. 
 
Garrett: 
 I'm assuming you guys have pushed engines to the point of failure… like massive failure. Putting windows in blocks perhaps? Have you done that? Because I feel like that'd be kind of cool. 
 
Stephanie: 
That happens in testing, yeah, yeah.  
 
Rod: 
Personally. Yes.  
 
Stephanie: 
Yes.  
 
Prashant: 
The way our testing is designed is we really try to test the limits of material or the hardware design, everything. So, we want to see those failure failures in our labs, in our dyno, where the customers don't have to.  
 
Garrett: 
Yeah, that makes sense.  
 
Stephanie: 
The end goal is to have a robust system that, like, either customer can take and just drop right into their car, or if they wanted to go ahead and update, you know, with whatever they wanted, the hardware would take that. 
 
Garrett: 
All right. Everybody had really good answers. I want to let everybody know that. But Jeff was out here throwing punches off the rip. So, Jeff you win this round. Congratulations! You now get to choose an engine and an additional upgrade for our 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS project. 
 
Jeff: 
Perfect. Yeah, I think because it's bracket racing, right, consistency is going to be a big thing there.   
 
Garrett: 
Yeah.  
 
Jeff: 
So we're going to go with our LSX454 which is a long block. We're going to add on the LS3 intake.  
 
Garrett: 
Makes sense, a lot of cubic inches. Lot of displacement. No replacement for displacement!  
 
Jeff: 
That’s right! 
 
Garrett: 
Yeah. Getting a little confused there. But anyways, on to question number two: What's the biggest difference between testing Chevrolet Performance crate engines and normal OEM engine testing?  We're going to start actually on this side, because mabye Rod is going to throw an arrow at you this time. Rod, what do you got for us?  
 
Rod: 
I didn't throw any haymakers this time, but I chose duty cycle.  
 
Garrett: 
Okay. 
 
Rod: 
So, duty cycle severity is a difference between a normal OEM where their grocery getters drive the kids to school type situation.  And we're actually in the hot rod world, right? We're forcing these things to the edge, and we want to make sure that we're testing that capability.  
 
Garrett: 
Okay. Makes sense. Sir? 
 
Prashant: 
Very, very similar answer to Rod. So, duty cycle and the test duration. When we develop new crate engines we're pushing the performance by changing certain parameters and hardware.  We take a lot of pride in offering warranty for Chevrolet Performance crate engines, right? So, we do a lot of durability testing, right? And we offer, if you look at our catalog, we have a really good warranty. So, we'll make sure in our lab we do the testing for that much time. Our customer base, the performance parts crate engines, we have different, the applications are a little bit different. So, like Rod said, the duty cycle is a little bit different. If you're cruising or if you're racing or if you're just hot rodding.   So we manipulate our test profile according to that.  
 
Garrett: 
That's too cool.  
 
Jeff: 
And if there's something we're missing, we also go out to the customer, get that data, and then we can replicate it in the dyno to make sure that the customer doesn't have those failures in the future. 
 
Stephanie: 
Yeah for sure.  
 
Garrett: 
Stephanie, what do you got?  
 
Stephanie: 
All right. I think kind of along the same lines, I chose platform. Usually in the production side, we have a destined platform for a powertrain. So, we know the bounds of what we're working with for the engines. Yeah, I think platform is a big one.  
 
Garrett: 
OK, right on Jeff. 
 
Jeff: 
I put customer this time. So, along the same lines, right? The customer is very different to the platform part. L8T, for example, it was built to go in trucks and the G Van. That's a very specific duty cycle. We're taking that and we're offering it to the hot rod community, lighter weight cars, things of that nature. So, we're developing, you know, modifying the cals that we receive from the production space and making it operate in a lighter weight vehicle to do different things. 
 
Garrett: 
Well, you guys gave me a lot of the same answers here, which is fine. That's you know, you all are engineers. You're all on the same wavelength. Again, no, no haymakers getting thrown at each other this time, but that's okay. So, with that being the case, everyone wins this round.  
 
Prashant: 
Alright! 
 
Garrett: 
So then now you guys got to come together and figure out collectively what the transmission and additional upgrade is going to be. 
 
Prashant: 
Okay.  
 
Garrett: 
Can y'all do that?  
 
Prashant: 
All right, I think we can do that. 
 
Rod: 
So, I think the 4L85, right, is a good choice for trans, for consistency. 
 
Jeff: 
Don’t need the extra gears. 
 
Rod: 
Right, right. 
 
Garrett: 
All right. So 4L85 and now we got to do the additional upgrades. Since we're drag racing, consider that.  
 
Stephanie: 
I mean, we don't we don't sell that with a torque converter, right? 
 
Rod: 
I’m sure we have a higher stall converter in that catalog there. 3800, 4000… Somewhere in there. Right?  
 
Jeff: 
32 to 36.  
 
Rod: 
32.  
 
Jeff: 
Let's consult the catalog.  
 
Garrett: 
So we got 4L85 four speed automatic and a higher stall torque converter, all from the catalog. Look at that. We don't even have to go anywhere for it. Great. All right. Question number three… What is the biggest sign an engine is ready for production and testing is done? 
All right Jeff what do you got?  
 
Jeff: 
So you asked for a sign. I said, you know, when are we going to stop? It's when the stop signs up. But really, it's when all the durability is complete on the dyno, you know, what sets us apart a little bit is that we do put an engine in a car and do all that calibration work.  You don't see people driving dynos down the road. We're driving cars, right? So, we build the car, we're in there tuning the engine and mating a transmission to it. You know, especially with the six, eights, and tens you find in the catalog that we offer calibrations for those for the specific engines. So, we'll build that vehicle. And then I've got the team of engineers out here that we'll be driving around the proving grounds making sure everything is good before the customer gets it. 
 
Garrett: 
Steph, what you got? 
 
Stephanie: 
As a hardware test engineer, when hardware passes, durability and all internals remain in the block. 
 
Garrett: 
All right, Prashant? 
 
Prashant: 
So, I'm going to go with when I see the engineers smiling. 
 
Garrett: 
Y’all are really happy around here.  Seeing engineers smiling. 
 
Prashant: 
But that's the big one because our engineers, they take this extremely seriously. They put this engines to enormous amount of torture.  We do so much testing and not just major failures. Even after the testing, we do a complete teardown. If we see any issues with bearing wear or whatever it is, we go back to the drawing board, make changes, we repeat the testing. So, the engineers don't stop. They don't compromise on how much we do the testing  
 
Garrett: 
Makes sense. 
 
Rod: 
The engineer smiling needs an arrow to me as well. So, I went with the rest of the crowd. So when the engine survives the durability, that was hugely important, right?  Whether it's the hardware, whether it's the car, so we got to make it through all that to actually get it ready for production.  Right. Once we survive all that, no, no windows in the block and the car can be driven. We're good to go.  
 
Garrett: 
Yeah, I don't know. I'm really big on the windowless block aspect of things. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with Steph. Yeah. All right.  
 
Stephanie: 
Windowless as in no new windows…  
 
Garrett: 
No new windows.  
 
Stephanie: 
No NEW windows.  
 
Garrett: 
Yeah, we don’t want any new ones. All right.  So, because of that, you now get to pick your paint for this car and your extra upgrade.  
 
Stephanie: 
All right. As I expressed before I really need the flames on that car. So, I'm going to go with all black, and like the flame decals like yellow to orange to red, you know,  
 
Rod: 
Like real 70s 
 
Garrett: 
All right. What's the additional upgrade?  
 
Stephanie: 
I'm actually going to give that away to Rod because he didn't get a win today.  
 
Garrett: 
So see, that's nice.  
 
Rod: 
I did get an arrow, though.  
 
Garrett: 
That's nice.  
 
Rod: 
So, one thing we don't have yet is wheels and tires, right? So, we need to put some wheels and tires on this thing.  So, we're going to need some meats out back, right? And just to get this thing hooked up. So, you know, we're looking at like a 325 series tire. You know I don't know if we go with the 40 sidewall, something like that, you know. 
 
Garrett: 
Okay. Well cool. So, we got our 70 Chevrolet Chevell SS build done. We got what – LSX454 with the LS3 intake, we’ve got 4L85 with the higher stall converter, with wheel and tire package underneath it, black paint with the 70s tricolor yellow/red/orange flames down the side.  Sounds like a good car to me.  
Something that a lot of people don't realize - all that goes into the validating, the testing, and making sure that the product that you get is going to work. From the engine to the harnesses to the transmissions, all of it mating together and working for you in your vehicle with a warranty.  There's a lot that goes into it, you know. So, I hope you guys understand that and you got a little bit of understanding from these guys and what they do. I do appreciate you guys and all the work that y'all do. Stay tuned for the next episode of Bench Racing.