Bed Your Engine

[brad hibbard]

Race-1
Recommendations On How To Put Your Engine To
Bed For The Winter

First and foremost---if you are not storing your engine/car in a garage that is heated 100% of the time you need to get all the water out or install antifreeze in the system NOW.

We recommend putting at least a gallon of antifreeze in anyway.

Next

Disconnect the feed line to your fuel pump and run a hose from the pickup side of the pump into a fuel jug with quality gasoline (AV gas or 93 octane pump gas) it is also recommended to mix 2 stroke oil into this gas

Placing the fuel jug into a safe location away from headers
Then warm the engine up to operating temperature

After the engine is warm begin drizzling straight 30 wt. motor oil down the carb at a high idle (1300 to 1500)

Once the garage becomes filled with smoke increase the stream of oil and choke the engine out with oil.

Next take several oil soaked rags and stuff them into the ends of the headers.

If you want added security remove the rocker arms so all the valve springs will be relaxed
If you used a mixture of two stroke gasoline for your fogging process and made sure the secondary side of the carb was also flowing fuel during fogging then there is no need to do any further carburetor bedding but some like to remove the carb drain and fill with wd40.

When wakening up the engine remove the spark plugs and spin the engine over a time or two to release any excess oil then prime the oil system reinstall the same plugs to initially fire the engine
You will need to change spark plugs after you warm it up and clear the winter oil away

This process does not take long and will help to insure your engine will wake up the same way it went to bed

Any questions please call or e mail through our web site

Brad
330-540-RACE

https://www.race-1.com

[joedoozer]

How long of an off season is considered long enough to do something like this? 2 months, 4 months, 6 months or more?

[brad hibbard]

Joe

If the engine is exposed to moisture or if you normally run oxygenated fuel

as little as a week could result in damage to your engine

of course there would be no need to go to the full extent that I described but some fogging should be a regular practice

Brad

[joedoozer]

Our season is split in halves. We are off 2 months in the winter (Dec and Jan), and then 2 months in the summer (Jul and Aug). I do run 93 pump gas and I use Sta-Bil at every fill up. I had planned on draining the fuel system and carb after the last race. Would fogging be a good idea for a 2 month break in this case?

[brad hibbard]

Pump gas alone has ethenol in it which will draw moisture

the stabil that you add is intended to maintain the fuel quality---I don't know if there is any lubricant in that type of additive but if not I would do some sort of fogging
to what extent would be a judgment call that you would need to make based on the humidity and temperature conditions in your storage area

Brad

https://www.race-1.com

[stock car driver]

Good info thanks.

I usually error on the lazy side and dont do too much for off season.

Ive usually got a motor or two that Ive ran and pulled as a spare that I should take better care of for storage.

[joedoozer]

Pump gas alone has ethenol in it which will draw moisture

the stabil that you add is intended to maintain the fuel quality---I don't know if there is any lubricant in that type of additive but if not I would do some sort of fogging
to what extent would be a judgment call that you would need to make based on the humidity and temperature conditions in your storage area

Brad
www.race-1.com

It does not freeze in my garage but Dec. - Feb. It will being in the high 30's and low 40's at night. I may run a small mixture of anitfreeze to err on the side of caution. I did read in the paper today (well my Dad did and then picked on me because I don't read the paper), that a local fuel station is now carrying non-ethanol fuel. I am going to look into this. Adding Sta-Bil to the fuel is expensive, and raises the cost of what I am paying per gallon.