staggering amount of heat. We
typically use tiny radiators (or sometimes no radiator
at all), low-speed electric water pumps and inefficient
fans and shrouds because we are more concerned with
reducing weight and minimizing parasitic losses than
with cooling capacity. In contrast, the belt-driven
water pump in a typical street car moves 100 gallons of
coolant per minute through a thick-core radiator with a
properly engineered fan and shroud system.
Think about how much heat energy is released in your
engine's cylinders in just a few seconds of
full-throttle acceleration - and remember that 25
percent of those BTUs go straight into the cooling
system. Even though a drag racing engine runs only a
relatively short time, it's hardly surprising when the
heat of combustion overtaxes the cooling system.
The ritual of warming up an engine is really a holdover
from the days when we ran "molasses" in our
motors. Back when racers used 20W-50 and 10W-30
mineral-based oil in their engines, there was a valid
reason to warm up an engine. Those thick petroleum oils
caused big pumping losses. In contrast, today's
off-the-shelf synthetic oils do not need an extended
warm-up. Even on a freezing morning at the
Winternationals, all you need to do is take the chill
off when you use synthetic oil. Further heating
synthetic oil makes no |
difference - it just
needlessly puts heat into internal engine components and
the coolant.
If you are not using synthetic oil in your
800-horsepower Super Gas, Super Comp or Top Sportsman
engine, you should be. A serious racing engine deserves
serious racing oil, not whatever is on sale at the local
discount store. Why jeopardize a $20,000 engine with $1
oil?
Our dyno and track tests have repeatedly shown that a
drag racing engine runs best with thin oil and cold
water. No one is more obsessed with horsepower than Pro
Stock racers. Do you see Pro drivers warming their
engines in the staging lanes? Never. We tow our cars
through the pits, push them in the staging lanes, and
fire them up at the last possible minute. After the
burnout, the staging process and a six-second
quarter-mile run, the water temperature rarely exceeds
150 degrees.
In Pro Stock, a stone-cold engine is best. The fact that
Pro engines are often on the ragged edge of detonation
is certainly a factor. We have also dyno tested
literally hundreds of sportsman engines, however, and it
appears that a coolant temperature around 120 degrees at
the start of a run is ideal.
I recognize that Pro Stock teams have the |
