Officials of the United States Auto Club (USAC), POWRi and ARDC Midget Series today jointly announced a rule which will unify engine platform-specific RPM limits in all sanctioned races, effective May 29, 2016. This commitment to RPM limits constitutes a three-year commitment and any uniform limit modifications will be determined through on-going data analysis obtained through actual on-track racing.
RPM limits are used in midget racing as a “throttle” to limit the expense of further development of current midget racing engine platforms, save money for car owners with increased time between engine maintenance cycles, and as a means to enable midget racing to welcome lower cost alternatives to current engine platforms in the future.
The initial RPM limits will be adopted from a USAC-sponsored study conducted by ILMOR Engineering and in use for the last four race seasons. These RPM limits can be found posted in the individual series rule books for USAC, POWRi and ARDC. Throughout 2016, additional race data will be collected to further study equivalency power curves among the varying midget engine platforms, including pushrod and overhead cam configurations. This data will be used to determine if RPM limit modifications will be required.
Additionally, all entrants using an EFI-branded ignition must use the new EFI “R1” (Red) Ignition Box for all sanctioned races with USAC, POWRi and ARDC. The EFI R1 unit was designed specifically for midget racing and has a limited range of user interface which assures race officials adherence to RPM limit rules and eliminates traction control capabilities through the EFI module.
6 Likes:BrentTFunk, davidm, dickster, jim goerge, MWRmgr1010, Steve Wendel
Lower rpms will make your engines last longer.
I'm not sure less money will be spent on engine development.
If I cant spin it as fast, I would be looking for a way to make more power.
Originally Posted by BrentTFunk:
Nice to see 3 groups get together on something.
Thats the only positive. The rule itself is stupid and will do nothing to better the sport. But atleast 3 sanctions now have the stupid rule.
Apparantly limiting rules to essentially only allowing a 40 year old engine platform is good, but too many RPMs bad. Maybe if we actually bring engine rules in line with modern day technology, the rpms may not be such an issue.
Originally Posted by KMS2683:
Thats the only positive. The rule itself is stupid and will do nothing to better the sport. But atleast 3 sanctions now have the stupid rule.
Apparantly limiting rules to essentially only allowing a 40 year old engine platform is good, but too many RPMs bad. Maybe if we actually bring engine rules in line with modern day technology, the rpms may not be such an issue.
It's nice there is a still a market for those that had engines from that time frame....There are PLENTY of places to run "modern day" 2.4s & 1000s in series deemed as "midget" classes...
Are you kidding Jason? Magneto failure was the biggest cause of midget DNF's for years. 4 cylinder vibrations killed them. You had to have three units, one on the engine, one in the trailer and one at the repair shop. They were not cheap and neither was the repairs.
