Sealed Motors?

[IraceLegends77]

I been hearing about some people cheating on seals and the BIG hammer is about to fall. There has been a rumor that some guys have been running 1300+ motors and the mother ship is about to bring them down. Should be fun at the Winter Nationals now. Maybe Dennis has heard more on this. You should see a bunch of sealed (1250?) motor for sale on Racing Junk soon.....LOL

[knoxracing]

Yes, the hammer is coming down. It started at the Winter series in Charlotte. They have taken several motors that were illegal. There are plenty of 1349 motors out there not to mention many others that are illegal in other ways. BEWARE of sealed motors for sale, if you are going to purchase a sealed used engine, ask for the seal numbers, the seal type, the engine number and call the engine shop and ask them what they know about the motor. This is NOT stopping in Charlotte, it is going to involve travelling tech officials at tracks you would never think it would happen at. It is about time, if you are going to run an illegal motor open or sealed you should not be pissed off when you are caught, and you should not be shocked that the penalty for running an illegal sealed engine will be bigger than if you an open illegal motor. The one thing i will say is the illegal motors have made the guys like myself step up our set up program, we have had to run with these motors, these cars are turtles through the corne half sideways and pull hard down the straights, you have to be able to carry more momentum through the corner to beat them. Hopefully thar is coming to an end.

[amp racing]

i think its very funny that a sealed spec motor has so many different options..... and so many have told me i you want a good one you must drive down and pick it up off the dyno .....whats it all about? should not all spec motors be the same....some of the sealed 600 motors sound very different than each other, just saying....
joe

[knoxracing]

The engines coming out of the engine shop are doing very well, the engine shop has made some moves in the last year or two  that have improved it greatly. There are few options to choose from. Stock bore (the Japan sleeves are removed and American made sleeves installed), 4 over with Wiseco and 8 over with Wiseco.  Do you need to drive and pick an engine up, no you do not. I  have all my motors tested on the dyno, after the dyno the valves are checked and leak down performed. The reason, I am 500 miles away and i want to eliminate the possibility of an issue.

[slack11]

I love this idea of checking sealed motors, think it is long overdue, and love the idea of keeping  people honest.

But, how would the logistics of this work out?  If someone has only one sealed motor and they run well, and get torn down, are they gonna miss time while their motor is sent away to be checked?  Or if the motor is checked at the track, what types of checks can they do at the track that would check all of this, and allow the seals to stay intact?  If the tech officials pull the motor apart, break the seal, who gets to put it back together for the next week?  Does it then have to be sent to Charlotte to be resealed?  I don’t think the tech officials are qualified to pull it apart, put it back together at the track and reseal….. If they can’t, what would this do for points racing…. Someone too far ahead in points, tear them down and make them miss a week…..

That is one benefit of the open motor, pull it apart, check, and someone local can get it back together before next week and all is good. 

Like I said, love the idea, and love the effort being put forth on this by INEX, Just trying to envision how this would work….. either way this is a tough situation. I am motor illiterate, can you check for these big motors easily?  I am assuming compression matches as it should, but to check for bigger bore, can you do a cc check without pulling it apart? Someone with more know how maybe could help.

[rob]

two big money races ago they resealed all the old sealed motors while you were in line for tech. not sure what they did but they were able to check the motors while in the cars. Dennis could probably explain better.

[amp racing]

tech official took a motor to 600 a few years back, the owner of the car and crew had to remove the motor and turn it over to the tech man.. took many weeks i think maybe a month.. motor was totally legal..

[IraceLegends77]

You can check CC's without much trouble. No need to pull the motor. The only thing is the machine is very expensive.

[VMS Motorsports]

Can be checked with a Whistler tool.
The Whistler measures combustion chamber size using acoustics, thus the name.
This measurement is combined with the number of cylinders and the compression ratio to calculate engine displacement .
It works alot like a compression gauge in that it screws into the spark plug holes, but it blows air into the cylinders and then measures the amount of air, tech guy does some math, and there you have it.

[amp racing]

nhra uses one of those called it  p&g gauge i think... the tech man from 600 used a gauge that went into the spark plug hole and spread out into the bore then removed it and measured with a caliper....

like i said after disassembly motor was ok..

[VMS Motorsports]

They used one of those on the top 10 in points one night last year at Beaver Dam after talk that somebody was cheating...they all tested out fine, sealed and open engines.
The joy of dirt racing, you don't need to cheat up your motor, you'll just be spinning your tires faster

[knoxracing]

Amp,
where was the motor from you are referring to?

[knoxracing]

This is not about a tech official pulling random motors. These were motors that they knew by the seal type, seal number, engine number etc. They are updating all the sealed motor rebuilds and sales into a system so they can see when and where every motor and seal has been. Alot of it is common sense, lets say you have a sealed motor that has a five year old seal on it and you are fast, they will be looking. THEY ARE NOT NOT NOT just taking random motors, do NOT panic or think you could be next.  They are also resealing motors to get rid of the old style seals, as  they have come up with a method to check the new style seals. This is the reason for removing the seals and resealing motors, the new style seals are easier to check. Do not be suprised if they take your seals and replace them, they are just looking closely at the seals. Let me say, they have figured somethings out about how to examine the new style seal.

[amp racing]

dennis it was in nh... maybe five or more years ago..

[jim19]

I heard that MOST of the engines were tested and came back totally legal...but the seals were tampered with, thats why they got DQ'd and suspended. It's no secret that there are other engine builders out there doing sealed motors....question is "HOW FAR DOES INEX WANT TO TAKE IT" they would have to check all sealed motors in the country and be willing to suspend 1/3 of legend racers. I don't think they can afford to do this to their sport.