Sprint car motors?

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Old Man Mopar said:
My good friend, retired Chrysler powertrain engineer Greg Charney, built his '68
Dart with a modified version of the MP sprint car engine. He drives it on the street
and it goes very low 10's at the strip. Greg had his car in our tent at the Nat's the
last two years.

The MP sprint car engine does not resemble the civilian A-motor in many respects,
especially the cylinder heads.

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HOT ROD Magazine article:
http://www.hotrod.com/cars/featured/1311-1968-dodge-dart/

Greg Charney's 68 Dart with 410 sprint car engine - Milan Dragway ET-10.17 134 MPH 10/9/13 - YouTube


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I love the fact that car is a post car and it is insanely clean and he races it. I would like to shake that mans hand.
 
This is up my alley so I'll chime in...

I used to work with sprint cars. I've met and learned from guys like Jimmy Sills. And met (and partied) with some of the top Outlaw guys. I won't get into crazy detail. But sprint cars hold a special place to me. I lived at Castrol on the weekend. I breathed methanol. Now it's been a few years since I've been around them, but I'll try and share my experience.

The engines in those things are intense. There is really no other word for it. Where I was a lot of them were SBC. Bored out to 360/410. Mainly due to availability of parts, ease of acquiring parts, and interchangeability of most parts. There was I think one SBM running around. That was a pretty hot car. Basically there was three classes:

Sportsman: 360CI. Around 500 horse. No roller allowed. Stock arm ratio. Kinsler injection. Weight of 1600lbs at end of race. Big wings (a Castrol thing only apparently, mainly due to the corners being the fastest in canada and apparently one of the fastest of any 3/8s track)

"ASCS" 360: Conforms to all the rules of ASCS. 360CI. Roller allowed. 1.6 ratio allowed. Kinsler injection. Higher compression. Around 700 horse. Weigh in 1400lbs. It was an "ASCS" class. But as far as I remember back then, no one who raced ASCS in edmonton really went anywhere with it like you can in the south.

And once a year, the Outlaw cars. Everyone knows about them. 410CI. Getting close to 1000 horse. Etc etc.

The biggest thing about these cars that a lot of people don't quite understand, is that they were basically built to run in a very tight RPM band. To spin around the track at around 7200-7600 rpm. Wanna slow down? Back off the throttle. Wanna turn better? Throttle. Throttle was everything in those cars. Other than that, you ran her, kept her at peak power RPM and slid through the corners on the cushion as best you could. I've seen guys drop hundreds of dollars on new gearsets for the quick change just trying to hit a specific RPM, and the pay off in winning the next race.

As for how they make the power? It's simple. Methanol. Some of the Outlaw guys are running 17:1 static CR from what I remember. Tallllllll injector stacks. Individual port injection. Light everything. Aluminum it all. Cylinder heads that flow like you've never seen. Gigantic valves. Crazy cam. Dry sump oil. **** the fan. **** the starter. **** the transmission. Dead weight, all of it. Don't need to shift gears when you're flying around the track at double the highway speeds. These engines were built to wind up and go. And go they do.

We had a "ride along" chassis. It was a two seater sprint car chassis. One seat behind the other. Thing was a pig. 2,400 or 2,600 pounds I think. But it had a 410 engine in it. Took it to the track once. And I wanna say it ran 9.8/9.6, slow right? Except it ran out of gear at half track. And bounced off the rev's for the last half of the track. Guess maybe then you want a transmission. But that should give you an idea of what kind of power these things make. With a transmission? Any one of the outlaw cars should be a low 7 dealio. Butttt not what they are built for. Built to spin their life away lap after lap until the next rebuild.

They are a world unto themselves. I've had a couple convos with guys, wanting to put them in their street car. And it sounds fun. Right up until the hassle of it comes along. Drain your fuel after every fri/sat night cruise. Blow out the fuel system, can't let it sit in the lines or there will be a puddle of methanol in your garage the next morning. The CONSTANT tuning. A drop of a few degrees, fairly common here as the night gets on, can cause major tuning problems. Humidity. The ambient air temp from your own farts. Just about anything can mess with the tuning. As well on the racetrack they get rebuilt fairly often. And need constant attention. They are solid cam setups. Depending on the class. Obviously the lower power ones don't need it as often. Usually freshen up in the offseaon. Some guys ran 2/3 seasons on their motors. ASCS is probably a twice a season deal. Outlaws? ****, those guys have engines just sitting there waiting to be used. They purpose build engines for the big purse races, they aren't designed for more than one night of racing. Ready to blow themselves apart. Their regular engines get checked often, and replaced whenever needed. The other fact? These things are just not built for the street. Their home is 6K+ Rpm. If you hit that with one of these motors in a street car, just about every cop from the whole county is gunna be looking for you.

But now I might be rambling. Probably cause I was just at the WOO show this weekend up at castrol. And it brings back some fond memories.
 
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Lustle said:
This is up my alley so I'll chime in...

I used to work with sprint cars. I've met and learned from guys like Jimmy Sills. And met (and partied) with some of the top Outlaw guys. I won't get into crazy detail. But sprint cars hold a special place to me. I lived at Castrol on the weekend. I breathed methanol. Now it's been a few years since I've been around them, but I'll try and share my experience.

The engines in those things are intense. There is really no other word for it. Where I was a lot of them were SBC. Bored out to 360/410. Mainly due to availability of parts, ease of acquiring parts, and interchangeability of most parts. There was I think one SBM running around. That was a pretty hot car. Basically there was three classes:

Sportsman: 360CI. Around 500 horse. No roller allowed. Stock arm ratio. Kinsler injection. Weight of 1600lbs at end of race. Big wings (a Castrol thing only apparently, mainly due to the corners being the fastest in canada and apparently one of the fastest of any 3/8s track)

"ASCS" 360: Conforms to all the rules of ASCS. 360CI. Roller allowed. 1.6 ratio allowed. Kinsler injection. Higher compression. Around 700 horse. Weigh in 1400lbs. It was an "ASCS" class. But as far as I remember back then, no one who raced ASCS in edmonton really went anywhere with it like you can in the south.

And once a year, the Outlaw cars. Everyone knows about them. 410CI. Getting close to 1000 horse. Etc etc.

The biggest thing about these cars that a lot of people don't quite understand, is that they were basically built to run in a very tight RPM band. To spin around the track at around 7200-7600 rpm. Wanna slow down? Back off the throttle. Wanna turn better? Throttle. Throttle was everything in those cars. Other than that, you ran her, kept her at peak power RPM and slid through the corners on the cushion as best you could. I've seen guys drop hundreds of dollars on new gearsets for the quick change just trying to hit a specific RPM, and the pay off in winning the next race.

As for how they make the power? It's simple. Methanol. Some of the Outlaw guys are running 17:1 static CR from what I remember. Tallllllll injector stacks. Individual port injection. Light everything. Aluminum it all. Cylinder heads that flow like you've never seen. Gigantic valves. Crazy cam. Dry sump oil. **** the fan. **** the starter. **** the transmission. Dead weight, all of it. Don't need to shift gears when you're flying around the track at double the highway speeds. These engines were built to wind up and go. And go they do.

We had a "ride along" chassis. It was a two seater sprint car chassis. One seat behind the other. Thing was a pig. 2,400 or 2,600 pounds I think. But it had a 410 engine in it. Took it to the track once. And I wanna say it ran 9.8/9.6, slow right? Except it ran out of gear at half track. And bounced off the rev's for the last half of the track. Guess maybe then you want a transmission. But that should give you an idea of what kind of power these things make. With a transmission? Any one of the outlaw cars should be a low 7 dealio. Butttt not what they are built for. Built to spin their life away lap after lap until the next rebuild.

They are a world unto themselves. I've had a couple convos with guys, wanting to put them in their street car. And it sounds fun. Right up until the hassle of it comes along. Drain your fuel after every fri/sat night cruise. Blow out the fuel system, can't let it sit in the lines or there will be a puddle of methanol in your garage the next morning. The CONSTANT tuning. A drop of a few degrees, fairly common here as the night gets on, can cause major tuning problems. Humidity. The ambient air temp from your own farts. Just about anything can mess with the tuning. As well on the racetrack they get rebuilt fairly often. And need constant attention. They are solid cam setups. Depending on the class. Obviously the lower power ones don't need it as often. Usually freshen up in the offseaon. Some guys ran 2/3 seasons on their motors. ASCS is probably a twice a season deal. Outlaws? ****, those guys have engines just sitting there waiting to be used. They purpose build engines for the big purse races, they aren't designed for more than one night of racing. Ready to blow themselves apart. Their regular engines get checked often, and replaced whenever needed. The other fact? These things are just not built for the street. Their home is 6K+ Rpm. If you hit that with one of these motors in a street car, just about every cop from the whole county is gunna be looking for you.

But now I might be rambling. Probably cause I was just at the WOO show this weekend up at castrol. And it brings back some fond memories.
Click to expand...


You sir win the medal. I am young to the sprint car scene. I have only been a few times this year but it is just mind blowing. WOO is coming to one of our local tracks in October and I will be there for sure. It still hasn't stoked drag racings place in my heart but it is in second place.

There is a shop here in cincinnati that restores old sprint and Indy cars. Maybe I'll swing by and BS with the guys and try to get some pictures.
 
Charney's motor mounts (no provisions cast into the sides of the block), oil pump and
accessory drives. This is where Ross (76orangewagon) got the idea for his mounts.


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that A8 build in the Dart is straight out of the "won't work, but we're doing it anyways" book.... what a beautiful build!!

Tried to do a little search on the Gurney/Westlakes deal.... can someone share some more information on that deal?

....and as long as were on the "oddball" small blocks. Here's a cool article:

http://moparmax.com/tech/2013/viii_3-lemans-1.html
 
I agree also very cool build

For anybody who have never seen how fast Sprint cars go on the bigger tracks
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0coCioCU3s"]Dave Blaney - World of Outlaws 140 MPH! - YouTube[/ame]

Like at williams grove speedway
 
They stopped letting the WOO race on the Big Track track in Middletown NY orange county, because they so fast
 
They were faster than nascar at Bristol when they covered it with clay. That track actually scared quite a few of the drivers..... and for good reason.
 
Now, after watching the Dave Blaney clip,imagine twenty-four of these cars on the racetrack at the same time going balls to the wall.
 
[QUOTE=

Tried to do a little search on the Gurney/Westlakes deal.... can someone share some more information on that deal?


The Gurney/Westlake heads were part of a stock block Indy car program, Chrysler did thru Plymouth in the 68,69,70 era. They used highly modified 727's with manual valve bodies for transmissions and memory says that driver Art Polard (sp?) some how worked the shift lever thru the gate; that was to prevent just this from happening; from 3rd into reverse at speed!!
 
Thanks for the links Dwire.... interesting reading. Never knew about the indy involvement.
 
This has my fired up to watch the non wing cars next weekend and outlaws in October. I'll take this over nascar any day of the week.
 
A body said:
that A8 build in the Dart is straight out of the "won't work, but we're doing it anyways" book.... what a beautiful build!!

Tried to do a little search on the Gurney/Westlakes deal.... can someone share some more information on that deal?

....and as long as were on the "oddball" small blocks. Here's a cool article:

http://moparmax.com/tech/2013/viii_3-lemans-1.html
Click to expand...


Very cool story!! Thanks for sharing.

Jake
 
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