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CUP: Under The Hood - Fuel Injection Will Help NASCAR’s Green Movement
After using carburetors since its first season of competition in 1948, NASCAR is looking at a major change with the introduction of fuel injection...
SPEED Staff  |  Posted September 03, 2010   Charlotte, NC
“Under The Hood Presented by Quaker State” is a series of behind-the-scenes articles about Hendrick Motorsports.
Editor’s note: “Under The Hood Presented by Quaker State” is a series of behind-the-scenes looks at what Hendrick Motrosports does to remain at the front of the hyper-competitive world of NASCAR Sprint Cup racing. This week, Jeff Andrews, Director of Engine Development at Hendrick Motorsports, talks about adapting fuel injection to Sprint Cup engine packages.

After using carburetors since its first season of competition in 1948, NASCAR is looking at a major change with the introduction of fuel injection into the Sprint Cup Series, perhaps as early as 2011.

Fuel injection, which comes in many forms and formats, is a much more sophisticated way to deliver the air-fuel mixture that powers the 800-horsepower, 358-cubic-inch engines under the hood of all four Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR Sprint Cup cars.

Switching from carburetors to fuel injection would result in better economy and fewer exhaust emissions for NASCAR Sprint Cup cars under race conditions. Today, virtually every passenger car in America uses fuel injection, controlled by a series of sensors and a computerized control system that optimizes fuel delivery.

To date, NASCAR officials have not announced a specific timetable for the introduction of fuel injection, nor have they decided on the parameters for such as switchover. But going green is a clear priority for NASCAR.

“The east part is to just build the fuel injection system,” NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said earlier this year. “The thing that we need to put in plays is how we are going to regulate it and what’s going to be fair for everybody.”
Ron Dennis, executive chairman of McLaren Automotive, is hoping one of his companies becomes the fuel injection supplier for NASCAR. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

At last month’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, former McLaren Formula 1 team principal Ron Dennis met with NASCAR officials and team owners, pitching his McLaren Electronics as the vendor of choice if and when NASCAR converts from carburetors to fuel injection. McLaren Electronics already supplies similar systems used by all teams in Formula 1 and the IZOD IndyCar Series.

During that same weekend, NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France sounded his support for the high-tech method of fuel delivery. “There's no question that fuel injection is something we'll evolve to in the short run and we will move toward other technology .... (that is) affordable and sensible,” said France.

And certainly the engine department and the entire Hendrick Motorsports organization supports the change to more efficient and more ecologically sound fuel delivery.

“I think it’s an exciting time for our sport to engage in that level of advanced technology, such as fuel injection,” says Jeff Andrews, Director of Engine Development at Hendrick Motorsports.

Of course, adapting a new fuel delivery systems isn’t as simply as unbolting a carburetor and bolting on a set of fuel injectors. For the championship team at Hendrick Motorsports, fuel injection will become an ongoing work in progress, as have other recent innovations such as NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow and this year, the replacement of the rear wing with a more traditional blade spoiler.

Still, the vast resources of Hendrick Motorsports and the depth of its engineering department will be an asset as the project is rolled out. “I think for us, it will naturally require some more development time and developments costs, as it will for everybody.”

The engine shop at Hendrick Motorsports is one of the very best in the world, employing more than 80 specialists. The shop builds more than 700 NASCAR racing engines per year for the team’s four cars, as well those of Stewart-Haas Racing and for some NASCAR Nationwide Series operations.

According to Andrews, one of the myriad benefits of fuel injection is that it will bring Sprint Cup cars more in line with what the vast majority of people drive in the United States.

“But in the long run, great sponsors that we have such as Quaker State, when they can take that engine and that package, and relate that technology level better to their customer — as can NASCAR and all its sponsors — I think that’s a good direction,” says Andrews.

Read more... “Under The Hood Presented by Quaker State”
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