Truth about Crate Engine HP

[jesel45]

just be Happy Fasttrack has tech inspectors, no matter who it may be... over here in UMP land the tracks have no idea what tech inspection even is.... i can remember @ 1 of our local track a few years back one of the limited modifieds got tore down by another driver and the promotor came over with a tape measure to check bore and stroke

[phillips22]

Finally we need to know the truth about HP on crate engines and here it is. After 9 years of dealing with them we have learned a thing or two and will gladly share the truth. Tired if seeing my teams and others being scammed by engine people. We have seen thousands of these things so hopefully you heed this advice.

A new motor is a good or even better than rebuilt. Hey its the truth. Several years ago everything in the world was, you have to have a new rebuilt motor or you can't win. They are 20HP better. THAT HAS NEVER BEEN THE CASE. YOU WERE SOLD A BILL OF GOODS.

Have to take a brand new motor straight to the rebuilder and have it blue printed. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Someone lied to you plain and simple. In soooooo many cases we have seen where the rebuilt engine was worse, not better. THERE YOU GO. The guys that normally run up front, always sell their GM sealed engines after 30 days of racing because so many think they have something you don't. WRONG! Do they take your money and go buy a rebuilt engine? NO. They go buy one straight from GM. A NEW ONE.

Blueprinted lifters, blueprinted springs, etc, etc. There IS NO SUCH THING!!!!!!! ITS all marketing folks. You cannot blueprint either and be legal. They can match either in the way of pressure but if your engine builder doesn't do that for you anyway, find another one. Hes simply taking advantage of you. ANY engine builder that would not do that as a service for you, does not deserve your business.

Can you pick up 5 HP there, 5 HP here? Maybe, maybe not. 10 HP has never won a race versus a good handling car. 1 lb of air in the right place will more than make up 10 HP on a crate car.

Think about it this way,. Look through a dirt racing magazine. This will give you 4 10's, that will give you 3 10's etc, etc. Add them all up and you would be running Eldora in 10 seconds. Its just marketing guys. Black Magic marketing for the most part. DON'T BE FOOLED.

If you have $12,000 in an engine. You either got taken or its illegal. Pretty simple.

Engine builders are no different than ever before for the most part. They helped be the reason we needed crate engine racing to begin with. 5 more HP, $10,000 more dollars. That brought us to crate racing. Now the crate engine rebuilders, authorized or not, are starting the same thing. Only you as race teams don't need to by into it this time. ANY ENGINE W 20 MORE HP IS WRONG. PERIOD! QUIT WASTING YOUR MONEY. I' not saying not to rebuild your engines, but these people getting brand new ones so called blue printed, go by yourself a new 4 wheeler w that money. You will get much more bang for your buck if you do.

Some are even going so far as to replace genuine GM parts with aftermarket parts and some series are even allowing that, WHY? Well its always sold as saving the race team money. HAVE YOUR REBUILDS GONE DOWN IN PRICE? Probably not. We don't change parts in our engines and why? BECAUSE ITS SUPPOSED TO BE A GM CRATE ENGINE CLASS/SERIES. If its aftermarket parts then its a SPEC MOTOR SERIES isn't it? If your engine has 60 lbs or more of oil pressure its probably illegal. It comes to a FASTRAK event and guess what? Now you are mad at FASTRAK. HMMM< I wonder why? Either you want to run a GM Crate ENGINE or you want to run a SPEC ENGINE. Thats really not rocket science.

We track our engines (rebuilds) from serial number to owner to what was done and its all posted on our site. WHY? How else do you do it RIGHT? If you don't track seals, how do you know where they are? If you don't have engine builders under contract, why would they do everything legal? What incentive do they have? We have one full time person that does nothing but track engine seals. WHY? How else do you really do it? Its in a REAL attempt to keep things straight.

Oh yes, some will say I am full of crap and Im just trying to sell new engines or whatever. First off no one pays me to sell new engines. Secondly its the truth. I hope and pray that for once, you can actually realize a promoter is trying to help you by standing up and having the guts to say something rather than encourage this continued pattern. NO, I will not answer this post. I am too busy to stay on 4m, but please feel free to write me ay my email listed below. Ask EGO on here and others that really know me. You may not like me. You may not like what I have to say, but its ALWAYS the truth like it or not. I'm not smart enough to remember a lie and don't have time to waste telling you one either. I just tired of seeing people being taken advantage of.

Please feel free to email me sl@fastrakracing.com


R Stan Lester
FASTRAK Racing Series
sl@fastrakracing.com

WOW nice job of throwing your builders under the bus, if they are all liers and are scaming all of us racers then why dont you do away with them and save us racers money.

I mostly agree with all of your post except for the part about all the motors out of the crate being great because I bought one that was a turd sold it and bought a new one put it in the same car and won the race the next week so that is not always the case!

Some of the things you say and do sometimes just make me laugh!

[swaybar]

Post 2010 pistons?

Brad, I posed this question in another thread, but it seems to fit here too. I'd really like your opinion. You said only minor specifications have changed, but in 2010 there was a change that I would say is significant. GM switched to a piston/pin combination that is around 70 grams lighter than the pistons used in the older motors. The piston also has a coated skirts. Would you say that over a pound of weight taken off your rotating assembly is significant enough to notice a difference between a pre-2010 602 motor and a post-2010 motor?

Stan is correct in his thinking and current statements.
this was not always true but the new engines are very consistant.

we have always heard of generation 2 and 3 even 4 and 5 THERE IS NO SUCH THING
these engines have always been built to the same specifications BUT---different foundries and suppliers have been used throughout the years making things somewhat inconsistant and different in appearance.----minor specifications have been changed but nothing that equates to useable power.

the 2010 and up engines have been very consistant and reliable----
an older engine that fell on the low side of tollerances may have been down a small amount of power---in most cases still not enough to change the result of a race

we have found the 2010 and up engines to be near the performance side of the tollerances from factory and the parity amongst them is within a number or two.

We have numerous top competitors that are very successful with new engines

Max Blair recently installed one of our prepared engines and won the first time out and I believe 2 of the next 3 shows----

Will Thomas also recently installed a new engine and also won the first time out at a 5/8 mile track where one would think HP would make a difference----Thomas also has continued his success with this engine with wins and top 5 finishes

Chad Ruhlman also installed a new engine from us with top spot success immediatly along with continued success

OK those are a few recent FASTRAK competitors that have purchased new engines
how about some other series?

Micky Trosclair has been a constant winner in the NeSmith series with a new GM engine
actually he was recently protested because no one believed that it was legal
the engine was completely legal and while we were puting it back together we sent him another new engine and he has remained successful with it as well

Evan Fink has at least 10 wins on his new engine with many top 5's to go with it
Evan competes in UMP also open steel block and just about any where someone will let him race.

All of the above engines and many more have been through the Race-1 compiled check list and proper break in but none have had the seals removed

we offer our recomendations for new engine prep and break in to any one

don't get me wrong this is not an advertisement for Race-1 but simply some back up information from Stan Lester's statement.

New engines do need to be preped and broke in properly and as always maximizing the bolt on compatability is worth power

any competant rebuilder should be able to help you with this

Brad Hibbard
www.race-1.com