Ford NASCAR Engines Evolution Explained! 30 Years of Roush Yates Horsepower (C3 D3 FR9)

a lot of our recent videos we've talked about and showing the Ford C3 NASCAR engine the evolution of Ford's engines that are used in NASCAR will be explained right here at RFK racing my name is Jeff Clark Executive Vice President Rousey's engines route sheets manufacturing Solutions today we're here talking about the origination of the engines and the evolvement of how they went from what was the C3 head back in the early 90s Robert Yates was very well known for the power he was making NASCAR approached him to basically get consistent with all four teams they won Robert Gates to share his design and then create templates for the cylinder heads so that all the race teams could be held accountable for their designs so what did the C3 head have to do with you switching to Fort everything we were sitting here and we couldn't because we weren't one of the top teams we couldn't even buy casting the uh you know the latest casting from uh Chevrolet engine guy John uh Catalyst was telling me said look I got a Ford head now we just buy a forehead and put it on there and have the latest and greatest there and it's from what the guys up the street are telling us you can take it out of the box it'll make 700 horsepower without even touching it versus what we're doing it's the best thing we can do is take the Old Stage GM head and have it welded up redone rolled over and everything it's about ten thousand dollars for a set of those and you still don't have the latest thing they're still not as good as what yeah not as good as yeah yeah it's questionable you just weren't going to have even the best GM head yeah even after you did all this right work on it you tried yeah so talk to the guys up the street out in this Bunch they're telling us you know easy 700 horsepower and we weren't anywhere close to 700 horsepower with what we were doing so I said okay let's go let's go that route and uh went down and talked to Robert about a used engine from him Robert knows guys helped us you know let us show us how to plummet and do all the stuff so we could change over so we change the sheet metal and everything made a whole lot of difference all of a sudden we were up there with the guys that were running up front you know we could go back then talk about variations people had intake ports that were around or Square or rectangular shaped exhaust ports the same way round rectangular or Square and many variations so what Robert did was create a template to get everyone on the same design for intake exhaust ports and then valve angles which Nascar one that mandated and then a combustion chamber size and when he did that he was tasked with creating cylinder heads for all the four teams so that's when he got involved with CNC equipment to begin with in 1990 I bought his first machine he put it up in a secret Warehouse up in Virginia up in Roanoke got it worked out started producing the cylinder heads and once it was up and running and online he brought the machine back to our dwell Street shop downtown Charlotte and put it right in the middle of our 12 000 square foot facility right in the middle of where we used to give a lot of race cars we had a small shop back then so Larry McDonald took you at the time was not real happy about this machine being in the middle of his power shop so we very soon were to build an expansion onto the building but the engine was very powerful for what it was capable of versus the the sea and family capability if you look at the whole engine a lot of the early development on it you know water coming out of the cylinder heads water obviously would come in through the water pump be pushed through the block through the heads and back out to the radiator it was really neat how the water would flow if you look we're talking yesterday of Lake about center of gravity look how high this alternator how massive it is this is actually an alternator that was right off of Ford production line it went in all their heavy duty trucks and vans and when we went to this alternator we had zero alternator failures it was a really strong robust piece of the problem oh it was all there would go out you lose your battery in the race you lose your ignition box and then you'd have to pull in and get a battery change which took a lot of time back then we could back pedal a bit I want to know what that block is or explain to the people what how where the origins of this is like because you get you want to get to the fr9 that's no longer that's that's scratch design nothing in common with a factory block but is this Windsor block based let's clarify that it's a hybrid so what we call this block is the r452 r452 was the code name from Ford and what it has it had basically Windsor and Cleveland Blended design Windsor for the four centers and Cleveland for all the oiling and water galleries so if you can imagine that they took the best of the components and they were going to submit a block to NASCAR and it was the r452 and that was the designation I don't know if you remember back most Nolan yeah most Nolan very famous engineer designer with Ford back to the days of home and Moody the whole Ford Ferrari yep he's got a roll the guys in the engine knives that's most Nolan is being played by the actor um he was very involved with Preston Miller who was a technical director here and had a part store that handled all the Ford components but they were very involved with the teams bringing Innovation about so they would talk to the groups what do you need if we're going to bring a product out submit it to NASCAR all the different groups are Bud Moore who was a big name at the time in the Ford ranks Junior Johnson was very strong I was a Jack Roush and Robert Gates all those ideas were brought on the table collaborated in the r452 block came out and cast iron to begin with what year was that I would say that was in like 1990 that era 89 1990. so what were they using you said the prior to that you would use a Cleveland or a Windsor block right out of a junkyard okay that's about those winners like you know truck block whatever and it's a little more I guess uh refined from there they would get parts from Ford Motor Company but prior to that back in the 60s 70s early 80s people were finding older truck blocks that had a good history with casting runs that were solid floors were solid but when they got into the 80s and 90s you were getting production engines from Ford or Chevrolet you get these engines you take them apart and then you rebuild them and replace components you thought needed upgraded so a lot of factory components blended with aftermarket which gave life to True racing components the other thing obviously you've seen a carburetor and you're seeing a distributor spark plug wires that was the the tuning devices back in the day when you got to the track you'd follow your weather station and you would change jets in the carburetor and air bleeds as you see up top you would change quarters for the drivability and the driver would step into the throttle he wanted a certain feel that you would really identify with the driver and then obviously you'd Advance a timing as needed for engine performance then they came in the Advent of cooling down the radiators big cooling mechanisms large water tanks were used to begin with but then they had these machines that would circulate the water through a series of Radiators and big water tanks so then we were working on how to tune the engine for the cool down and our two lap run you know to make you qualify on that Port the other thing back in the day if you come to the rear of the engine magnesium Bell housings a lot of times teams that have magnesium Bell housings and maggies and valve covers these are aluminum but the Magnesium parts were because of lightweight and heat dissipation obviously very prone to flammability when they fire flash off they do not go out so and they put off a tremendous amount of heat so through some situations that the track NASCAR mandated a safety rule to convert all the Magnesium parts to aluminum I think at one point we even had magnesium intake manifolds I think somewhere along the line I heard the story of Ernie Elliott trying to make a set of magnesium cylinder in but again um the uh the C3 engine was very powerful for its day especially with the Robert Yates ports and intakes is that where the the term gate said came from is because Robert was the one that say hey there's all this variation because obviously Larry Wallace told the story yeah was it the old Chevy engines that were straight valve so it was pretty easy for the NASCAR guys to inspect that because everything's a straight line but then the cannon valve came out they weren't really sure what angle was what and so it was there was a lot of variation it was we'll call it and then so NASCAR said hey Robert Your Design is going to be the one we go with you pick something everyone has to follow that that's the name Yates head it sure is that's exactly the story um NASCAR and afford we're trying to figure out what direction to go all the engine builders felt that Robert's design was the best at the time it wasn't well received by some of the other camps but they realized NASCAR was going to make a rule and they were going to lose something so let's go with what we think is best and so uh through some sampling of performance they went with the AIDS head and I think one of these pictures here has Robert on display when they introduced the cylinder head back in the Texaco Haviland days so that's a pretty cool picture of the head when it first came out showing you know valves in the first cylinders there and the open vials of how the ported head would arrive to the teams yeah and uh great story was the first time the Wood Brothers was able to race with it they uh immediately picked up 50 horsepower and proceeded 50. which is huge gains and they proceeded to take that engine to Michigan and beat Davey Allison at Michigan Speedway with Dale Jarrett driving the 21 we finished one two which is great for Ford but it was very clear that we had to get to work now I'm really going to bring the next cylinder head about I got a few questions sure when Robert started making these heads how he you know spent three months welding them all solid and moving the spark plugs completely and all that what did that Head Start Life as what was what what came to the shop before it got all modified the early version of the C3 so the C3 would come in it had porosity issues it had meaning hitting inside the castings there'd be light fractures you'd have to basically pressure test it to see if there's any water leaks or air leaks in the cylinder head itself from putting air on the water inlet and Outlet put plates on the deck to make sure it hold pressure as long as there's no problem there then you would move forward into welding and you'd weld up some of the ports you weld up some of the valve angles the seats and then go through and machine it how you wanted it and a lot of times it was a lot of hand grinding a lot of hand grinding to clearance and port engine how you wanted it and then you would take what you call Snap gauges and snap mics where it would look like a a t tool that you compress the T on it and tighten it and you'd stick it down inside the port when you release it the little T would expand then you take it out and you put it in your micro calipers and you'd measure it and you'd measure you basically do a blueprint before we had Roamer arms and all this engineering technology you would do that manually you would you would measure every eighth of an inch and pour it all the way down and give the dimensional changes because that's how you made a basically a blueprint of that Port I was wondering how that worked yes so they actually it's like coordinates almost write them down and then you can duplicate it it was really hard right you had to do one set intake and exhaust on the floor if you got that down right and then a guy like John caley's you know that worked for Dad and they work for you guys yeah we have to go replicate that yes and so you had a good set of heads you'd do anything you could to keep that said it had a lot of replicating it was next to Impossible and a lot of time Machinery fix the replication duplication and then also iteration so once you could go and mass produce a cylinder head because the CNC capability then the guys that were the original makers of the heads the designers would make the next prototype and when they'd get it they would digitize it you know basically make a digital blueprint transfer that data to the machine machine would cut it and it picked up the iteration process uh significantly all through the 90s and early 2000s so that led to really maximizing this cylinder head for the port locations by the rules and it became time to introduce a new engine design which two things happened on the next Evolution which is the D3 and we can talk about that a little bit if you want to talk about the D3 where we went with a higher Port location to raise the port and get a better Lotto side of the valves we talked yesterday the other part of the block the block went from just cast iron to compacted graphite so you had carbon graphite mixed in the cast iron it did two things they had a better thermal coefficiency so you could get heat out of the block faster and it made the engine lighter it was about a 40 reduction in weights the heads I'm still fixated on this could try to like the lineage from production line to race track there was no production so what are they based on is this like because this doesn't look anything like a windsor head no the there's nothing in the C3 head the D3 head or the fr-9 that was production relevant these were pure racing designs brought about from engine builders taking other heads to Cleveland to Windsor and creating what they thought could be the best engine as far as the head bolt pattern could you put C3 heads on a Windsor block um no this is a Cleveland bolt pattern pretty my 99 the Cleveland bolt pattern is about the only thing that's consistent with this you can read in a lot of magazines today about the Cleveland Windsor which one's better there's a lot of people that had ideas what was better they just had really good attributes in each category so the block was Blended or these castings here are extensions of the exhaust Port yeah back in the day those were cut off flush at the head and you put head and that this helped get a little bit heat out of the engine that was the idea of getting this extension here to get that exhaust Port lengthened to get the heat away from happening right underneath the valve and in the combustion chamber it's interesting so when you see the SVO that means Ford made it special for the race gas yes yeah that was the deal it's kind of neat even back then you had spring warmers yeah me on there that's funny yeah when the SP2 came out that set the stage everybody started designing purpose-built engines the SP2 and then with prevention came to ro7 which was not many years the SP2 only had a couple years of racing life then it went right into the ro7 that was pretty fast paced and another you know involvement of an engine design which forced Ford to go from the sea to the D real fast and then from the D at fr-9 so they're about 10 years per engine design before but the the time in your own timeline once the D3 came in weren't you at the EI I was so I was at Roush I was at Yates actually before it was Robert gets racing from 1990 to 1997. um spent one year at Penske Ford and then moved on in 90 end of 97 to Dei yes and so from 97 through 08 was with the I I spent one year weekends only at Joe Gibbs Racing with Joey logano's rookie season yep I was a gas man at the time just in the weekends had a business or my family on the side and then in 2009 end of the year is when I came to work for Doug back full time when it was Roush and Yates engines and uh he was very involved with the fr-9 the introduction of the fuel injection and involving what was six race teams basically Roush Yates and Petty to what it is now we have 14 cars every Sunday day with the expansion into Penske you know their car from the Wood Brothers and then Stuart Haas obviously bringing four cars that's an interesting perspective because you you got to hear both sides of the conversation someone with the C3 stuff then you're on the Chevy side and you're hearing SP2 and then Ford comes out with that thing which one happened first was it the sb2 or the D3 or was it the same time so the D3 head came out in 98. it was being developed in 96 97 98 I think it's the first year we had it on the track to look back on our time on I'm sure they they document here in our timeline so they're saying that um over five which I don't I think it was sooner than that so I wanted to look about it yeah that was way way sooner so my recollection was 98 we were on the track with this engine um the sb2 was out there as well and was doing really well um then they went to the r07 in 2007. that's why they document year model and then in 09 we brought out the fr-9 2009 Ford Racing 2009 so is the is the block difference from the show the C to the D is the same tool is the same okay um and the other thing about these engines these are side mounted engines meaning there's motor mounts but these brackets on the side we have motor mounts you mount the engine from the side and the bell housing same thing on the D3 side mounts and bell housing mounts um the big Improvement here was the compacted graphite for the block casting and then going to this much more massive D3 head more aluminum more of a heat sink and then more water flow Port height as well I think we raised the 200 thousands which was to be even with the Chevrolets it was a huge advantage in power and getting the short turn and the runner the air of the valves that was a big Advantage there manifold is different too right manifold stars are growing that way you get a little more equal length Runners versus back there yeah it was yeah more spider yeah because the trick is you know it's a eight cylinder engine but it's really eight single engines that all share a common house and just like that brothers and sisters everybody you know family and relatives interacting they don't all act the same so and that's that was one of the big advantages of trying to get each cylinder to do its best and you can make up a lot of gain just by equalizing the performance of the cylinders it was really hard to do that with a manifold that really unequal length Runners need over here this thing bigger polynomial everything's a little bit more equal now all of a sudden the torque really comes up and the drivers love the torque yes disaster auto response it is and the bigger thing was you're working with carburation which this is just a massive you know air and fuel feed to a plenum and then the lake was saying the runners are going to pull what they need um you do all you want with changing sizes um Direction stuff inside but they are going to pull through again so just physics is going to pull the air or fuel it needs to each cylinder the volumetric efficiency beat cylinder is a little different you're trying to get them close um it wasn't until we went to fuel injection and we really learned how to tune an engine and where we thought we wanted everything the same we realized that equalizing the power per cylinder actually made the power of the crank worse so it was counter-intuitive to what we thought of balancing everything out get it even we would start breaking certain cylinders valve springs because of harmonics and things are coming to play as we we thought we were directionally correct by equalizing cylinder cylinder power the tuning making sure each distributor paddle was hitting each cylinder perfectly the refinement of this engine was incredible I mean you got to…