Well, lemme tell ya somethin’ about them NASCAR cars and their engines. You see them cars, they go zoom zoom, real fast, like a chicken with its head cut off! And you know what makes ’em go so fast? It’s the engine, that’s what! Now, you asked about Ford, what engine do they use in NASCAR?
Ford, they got this thing called Roush-Yates Engines. Sounds fancy, huh? It’s like a big name for a big engine maker. They make engines just for Ford, you see. And they make a whole heap of ’em, more than you can shake a stick at! They say they build over 900 engines every year. That’s a lot of engines! They got a big ol’ place, bigger than my whole farm, just for makin’ these engines. It’s down in a place called Mooresville, in North Carolina.
Now, this fella, Doug, his daddy used to be in racin’. But his daddy, Robert, he quit racin’ a while back. So Doug, he took over the whole shebang. He’s the big cheese now, runnin’ the whole thing.
These NASCAR folks, they got rules, you know. Like my chickens gotta stay in the coop, these cars gotta have a certain kind of engine. They all gotta use a V-8 engine. And it’s gotta be a certain size, 358 cubic inches. Don’t ask me what that means, it’s just a big engine, that’s all you need to know. Bigger than the one in my old pickup truck, that’s for sure! And they use somethin’ called a pushrod engine. I heard it allows for more airflow. More air, more zoom, I guess! It has something to do with these pushrods running into the engine. Sounds complicated to me. They also use rocker arms in the heads, which is what the pushrods push on.
Ford, they got this special engine, they call it the FR9. It’s a good one, they say. It’s got fuel injection, just like some of them newfangled cars. All the Ford teams in that Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, they all use this FR9.
- Ford uses Roush-Yates Engines
- V-8 engine, 358 cubic inches
- Pushrod engine
- FR9 engine with fuel injection
- Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
They started usin’ this engine in NASCAR back in 2012. Before that, they had another FR9 but it used a carburetor. I remember those carburetors. You had to pump the gas pedal a few times to get them old engines started. This new one doesn’t have that. The carburetor one started being used in 2009.
Now, not all them NASCAR cars use the same engine, you know. It’s like havin’ different kinds of seeds for your garden. They got three different kinds of engines they use: Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota. Each team, they pick the one they like best, I reckon.
This one team, Joe Gibbs Racing, they even made a video about it. I seen it once. Showed all the ins and outs of these engines. It’s a whole lot more complicated than fixin’ a leaky faucet, I can tell you that.
So, there you have it. That’s what I know about Ford engines in NASCAR. They use that Roush-Yates, they got that FR9, and it’s a V-8, 358 cubic inches, fuel-injected, pushrod engine.
It’s all a bit much for this old lady, but them young folks, they seem to like it. They like them fast cars and them loud engines. Me, I’m happy with my old tractor. It may not be fast, but it gets the job done. And that’s all that matters, ain’t it? Them cars are like a swarm of angry bees, buzzing around that track. But hey, as long as they’re havin’ fun, that’s all that counts, right? I still prefer a good ol’ fashioned horse race, but that’s just me.
And one more thing, don’t you go thinkin’ you can just slap any old engine in a NASCAR car. Oh no, they got rules about that, stricter than my mama’s rules about eatin’ your vegetables. They gotta be just right, or you ain’t racin’. It’s like tryin’ to fit a square peg in a round hole, it just ain’t gonna work. They gotta be inspected, measured, and all that rigmarole. It’s a whole production, I tell ya.
Well, I reckon that’s about all I got to say on the matter. Hope you learned somethin’ today. I’m gonna go sit on the porch and watch the sun go down. Maybe I’ll see a car go by, but it won’t be no NASCAR car, that’s for sure!
