NASCAR Announces Fuel Injection Move, Partners With McLaren

NASCAR officially announced it would begin using fuel injection systems instead of carburetors in 2012, thus eliminating a car part that was part of the automotive stone age.

In doing so, NASCAR partnered with the McLaren Electronic Systems of Formula One fame. But what the heck does it mean?

A few highlights:

– The new fuel injection technology will be “greener” by providing better fuel economy to the cars. Teams will get better fuel mileage at tracks, depending on the size and number of cautions.

– The technology will be “bulletproof,” “cheat-proof” and “tamper-proof” because it requires a NASCAR-approved code to operate.

– Fans won’t see much a difference in the racing, though other new technology may eventually help eliminate restrictor-plates. One notable item is fans may not see the flames shootout out of the cars as much in the corners, as that comes from extra fuel that needs to be burned off.

And if you’re as ignorant about how engines work as I am, here’s McLaren’s Peter van Manen to explain the technology in layman’s terms:

”If you think as the engine as an air pump, the amount of air you put into the engine determines what fuel you can put in. What fuel injection does is it allows you to put the precise amount of fuel in at the right time to suit the amount of air going into the engine.

The difference between a fuel injection system and a carburetor is that with a carburetor, you set up the optimum amount of fueling for a specific point in the engine cycle. So at that specific point, there were would be a certain load and a certain engine speed where the carburetor and the fuel injection would be very similar.

As you go outside that range, the fuel injection system could be optimized for all (circumstances). The way you would have to set up a carburetor system to get power over the complete speed range of an engine is to waste fuel when you’re away from the optimum point.

With the fuel injection system, you’ll be able to optimize for all points and ranges of the engine. So you’ll generate the most torque and the most power with the best fuel economy.”

If you got through that, you probably learned something today. But you won’t see much more coverage of fuel injection technology in NASCAR unless something goes wrong during a race.