Raconteur
Nitro Member
332 MPH = Money + New Cylinder Heads for DSR & JFR!
New DSR & JFR Cylinder Heads (1 Viewer)
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d'kid
Nitro Member
What's the "street price" off a set of JFR or DSR Heads? JFR or DSR in house blower?
This ain't Saturday Night Hobby stock at the dirt track.... and Not every thing is for sell,no matter the price....
d'kid
FWIW, I think JFR and DSR making their own heads is not only a performance advantage, but a cost cutter. Odd as it may seem, as a CNC programmer/machinist, I'll bet they can churn out a pair of heads fairly cheaply compared to buying them every time they poop a motor. I remember getting an up-close view of Tony Scumacher's heads a few years ago and thinking how smart it was for them to make them themselves. But I agree it's not really fair to the lesser teams that don't have their own machine shop in house.
It is a balance, I guess.
I love to see technical development but I hate to see fields reduced or good teams marginalized due to the sheer dollar-power of larger teams.
It happens in all fields of professional motorsport and I don't think anyone has come up with an answer.
This episode shows that one of the popular options ('spec. engine') is still tilted in favour of top $ teams. This has been proven many times in the past.
Do I have an answer? No.
I love to see technical development but I hate to see fields reduced or good teams marginalized due to the sheer dollar-power of larger teams.
It happens in all fields of professional motorsport and I don't think anyone has come up with an answer.
This episode shows that one of the popular options ('spec. engine') is still tilted in favour of top $ teams. This has been proven many times in the past.
Do I have an answer? No.
Nitrohelper
Nitro Member
I just priced a complete set of ready to run AJ heads with a manifold for a nostalgia owner at a little over $11,000.00 --- billet 14:71 blowers are about the same amount ...
That kind of proves my price point. Once a set of heads is perfected and the program is done, the head itself could be made very cheaply. A new 5-axis Haas CNC machine is something near $100-$140K, it takes maybe 10-20 hrs (just a guess) to carve a set of heads from maybe $1,000 or so billet of 6061 aluminum and it'll makes heads for 30 years (the life expectancy of the machine). It wouldn't take long at all to recoup that investment, plus nobody else would have access to your head development.
There is no mark up or labour charge when you are making it for yourself, when you bring a service in house then you no longer have to pay someone else or be effected by someone else schedule. You can also make changes at a wim especially with cnc if you are designing everything in house.
That's the whole point of making it yourself. While $150K for a CNC machine might seem out of reach to us mere mortals, it's actually a bargain for teams that realize the potential. Like I said before, I program and operate a CNC machine center and it has paid for itself many, many times over in just versatility and speed of making those "gotta have it NOW" parts. Imagine if you were Don Schumacher and laying out several thousand bucks for several sets of heads for every nitro team you have. Then every time there's a new evolution of the head, you get to pay full retail and wait gawd-knows-how-long for delivery. Or, your engine guru could wander on over to your programmer, have him make the tweaks you need and have a set of heads modified or produced from scratch in a couple days. for just the cost of raw material. You would already have the machine, tooling and software, so maybe you have $1,000 in material, a couple hundred (or less) in fresh inserts and a few hundred in programmer labor. You and I couldn't buy off the shelf heads for our street car for what it likely costs a big team to make billet heads for their nitro cars. I honestly don't know how anyone could hope to stay competitive today without a CNC mill at their shop.
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Here's a neat example of what I mean. Chunk of material in- billet block out. Once the check is written for the machine, each successive block gets that much cheaper.
Matsuura Maxia: V8 Engine Block Machined From Solid - YouTube
Matsuura Maxia: V8 Engine Block Machined From Solid - YouTube
I wonder kind of software is used to programs these things. That has got to be one sweet piece of software. I work for a company that makes CAD and FEA software, so I am familiar with complicated software, but I think this is one step above what we do, taking a CAD file and programming a sequence of material and tool movements. The developers of this software must be very spatially oriented thinkers.
StockersRock
Nitro Member
Mastercam CAD/CAM software - NC programming software for 2 axis, 3 axis, simultaneous 4 axis & 5 axis milling, multi axis lathe, live tooling, Wire EDM and routers.
Huge racing, especially drag racing, fans. They sponsor Sean Bellemeur, and have been involved with Jim Cunningham and JFR. I have some friends that work for them, they're just a few miles from where I live.
That's a sweet piece of software... Glad to know they are drag racing fans.
The impressive thing about MasterCam (or any CAM software) is that it produces a computer code from the drawing that the machine can understand. When I learned code generation, we had to manually write programs for simple parts such as a simple square, which would have maybe ten lines of code. One movement of the tool or table is one line of code. I have done many programs with MasterCam that have 500,000 lines of code or maybe more. I remember one program that was so long it took 3 hours just to load to the machine. Try explaining THAT to your boss sometime.
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sammi
Nitro Member
After taking a Mastercam class at the local JC (oldest dude in the class by 30 years....), I can see how this would be an invaluable tool for any team that wants to separate themselves from the field. You really would not believe how deep the program is. I've used it to make parts for my little bracket dragster. Couple Mastercam with Solid Works and.... one smart guy+one Mastercam guy+one Haas mill = big check at the end of the season.
If JFR, DSR and AJPE are deeply into these technologies, their really is no practical way to beat them, unless they beat themselves.
If JFR, DSR and AJPE are deeply into these technologies, their really is no practical way to beat them, unless they beat themselves.
Another thing that DSR is doing is making their own rods. I read this
somewhere, but I can't remember where, so I don't have a reference
for you. Anyway, I am guessing they have their own forge, too. That,
or someone forges the rods and DSR does the final machining.
What's next, teams making their own cranks? I mean, the very well
funded teams go through cranks pretty quickly and at 5 - 6K a pop,
that adds up to a hefty sum.
somewhere, but I can't remember where, so I don't have a reference
for you. Anyway, I am guessing they have their own forge, too. That,
or someone forges the rods and DSR does the final machining.
What's next, teams making their own cranks? I mean, the very well
funded teams go through cranks pretty quickly and at 5 - 6K a pop,
that adds up to a hefty sum.
Since we are talking about software and cylinder heads, I wonder if they flow cylinder heads the old way or if they use CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software to simulate the flow. I don't think this matters as much for TF as it does for pro stock, but in any case, better to reiterate the part design based on simulations than to keep building new heads for every tweak that is done.
Student of the sport
Nitro Member
Mastercam X6 here too, designed parts in solids, rocker arms have several thousand lines of code, I couldn't do the work I do without it!!
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