mmuller

i wish i could afford to go to SAM

cstay

more imput

SIRef9[831]

humm.... interesting about the engine building. I have an interview with one of the uti recruters, im goin to ask him see if they build anything else but 350 engines hopefully he says yes. on the brochure it says they do tunning on cars with parts you put into engines.

Fkned

The difference between UTI and other tech schools like them is they teach automotive repair not race engine building like SAM.At SAM you don't sit thru brake and electrical classes most of the time your there like those schools,it's all race engines all the time.If you want an education on race engines there is NO BETTER place to go end of story.When I was there in 97-98,we worked on 900 hp BBC's that went into a Super boat or whatever they are called,SB fords,a 4 cyl ford,2 V-12 Lamborgini's,and SBC's.Try to find that at UTI.

si_hatch

What about Wyotech? That seems to be like a pretty good school. They have a class called chassis fabrication and high performance engines, would this be anything like at SAM. Wyotech seems like a good school becuase of all the classes they offer

Fkned

I don't know anybody that went there to say,but can you get a job right out of there w/teams like Warren Johnson,Rousch,Evernham,Lingenfelter,etc...I doubt it.

HEAD

I am a grad of SAM, and I was also the director of admissions for 2 years and learned alot about what else is out there.(97-99)

If you want to build race engines (what the post was about) there really is no other school out there besides SAM.

If you want to build CARS and not engines or maybe just want a basic understanding of building engines but your heart is into building and working on cars UTI can't be beat.

I will be honest I never heard anything good about Wyo Tech but I am not in the loop anymore to know how many disgruntled students have left there wishing they never went.

There are people who have forgotten more than Judson Massingil (owner of SAM) knows but they are not going to talk to you and if they do there still not going to tell you anything. I know if it were not for SAM and Jud's early morning rhetoric I would not be were I am today.

HEAD

I got the opportunity to be on a Off Shore Power boat team
*we built a '79 Chevy Malibu that ran 9:40 on a 245/60 drag radial N/A BBC

*fastest LS1 camaro N/A in the country

*I personally built a turbo charged 235cu.in Buick v6 that made 780hp

*we did the Hot Rod power tour

I will tell you the guy that just did Cris Rado's head for NORAD was a SAM grad and a instructor for some time

A grad of SAM that I recruited works for Dick Maskins who builds the engines for the Jeg's pro stock team

If you want to be in racing there is no other place to be...

SIRef9[831]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by HEAD &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I got the opportunity to be on a Off Shore Power boat team
*we built a '79 Chevy Malibu that ran 9:40 on a 245/60 drag radial N/A BBC

*fastest LS1 camaro N/A in the country

*I personally built a turbo charged 235cu.in Buick v6 that made 780hp

*we did the Hot Rod power tour

I will tell you the guy that just did Cris Rado's head for NORAD was a SAM grad and a instructor for some time

A grad of SAM that I recruited works for Dick Maskins who builds the engines for the Jeg's pro stock team

If you want to be in racing there is no other place to be...</TD></TR></TABLE>


Ok so sams is the way to go to build engines. I'ts a little to far for me or else i would go. UTI is the only thing i have due to my family being here in so california. So what if i finish uti and ente into one of there programs where can i go after uti to learn how to build the engines. UTI has the super street course in which you tear down engines and put them back together with turbos superchargers nos etc tune ecu's to get the mose hp out of any vehicle. But i want to learn how to port heads blueprint engines etc. so again where can i go after uti to learn this?

mike_belben@yahoo.com

if you really want to do something, sometimes you just gotta get up and do it. those in college know that with only the math book, you could teach yourself if you REALLY wanted to learn. class is only there to MAKE you actually do it.

books are pretty cheap compared to school.
heres a list of some good ones all under $50 :

Engine and Chassis Detailing

Maximum Boost

Turbochargers

Competition Car Suspension

Chassis Engineering

How to Tune and Modify Ford Fuel Injection

Super Tuning and Modifying Carter Carburetors

Supercharged

A Guide to Turbo's and Superchargers

How to Build Horsepower Vol 1

How to Build Horsepower Vol 2

Auto Math Handbook

Street Rodders Chassis and Suspension Handbook

Race Car Chassis Design and Construction

Smokey Yunicks Power Secrets

Fiberglass Materials

Engine Builders Handbook

How to Install and Use Nitrous Oxide

Scientific Design of Exhaust and Intake Systems

Drive to Win

Tune to Win

Engineer to Win

Nuts Bolts Fastners and Plumbing

Best Damn Garage in Town

Race Car Aerodynamics: Designing for Speed

Race Car Engineering and Mechanics

How to Build and Modify Intake and Exhaust Systems

internal combustion engines by edward F. obert.

machinists handbook.

dont think for a moment that each author wasnt a master of their particular field, many have dedicated their lifetimes to them. i dont care how many schools you go to, you cant be the best of everything. internal combustion engines are a branch of the mechanical engineering field. go to ebay and search 'internal combustion engines' under the book section. there are tons of CHEAP books.

read read read everynight. keep them on the shelf, refer back periodically. youll retain more as you attempt more tasks that stump you and you must work around.

if you wanna build engines, the better you wanna be, the higher the tolerance, the more expensive the equipment. you are gonna need quality 6 and 12 point sockets, hand tools, several torque wrenches, bore guages, bearing mics, depth guages, machinists straight edge, feeler guages, calipers, metric bottoming taps, micrometer stand, v-blocks, runout indicators, bolt stretch guage.... etc etc. the more you wanna do the deeper it gets.

nothing good is cheap or easy. if you want it bad enough, youll find a way. dont get me wrong, school is great if youve got the money, but dont let school get in the way of your EDUCATION. school isnt the only place you can get one.

Fkned

Very true Mike but try walking into a professional racing teams shop and asking for a job w/o any experience or connections and telling them the books you read about engines.If you do get the job I guarantee you that your going to be the new clean-up and dissasembly man for a long time before they even have you looking at a machine or the assembly room.Or you could go to SAM and within 1 year get a great job at one of those shops as a machinist or assembler right away.No book is going to give the experience these shops desire and demand from new employee's,they want a person who can walk right in start working otherwise they can get a local boy to train that they've known for years.

LostSolVTEC

this is some great information guys, i've been looking for a school like this for a couple months, i'm graduating college next year with a BS in plastics engineering technology, and the job market is starting to get hit pretty hard with outsourcing. My interest in it is also starting to plummit after working on my car for a few summers. SAM is something i'm definitely going to look into. Thanks guys

eRACING

great info...

mike_belben@yahoo.com

ed- im not arguing with you or knocking the school, i respect what youre telling these guys, honestly. im just making the point for those without that option. me, i couldnt possibly afford any more than community college, but i can afford a new indicator and another book here and there.

the key idea of going to school is that you intend to get a job with it after. im self employed. i quit working on my business degree because they couldnt teach me how to do a better valvejob or an obd conversion, only how to manage someone elses company or do corporate accounting. everyone critisizes me for it saying "but once you get that piece of paper.."

... once i get that piece of paper, what? i start magically paying myself more? i tell my customer the price went up because i have a business degree? or i quit the business ive slaved so hard to scratch together out of nothing, get a job and give up my dreams? if i had a degree and a job, then when that job goes overseas, im left with nothing but lost time and a slip of paper like a lot of unfortunate americans today. well, im the kid who started with nothing and now has no degree, but a shelf full of books, headworking equipment, sheetmetal equipment, tubing bender, 3 welders, a machine shop in his basement and loads of high precision measuring instruments. no one can take my job or my equipment away. i havent spent more than 20k.

college is for job seekers. education is for everyone.

in my humble opinion, a master engine builder's timeslips speak as loud as his degree. they SUMMARIZE his education.

if you want a high paying job today, go to a high cost college and buy your way into the loop then compete against everyone in the system. if you are bent on working for a particular race team, you might spend that 2 years and 30 k and still get turned down to someone with more experience. to make a stupid point, it might be more effective to offer that raceteam owner $3000 to take you on as an apprentice. if he declines, it cost nothing and youve wasted no time. if he accepts, bam, youre in at a fraction of the cost and learning exactly what they want you to know starting on day one. youll learn the job pretty damn well doing it every day for months instead of just for that chapter of college. offering CASH to WORK for someone is a pretty clear indicator of determination and ambition to me.

nothing in the world can take the place of persistence and you and i both know it. there are people who are going to achieve and people who are not. the truth is, it has more to do with what you have inside than what college you went to.

if you kids want something, youre gonna hafta earn it one way, or the other.

mike_belben@yahoo.com

to the guys reading this, dont be discouraged by schoolings prohibitive cost,, is what im saying. educate yourself anyways. the harder you work, the luckier you will get. there are lots of roads that go to the same city.

cstay

i se both points but the only problem is that i could be the best engine builder in the world but if i want a job at a shop and am not starting my own. I have no way of proving it to aneyone. Right now i have no door to the automotive racing industry just because i work on hondas alot dosent set me apart from aneybody trying to get in the industry. So this school might be one of my only options for getting into the industry. I would rather go to a shop and dissambel motors and learn from somone but unless that oppurtunity comes up im gona need to look at this school.

Fkned

Mike I know your not trying to knock the school.Your just giving your personal experience in opening your own place,I feel that they should consider your way as a possible alternative also.My point was that if someone wants to go to a professional race shop you will need that experience to be anything more then a teardown guy for quite a while.I can give an example,when I was going to school there was a guy that started at the same time in september of 97.Over christmas he went home to Kansas,and because he was going to SAM he was able to call up Patterson Racing,since they already had some of the grads working there,and ask to look around a bit in the shop.While he was there Patterson offered him a job and told him he could learn "as you go" while he was there.About 1-2 months in he made a major mistake,he set the dial bore guage wrong and under honed a block that made it all the way to the assembly room and was half assmebled before they discovered that the pistons wouldn't fit.He was fired on the spot for that mistake,it shows that these shops don't have time to waste on mistakes and you won't be around long if your not doing things correctly.

SIRef9[831]

both points are good, the degree helps you out the books give u the knolege that schools dont give you so both are good ideas.

EFIGUY

Here is a 3-day Honda specific option....