They have finally gotten the bottom ends to eclipse the reliability of the top ends and now all of that mechanical inefficiency is holding them back.
We had the flat tappet Roush engines in the Heritage GT1 Falcon. It totally flooded the lifter valley and also the valve train in the heads with the engine oil. Getting 9000 RPM was no problem and we did limit it at 9600. We had to drain 5 gallons of oil out of it at the end of each day while opening a valve on the valley tray so the oil in the heads would not leak past the rings overnight and hydro lock the engine in the morning.
I am really happy to see this come to production and will be a new wrinkle in IMSA in the future.
All these years, whenever I saw your name, my lips instintively mouthed “Wenkel”.