The use of hollow stem titanium intake valves is slowly beginning its reach into the drag racing community, as a few Top Fuel teams are taking on the use of these weight saving and power enhancing parts that are used in many other series. Sometimes it just takes the drag racers a bit longer to embrace newer technology, notes Tom Abbett, team manager and cylinder head specialist at Mike Ashley Racing. According Abbett, this type of intake valve significantly lightens the overall valvetrain...
Roy Johnson, engine builder for son Allen Johnson’s NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Pro Stock Dodge Stratus, lives to demolish the valve springs provided by Performance Springs, Inc. (PSI). “Valve springs are an ongoing problem for us. If I get a good spring, I can always find a way to tear it up by increasing the engine’s rpm and changing the cam lift velocity. The advances in materials and the heat treat processes that PSI has developed help but they can hardly keep...
The Pro Stock contingent of National Hot Rod Association Full Throttle Drag Racing competitors has always had a problem with pushrods: they just can’t find a way to stop them from burning up, particularly at the cap. For two years, Terry Manton of Manton Pushrods in Lake Elsinore, California has been working to find a solution to stop these burn-up difficulties. “It’s been two years worth of study and testing and nothing solved the problem until now. Those pushrod tips were...