DQ for "icing"?

[Bob]

The last official word by NHRA on this was:

NHRA tech department reminder on manifold cooling

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
07/06/2004

The NHRA Technical department has noticed a number of Stock competitors spraying intake manifolds with an aerosol can, more specifically computer cleaner, which can reduce the temperature of the manifold to 62 degrees.

The 2004 NHRA Rulebook, on page 192 states that any method of artificially cooling or heating is prohibited: "Cool cans, wet towels, ice, etc., are permitted in Super Stock, Stock, Super Comp, Super Gas, Super Street, and E.T. classes. Wet towels, rags, ice, etc., must be removed before the vehicle leaves the staging area. Ambient-temperature air only; cooling or otherwise changing of the intake air is prohibited."

The use of these cleaning products is in violation of the NHRA Rulebook, thus ice and wet towels are acceptable forms of cooling, spraying of intake with any artificial spray or coolant is prohibited.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Return to 2004 Sportsman News Archive
Return to the Home Page

Nothing has changed since then. Dry ice on the intake is legal. It may be frowned upon, but it's legal.

The one that really gets me is the practice of the west coast racers spraying there radiator, engine, hood, firewall, and air cleaner with ice water, right before a run, and not drying it off. I guess the constant cold, wet mist helps ET huh?

[james schaechter]

Thanks for revisiting that. I ws told "dry ice" was not legal, but your clarification would lead me to believe otherwise. I will check into it with NHRA. I remember that some guys were really frosting intakes for awhile with the aerosol cans. Worked good too. Thanks. Good discussion for an otherwise boring day. I wish we were ready to race, but then I remember all of the work I need to be doing to the car! Better get back to work on it.

[Freddie]

Dry Ice, Aerosol cans of air, N2O, Any form of cooling your engine/trans, artifitially with any sort of chemical is not only unstable, but deemed illegal by NHRA. I always thought the main reason was the residual gasses left in the engine bay, these gasses would get sucked up in the first couple hundred feet of a run where all the ET is made up. Cold rags, Conventional ice, or a fan, all leave no chemical residue.

I know I used to use a bottle of N2o to cool my converter when we ran comp many years ago.

[Bob]

The rule, as found in the revisions and in the rule book, states that ice is legal. It does not state wet or dry ice, simply ice and icing are legal.

Dry ice is nothing more than frozen CO2. And CO2 is used in everything from fountain drinks to welding. CO2 is inert. When dry ice boils, the frozen CO2 turns back into a gas, but it is still inert. There is no residue left behind. The fact is humans exhale CO2 every day.

The reason spray cans are illegal is because most of them use a propellant that is not inert. And they do leave behind a residue, most generaly a CFC of some kind.

There can be no performance advantage if somehow there was a large build up of CO2 under the hood and it
got drawn into the engine. As stated, it's inert. It would simply take up space that oxygen and fuel would normally take up.

Originally Posted by Flatfoot

Jim is a very smart man.....

It was a Joke, lighten up

[Bob Bender]

Yes I know.......I was just kidding

[Dana House]

As coowner of the offending car I think it's time to explain what happenend in this embarrasing scenario.John[aka]Wes and I take full responsibility for "icing" the race track.Plain and simple 1 of 5 sandwich size bags with ice in it was overlooked in the rush and frenzy that occurs in the lanes before a heads up race.It was hiding under the air cleaner base by the distributor.From where I was standing on the starting line it sure looked more like 10 lbs of ice because there were ice cubes to 330ft.Embarassing to say the least to out run your competition and be DQ'd for an easily preventable mistake.So be careful make sure you buy the " ZIP" lock bags and don't let this happen to you.

[Jimmy D]

Originally Posted by Larry Hill

At Indy the white Camaro From Cal. B/SA had CO2 pellets on the intake, not ice.

Hi Larry,

We used ice and poured cold water through the engine at Indy. Please do not respond for us. Thank you for the consideration. See you at the races.

Jimmy DeFrank

[Jeff Lee]

What's unfortunate is one guy drops some ice cubes on the track and get's DQ'd and another drops a header collector which hits the 330' photocell and doesn't get DQ'd; all at the same race!

[Jim Kaekel]

Can dry ice pellets be dumped into a radiator? At Indy, I saw something a bit odd. During Stock class eliminations, I saw a racer dump what appeared to be ice into his radiator, but then saw him "fishing" out pieces of plastic that were floating around in the tank, almost like "pellets" that may have been packed in plastic.