Yes the 20 minute thing was a joke and picking on all mechanics including myself, more of a mechanic joke…
One word - ACCESS
That is only part of it…
Yes, there is a HUGE difference between a specialty built pushrod engine with no water pump (nitromethane fuel actually cools the engine), power steering pump, alt, etc and NO coolant in the engine to deal with, only oil (TF dragster uses a wet sump oiling system and a funny car runs a dry sump oiling system as I understand it) and fuel, then a DOHC V (4 cams) engine with chains and emission stuff all over it and coolant, oil, fuel to deal with… BUT make no mistake, TF engines are very complex in their own right…
Plus only one or two people are normally working on your Lexus etc engine while Race Teams are like ants working together and around each other in a controlled chaos with everything already prepped for install and all the tool and only the tools needed are laid out for the team…
Here is a timeline of a top fuel engine rebuild between rounds, they are given 75 minutes per NHRA rules between rounds to complete everything and be ready to move to staging lanes…
TIMELINE 00:00 - Car brought into pits; crew begins pulling carbon-fiber side panels00:30 - Tool organizer in place on top of driver’s 'cage; plug wires and fuel lines begin coming off01:00 - Ballistic covers off engine; clutch man has puke tank removed03:05 - Valve covers off05:00 - First wheel is off; oil pan is drained and removed06:00 - Blower off07:10 - First main cap comes off08:00 - Shaft-mounted rocker-arm system off heads08:15 - Cylinder heads off08:45 - First rod cap is off09:30 - First piston and rod assembly removed from engine; cylinder-head men begin checking cylinder bores as pistons come out10:00 - Bellhousing off11:15 - Final piston/rod assembly comes out; Miller begins replacing lower bearing shells in the main caps13:00 - Final clutch pieces come out14:15 - Lifters out17:00 - New clutch pack goes in17:20 - First of new piston/rod assemblies go back in19:05 - Last piston/rod installed; final main cap and bearing shell checked26:20 - Last main cap bolt torque’d29:00 - Bottom end buttoned up including pan31:20 - Head gaskets in place32:15 - First cylinder head in place35:00 - Pushrods installed35:30 - Rocker-arm assembly bolted down42:00 - Engine oil poured through lifter valley45:00 - Belt and pulley system installed50:30 - Intake manifold in place and checked for flatness54:30 - Blower placed on intake manifold55:00 - Blower belt in place, begin lashing valves60:00 - Valve covers on62:00 - Spark plugs in and wires on65:00 - Double-check motor before warm-up
Probably right. I was exaggerating the time to show how easy those fuel car engines are to work on and how hard it is to work on a V6 engine that’s transversely mounted in a very tight engine bay. Just to remove the back spark plugs is a few hour job. Even the front plugs takes a while because of the cover and all those buttons have to be removed.
Who said anything about warpage? Perhaps the head gasket was only seeping oil externally due to a gasket design flaw and a revised MLS gasket was released to correct the oil leak.
With direct injection engines, there’s even more possibilities. The head gasket failure referenced in the top post of this thread was for a diesel engine, uses direct injection of course. The gasket failed between a cylinder and the injector port.
That’s an interesting time sequence. I expect another part of the reason they are able to do that job so quickly is b/c there are several mechanics working in parallel, not a sole diy’er. Also, I don’t see any reference to having to deal w/ timing chain covers, so maybe part of the explanation why a it takes longer on a passenger car engine than a dragster. Do you know how the crankshaft/camshafts are synch’ed in these cars?
They are not removed as far as I know, the crankshaft and camshaft are the only 2 things (and associated parts) not removed during the rebuild… So no need for timing cover removal…
It is basically the same as your 50 yo Ford is, or most pushrod motors designs… I run a double roller on mine and always degree my cam… I would imagine TF engines probably run a gear drive system, they make them for your engine as well… Everything on a Top Fuel engine is custom designed for strength as they are based off the 2nd gen 426 ci Mopar engine, but NO parts will interchange…
Some roundy track racers will use a belt drive system so they can do much easier and quicker cam swaps for different length tracks, or a given racer may want to use a belt drive so they can retard/advance the cam timing to move the power up/down in the rpm range at the track or on the dyno for tuning as the timing cover is not required do to the belt cover…
Here are the 3 basic V6/8 pushrod engine timing chain, timing belt, timing gear drive designs…
No. The Suzuki Swift/Geo Metro/Chevrolet Metro 3-cylinder engine is SOHC with a timing belt. While I have never owned or worked on a Swift or Metro, I am not aware of any inline engine which uses a timing belt, and requires removal of the camshafts to pull the head.
The 3 cylinder is even easier to work on as there is a lot more space. You had the 4 cylinder G13 version. It is amazing how simple and reliable these little engines are. The most common killer is neglect which is an issue because people treated these as cheap disposable cars.
Someone gave me a 1996 3 cylinder Metro free. Better turn off the air conditioner when leaving a stop light or going up a hill because it felt like the AC used up half the 50 HP. My 93 Swift 4 cylinder was surprisingly fun to drive and got 50 MPG on the highway. My daughter said it was like a tin can on a skateboard.
My best childhood friend’s older brother bought a Fiat 500 in about 1970 to drive from suburban DC to Baltimore for college and later medical school. It was so slow that he drove on US1 so that he never had to go faster than 45 mph, and that was a good thing since it only exceed that speed going downhill.
The 3 cylinder 5 speed was amazingly fast for such an underpowered car but the autos cannot even get out of their own way. Yes, they feel like driving a street legal go-kart so that is kinda fun.
