Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

It all changed in 1985 with the valve spring and cam rules being opened up. The RPM potential then required after market rods because of several blown engines, special lifters because of the unreal spring pressures being used, and later roller rockers when more complained about broken rocker arms. Then the playing with the head valve bowels and ports became mandatory to keep up the fast guys that caused more RPM's due to better air flow. I can assume being under staffed was because the tech guys who were competent became old, tired of the BS, and died off like my friend Marty Barratt ! Today NOTHING about a fast running stocker is stock. I have said it over and over to the NHRA people back in the 80's and 90's yet NOTHING was ever done about any of it. It was like talking to a brick wall ! I think where NHRA messed up was allowing ANY valve spring pressures. They should have limited the spring press to the same for everyone someplace around 150 lbs on the seat and 350 lbs open which if I remember right was the stock spring pressure for the 426 street Hemi's and 440 6 packs. Oh well ancient history !

Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

Sorry should have been more clear on the Price comment. I was talking about the cost of the technology to scan the heads. Came down to where it is do able for NHRA.

Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

You guys need to realize the rules for heads have changed over the years. For example, any valve job is legal as long as it’s done off the center of the guide with a cutter. It will be a cluster if all of a sudden someone doesn’t like how something looks and everything measures right and there are no grinding marks, no welding or no epoxy. It’s really hard to have consistent rule enforcement if it’s subjective and not objective. When the sportsmen racers got representatives about 10 years ago, I was the rep for d-3. I was at Gainesville that year, 2008, and talked to several of the National tech guys.

One of the things that was on the minds of a lot of the officials and a lot of the racers was consistent rule enforcement from division to division. What was good in D-1 might not be good in D-5. The rules have to be made so they are easily enforced. The days of someone running their finger in an intake port and feeling it won’t cut it now day. I’m not a real high tech guy and don’t know anything about digitizing heads, however on the older cars with cast iron heads the same casting number can vary greatly from one head to another. On the new cars with CNC ports I’m sure digitizing would be possible.

One other little item I’ll throw out there is that there are aftermarket heads approved for stock eliminator combinations that are 20 cc too big on the intake runner as cast. The idea that something is drastically wrong with how the rules are enforced is wrong headed in my view. I haven’t heard any racers saying that they want things like they were 30 years ago. I have a similar view to Ken in that if you try to do things that are not consistent and objectively enforceable you could lose a bunch of racers. This battle was fought 10-12 years ago.

Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

Gotcha, yeah technology does get cheaper as time goes on, but 60,000 seems like a lot to invest for just Stockers. NHRA is the place to race if you are a Stocker, so if this is the way it is going to be, we will just have to adjust. It just would have been nice to know this before the season started.

Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

Just my opinion, if your heads are good it shouldn't matter when rule change takes effect. I appluad it but dont know what NHRA data base will be to justify a good or bad head. My 307 Olds head is so stock it would probably get tossed.
Disclaimer: not stating anyone is cheating with an Olds head or ANY head.

Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

In my mind that is exactly what they are trying to do with using the scanner it will take all subjectivity away. The number of Tech people that can look at a 1962 head and say if it looked right or not are getting very hard to find. I am assuming that there will be a tolerance of some type built in for core shift and wear. In my mind it is better than the free for all that is happening today.

Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

But $60,000 is not too much to ensure parity in the showdown classes.
Let's imagine what we can accomplish by digitizing a bunch of "stock" heads:
(A) NHRA can get a handle on the hanky-panky going on in the showdown classes. We all know there is something to CNCing your own heads to a given port volume.
(B) NHRA can ensure that the Edelbrock heads are as "stock" as they came from Edelbrock
(C) It's common knowledge that some of the 60's/70's "stocker" heads have widely varying port shapes depending on how long a manufacturer uses core molds.

But who really knows the discrepancy(s)?

How are the builders "tuning up" these castings?

NHRA can now qualify the extent of these variables and use that information to discern the competitors pushing the boundaries of the rules.
I would anticipate that currently there is not a big enough database to qualify ,or disqualify, most OEM castings. There are probably some castings that are modified outside the range of credulity, those racers should be the ones to fear inspection.

Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

I find this thread very interesting because during my career as a machine shop supervisor for a fortune 500 company we had a CMM in the shop. It did not have a laser attachment but used a probe. I attend classes for the purpose of learning the software and hardware concerning this piece of equipment for two weeks. My best operator attended classes for about four weeks and was very good at using this for a number of purposes.

In 1991 when the company purchased this machine it cost $56,000.00.It was a Browne & Sharpe 7-10-7. Smaller ones were cheaper but still not significantly. I don't know what a CMM with a laser attachment that had the ability to perform a 3D scan on a cylinder head would cost today. I feel comfortable saying that if NHRA were to start doing this at national events it would be best to contract someone to do this because of the complexity of this procedure. Being able to compare the scanned data to the CAD file of a know stock head would take a talented and well trained professional.

I am not saying this can or cannot be done at Indy but, it will be interesting to see what is going to happen.

Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

This is chasing a problem that most racers are not concerned about. For the old cast iron heads it will be next to impossible to do. For the factory show down cars if one of the racers get a good port, the factory will just have someone make 25 sets with that port and introduce it as a replacement head. Stock eliminator is limited by the cam lift, the manifold, the compression ratio, and the weight of the reciprocating assembly, and most importantly the horsepower rating. As always the folks that work the hardest and spend the most money will run the fastest.

Re: Indy Teardown Warning
 

Maybe they thought this would be a good way to get rid of us without having to pay a bunch of lawyers fees!