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Joe Gibbs Racing is using a powerful Nikon microscope to help solve the mystery of engine failures that have cost the team several races
August 10, 2011 | 5
The two images of an engine valve spring shoe—taken using Nikon's AZ100 Multizoom microscope—indicate two different areas of impact, where an outside force caused the premature failure of that component....[More]
This valve stem image shows the occlusions in the coating that occurred on a specific batch of valve stems, which caused excessive wear of the valve guides and resulted in premature failure.
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Joe Gibbs Racing—a group of NASCAR racing teams based in Huntersville, N.C., that are owned and operated by former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs and his son J....[More]
Driver Denny Hamlin , ranked 11th in the NASCAR standings this year going into this weekend's race, has had to swap out engines before two of his past three races, including the Brickyard 400 in late July....[More]
Driver Kyle Busch , ranked third in the NASCAR standings , recently took second place in the Good Sam RV Insurance 500 at Pennsylvania's Pocono Raceway....[More]
Driver Joey Logano , ranked 20th in the NASCAR standings, had taken the pole position at the August 7 Good Sam RV Insurance 500 and led the field for the first 17 laps of the race before finishing in 26th place....[More]
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Three-Star Performance
5 Comments
Add CommentJoe Gibbs needs to use his new Nikon microscope and take a better look at his drivers. He, just might find all his problems!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know that these articles are supposed to be general interest 'quick reads' but this one was very disappointing to me. Let me see if I have this straight: JGR was having problems with some engines, they got a new microscope, they looked at rocker arms and then everything was fixed. The only thing that I really learned was that these folks were way behind the times because they couldn't share images with their suppliers and now they can. Where is there any science in this?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read it again. It is really just a Nikon advert. Nevermind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am well aware that Scientific American standards have declined greatly since the magazine's heyday half a century ago - but this article takes the cake ! Please, dear editors, take us back to the future and once again begin to publish basic science articles written by persons engaged in the respective field of endeavour....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHenri
"We're getting 875 horsepower out of 358-cubic-inch motors. If you know anything about motors, that's not supposed to happen."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you know anything about motors, you'd know that F1 cars produce 750 hp with 2.4L engines. That's twice more power per cubic inch than your car. And top fuel dragsters produce 7,000 hp with 8.0L engines. That's over five times more power per cubic inch. What's not supposed to happen is the cracks in your engine. That's poor engineering. The engine is supposed to break after the race.