Finding the right valve springs for an inline four-cylinder USAC National Midget engine that makes upwards of 365 hp at the wheels could be a difficult procedure. But, says Erik Milholland, manager of the racing division at Kentucky-based Stanton Racing, “In the last couple of years we’ve found some really good springs.”

Stanton Racing fields both Mopar and Toyota Midgets in USAC competition. The company took over the build and rebuild procedures for California-based Toyota Racing Read more…

Larry Morgan is the only driver in NHRA Pro Stock professional racing to have campaigned a Ford Mustang throughout the 2011 Full Throttle Drag Racing Series season. Although he came close, he didn’t make the play-off Countdown to One.

He’s developed the Ford’s engine throughout last year and into this, and the major problem he’s had with his engine is valve springs. Like most Pro Stock entrants, Read more…

Garrett Jacobson Motorsports in Northridge, California, is a full service engine-building ’shop that is in the midst of constructing a former Roush Yates Engines Ford C-3 V8 for use in its regional K&N Series NASCAR West series on the West Coast of the US.

The K&N Series travels to circuits around the coastal area and, like many in the NASCAR regional fold, accepts both ’spec’ (crate) and ‘open’ engines for competition. In Read more…

John Force Racing (JFR) is one of the most successful Funny Car teams in the history of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series. Understanding that multiple team cars on the track results in successfully shared technology, JFR this year is competing with three drivers - John Force, Robert Hight and Mike Neff. There would have been four, but daughter Ashley Force Hood is taking the year away from competition to give birth to her first child. Read more…

Who could imagine using the same set of valve springs for more than two years in a nitrous-infused 565 cu in V8 engine that competes in the quarter-mile on water?

Wayne Gaskamp has been able to accomplish just that with his 1800-plus hp engine that propels Mike DeClark’s F Bomb drag boat in two categories of National Jet Boat Association (NJBA) competition, the seven-second and unblown fuel jet classes. Read more…

Containing a valvetrain that works with a four-cylinder, heavily boosted engine that develops more than 1000 hp should be a difficult enterprise, but Time Attack factory Scion (Toyota) team WORLD Racing is having no problems with its steel coil valve springs.

Time Attack, which is a form of American road racing where the car-driver tandem compete for a time slip is “a bit of road racing with a bit of a drag racing element to Read more…

How much valve spring does an engine tuner need to propel 8000 hp down a 1000 ft dragstrip? Is it best to use titanium, or is steel sufficient? And are two springs best, or should there be three?

For Bob Vandergriff Jr’s C&J Energy Services National Hot Rod Association Top Fuel dragster, this year competing full-time in the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series of 22 events, the choices are predicated on a change to the set-up configuration for the 2011 season. Read more…

Working with a production engine and increasing the stroke on it can often lead to problems in the valvetrain. That hasn’t been the case for Rhys Millen Motorsports (RMR), who decided - with four months to spare - that it would build up a Hyundai Lambda V6 from 3.8 to nearly 4.1 litres and install a single turbocharger for the 2010 Pikes Peak Hillclimb.

By the time the engine was completed it developed 698 hp and 670 lb-ft of torque. “When we were running the Read more…

In the destructive world of NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Funny Car competition, few parts take more of a beating than valve springs. “What kills them is going up and down 8000 times a minute uncompressed, as close as we can get them,” says Jim Dunn, who runs his eponymous Funny Car race team from a small workshop in South Gate, California.

Dunn is pretty much of a throwback to the earlier days of straight-line competition, a man who prefers not to Read more…

Getting valve springs to live in a World of Outlaws sprint car engine - one that is 408-410 cu in and makes 850 hp (with more than 700 lb-ft torque at 6300 rpm) - is one of engine building’s black arts. At Shaver Specialties Racing Engines (SSRE) in Torrance, California, the challenge is to overcome the “voodoo of valve spring breakage,” according to Dennis Hardesty, right-hand man to owner Ron Shaver.

“For the past year-and-a-half, the majority of our racing Read more…