Induction Wars

[Joe C.]

Mike, I Didn't See Your Post Before I Wrote.....

....mine. But It looks like I just came out and said it. There, now I went and did it. DuPont is gonna serve me with a suppeener.

Joe

[Dick W.]

Re: More air meter questions

Joe, As long as everyone "thinks in the box" policing the PCM would be no problem. It is the "creative" engineers and mechanics that keep NASCAR guessing. I grew up around of some of the most "creative" car owners and mechanics of 30 years ago. Anything for 1 more horsepower or .01 of a second on the track.

Good example today of thinking "out of the box". Ford claims that Ryan Newnan is running a slightly smaller carb (750 cfm) losing only 2 hp and gaining .5 mpg. They claim that is how he is going the extra laps between fueling stops.
There are many other things that are going on today that I cannot talk about. Secrets are secrets.

PCM's open up a Pandoras Box that would be extremely hard to police.

[Dick W.]

Re: More air meter questions

I don't know if they are using the traction control or not, but from what I have been told it is a "soft" system, meaning it just drops a cylinder or so to limit the horsepower to limit the wheel spin. I think that it probably has more effect on the road courses and small tracks that it would on the 1 1/2 mile and larger tracks.

Teams were better at concealing Nitrous that "Zit" Doctors though. You just think that you can cheat. You ain't seen nothing compared as to what has gone on over the years. Like cutting an intake manifold apart and making hidden "modifications" and then welding them back up and refinishing them so as to make the welds undetectable. I remember one confisicated manifold the the owner offered a sizeable reward (10,000 frogskins) for someone to steal it off the NASCAR truck. He was afraid that they would see the internal modifications, not just what was externally visible. Almost as good as making "548" blocks out of 327 blocks.

Hydraulic jacks in the coil spring seats, torsion bar sockets, fuel lines in the roll bars, etc.

Sorta like some Corvette owners, just a big game to see what you can get away with, big difference is money. Somehow a Top Flight ain't worth a million skins

[Joe C.]

As Long As NASCAR Remains "THE CHEVY SHOW"....

....then I'll be happy. Don't care much about Hendrick vs. Gibbs vs. Earnhardt vs. Roush etc. Lets face it, money talks and BS walks. So Grand National racing is now the largest spectator sport in the USA, with huge profits for the sponsors. I enjoy watching, and the TV coverage is better than ever. Even though the sport has "matured", I think that the spectacle offered to viewers today, is far superior to that of A.J., Cale, Ned, and Junior's day.

Now, what the hell does this have to do with Corvettes. I believe that it confirms my initial suspicion: that early, mechanical Rochester fuel injection was grossly overrated. Long live the well designed carburetor. End of discussion, but an interesting one.

Joe

[David Dawdy]

Re: the reason for FI and why it went away

Mike -

Years ago when I was young and broke, I passed on what must have been a bill thomas unit, exactly as you described, didn't look like it would work so I bought the '320 stock unit beside it for $125.

[Verle R.]

Re: the reason for FI and why it went away

Mike,

Actually Bill Thomas modified the spill plunger to richen the mixture.

With two air meters, the vacuum signal was weaker so a modified spill plunger compensated for the difference.

Verle

[Doug Flaten]

Re: More air meter questions

I agree, that the ECM may be relatively easy to police. They could even strictly control the parameters by furnishing a sealed box that has no ability to be modified. But then, I would suspect that the teams could design transducers that modified their response / output.. Come to think of it, it may be hard to police.

Anyway, with speeds as they are and restrictor plates and all, I do not know if they are really need the additional power of a modern EFI system.

[Clem Z.]

Re: More air meter questions

ASA has been using the LS-1 engine for several years now and that is how they do it. they furnish the ECMs when you get to the track and the engines are sealed when you buy them. if you are too quick they just take your engine and give you another one. they are on to all the methods to "fool" the computer because GM has a engineers at all the ASA races. of course this causes a problem for the ford and dodge guys because they must run the LS-1 engine no matter what body you have but it has cut the engine cost from $300,000 a yeat the less than $ 30,000 per year

[mike cobine]

Re: More air meter questions

SCCA began doing that back around '84 with the Sport Renault, later known as the Spec Racer and Spec Racer Ford. The sealed engine brings things to a much more level playing field.

However, in SCCA you can have budgets that range quite differently, so what happens is the rich guys buy a bunch of sealed engines, dyno them, and then keep the ones that have an extra hp or two from normal engine variances.

Some found that you can run oil the consistency of melted butter and get a bit more hp (for a short time). You can run the timing belts loose to change the timing (but risk blowing the engine).

The bottom line is that even with a sealed engine, teams find ways to go faster than the other guy.

The IROC was about the only way you can have anyone race and be sure they are really even.

[Clem Z.]

more than one way to skin a cat!

we used to drill radially into the flywheels after we would remove the starter ring gear to lighten up the flywheels on those "sealed engine" deals and then cover the holes with the starter ring gear. makes a big difference on those small 4 cylinder engines how fast they spooled up. never got caught.