Thread: What goes into a Pro Stock Engine

Tweet

This three page article I think is a real eye opener about the builds of Pro Stock Engines.A good read:

Pro Stock Engine Technology: Engine Builder

I was gonna answer, MONEY! Lots & Lots of MONEY!

I agree with Mike - money with some more just in case.

There's a soft cover book I picked up the other day on building engines (Border's is closing and my kids gave me $$$ worth of gift card) . The work that goes into building a high level engine defies my imagination, most of it machine work.

What I would like is a 'new' NA$CAR engine that can live at 8-9000 RPM for hundreds of miles

(Your link wouldn't open for me)

some of the heads were using at one time were used in pro stock the big chief stuff and the old 862 heads come to mind .thinner piston rings .shaft rockers like crane .T@D .jesel .and other have seen there way to the street on lower power engines . bigger lifters bodys and bigger cam cores.belt drive . is all stuff we use as well just abit less money for the over all engine

Dave W I just tried the link and it worked.Interesting(not that we have that kind of money)some of those engines are rentals at $50,000 a event that comes with a tuner.They meet up at the event and put it into the car,tune it,and at the end take it back out.Costs for a season is 1.2 million.Talk about buzzing them up to 10,000 RPM and what developments have occurred to allow the kind of results we see today's cars.Lots of heavy name hitters involved.

Originally Posted by 1gary

Dave W I just tried the link and it worked.

Just tried it again - site must have been 'sleeping'. This is a good on-line link that I used to regularly visit but lost the link during a 'puter update a while ago.

Here ya go for the site in general:

www.engine-buildermag.com

Yeah-that's weird.If you use the link above it does come to a a problem loading.But if you Google engine builder mag,that site comes up.I don't know the answer to that.

Maybe it involves Brent or Bill.Don't know.

Several years ago I had the opportunity to tour the Richard Childress facility. Wow! No photography (no cameras or cell phones for that matter) allowed and they were real cagey about the heads. They too have a "rent-an-engine" program that comes complete with a mechanic and believe me, every thing down to the valve covers is wired shut I asked what they did with "old engines" to which the answer was "completely recycle" by which they meant "turn into scrap".

One thing that really stood out was the amount of micro polishing that took place on just about any rotating component in attempt to further reduce friction. The place was clean enough to eat from the floor and the employees were a very professional bunch. It just "smells" of big dollars throughout..

Cherie and I visited the Rick Hendrick facility in North Carolina. When we got done with the tour I ask to visit the engine building dept. The girl just laughed and said "not in this lifetime". I knew that was coming.

you can buy engine parts off e bay from nascar builds there 4 guys that i pick up stuff from and Roush sell on ebay as well so not all of it gets scraped . they say that so the little guy will not bug them they have a guy roll in buy it all and haul it away . other race shops do this if they do not want to deal with selling used parts .i have dealed with some shops on real $$$$ race parts$$$.I could not say there name in adds or to say there name to any one of were it came from.. any boxs of parts or blocks cranks or rockers could not have there name on them .if so the name had to be removed before i sold it .. at this point i said to much about them already i here black helicopters over my house

Yeah-yrs ago when the Busch Grand National program wrapped up,I bought my 4.3 Bowtie from Childress at the Indy drag racer's auction.Later had a phone call with Spendy McFearsion which at the time was the head of engine development for them.Really he was the David Vizard for NASCAR.

Originally Posted by glennsexton

Several years ago I had the opportunity to tour the Richard Childress facility. Wow! No photography (no cameras or cell phones for that matter) allowed and they were real cagey about the heads. They too have a "rent-an-engine" program that comes complete with a mechanic and believe me, every thing down to the valve covers is wired shut I asked what they did with "old engines" to which the answer was "completely recycle" by which they meant "turn into scrap".

One thing that really stood out was the amount of micro polishing that took place on just about any rotating component in attempt to further reduce friction. The place was clean enough to eat from the floor and the employees were a very professional bunch. It just "smells" of big dollars throughout..

The time and money that goes into development for our Mountain Motor Pro Stock stuff is crazy, but the 500" stuff is 10 times worse. Over there it is more about racing check books than anything else. When you enter into the world of Pro Stock you find that secrets are like gold, and covering your best information is key. We spend crazy amounts of effort to find something that will give us another 5 hp, when most other forms of racing are looking for another 100+ at a time! Honestly the part that most people don't know about is the upkeep. Granted, to build a new competitive Mountain Motor is about 125k, if you plan to run competitively you have to figured after about 25 runs it needs new rods, rings, bearings, etc...

Don't even get me started on what kind of money there is when you start testing different intakes, carbs, spacers, headers, etc... because what works on the dyno, doesn't always work on the track!

thanks to larry morgan and the few other few ford pro stock racers that try i am once again a fan .. i have noticed that larry qualifies well at higher elevation and somewhat hotter tracks than he does at " normal " facilities .. shouldn`t he learn something from the high tracks to help his efforts in the others ..and i noticed that mountain motored fords usually dominated ihra .. i hated to see it fold ..

back in the 80s we called any thing 500 cid a mountain motor .its common place to build way past 500 cid.i machine /build them all the time not hard at all now days. the mountain motors are 700 to 800 cid .most guys just call them pro stock engines as there 500cid max and cost way more

The 700CI is more common I think to IHRA and the 500 CI are in NHRA.Remember the part of the article that talks about rental engines.Fact is Jegs has started a program for that.I would think it is a way to get back some of that R&D money.All true about the secrets in the builds of these engines.When rented,the guy from the rental program is the only one that touches that engine and tunes it and it is taken back after the race is over.