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Look guys, we've beaten this up long enough now.
I've talked about all of these things with many, many folks, both racers, directors and the national office. The result is what you have in the rules.
I have yet to get our 4 Texas AI/CMC Directors and the TX Tech guys together to discuss 2007. Trust me, we'll have plenty of communications before and during January and get something out to y'all as to how "the new norm" is going to be.
First, we've got to get better at routine tech-ing the basic things before we even start to worry about the notion of "teardowns".
So suffice to say, that CMC was never a teardown class and still isn't a teardown class! If the routine inspections reveal irregularities, we may need to look into it further. Let's just work on getting the routine inspections accomplished first, ok?
....to be continued....
-=- Todd
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seriously. i'm not gonna do the bickering thing here. if you think "da man" is out to get you, use your CMC racing money to get meds or professional help. if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Tony was very clear @ Nationals that no teardown would happen as long as he was in charge of CMC.
i do think that IF (thats a big fucking IF) a teardown is done in ANY form and nothing is found and the re-assymbly will cost you money, NASA should foot the bill. no reason to collect the $25 protest fee and not hand it over to the racer if no issue if found. my personal thoughts as a racer, not an Assistant Director.
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OK looking from the outside in (and feel free to tell me to STFU if you think its a problem...)
Anytime you have a series with a restrictive rule set like CMC, officials have to be vigilant to ensure that the rules are being obeyed. Stock engine internals? You HAVE to be able to verify that. Unmodified factory heads? Again, it must be verified, and that means an engine teardown. I really don't think there's any other way to verify the legailty of the parts.
Let's say I had a rebuilt motor using factory innards and GT40 heads. If I knew the engine would never be torn down by series officials, I'd make damn sure the motor had as much stroke as possible, bored out as much as reasonable, using an offset-ground crankshaft, modified rods, and perhaps custom pistons.
I'd also make damned sure that the heads were milled to bump the compression ratio a bit too. And that the intake was milled to mate well with the modified heads.
How can you check any of that without a teardown?
Build it up and tune the motor to make the exact power you want, with a nice, flat power curve.
If you start winning too many races, and folks get suspicious, show folks your technically legal dyno pull and let 'em poke around the outside of the engine all they want. They won't know anything about the boring, the stroking, or the high-compression heads.
Hell, you could even put in a forged crank, lightweight rods & pistons, and other neat stuff to maybe spin the motor a little higher.
IMHO, teardowns are the only way to tell if the engine's innards are within the letter of the law.
I see two alternatives to this. You could do ONE teardown of the motor, verify it, and then seal it (NASCAR seals their engines, as does other spec series.) If the engine is ever opened up for service or repair, then the seals are broken and the engine must be re-inspected, and re-sealed.
On the other hand, you could simply require CMC cars to purchase a spec motor (or perhaps longblock,) from an approved vendor. Again, this is common for many spec series.
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All good points, Robert, but just not what CMC is about.
I think we need to start a new thread because this one got pretty far away from "40 minute races for 2007". See my "dyno sheet" post which is another way to ensure compliance.
I'm sure there's a fancy way to split the thread and do some other stuff, but I'm just going to lock it so we don't get too far away from the beaten path.
-=- Todd
