Just as Pat doesn't try to denegrate spray or discourage anyone from using it became another method works better for him, I don't try to encourage folk to use spray because that works best for me...BUT,as im sure Pat is about his pref, IF i encounter anyone who is using or contemplatin the use of spray, i try to impart to them what i have learned in hopes that they can avoid many if not all the errors that i did, and to dispell the rhetoric and myths about spray resultant of the horror stories that abound about spray use.
The stories are the same as those that used to abound bout huffers and turbos AND for the same reason. Folks employ pray with sub par parts and often MISUSE it to boot. the most prevalent cause of engine failure is to try to apply more boost or spray than the engine is capable of containing safly, besides, if u produce more power than the engine can contain, no matter HOW u produce said power ur gonna lunch the mtr in short order.....IE a 454 cube mtr has a T E P normilly aspirated that will yeild 12-1400bhp depending atmospheric conditions, but if u pull 1200bhp from a factory stock engine it ain't gonna last as long as a snowflake in a blast furnace. If u plan to maximize the TEP of such an engine or even get close to it u need to have an engine that can contain that type of power production and trust me when i say, NO FACTORY HAS EVER made a production engine that will contain the amount of power that the T E P of same indicates it can without extensive modification, especially in the area of strenthening the engine....( super stock class drag racers as a rule get the closet to their engines T E P on gasoline, sometimes into the 80 per centile range, avg is 65-70 per cent tho, check sometime n see how much money they have tied up in that mtr....super stock classes from A-F have engines with a minimum replacement cost of 25k if its a competetive ride in the class, and in the hgher classes, 50-1000k is not as uncommon as u might expect ). The greatest advantages of spray is that it allows u to ON DEMAND max out ur T E P and do so at any point within the servicable RPM band...IE if ur hittin ur mtr with 200bhp of spray, ur gonna get that 200 no mattter if ya hit it at idle or at max rpm if u go W O T. Also even a strong engine isn't goin to contain the power at every point across ur serviceable rpm Range...IE u got an engine that will contain 1000bhp at peak, that engine will NOT withstand that amount of power production if its made at 2000rpm or so. A good example is the large semi tractor diesel engines, im a former long haul trucker who ended his last 15 years as an owner operator, when u realize how much TQ it takes at what rpm it must to = 500BHP as early as 1800rpm( my last tractor made 415bhp/1,765lbft@1850rpm) u can understand how woefully inadequate the avg gasoline engine is to contain that rate of power production....u have production engines that make as much as 630+ bhp domestically, but they NEVER make anywhere near 1,765lbft and they make even the 415bhp no earlier than near 5k rpm. Which brings to mind another hot rod truism " all BHP is NOT created equally " proof of the pudding is that u can have 2 engines that produce the same amount of bhp at peak, but their bhp peak rpm r not the same, the variable is the amount of tq they make and at what rpm they do so, since the more TQ u make and the fewer RPM at which u make same, the fewer rpm u need turn to create any given amount of BHP= TQ x RPM.
YET ANOTHER MYTH, all bhp n tq curves cross at 5252 rpm, CURVES refers to the plotted lines across a power graph such as from a dyno, u have 1 representing tq and 1 that reps tq, these curves CROSS at that RPM at which the number value of both the indicated tq and the indicated bhp are the same..IE 500bhp/500lbft etc...that is the only place they CAN intersect and its almost NEVER any 5252 rpm, certainly not in an engine that never even reaches that rpm or is ever intended to. What is true is that BHP n TQ curves will cross at some point in the serviceable rpm range either before or after one or the other begins to drop off.... in point of fact, this myth springs from the fact that 5252 is the mathematical constant in the formula to calculate bhp, it is NOT an INDICATION OF RPM, in math, UNLESS a value is indicated to reprent something it is ALWAYS simply a mathematical constant that controls the equation...bhp=2pi/33,000 ft lb /min x T ft lb X rpm= 1/5252 x T x rpm, which simply states that bhp is a function of tq times rpm divided by 5252, NOWHERE does it indicate that either 1 or 5252 is representative of any variable, where as tq, bhp n rpm are the variables...the 2 is 2 times pi, 33,000 is ft lb/min.( an indicated value in an equation may or may not b indicative of a constant, but a value that is not indicated to represent something is ALWAYS simply a constant /control factor.