Fuel injection in
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...
was introduced in 2012, having previously been announced for 2011, which was the last season to see the premier NASCAR series use
carburetion. Only the
Xfinity Series
The NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) is a stock car racing series organized by NASCAR. It is promoted as NASCAR's second-tier circuit to the organization's top level Cup Series. NXS events are frequently held as a support race on the day prior to a ...
uses carburetors through into 2021, with no announced change to injection.
Fuel injection technology has been found to be one of the most important technical advances in stock automobiles since NASCAR was founded in 1947.
[''NASCAR: Shift to fuel injection a quantum leap''](_blank)
at F1 Pulse People who like contemporary NASCAR racing are avid fans of technology; they are curious about how fuel injection affects the outcome of a typical NASCAR race. However, they must also placate the "traditional" NASCAR fan who has been watching NASCAR before the 1980s. While the sale of manual transmission vehicles would start to decline in the 1970s and plummet in the 1980s, NASCAR continued to hold a strict policy of only allowing manual transmission vehicles in the Sprint Cup Series to this very day.
Cars that compete in the NASCAR
Xfinity Series
The NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) is a stock car racing series organized by NASCAR. It is promoted as NASCAR's second-tier circuit to the organization's top level Cup Series. NXS events are frequently held as a support race on the day prior to a ...
(previously known as Nationwide Series) cars are powered by carburetors; in addition to trucks that compete in NASCAR's
Camping World Truck Series.
Summary
History
During the 1957 NASCAR Grand National season, president of NASCAR,
Bill France, Sr.
William Henry Getty France (September 26, 1909 – June 7, 1992), also known as Bill France Sr. or Big Bill, was an American businessman and racing driver. He is best known for founding and managing NASCAR, a sanctioning body of US-based stock ca ...
, immediately banned fuel injection from NASCAR. This ruling was in result to the dominance of the
1957 Chevrolet
The 1957 Chevrolet is a car that was introduced by Chevrolet in September 1956 for the 1957 model year. It was available in three series models: the upscale Bel Air, the mid-range Two-Ten, and the One-Fifty. A two-door station wagon, the N ...
.
General Motors did not offer many 1957 Chevrolet stock productions with
mechanical fuel injection
Fuel injection is the introduction of fuel in an internal combustion engine, most commonly automotive engines, by the means of an injector. This article focuses on fuel injection in reciprocating piston and Wankel rotary engines.
All comp ...
. However, enough were produced to allow it into NASCAR competition due to
homologation rules. This ban on fuel injection would continue into the 21st century.
Initially, NASCAR indicated that it would transition to fuel injection midway through the 2011 season.
They ultimately decided to delay the transition for one more year.
Starting in the
2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
The 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series was the 64th season of NASCAR professional stock car racing in the United States and the 41st modern-era Cup season. The season started on February 18, 2012, at Daytona International Speedway, with the Budweis ...
season,
carburetors have been officially replaced with fuel injection - making the technology legal after 55 years of being "outlawed.
[''NASCAR sets fuel injection for '12 but keeping restrictor plates''](_blank)
at USA Today[''NASCAR Moves to Fuel Injection, Bosch First Approved Supplier''](_blank)
at Auto Service World
at NASCAR.com" The first race in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series history to use fuel injection was the
2012 running of the traditionally carburetor-friendly
Daytona 500; which took take place on February 26.
The first series of tests that were applied to the new fuel injection system began on the Thursday practice prior to the
2011 Quaker State 400 race;
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was the fastest driver inside a fuel injection vehicle and Ford was the quickest vehicle.
Stock car racing technology had fallen behind the technology used in vehicles that are mass-produced for the general public. The reason behind this is that NASCAR didn't take advantage of fuel injection when fuel injected vehicles started to almost completely replace carburetor-powered vehicles during the late 1980s.
[''NASCAR teams get first look at fuel injection''](_blank)
at Yahoo Sports
Outside the NASCAR racing circuit, the American automobile manufacturers would make the final two models to run on carburetors: the 1990
Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser
The Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser is an automobile that was manufactured and marketed by Oldsmobile in three generations from 1971 until 1992. The first full-size station wagon produced by Oldsmobile since the 1964 Oldsmobile 88 Fiesta, the Custom ...
and the 1990
Buick Estate Wagon. Neither of these vehicles raced in NASCAR during the
1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1990 NASCAR Winston Cup Series was the 42nd season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 19th modern-era Cup Series. It began on Sunday, February 11, and ended on Sunday, November 18. Because of a highly controversial ...
season; Oldsmobile was represented by the
Cutlass Supreme model at the time while Buick was represented by the
Regal model. Brian Z. France has stated in a January 26, 2012 interview that "fuel injection will excite the automobile manufacturers and stimulates the technology companies"; making the stream of technological advances in NASCAR even stronger.
Purpose
![Injector3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Injector3.gif)
The fuel injection system that NASCAR will use in all future Sprint Cup Series races has been jointly developed by
McLaren Electronic Systems
McLaren Applied Limited is a British technology company that works in conjunction with companies such as GSK, NHS and more. Its electronic division, McLaren Electronics, manufactures parts such as engine temperature and pressure sensors for F ...
and
Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embe ...
; each team will have to pay $26,000 per vehicle for the conversion to fuel injection.
Its legacy in motorized vehicles dates all the way back to the 1980
Cadillac Eldorado
The Cadillac Eldorado is a luxury car manufactured and marketed by Cadillac from 1952 until 2002 over twelve generations.
The Eldorado was at or near the top of the Cadillac line. The original 1953 Eldorado convertible and the Eldorado Brougham ...
; which offered a primitive version of electronic fuel injection that is found in current Sprint Cup Series vehicles.
Personnel on all the racing teams will have to adjust to the new technology.
Restrictor plate
A restrictor plate or air restrictor is a device installed at the intake of an engine to limit its power. This kind of system is occasionally used in road vehicles (e.g., motorcycles) for insurance purposes, but mainly in automobile racing, to li ...
s, however, will remain in the series for an indefinite period of time
because major accidents at Daytona and Talladega made it necessary for a device to slow down the vehicles to half of their normal horsepower. Sprint Cup vehicles (powered using carburetors) can only go up to at a typical Daytona 500 race
while the NASCAR
Camping World Truck Series pickup trucks can do up to
and don't require restrictor plates. The fuel-injected NASCAR Sprint Cup vehicles may run slightly faster than their predecessors; also making new challenges for the restrictor plate manufacturers.
Fuel injection allows a precise amount of fuel to suit the amount of air flowing through the engine; making it more efficient.
Fuel injection is also used to regulate the
horsepower
Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...
rating of the stock cars; making the sport safer, providing for more fuel efficient vehicles, in addition to cleaning the environment for the spectators in and out of the race.
There are more than 150 different adjustments that Sprint Cup Series crew chiefs can make with fuel injection; as opposed to 24 different adjustments with a carburetor.
[''NASCAR Fuel Injection?''](_blank)
at Real Car Guys Engineers and mechanics that are employed in NASCAR will develop methods to keep the top speed of the vehicles at less than on the longest tracks of the circuit like
Talladega Superspeedway
Talladega Superspeedway, nicknamed “'Dega”, and formerly named Alabama International Motor Speedway (AIMS) from 1969 to 1989, is a motorsports complex located north of Talladega, Alabama. It is located on the former Anniston Air Force Base ...
and
Daytona International Speedway
Daytona International Speedway is a race track in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States. Since opening in 1959, it has been the home of the Daytona 500, the most prestigious race in NASCAR as well as its season opening event. In addition to NASC ...
.
The stock car racing organization will have a special authorization code that will keep hackers away from tampering with the vehicles using workaround programs.
Since the cars run on
Sunoco's Green
E15 fuel mixture, the new fuel delivery system will move the
Sprint Cup Series
The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the NASCAR, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, and from 1950 to 1970 it was known as the Grand National Division. ...
towards more
alternative fuel
Alternative fuel, known as non-conventional and advanced fuels, are any materials or substances that can be used as fuels, other than conventional fuels like; ''fossil fuels'' (petroleum (oil), coal, and natural gas), as well as nuclear materi ...
s.
All the sounds of the NASCAR stock cars are nearly identical to their carburetor-powered ancestors; the new vehicles even function the same as the "Gen 4" and "Gen 5" vehicles.
The ability to download information from the electronic units of the cars will play a role in the elimination of tandem drafting that has hampered NASCAR in recent years.
NASCAR Sprint Cup races can start in temperatures as low as without making the vehicles suffer through major engine problems.
[ NREL/TP-540-43543, ORNL/TM-2008/117] The leap into ethanol-based fuel is becoming as challenge as the
Early 2014 North American cold wave
The early 2014 North American cold wave was an extreme weather event that extended through the late winter months of the 2013–2014 winter season, and was also part of an unusually cold winter affecting parts of Canada and parts of the north-cen ...
has caused temperatures in much of the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
to drop below zero in the early hours of the morning.
One of the downsides of allowing 15% ethanol fuel is the big jump in corn prices in recent years. Even though the
2012 North American drought has made the production of ethanol too expensive to put on a nationwide scale, NASCAR continues to use E15 ethanol fuel as an alternative to their "E0" gasoline that was used in the past. Suggested measures by the NASCAR community could see NASCAR using either
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...
-based ethanol, E85 ethanol from surplus corn or even
compressed natural gas
Compressed natural gas (CNG) is a fuel gas mainly composed of methane (CH4), compressed to less than 1% of the volume it occupies at standard atmospheric pressure. It is stored and distributed in hard containers at a pressure of , usually in cy ...
in the foreseeable future.
[''Make NASCAR Mean Something''](_blank)
at Gas2.org
Approximately 75 psi of fuel pressure is created during the injection of fuel into the system; just slightly more pressure on the stock car than an over pressured tire on a standard bicycle.
On-track results
Brad Keselowski
Bradley Aaron Keselowski (; born February 12, 1984) is an American professional stock car racing driver, team owner, and entrepreneur. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 6 Ford Mustang for RFK Racing, a team he also ...
emerged as the first NASCAR Cup Series champion of the fuel injection era after the
2012 running of the
Ford 400
The Dixie Vodka 400 is a NASCAR Cup Series race held at Homestead–Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida. The inaugural race was held in 1999 and was the final race in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2002 until 2019, as well as the final race of the ...
at
Homestead-Miami Speedway in
Homestead
Homestead may refer to:
*Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses
* Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres
*Homestead principle, a legal concept t ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
; just as
Tony Stewart
Anthony Wayne Stewart (born May 20, 1971), nicknamed Smoke, is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver, current NASCAR team co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, and current co-owner of the Superstar Racing Experience. He is ...
was the last NASCAR Cup Series champion of the carburetor era. His first full season as a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver came in
2010; where he finished in 25th place in the overall championship standings.
The first win of a restrictor plate race during the fuel injection era would go to
Matt Kenseth
Matthew Roy Kenseth (born March 10, 1972) is an American former professional stock car racing driver. He drives the No. 8 car in the Superstar Racing Experience. (SRX)
Kenseth started racing on several short tracks in Wisconsin and won track cha ...
. Unfortunately, Kenseth simply could not keep the consistency to win any other restrictor plate race during the current fuel injection era.
Roger Penske
Roger Searle Penske (born February 20, 1937) is an American businessman and entrepreneur involved in professional auto racing and a retired professional auto racing driver. He is most famous for his ownership of Team Penske, DJR Team Penske, t ...
would become the first person to win the owner's championship while fielding cars with fuel injection.
Chevrolet has won the first manufacturer's championship of the fuel injection area; keeping their momentum going from the carburetor era of racing. Surprisingly enough,
Toyota
is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
has managed to produce a strong number of points in the 2012 manufacturer's standings; losing to Chevrolet by a mere 36 points.
Even with Toyota's overall success in the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, their vehicles picked up an incredible eight engine failures to neutralize the eight wins that they accumulated during the course of that season. Most of these wins in 2012 for Toyota were picked up by
Denny Hamlin
James Dennis Alan Hamlin (born November 18, 1980) is an American professional stock car racing driver and NASCAR team owner. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 11 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing. He co-owns and ope ...
. Not a single engine failure has yet been attributed to electronic fuel injection.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr. (born October 10, 1974) is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver, team owner, author, and an analyst for '' NASCAR on NBC''. He currently competes part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving ...
was responsible for accomplishing the one-millionth mile under fuel injection as he was leading lap 34 at the
2013 Bank of America 500
The 2013 Bank of America 500 was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race held on October 12, 2013, at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. Contested over 334 laps on the 1.5-mile (2.4 km) asphalt quad-oval, it was the thirty ...
.
After two full seasons of fuel injected engines, it is safe to say that the performance is on par if not better than their predecessor. Drivers can actually save more fuel under caution by shutting the car off as fuel injection takes far less fuel to restart. Teams can also make minute adjustments prior to the race in order to slightly detune the engine to a more fuel efficient setting. However, the change has further broadened the gap between top tier and underfunded teams as the latter cannot afford to hire a separate employee to monitor and adjust the settings while the former can.
References
{{NASCAR
NASCAR
Fuel injection systems