Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Lasoski and him thought they'd have the Mopar ready for the World Finals, but when they put it on the engine dyno and saw only 920 HP, they knew the chassis dyno would be closer to 800, actually was 850 according to Ralph Sheheen's article in Speed Sport News Page 6 November. Forbrook said he realized that would not be enough to compete with the best out there so went with a bowtie BUT expects that working on it all winter, by Vegas in 2013 it should show 990 HP (didn't say whether that was at the crank or the wheels). Forbrook also said that the 920/850 HP engine wouldn't qualify any better than 20th at Charlotte so set it aside for that weekend. 990 HP, crank or wheels, that's a ton. Reminds me of the 60 minute SPEED TV show about Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon. Hendrick's brother who runs their North Carolina dealerships talked Rick into going down to Florida to watch this young 15 year old kid. One statement still remains with me and it has to do with the 990HP statement from Forbrook. Hendricks said the KID did ok but was something like 15th in the feature. Hendrick said: "We walked down into the pits to talk to the youngster and ""there was this little kid standing next to a thousand HP sprint car, looked like he weighed 125 pounds". Well, rick was exaggerating slightlly for way back then, but the time for 1,000 HP sprint cars is here. Remember talking to Sam Herferte (spelling) and his crewchief 2 years ago before a race and they had two motors in the transporter that were both around 920 HP but were using one that was 875HP. I asked why and Sam said, the one with the most HP doesn't always mean it works the best. The 875 just seems to get it done better.

Lawlessness + liberalism = HELL -  NYC, Detroit, Chicago, 
Seattle, LA  Who the H runs those cities. 

We need more sprint car racing at our home track.

If the current stuff is making 990, they need to get something to make about 1100 since current lap times are like those when stuff was making 775. 990 is just plain funny with the plethora of WoO rules. Guy hasn't noticed Graval's Mopar setting quick time twice a month all season? A kid from the sprint car hotbed of Connecticut doesn't go faster than all others at places like Eldora, Port Royal and Charlotte with an inferior bullet.

Luna's Ford engine style that won 2 WoO titles and 3 
Kings Royals before a weight rule against the best EVER
in their prime and now DOMINATES super dirt late model
racing is no longer allowed/wanted in a WoO sprint
car.... Was Luna a miracle worker?

Those HP #'s seem to be somewhat exaggerated by what I am told by a few Local Pa builders.

engine dyno's variance is almost up to 20% from one jet to the other,

to me , thats a ton, expessially when your pumping 40-50k into a mill, the numbers need to be fancy for any buyer to smile , Sadly, my builders dyno has fallen to the low side as compaired to other builders to my understanding ,thats ok once I knew my platform to pull from, the common oversight of sprint car owners and enthusiests is (most forgot and ignored) the dyno is a tool to map correct fueling, and the engines responce to changes, if a engine is "tuned to kill" the wrench knows his threshold of damage, its sad to see these nice pieces of equipment destroyed in races such as the nationals, if the mill was pulled from (lets say Sammys) wheels during the nationals and its current fueling mixture, (dependent on whos dyno it is) the results (#) would be a eyebrow raising experiance. BUT BUT, the biggy here is, its in range of meltdown ! , vital pieces are beyond its cycled value, parts are being greatly fatiuged , failure is rising , life of the engine is falling, my first 410 my builder intentionally mixed it lean for its first pull, we were happy with the #, too bad it was fueled to die!, we got to a more realistic temprature, and the motor ran great with solid performance every time with the correct fuel change to ADR, I take my nephew to Monster truck shows, and im simply amazed how abusive they are on 1400hp mills!,(its hysterical)! the engine builders must love those guys!

take it to the other end of the spectrum......top fuel and funny cars.

they get INCREDIBLE numbers for about 4 seconds, then rebuild them. any good motor guy can get the numbers but can they get the "drivability" and any kind of life out of them? and on most tracks today, can you get them to hook up? IMO, thats the problem that kinser was chasing all year.....trying to get the power in a range where he could use it......not just a big number on a dyno. but swindell.....he has his tuned that when its right, its just fast and combine that with his chassis tuning ability and its a real tough combination. so....if forbrook gets 1000 hp, can he tune the car and can lasoski drive the car....like swindell does? could be interesting.

speeking of, I couldnt help but notice at the nationals Gerkins mills had alot of failure, or, lets say (hurt, not up to par) so to speek for thier liking, im not saying "they blew up" I dont have the insight for the real story of what caused thier decisions to change 3-4 motors while in Knox , were they pulling the pin on gernades?, go n blow type tuning? just a interesting observation how close to evil they are proubly getting , With all due respect Gerkinds trade has been victorious very victorious, theres alot of moving parts for vonerability of failure , Its funney in Nascrap how one team will start to sweat when a common piece on a teams engine shows failure,soon a teammate shows the same problem lastly the third team is a sitting duck with all eyes focused on the tailpipe, lol , Ive accepted from phone conversation with top engine builders as soon as I hang up the phone there is something better on the block. Obvioisly the combination of chassis (settup), motor, and a dam good driver will rise to the top I cant afford these crazy #'s or the pile of parts it takes to pursue them, BUT, dam, thier still cool to hear!