These aren't dirt floored garages with leaky roofs. Hendrick, Childress, Yates and Gibbs all have had state of the art design, modeling and failure analysis software systems for a long time. As for the prototyping and plastic modeling, again the big shops have been there a long time. And that's before their manufacturing technologies which are test beds for the big CNC machine companies. Anybody want to guess one of the main reasons Okuma moved its headquarters to Charlotte?The TRD team set out to incorporate the best features of each engine, while hunting for Nascar-legal design tweaks. They used advanced engineering software to calculate stresses on the cylinder heads, plus computer- aided design and stereo lithography to quickly mold plastic parts. All standard in the automotive industry but fairly new to Nascar, these high-tech tools helped TRD build and test engines faster and more efficiently.
There was also a little old-fashioned design ingenuity. Early on, says David Currier, who led the seven-man design team, it became clear that Nascar's design parameters for the valvetrain, which helps control fuel intake and exhaust, was the engine's weak link, as it was conceived to handle a modest 5,000 rpm. To circumvent Nascar's valvetrain restrictions, TRD minimized the stroke. By shortening the distance traveled by the piston, they ended up with an engine that should spin faster than 9,000 rpm.
As for the RPMs, again bullsh!t. NASCAR engines have been blasting away at 9,000 RPMs for a long time. At one point they had gotten to just under 10K, but NASCAR didn't like that very much and instituted gear rules to slow that down. There are a number of tracks where they basically keep their foot in the gas all the way around making an engine turn at 9,000 RPMs for say 30 or 40 minutes, stop it to pit, and then do it again.
These are guys that have been making sh!t go fast for a long time. The real advantage that Toyota gave JGR (and subsequently the other Toyota teams) was the ability to start pretty much from scratch without existing designs and parts. And even then the fact that the Toyota engine is really a knockoff of the tweaked Chevy designs that had been in JGR's design library for a few years is pretty much swept under the rug.
The basic specs aretrailhacker said:So in laymans terms, what are the rules of engines? I am sure there is a size cap like 5.7 litres or something like that. But is there a cap on horsepower? A cap on compression ratio?, Displacement (or more precisely bore size vs. stroke size)? Etc.
a V8, cast iron block, normally carbureted, pushrod valve train with 2 valves per cylinder and a displacement of 358 cubic engines (5.8L). No "fancy" materials. The maximum bore is 4.185 inches with a maximum stroke of 3.25 inches. Because of the carburetor, the engines are mechanically timed. So pretty much the same basic engine design that's been around for 50 years. Horsepower is one of the big secrets in NASCAR. The teams are very closely guarded about that. NASCAR impounds engines all the time and tests them but never tells anyone the results BUT as evidenced by the initial article will tell folks to tune it down.
Couple that with antiquated brakes, what they are limited to do with the aero packages and the fact that they weigh 3400 pounds, they still build cars capable of going 200mph for 5 hours. Somebody hauled a car to Bonneville built to NASCAR specs and got it to go 244mph.
It ain't the sexy F1 stuff but they are very talented folks making that technology fast.