Day Three of the AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge is in the books.

Students assist with a teardown in the staging area.

It's the end of Day Three already as the 2014 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge moves toward its culmination. Presenting sponsor Hot Rod magazine is all over this event with publishers, editors, a media team and assorted staff overseeing the action.

As in years past, forty students from the University of Northwestern Ohio have the privilege of assisting with moving engines from the staging area, hooking them up on the dynos and helping with the teardowns afterwards.It's a great learning experience that would be near impossible to replicate in the real world. Most young builders will get their first jobs in an environment that does things  certain way. A later job might teach them new tricks. But here, these young people can work with 30 builders who each apply different techniques and secrets for maximizing power.

When asked what he's learned from his involvement with the Engine Masters Challenge, Michael Kilgore, a student from Jacksonville, Florida stated, "I've learned how technical you have to be with the all the particulars with the parts, and how mathematical you have to be with it. Everybody has their way of doing things, everybody has a specific way they want to do it, so you learn different methods. You have to listen to every engine builder and see what they do and what they want to do. So you take all that and add it together for yourself."

The process runs like this. Engines are unloaded into the staging area. The crated engines are uncrated, placed on cradles on dollies. At the appointed time, each team’s engine is rolled to one of the two dyno cells where the engines are hooked up. No one is inside the room when the engine is run through its paces, watching the activity through a large window with shatterproof glass.

On the first four days of the competition the objective is to become one of the top six finalists who will go for the gold on Friday. Or rather, the big check, and the prestige that accompanies earning the title of Engine Master. Those top engines are conveyed to a locked room where they cannot be tampered with between their first runs and the final event. Tomorrow will be dramatic as top builders push their way in and crowd someone else out.

Dyno operator Sidney Bonnecarrere is back in the driver's seat here in the dyno cells. Sidney ensures that every run gets loaded and pushed through identical paces from 2500 rpm to 6500 rpm. Bonnecarrere does all the throttle work on all the dynos throughout the week with a detached objectivity to maximize fairness. Each builder team and EMC staff watch from the control room where the measurement equipment spits out data.

Although each team still has only thirty minutes to run through their paces, there has been a change in the rules regarding how that time is used. In the past they would get three warm up pulls, after which the team would have three minutes to study the data. They were then allotted fifteen minutes to make adjustments. When this time is up, three more dyno pulls are completed and those numbers were final. This year, however, teams can make as many pulls as they want in the allotted half hour, and choose the best numbers from any pull in the batch. We're certain that this will result in some intriguing new strategies, as we have already seen.

The competition director is again Wesley Roberson of West Monroe, Louisiana who has served with the NHRA since 1968. According to Ed Zinke, publisher of the performance group of magazines with TEN, this competition is significantly different from timed engine building events. And this year's competitors, he noted, are running very tight numbers. It will be interesting, as always, to see what the next day will bring.

To see day by day action and constantly updated results, visit blogs.hotrod.com/engine-masters-2014-results-144451.html

Randy Malik of R.M. Competition after his run.

Semco Performance grinding out the numbers.

2014 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge Press Conference Scheduled for Friday at PRI

Engine builders and followers of the AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge will want to be on hand for the Official Rules Press Conference this Friday at the Indiana Convention Center. Over the past several years the competition has become continuously stiffer as the stakes get higher. Imagination and innovation combine with hands-on experience with the laws of physics to produce one of the most dramatic events in racing... in a pair of dyno cells at the University of Northwestern Ohio. Jon Kaase took home this year's trophy and crown. Who will take the next?

Kaase Captures Fifth Engine Masters Crown

The builders who assembled at UNOH this past week for the AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge each arrived with different aims. Many to experience the challenge, others to show their stuff, and some to match wits with the best of the best. A half dozen made it to the final six in the quarantine, five survived the cut to compete on Day 5. Only one would take home the title Engine Master. And in the end it was Jon Kaase with a Ford Mod motor powered by a FAST XFI 2.0 EFI system. It was a thing of beauty to look at and a beast on the dyno.

The finishing order for the top five went like this:
1) Jon Kaase Racing, 2961.7 points.
2) Accufab Inc., 2931
3) B.E.S. Racing, 2863.7
4) School of Automotive Machinists, 2858.6
5) Also B.E.S., 2853.7

These are veterans who know how to make a machine hum. They're also friends who watch each other and fine tune their skills for the future.

A lot of the builders specialize in certain kinds of engines. After his final run we Jon Kaase about the motors he builds and if he has a favorite as well as his motivation for selecting the Ford Mod motor.

"To be honest, some engines are popular for a while and then they’re not so you better have a wide range of things that you can do because the bills still come. You might like to work on top-end stuff everyday but it might not come in every day," Kaase said.

"I’ve never worked on a mod motor and I don’t know if I’ll ever work on anymore, but the only reason we’re working on that mod motor now is that by the rules it looked like the most competitive piece. There’s a pretty big carat out there this year and we’re not screwing around this year, we’re wanting to win. There’s been years we always wanted to win but we might have picked a Pontiac or something else and come to have a good time. We’re trying to have a good time but we’re trying to win this one."

That afternoon, checks were awarded to the top three. Jon Kaase achieved the goal he'd set for himself, and compensated accordingly with a check for $66,500.00. Congratulations, Team!

This event would not have been possible without the wonderful assistance of the University of Northwest Ohio, the staff of Popular Hot Rodding and all the great teams of builders who make this event such a highly regarded event.

It's That Time of Year Again

For some the first hints of autumn are a somber prospect because what follows is winter's frosty chill. On the other hand, the leaves come so alive that it's as colorful as the blossoms in spring, a symbolic spectacle of color that announces the coming of many people's favorite season: snowmobiling.

Here at AMSOIL we begin celebrating winter's upcoming arrival in early September during the Sno Barons' Haydays Festival in North Branch, MN. As October approaches we're flush with anticipation of numerous other events as we wait for the snow to fly. 

One of these is the AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge at the University of Northwestern Ohio (UNOH) October 7-11. Each year 40 engine builder teams, plus alternates, gather in Lima, Ohio to competes for the official title of Engine Master. It's a prestigious competition that not only garners respect for the winners, but a a quite substantial payout for the top team, as well as bragging rights.

It's also a tremendous experience for the students of UNOH who work side by side with many of the world's top engine builders, assisting in nearly every facet of the setups and teardowns on the dyno. Special thanks to UNOH for the continued support that makes this competition the success that it has been these many years.

The AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge is not only a great experience for the students and faculty of UNOH, it's also a superb real world opportunity for the editors and publishers of Popular Hot Rodding magazine to learn more about the capabilities of modern engines by observing the creative engineering by these top professional builders. AMSOIL is on hand, and we're paying attention, too.

Looking forward to another great event....

 

Students assist pro builders to get hooked up in the dyno.

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2010 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge Announced

Since its inception in 1972 AMSOIL has been known as the leader in synthetic lubricant technology. As such, we are always on the lookout for opportunities to prove to the masses that we deserve such a title. That’s one reason AMSOIL has officially joined Popular Hot Rodding Magazine’s annual ‘Engine Masters Challenge’ for the 2010 competition as title sponsor. (The other is getting alongside some of the most talented engine builders in North America to see what they are capable of.) This year’s theme is ‘Taking It to the Streets’ and AMSOIL is poised to do just that. The 2010 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge (EMC) Presented by Popular Hot Rodding is gearing up to announce some exciting new changes in this year’s event, and the final groundwork is being laid out at this week’s PRI show in Orlando.

Similar to the Mopar Muscle Engine Challenge that AMSOIL also sponsors, the EMC pits over 30 competitors against one another to see who can build the most powerful engine. In a series of tests designed to measure torque, power, and performance only one will come out on top as the leader in engine building innovation. AMSOIL will be installed in each and every engine to ensure that any mechanical breakdowns will not be due to the lubricants that keep the engine humming. While past events have had stiff competition with as many as 28 of 29 engines completing without failure, this challenge is no easy feat and anything can happen. The stakes are a little higher this year with AMSOIL offering the winning team $3,000 cash along with $2,000 in AMSOIL products. More details will be forthcoming here in the AMSOIL Events Blog, as well as the February issue of Popular Hot Rodding Magazine on news stands December 22nd.