Toyota set to debut new NASCAR engines

Toyota will have a new engine in the Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series in 2008 as the one-year moratorium on the old truck series engine expired last year.

Toyota built an engine for its entrance into the truck series for 2004, but that engine didn't meet NASCAR specifications for the Cup series, which Toyota began running last year. Toyota constructed a new engine for the Nextel Cup Series in 2007, and the Nationwide and truck engine is based on it.

"NASCAR let us wait one year on the [Nationwide] Series and the truck series to introduce that engine," said Laerte Zatta, Nationwide and Craftsman Truck Series Program Manager for Toyota Racing Development. "That's what we're doing right now."

Because of a late start designing the engine for the Nationwide and truck series, only Joe Gibbs Racing is using the new design during Nationwide Series testing that began Friday at Daytona International Speedway. JGR builds its own engines and didn't have any old Toyota engines since it switched manufacturers for this season.

Nearly all of the development work on the new engine was done by Triad Racing Development in High Point, N.C., Zatta said. The horsepower numbers from 2007 to 2008 are "similar," he said, despite an all-new design.

"I would say the carburetor is the same, but everything else below is different," Zatta said. "We changed the cylinder head, then we changed the block, we changed the crank, changed all the internals. Then we had to relocate and redesign the manifold – even the position of the engine inside the car is different." Scenedaily.com