AEROMOTIVE INC’S KYLE FICKLER EXPLAINS THE NEW EFI PRO STOCK FUEL PUMP
When NHRA announced late last July, the wholesale changes that it was implementing in the Pro Stock class – the staff at Aeromotive Inc. became proactive.
As of Jan. 1, 2016, NHRA is requiring all Pro Stock teams to equip their cars with electronically-controlled throttle body fuel injection systems, making engines more relevant from a technology standpoint. In order to reduce and control costs for the race teams, an NHRA-controlled 10,500 Rev Limiter will be added to the fuel injection systems.
These massive changes had many Pro Stock drivers scrambling in the offseason, but the staff at Aeromotive Inc., which is based in Lenexa, Kan., did its best to relieve some of the stress by designing a new Pro Stock fuel system. Pro Mod racer Steve Matusek is head of Aeromotive Inc.
“What we’ve done is we’ve combined our dual chamber pumping mechanism, which is part of our Pro Series and our Eliminator pump line that is technology we’ve had for a long time, we’ve combined that with a DC Brushless motor off our Diesel Lift Pump,” said Kyle Fickler, director of business development at Aeromotive Inc. “The reason we did that at that 90 PSI max spec pressure it allowed us to reduce the amperage draw by about 50 percent. It also allowed us to reduce the static template by about 40 percent. So the pump, as shipped, weighs about 3.75 pounds. It’s very light.”
Fickler acknowledged that wasn’t all the staff at Aeromotive Inc., was working on.
“The other thing we did, knowing they were going to require the air ducts to come up forward over the top of the radiator, we wanted to reduce the envelope of the total fuel delivery system so we developed a fuel filter kit where we put the filter element inside the cell,” Fickler said. “Then, we have got a bulkhead and adapter fitting that allows us to then mount the pump directly to the cell with the filter inside the cell, so we reduce the space required to mount the system considerably.”
According to Fickler, Aeromotive Inc., has shipped its Brushless EFI Pro Stock Pump to more than 20 Pro Stock drivers, including world champions Erica Enders-Stevens, Jeg Coughlin and Allen Johnson, along with Shane Gray.
“This is still an ongoing process,” Fickler said. “We do a ton of durability testing. It’s a combination of bench testing, dyno testing and real world on-track testing. The feedback we have received has all been very positive. We’ve actually been impressed how closely the cars have been grouped in terms of ET. This is very gratifying for us to do this. We’ve won Pro Stock world championships with Jeg and Erica and AJ and others over the past 15 years, but for us being racers ourselves and understanding the racers had very little time to respond to these rule changes, basically less than six months, we had to dig down really deep and put in an extra effort on the part of our engineering team so we could provide an Aeromotive solution in the time they needed it.”
NHRA’s season-opening Winternationals take place Feb. 11-14, and Fickler is upbeat about what fans will see in Pomona, Calif., in regards to the Pro Stock class.
“We wanted to be proactive because we hearing stories that there were only going to be four or five cars at Pomona or some small number and now I’m confident you will see at least 12 or 13 cars and certainly a full field by Gainesville (Fla.) (March 17-20),” Fickler said. “We wanted to support the class and we are all Pro Stock enthusiasts and we knew we could make a positive contribution to the health of the class.”