Secrets

1. Study Sir Harry Ricardo's work, The High Speed Internal Combustion Engine (multiple editions)

and you will find it's unlikely you will do anything that's new, and if you don't read it you will probably

do everything wrong.

2. Study Charles Fayette Taylor's two volume The Internal Combustion Engine in Theory and

Practice (M.I.T. Press) and realize for a second time you don't know what you are doing.

3. Read anything that Smokey Yunick wrote...Then try to figure out what he did that he didn't

write about. Smokey died May 2001 from complications related to Lukemia...he left us a three volume set of books

covering his life, racing and inventions. They didn't say you couldn't.

4. When an OEM spends millions of dollars on a racing engine program try to pay attention to what they do.

Don't ask them, they won't tell you anyway. 

5. Most experts aren't. 

6. Research is the difference between speculation and investment. 

7. Just because someone goes fast doesn't mean you should do whatever you think they did.

This path assumes they knew what they were doing, which isn't necessarily the case. Take

this path and you will be guaranteed second place. 

8. Test, Test, Test.

9. A new engine never makes too much power. 

10. If you don't do dynamometer development plus actual real world testing you will fail.

11. Document everything. If you don't, you will repeat mistakes and learn nothing.

12. There is no end to "free" if that is what you charge. This goes with "It is best to deal with enemies, and not friends, because you know exactly where you stand".