How to understand NASCAR "Engine Bore"

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By pitroadtoad
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Article Rating: (10 Ratings)

The professor displays an actual NASCAR engine block with the cylinders as well as the “cylinder bore” clearly visible.

Have you ever wondered what makes a NASCAR racer go 200 MPH? It starts with the engine. The engine starts with the engine cylinder block, or engine block. Usually these cast iron components are simply referred to as the “block”!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Time to read, and a desire to learn about NASCAR!

Step 1

Think about your own car... and its engine when you began reading this explanation...

This is the first part of a series to be published on ehow, and I will now address the ENGINE BLOCK.

The Engine Block, or Piston Engine Cylinder Block is the first and main component needed in the assembly of a V-8 engine. These metal castings provide the physical configuration for the term V-8. That configuration being that two opposing halves of the block each containing four cylinders is arranged so that the bore angle for each half makes a “V” when viewed from the back or front in blueprints. This angle is generally 90 degrees.

The NASCAR Race Teams all receive their cast iron engine blocks, and cylinder heads from their respective automotive sponsor. Example: Hendrick Motorsports is a Chevrolet sponsored team... thus all of their engine blocks, and cylinder heads are provided by Chevrolet. All other manufactures... Ford, Dodge, and Toyota, all do the same for their teams.
Step 2

Imagine the engineering, and machining that it takes to move your modern car forward, and through traffic.

These NASCAR engine blocks are based on engines designed in the 1960’s during the muscle car era. NASCAR has imposed a 358.000 cubic inch displacement limit on all of these engines.

Now... to understand displacement... you must first consider that there are eight cylinder bores in the block. The displacement is directly related to the volume of each cylinder on a multiple of eight. This is where cylinder bore comes into play... to be within the rules the bore may not exceed 4.185 inches. The bore is the inside diameter of each cylinder (See cartoon). Another contributing factor to displacement is stroke. Stroke is the distance the piston actually travels up and down in each cylinder. NASCAR limits this to 3.25 inches.
Step 3

The TOAD with a NASCAR motor! Double click to enlarge!

Consider the “Engine Block” as the main component in any internal combustion engine. It is the mechanical basis that your horsepower will come from.

Without going into the math... bore, stroke, and number of cylinders are the definitive elements in this equation.

The TOAD has expressed a desire to simplify some of this stuff in future articles so, he will address “bore” in this one and save more information for later.

As you will observe above... Professor P.R. TOAD demonstrates the physics and components of a typical NASCAR V-8 engine!

Comments

tessieann said

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on 12/1/2009 well written - very creative "pitroadtoad"! 5*

Aristotleshand said

on 11/29/2009 This article gives plenty of information on engine blocks in general not only NASCAR even though it's their bread and butter. Great job 5* rating.