Wonder why NHRA only uses blowers?

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%>[TR][TD]Quote:

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

03-04-2003 at 18:52, JustinGT wrote:
There are very few turboed cars but the coolest turboed car in NHRA that I have see is owened by Mike Meran He owns a 95 camaro(I thinK not too sure) but it has four turbos that is a quad turbo on a v-8 How cool is that.

Justin GT :-Y

Click to expand...

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]

That´s Mike Moran...

His Camaro was the most power DRY nitrous car in the world at one point and then he built it into the quad turbo monster it is now.

There have been alot of turbocharged cars in NHRA competition. The problem has been the racers, not the series themselves.

When Bubby Ingersol was running NHRA Comp Elim with a twin turbo Buick back in the mid 80´s that was faster than the off the day Pro Stock cars. He petitioned NHRA to let him run Pro Stock because it was too expensive to field a turbo car (he had a twin turbo small block Ford Pinto before that) in Comp Elim. They said no because the Pro Stock rules don´t allow forced induction. Buddy tried to get Buick to help because they were heavily involved in drag racing at the time. Didn´t help.

So he went over to the IHRA and they didn´t seen to see in harm in it since they run unlimited engines over there and I think John Kaase had just built the first 707cid Ford engine for IHRA.

Well they liked Buddy as long as he was non-competitve which was the first few races, but then he made it all the way to the finals in the next 3 races and lost for various reasons. The writing was on the wall and alot of IHRA regulars like Ricky Smith complained the loudest (so the rumor goes anyway) and they didn´t allow Buddy to come back in the next season. By that point he had started to build a new car. So he ran the new car in Comp Elim again for a couple of seasons, Buick backed out and he parked it.

He´s a team consultant for Team Mopar now... If you get a chance to speak with him, he´s a nice guy. Ask him about his Turbo Buick...

But anyway, the main reason you don´t see turbocharged cars is rules but most of it is cost. From say John Force to develop a turbocharged car for competition it would take millions of dollars in R&D and testing. I´m sure it could be done, but as we all know turbocharing works better with electronic engine management and NHRA doesn´t allow any electronics onboard any of the cars just data aquision.

Those are the main reasons, but I feel one day you´ll see turbocharged Funny Cars at least because the bodu work would solve alot of the aero issues with turbos sticking on either side of the body work on a Top Fuel car.

But for it to be competitive, NHRA would have to lift there ban on onboard electronics first.

The Pro Import cars already run times comparable with most Pro Stock entires....

Anthony Thomas

[ This message was edited by: dj4monie on 06-05-2003 05:28 ]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%>[TR][TD]Quote:

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

03-04-2003 at 22:42, MadBrad wrote:
F1 banned turbo too after ´88(or was it ´89) because The smaller teams could not afford it. They were then, as now, trying to keep teams´ cost down to improve competitiveness and the spectacle, and also trying to keep the rich teams from "buying" championships. the ´86 Benetton had a BMW 1.5 liter 4 banger that made over 1400 hp. :-] After the turbo era, the displacement was increased to 3.5 liters from 3 for aspros, and reduced back to 3 for ´95. This gave Nigel Mansell the distinction of winning the first and the last 3.5 liter race. ;-) BTW, Qualifying in Brazil takes place in 13 h 20 m. Foxy, are you geared up?

Click to expand...

[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]

[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]

Yeah too bad it acutally cost more to develop these V10 engines that it did the turbo cars!

turbocharing is smart, you don´t have to run as much RPM as a N/A car and it doesn´t have to work as hard. Porcshe figured this out first, then Reanult in the early 80´s late 70´s.

BMW´s 1.5L twin turbo V6 was putting out a rumored 1200hp in qualifying trim. It also ran on what is termed as "rocket fuel" too. They backed to down to about 800-900hp for racing.

Buick had a twin turbo V6 they used in IMSA competition in the early days of the Indy car program, that thing made 1200hp in qualifying trim. There some true wickedly fast cars in IMSA back in the mid 80´s...

To be honest they should have never banned turbocharging, it slowed down development for street cars the most. Companies like Garrett and IHI have learned alot since most series servely limit or don´t allow turbocharing.

That´s what´s so cool about sport compact racing. The turbos are just going to keep getting better and better and the car are going to go faster and faster. In turn we get better products for the street like Garrett´s GT series which is finally going be available outside of companies like HKS.

These are the good old days...