Nitro engine tuners are always trying to find ways to control an engines individual combustion chamber temps and cylinders that either don't fire or quit firing during the pass.

In an attempt to correct that issue engine builders have moved the supercharger way forward on the intake manifold so that the fuel/air flow is more uniform in every cylinder, use multiple fuel injection nozzles in each intake runner, in the supercharger itself, and in some cases changed the engine firing order. Despite those efforts there is hardly a nitro car that goes down the track at some point in qualifying or on race day that doesn't have at least one cylinder not firing or one that is in a lean condition and burning parts. Additionally one or more cylinders not firing makes the cars much harder to drive and prone to blow up.

In the early 1980s premier engine tuners came to the realization that their engines and parts made more power and lived longer when they treated and tuned each of the eight cylinders in a V-8 as an individual engine.

The first tuner I ever saw who dealt with that problem was the late Clayton Harris. When Harris was the crew chief for Richard Holcomb's IHRA Top Fuel dragster I walked into his pit late one evening and he was bolting together a short block for the next day's racing. I noticed that some of the pistons he was putting on rods had the dome milled and others didn't. I asked Clayton about it and he explained that he used a combination of rod length and piston deck height (and in some cases both) to adjust a cylinder's static compression, which made his engine much "happier". He told me many other tuners in the nitro ranks were doing the same thing to improve performance and reduce parts damage.

I've talked to several nitro crew chiefs recently and they too said that the use of different rod and piston combinations for specific cylinders is still being practiced today. It is an expensive practice because instead of buying large numbers of the same rod and piston for their engines tuner/engine builders might have to buy several unique rods and piston assembly. Something you might think less well-funded nitro teams would like to avoid.

One solution to the problem would be to allow Top Fuel and Funny Car tuners individual cylinder timing -- something legal in virtually every other class in drag racing. But the top classes cannot have individual cylinder timing and instead are still using the expensive and time-consuming method of adjusting cylinder pressure.

All of the pro and sportsman classes in NHRA drag racing that allow MSD's "grid" electronic ignitions give those racers the capability to individually adjust spark timing on all the cylinders of their engine whether it is a four-, six-, eight-, 10- or 12-cylinder engine. Adjusting spark timing for each of the individual cylinders in an engine allows the tuner to decide where and when ignition occurs allowing some control of cylinder pressure and heat. Tuners can actually make those adjustments before each pass without taking the motor apart. Using individual cylinder timing also allows the team to buy just one piston/rod combination for all eight cylinders of the engine.

The fact is that almost every tuner in NHRA drag racing, whether they are racing in Super Gas, Pro Stock, or Pro Mod has this tool in their bag. The nitro tuners could have it to. According to the folks at MSD it is very inexpensive to change the current NHRA-approved TF and FC ignition so that it would allow the tuner to program individual cylinder timing. Several name nitro tuners I've spoken with would like to have the ability to change individual cylinder timing and believe doing so could curtail engine damage as a result.

A senior NHRA tech official told me he thought his department was inclined to allow the MSD individual cylinder timing system to be incorporated into the currently approved ignition, but since then I understand the tech department has changed its mind because of the possible performance gains.

Whether that is the case or not, it doesn't make much sense that the NHRA would not allow an inexpensive "tool" that has a reasonable chance of making nitro engines less susceptible to breaking, exploding and/or oiling the track. Especially considering the NHRA is moving towards more and more live TV and shorter "turn-around" time between rounds.