It's been a while since we've been over to see the crew at Gale Banks Engineering, so we decided to drop by and see what they were up to. They've been pretty silent since they ran the first-ever seven-second pass with their diesel-powered drag truck, so we figured they'd be up to something. And guess what? They were. Here is their second-generation drag racing engine, dubbed the DRE-2. It's pictured here on an engine dyno, which is used to measure horsepower and torque. Since the dyno can put the engine under load, it can also be used to fine-tune these racing engines, which is a very important factor in making efficient, smokeless, power. The original drag racing engine made about 1,250 horsepower and spun up to 5,500 rpm, but the Banks team has their sights set even higher for version two: a whopping 1,500 horsepower, and engine speeds of up to 7,000 rpm.
To make this happen, a sophisticated engine management and data acquisition system is used. Air mass, turbocharger shaft speed, intake temperatures, and even cylinder pressure are all taken into account when tuning the race engine. Banks is also designing a nitrous controller that will be able to feed varying amounts of nitrous into the engine in different gears, making traction easier to come by. Speaking of traction, all this performance will be packed into a 2,000-pound dragster, which should be completed by the time you read this. Look for the Banks team to skip right past the 7s with their dragster, as they will be shooting for mid- to high- six-second quarter-mile passes, sometime in 2009.