One series where engines see tumultuous life is the World of Outlaws winged sprint car campaign in the US, with 60 contests coast to coast that keep competitors far away from their engine builders - sometimes for a month or more.

So to help their customers in the field, Shaver Specialties Racing Engines (SSRE) of Torrance, California, chooses a robust Mahle Motorsports piston of 2618 alloy that’s coated with phosphate; skirts are coated with Mahle Read more…

When General Motors got out of the National Hot Rod Association’s (NHRA) Pro Stock division a couple of years ago, it left behind a multitude of competitors using two of its engines in competition. The DRCE3 engine, newer than the DRCE2, has been the mainstay block-and-cylinder head combination for Warren Johnson Enterprises for the past five years.

Johnson himself, who with his son Kurt builds engines for their two-car operation, is known as ‘The Professor’ for his meticulous and methodical work patterns, as well as Read more…

Dan Esslinger, President of Esslinger Engineering has been building Midget engines since 1990 - “So I guess we’re 20-ish years into this thing,” he says. In that time, Esslinger Engineering has gone through perhaps 30 iterations of pistons, “That’s been due to bore size change, different strokes, different rod lengths, valve locations, things of that ilk,” he says. “If you change one, it all changes.

“Typically we use JE three-ring pistons because they are local (less than an hour away from Esslinger’s shop) and they do an outstanding job. They work with us and turn stuff around in a hurry. We’ve found they make fewer mistakes than we do! Sometimes we ask for things we shouldn’t and they (the pistons) get stuck in engineering that way. JE generally gives us what we ask,” Esslinger says. Read more…

Getting long life from a racing piston that is subjected to 8000 hp is not easy. Every trip down the 1000-foot dragstrip used by NHRA’s Full Throttle Drag Racing Series means a modicum of damage to an engine and, with the pistons, damage is a way of life.

John Stewart, tuner and crew chief for sophomore Top Fuel racer Shawn Langdon, has a great deal of experience in the sport, which makes him a perfect choice to take care of a newcomer like Langdon. Read more…

When Honda Performance Development (HPD) began plans to enter the Indy Racing League in 2003 with the Honda Indy V8, it built an engine that would have a service life of 600 miles, made to last from Carburetion Day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway through the Indianapolis 500.

Much has changed since then, as HPD became sole engine supplier in the 2006 IndyCar Series season. Now the engines have a service life of 1400 race miles or 1600 absolute miles, as Roger Griffiths, Read more…

The colours may have changed from red to blue (Budweiser to Copart) at Kenny Bernstein Racing, but the objective never alters. The objective is to build bullet-proof engines that can go down the 1000-foot dragstrip quicker and faster than the car in the other lane.

For co-crew chiefs Rob Flynn, Mike Guger and Todd Smith (who came over from Don Prudhomme’s Snake Racing after that outfit closed operations at the end of the 2009 season), the objective is to fit the strongest piston available. Read more…

Toyota Racing Development’s MAHLE Motorsports pistons are somewhat similar to the 2618 material typically used in NASCAR Sprint Cup applications, according to Brad Green at MAHLE’s Fletcher, North Carolina American headquarters. As TRD continues to try and gain performance edges while having to deal with shrinking budgets - as everyone does these days - using exotic materials just isn’t the route to take.

Still, according to David Currier, TRD’s vice Read more…

One benefit to building a maximum 510-cubic inch big block Chevrolet engine for American Power Boat Association (APBA) offshore racing, is the cooling. Because cold water constantly throbs through the block and cylinder head, there is very little fall-off in performance and very little micro welding in the ring lands to deal with.

According to Stewart Van Dyne II and Stewart Van Dyne III (Tres) of Van Dyne Engineering in Huntington Beach, California, “We tend to like pistons with longer pins and thicker walled pins because they help Read more…

When it comes to prepping pistons for their NHRA Top Fuel rail, Don Schumacher Racing’s Antron Brown-driven team relies on co-tuner Rob Wendland. This year, the team led the ‘regular season’ of 18 races and finished third in the point standings, 49 behind six-time consecutive champion (and teammate) Tony Schumacher.

Wendland said the team uses a variety of pistons, depending on the nature of the circuit. Their primary choice is a hard anodized JE piston, “Because they provide excellent customer service. Read more…

Keeping a piston’s top ring land from experiencing critical wear is a problem that every engine builder experiences, particularly in the hard fought world of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition. Dr Andrew Randolph of Earnhardt Childress Racing (ECR) Engines has worked endlessly to remedy the problem.

“As rings get closer and closer to the top of the piston, they get so hot that the aluminium melts and adheres to the piston. Not long after that, the piston begins to fail.” What Randolph and ECR have done to circumvent this Read more…