New Ford engine set for Talladega debut; full integration not expected until mid-2010
Ford's FR9 engine was on display during the 2009 Sprint Media Tour hosted by Lowe's Motor Speedway. // LaDon George, NASCAR Scene
Although Ford is getting its new FR9 engine ready for Sprint Cup competition this weekend, it’s unlikely all Ford teams will be using the new engine full time until the middle of the 2010 season, engine builder Doug Yates says.
The engine will make its debut this weekend in the restrictor-plate race at Talladega Superspeedway in the Roush Fenway cars of David Ragan and Matt Kenseth. It likely will also be used at a race track where the air running through the engine is unrestricted by the end of the season.
But if Roush Yates Engines has the eight full-time teams it expects to have, it won’t even be in position for a full rollout at the start of the 2010 season.
“We’d like to get it in some open competition before the end of the year, and then from there we’ll evaluate the engine parts and make some good decisions on moving into 2010,” said Yates, who is chief executive officer of Roush Yates Engines. “But we probably won’t start out across the board next year. The beginning of the season is so critical to gain points and to secure your position that we’ll gain some more experience with it and then try to introduce it across the board sometime around midseason.”
One of the reasons the engine is being introduced at Talladega is so that it could be used with confidence next year at the Daytona 500. Yates said their unrestricted engines can generate 900 horsepower; a restricted engine generates about 450 horsepower.
“The engine really looks great in both open and plate format, but for the start of the season we’re looking at starting at Daytona racing the FR9 – or at least qualifying with the FR9 – and for that reason we felt like Talladega was an important date for us, so that drove some of the decisions,” Yates said.
Ford officials had predicted earlier this year that the new engine would roll out sometime in the second half of the season, although Talladega is a little later than anticipated.
“We were ready to go to Daytona in July, and we actually had some parts that came in that were wrong, so that got pushed back,” Yates said. “But when we did further testing, we found that we were not as ready as we thought we were, so that was a bit of a blessing. Then we were set to go to an open race, and we found some things that were just a little bit concerning on the valve train. … We’ve gained a lot of knowledge, and now we’re ready and ready to move forward with this piece.”
The FR9 engine is the first purpose-built NASCAR racing engine ever built by Ford and the first new piece for the manufacturer since 1991. It has been in development for three years. All of the other manufacturers competing in the sport have gone to motors that have met NASCAR’s revised requirements for new engines.
The new engine could impact the handling of the car as it should give it a slightly lower center of gravity.
“The big key is through the years and years of racing experience that Doug and his team have built up, they do build confidence from laboratory tests of non-firing portions of the engine to durability runs to simulate on-track performance to actual on-track test sessions,” said Brian Wolfe, director of Ford Racing North America Motorsports. “Every one of those steps has been followed coming out with this, so there isn’t anything else I know we would do to get more ready at this point than we already are.”
While the new engine was tested on a restrictor-plate track at a Goodyear tire test at Daytona, it hasn’t been at an on-track test with the restrictor plates with holes 59/64ths of an inch in diameter. NASCAR recently changed the Talladega rule to go from restrictor plates with holes of 60/64ths of an inch in diameter to 59/64ths of an inch.
“What we were trying to find there [at Daytona] was an RPM range, and the RPM range we ran at the test is going to be similar to what we’ll see this weekend at Talladega, so I feel like the testing was valid,” Yates said. “Getting on the race track and checking all the car systems was important as well.”
Yates said all the teams that participate in the Goodyear tire test Monday and Tuesday at Daytona will have the current engine and not the new engine.
Ford hopes to have eight full-time teams next year – four from Roush Fenway Racing and four from Richard Petty Motorsports as a result of RPM’s planned merger with Yates Racing.
“We do know that the negotiations are going very well with Yates Racing and RPM,” Wolfe said. “Both sides are very excited about the opportunities, but the final I’s dotted and T’s crossed has not been completed yet. All parties are working together – assuming that there are no real hard rocks in the road yet, so we’re just really excited about the opportunities going forward.”
