Racing

SCCA, PCA, HSR, SCORE ...

No matter what your desire- Road Racing, Drag Racing, Autocross, and Off Road Racing

We have engine programs for every HARDCORE racer!!

The word “Racing” means high speeds, competition and the desire to find yourself on the podium or winner’s circle. Of course no race gets there without broken parts along the way, serious disappointments, or without risks. At Raby’s Aircooled Technology, we do not base our entire business on race engines, but more for the street enthusiast that wants the most for their investment. The race engines that we do complete are unparalleled!

It doesn’t get much better than this! Here you see pictured the podium finishers from a SCCA F production race held at Lime Rock on 7/23/2005. In this picture 2 of the 3 top finishers were BOTH running power from Aircooled Technology! In the center is Chris Foley, driver of the Tangerine Racing Porsche 914 and to his left is Tom Burdge another F Production 914 racer that we have been working with to refine his engine program in 2005- as you can see our results have been successful. You can read more about both Chris and Tom on the pages that follow.

I am definitely one for high speeds, risk taking, wild driving techniques and abusing equipment and trying to kill engines. I have never had the time, nor the money to seriously compete in any motorsports myself, but I have experienced everything from Go Kart racing as a kid, to mud racing with rail buggies, Drag racing on Friday nights with my bug killing V8s and Road Racing my Porsche’s. To date by far my favorite racing venue is Road Racing as it is the ultimate endurance test for the engine/vehicle as well as driver skill. Since I have competed (at some level) in most every type of racing I know the goals of each type and what the engine would need to be competitive.

Competition is and always has been the BEST way to put any part, engine, device or driver to the test. When I started a race engine program I had the same ideas in mind that Porsche did with their factory sponsored vehicles. This was the fact that they used the race vehicles to test and practically apply new developments in seriously demanding applications that would be adapted to their street vehicles. Perhaps one of the best examples of this was the fact that even the 917 Porsche had a fully synchronized gearbox and did so while making 1200+ HP in the early 1970s. This was unheard of with Road race cars of the era but a fine example that Porsche used their race vehicles to develop their street vehicles.

Of course, Racin’ is risky and sometimes things don’t go as planned. We have had race engines explode and become 100% destroyed in less than 3 seconds. When this happens we hate it, but at the same time we tear into the situation and find the source and learn from it, then apply it. If it’s something that was our fault- we don’t make the same mistake again! BUT, that’s why they call it Racin! In these tough conditions where the driver has to drive and cannot watch gauges, or listen for sounds a small problem can become HUGE in a split second and can cost big money to repair even with our sponsorships.

In the years since our race engine program started we have used it to develop and test many new advancements and products. Some of these are our Type IV and Type I DTM cooling systems, Running clearances and tolerances, and perhaps most importantly cylinder head technology. Putting parts to an extreme will usually cause either an extreme failure, or extreme result with a very small portion of the time not showing any notable improvement or loss. Using race engines to develop street engines is the best way in the world to develop a superior street engine that can take super performance driving and never miss a beat. Keeping with my theory that the engine and transaxle and vehicle must work as one “well oiled machine” we do our best to work with racers on tire sizes, gear ratios and engine systems and subsystems to create this “well oiled machine” that can display our engine the way it deserves.

Race engines are demanding to design, assemble and support as they come back from time to time for “Freshening up”. Due to this we do not take on every race engine job that comes our way as they simply are not monetarily profitable for us. The labor intensity of a full blown race engine done right can consume up to four times the amount of labor than a normal high performance street engine. It is almost impossible to charge a customer for that amount of labor, so every race engine we build receives some sort of “Sponsorship” from us, and the driver/owner must agree to the vehicle being used for test purposes and be open to my wild, and sometimes plain crazy ideas, thoughts, theories and efforts. This is why we only select the most hardcore, serious racers that will push their car and give us results for our race engine program. If you are the type of person that doesn’t like the risks of spending thousands of dollars to make insane power, and taking the chance of losing all that with one wrong turn, or missed shift while in the quest for the checkered flag- You should probably find yourself another race engine builder! If you do like these risks, and consider them part of racing and you could dowse your corn flakes with 118 octane instead of Low-fat milk, and are willing to hold my engine at redline trying to beat opposition then you have found the person that will get you on that podium, or in that winner’s circle. Before you call us inquiring about an engine from our race engine program please understand that we don’t consider second place anything but a losing position to find yourself in!

Our Race engine program is different than most shops, and so is our sponsorship program. In racing preventive maintenance and tuning keeps engine failures from keeping you in the pits, or Paddock. We back up our race engines with support at track events local, or near local to us, or even by giving the driver my cell number for support should a weird problem occur 10 minutes before a race, or even if you need to re-jet your carbs due to altitude changes. If we agree to accept your racing program and outfit your vehicle with our engine the support you will receive before, during and especially after the engine is received is un-paralleled. These Race engines are also supported through discounted labor rates in case the racer does explode our engine trying to stay in first place and that we also expedite our services for our racers to make dead lines. Of course the better the racer supports us and gives us feedback, the better price he will receive! If the engine needs a freshening up between seasons or demanding races we expedite these services and discount them as well. We have even been known to throw an engine together from used parts for one of our most loyal and dedicated racers just so he could make a pertinent race while his engine was being repaired- Heck the last one even took first in class with a total “Sweep the floor” engine, meaning everything was used or not worthy of a customers engine- that was for just one race!

So, if you are a dedicated racer, no matter what you drive or what class it is raced in we want to talk to you about what our dedication, enthusiasm and developments can do for you. Our strongest interests are in Road Racing (especially PCA and SCCA competitors), Autocross and Off Road Racing. Our favorite vehicle, the Porsche 914 is a competitive vehicle in these classes and we have developed many engine programs for these cars especially in class limited prep such as F production. These production engines are highly tuned and make 100HP per liter,(180 HP from 1.8 liters of displacement is a standard) they turn 8,000+ RPM and are very demanding, but fun to build.

We are currently looking for a dedicated VW Drag Racer to outfit his car with our new Type IV cylinder heads to create a 600+ HP Turbocharged Type IV powered Drag car to campaign in the PRA series and prove that a Type IV can also be a drag racer as well as a road racer. We are also looking for another dedicated soul with an open wallet to introduce a VW Beetle with a Type IV engine in some unlimited class of SCCA, once again to stir more interest and help us with developments. If you know someone, or think you may be the candidate for either of these tasks send us an email and let’s talk.

Please read the pages following this for some of our more recent sponsored racers. You will see that each of these racers have the same desire and actually three of them (F Production racers) actually compete against each other with our engines! If you need not just the power to get into that winner’s circle, but the longevity to do so consistently then you need our services and if we both can agree to a sponsorship that benefits us both we’ll do our best to put you at the front of the pack! Remember that power is easy to make and does you no good if you can’t keep the engine together to the checkered flag!!!

Jake Raby
"Excellence in Research"

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