NASCAR WCUP: Dodge Intrepid R/T Engine Receives NASCAR Approval
7 November 2000
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Dodge Motorsports today reached another milestone in its return to Winston Cup Racing with the approval by NASCAR of the engine for its Dodge Intrepid R/T race car.
"In our 500-day countdown to the 2001 Daytona 500, the approval of the engine was clearly one of the major milestones for our development team, our race teams and our more than 3,000 Dodge dealers," said Lou Patane, Vice President of Motorsports Operations and Mopar Performance Parts. "We have had great initial results from this engine during our more than 3,000 miles of testing. Now, we can continue developing the performance of the engine and work with our five Dodge teams to get these engines ready for competition."
Dodge Motorsports presented engine parts to NASCAR for approval on September 27, including cylinder block, heads and three intake manifolds, along with other Dodge engine parts such as the water manifold, head gasket, water pump and fuel pump.
The 358 cubic inch V-8 Dodge Magnum engine features an open deck and a deep skirt for high-powered performance. Termed the R5-P7 engine, it is the new millennium's first addition to the Dodge Magnum family of engines designed and produced for racing by Dodge Motorsports.
"What's unique about this engine is that we started with a clean sheet of paper 300 days ago and now we are ready to go racing," said Tim Culbertson, Program Manager, Dodge Winston Cup Engineering. "The teams asked for three things in the engine design -- lots of power, durability and low-cost operation. With this engine, we've given them just that - a reliable engine that has the horsepower to win."
For Ray Evernham, Dodge team owner and leader of the development effort, approval of the engine was the final hurdle between Dodge and the Daytona 500.
"We are now one step closer to the green flag," said Evernham. "With our engine and body approved, the teams can focus on building and testing their cars for next season. We still have a lot of work to do. We learned a lot in our recent test at Talladega and need to put that information to work to make sure we bring the right race car to Daytona next February."
While the Dodge engine is unique, the approach Dodge took to develop it is unheard of in motorsports. Dodge combined the resources of Dodge and its engineering team with the expertise of its race teams - Evernham Motorsports, Bill Davis Racing, Petty Enterprises, Melling Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates - to design and develop a new race car. The unorthodox approach has proved successful in building a safe, fast and reliable race car in less than 500 days. Much of the design work was completed at the DaimlerChrysler Technology Center in Auburn Hills, Mich., then shared with teams via T1 computer connections, creating a virtual race shop where the engineers and teams could collaborate in real time even though they were thousands of miles apart.
"There is no way we could have made this much progress this fast if it wasn't for the one-team approach," added Culbertson. "We started out with guidelines from NASCAR, then began gathering information from the development teams. By working together -- using our teams' racing expertise and the technology and resources of DaimlerChrysler - we were able to move very quickly in the development. We finalized the design in December, finished castings in February, ran the engine on the dyno in late May and conducted our first on-track test in June."
Ted Flack, Manager, NASCAR Engine Programs, Dodge Engineering, noted that the Dodge Intrepid R/T Winston Cup engine is designed for exact casting. It has a casting process that should allow for superior consistency from piece to piece and increased structure for improved durability. Dodge has incorporated many features to aid in assembly to save the teams time, money and effort.
Dodge and the development teams turned to the computer to design the Dodge parts for the new engine. They used a variety of hardware and software throughout the development process including:
* CATIA CAD/CAM/CAE software was used to design Dodge parts for the Winston Cup engine. In addition to meeting NASCAR specifications, this design step incorporated into the engine several elements that have typically been added to the engine with costly and time consuming post mold fabrication.
* DaimlerChrysler Data Visualizer (DCDV) software enabled engineers to convert CATIA design into an open screen picture of the assembled engine. Engineers are able to pull up a full view of the entire racecar on their computer screens, turn it completely around, look inside and check the clearance between parts.
* Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) software was used to test engine performance in the computer before a single model was made. CFD allowed engineers to track the flow of air and fuel through the intake manifold and the flow of oil and water through the block and head.
* Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) was used to create the first physical model of the engine block. Operating like a computer controlled hot melt glue gun, FDM builds a scale model block by fusing layers of 10-thousandths-of-an-inch thick ABS polymer.
* Several parts were modeled with the Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM) process. LOM builds a model by cutting and fusing four-thousandths-of-an-inch thick layers of paper. Because the edges of the paper are brown from laser beam cutting, the finished model looks like it was carved from wood.
"Everything we've learned in decades of racing and building cars for consumers was used to develop the engine for the Dodge Intrepid R/T," said Flack.
Dodge will make its debut in NASCAR Winston Cup racing at the 2001 Daytona 500 with five teams and 10 race cars. The teams include Evernham Motorsports, with Bill Elliott and Casey Atwood; Bill Davis Racing with Ward Burton and Dave Blaney; Petty Enterprises with Kyle Petty, John Andretti and Buckshot Jones; Melling Racing with Stacy Compton; and Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates with Sterling Marlin.
Text provided by Molly N. Morter
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