No it's not conical. I know we used to make conical off-road headers back in the early 2000's but as far as I know I think that we were the only one doing so. Is someone else making them now???

Yes, Novarossi 41032, Tesla and REDS I think, don't know their pn´s though...for GT engines it is a plus to have conical header for more botton end. Hope you have them soon. I´m about to receive my engine + pipe & header that i bought from A Main and will try it at the South American Championship in Buenos Aires this end of the month.

Rgrds
AFM

Awesome, thank you for picking up one of our engines and pipes, please let me know what your thoughts are once you get it broken in and have some time on it. If you have any qeustions please do not hesitate to contact me or you can also contact Thommi who is out importer for Brazil and is also fluent in Spanish if that is easier for you.

In regards to the conical manifold though while we may not currently offer it please keep in mind that this is just the start for us of getting back into the on-road racing end of things, where we actually started. So we will be continuing to develop on-road oriented engines and products for the GT market and if it's found or felt that a conical manifold is needed, it will be made.

I'm just not the type of person that makes a product just for the sake of having something to sell though. So if we make it, it's going to be tested and will have to be something that I would run my self. That's a basic question I always ask before releasing each of our products. "Is this something that as a regular racer I would spend my own money on and be happy with"? If the answer is no, then the project gets trashed and we do not sell it.

Back in the early 2000's when we did sell conical off-road manifolds we offered 3x different lengths and in testing we found that as you mentioned there was a noticable increase in bottom end, however we also found that the engines (from that time) then topped out so quickly in rpm that real conical manifolds were pretty much only suitable for use on small to medium sized tracks. My saying this though may have something to do with the difference in actual manifold designs because back in the days I found that a lot of manifolds that are referred to as conical (meaning the tubing that the manifold is made of expands in diameter from the start of the manifold (at the engines exhaust port) to the end where it connects to the pipe) were actually not really very conical lol! So it was really more of a marketing term used by most companies. Most of the exhaust stuff back then was (and is still) being made by hand in really small factories in Italy and it was quite time consuming and expensive for us to have actual conical manifolds made. Again though that was with 1/8th buggies with older engine technology and probably most importantly only single speed transmissions not two speeds like in todays GT cars. So again please let me know what you find in testing as I'm always open to input from others on ways that we can improve our product offerings!

Unfortunately, I will not be able to be in Buenos Aires for the GT championship There will be a number of WERKS drivers present from Brazil, who already have experience with the engine, and please count on me as well to give you indications about how we have set up the engines for different track conditions and layouts.

Breaking in the WERKS GT engine...

As a general rule, please follow the instructions for the break-in process published by Ron on the website Werks Racing

The GT engine piston uses top quality material for the piston, and this material does need a bit longer to be completely broken in, but will maintain a very high compression for a much longer time than standard material combinations. We have found that the engine, even after 20 tanks, can still get stuck at TDC when cold. The engine, even getting stuck in cold conditions, is absolutely raceable, but be carefull that you get the engine up to temperature before you go WOT on the long straights. I mostly run the engine at temperatures between 120 and 125 Celsius, using 25% Nitro and either RP7 or RP8 plugs.

For tracks with long straights, we have found that an additional 0,1mm shim will give you added topspeed without damaging the bottom end.

Please feel free to contact me on here or via PM.

There is two from Novarossi; 41032 and 41031.
I'm not aware of any other, but most have enough meat on them to grind them a little.
I like them for Offroad as well...

I have tested the 41032 with the prototype engine last year. It's a much shorter manifold, giving you higher top-speed, but I haven't been happy with the bottom power in the thight infield sections of the track. As said before, I have come back to the standard 2068 pipe with standard manifold always. It just seems to be the best combination for this engine, working on short and thight tracks as well as on wide and flowing tracks.

Thommi,

as you know Sudam will be run on 16% nitro and as i understand the engine comes shimmed for 25 to 30% nitro. Have you tested on 16% and if so, what is the ideal head clearance for it.
Have you been in Bs. As in the past? what would be your suggestions.
Who are the Brazilian drivers who will race with Werks engines??

Rgrds

AFM

I have tried the engine with 16% and it works fine, and for a start, I would actually stick to the original deck height with a RP7 plug. As the B.A. track seems to have a very long straight, this might give you an advantage there. If you need more torque, reduce by 0,05mm and/or try the RP6 plug.

Yes, the engine comes shimmed for 25% and it works fine out of the box. For original deck height, I recommmend using the RP8.

Increasing deck height gives you a bit a wider tuning window, and this might be helpful, and it's less stressful as well on the plugs.

Look out for Felipe Chaud, who is on the official WERKS Brazil Racing Team. I am not sure if Rafael Alves will be there too, he is a very experienced engine guy and can help you with whatever you need. Besides them, there will be Hernan Uner and Nando Lima (who might use the WERKS engines, not sure yet, as he has multiple engines to choose from).

I have never been racing on the B.A. track myself, but heard it's quite big and with a pretty long straight. This should actually favor our engine. I have tried short manifolds to simulate such track conditions, and if you have some short manifold around, put it into your baggage. The ultra short manifolds are in my opinion too short, especially running lower nitro content.

Hope that helps!

Thank you all, a good exchange of information above!

Ron, you are welcome. I have been running about 9 to 10 gallons through my GT engines in total, and I am convinced that this is the best engine you can get for the GT class at the moment. I am happy to share what I have learned in this time about the engine, and I would like to help everybody to get the expected results out of it. Remember... if it works, it's WERKS !!!

Anyone in the US running this Werks .21 in their GT yet?

I just got one from A-main for my GT - running in Texas Southwest Series. I ran a B7 Pro back in the day and it was a monster! Will finish break in this weekend, race at the end of the month. Fired up on first rip, always a good sign. Will report back.

Question, since I'm here - are Werks motors an evolution of the old Collari engines?

Feel free to PM for any info about settings, breaking in etc...

Awesome, thank you for picking up one of our engines and glad to hear that she fired right up for you! Please keep us in the loop on how break in goes and your overall thoughts on performance etc. once you start getting it on the track.

Regarding your question about Collari, the answer to that is yes. We worked together with Collari initially to develop an engine line that was initially exclusively on-road oriented many years ago. We then expanded that engine line to also include off-road engines (the first of those were the B3, B7). In roughly 2004/2005 we then took over production of that engine line and released the product under the Werks brand.

Ironically the first new model that we released under the Werks brand was the B7-Pro that you mentioned you had! A lot of people may still not be very familiar with us by name but over the years I believe we've had quite a bit of influence on the industry and the B7-Pro was imho a revolutionary engine that changed things for everyone! I say that because it was the first regular production engine from any brand to come stock out of the box with a lightened cooling head be it on-road or off-road. Prior to that you had to buy a Fioroni, O'Donnel or some other brand aftermarket cooling head to get one that was quality built and lightened, we put it on stock saving the consumer $60-$100. It was also the first production off-road engine to ship stock with a lightened, epoxy ramped and balanced crank. Prior to the B7-Pro off-road motor that had only ever been done with the absolute top end big dollar on-road engines! And it was also the first production off-road engine to ship stock with a ceramic rear bearing! Again something that had only ever been done in the absolute top of the on-road engines up to then! Now, these are features that you find in off-road engines from almost everyone!

One of the things that I really do not like though is that beside Nova with their Top engine line (which they were really not doing anything with at that time), we were also the only company to use black for our cooling heads. This completely bucked the trend at the time of using bright colors like purple, blue and orange as signature brand colors for cooling heads. I chose black because it not only works better to dissipate heat but also thought it would be an ideal signature color for our brand. As the manufacturing guys asked me when I proposed that "with a black cooling head how is anyone going to be able to tell which brand of engine is in a person’s car when it passes by on track"? My thoughts was exactly the opposite, a black cooling head would first get people wondering what type of engine was in the car and then once people knew about our brand it would then make it quite easy to see on track who was using our motors! Something that unfortunately since then just about everyone has decided to copy.

That turned into a bit of a history lesson lol, sorry about that!


Thomas, if you do get questions PM's to you from others please take a second and re-post the question and answer's on here for all to see. That way this thread will become a repository of both technical and set up information for all to see and easily reference down the road.