ITA is proud to welcome new Classifieds sponsor/advertiser NRE X-1 Cylinder Heads

InsideTopAlcohol.com is pleased to welcome John and Jamie Noonan of NRE Cylinder Heads as the new presenting sponsor of the Free Classifieds.

NRE recently debuted their new X-1 Cylinder Head for NHRA Top Alcohol competition. The 'fathead' style design is NHRA approved, and readily accepts fathead intakes, rocker gear, headers and valve covers.

While the Noonan name may not be familiar here in the States, in Australia, it's a name associated with horsepower. John campaigned his own TAD for a number of years, while Jamie, his son, has spearheaded several V-8 Super Car Champions (Australian equivalent of our NASCAR) engine programs. With Jamie's roots in Top Alcohol drag racing, the desire was always there to develop a competitive head for alcohol racing. The X-1 head wasn't born as an idea to make tons of money. Rather, it has been developed from their love of drag racing.

The team at NRE put a lot of time into developing a head that would outperform other fathead models on the market. They not only worked on the flow side, but wanted to improve on other areas such as valvetrain stability and function.

They partnered with the APM TAD team driven by Aaron Hambridge for on track testing and spent extensive hours on the flow bench and spintron perfecting the head. The scoreboard spoke loud and clear when Hambridge reset the Australian national record shortly thereafter.

The NRE X-1 head offers several new features and performance benefits. It significantly outflows other models in the .600-.800 lift range on the intake. The ports are tubeless, and the heads will accept pushrods as large as 9/16" in diameter. The X-1 head also gives you the option to oil the rockers conventionally through the block or through an external oil feed. That external feed also oils the intake valve springs with spray jets.

Once the head gained NHRA approval, we tried them on Chris Foster's TAFC in Indy. We made the switch from BAE 5's, with very minimal modifications (essentially the same as you would have to do going from 5's to 6's or 8's). Q1 at Indy was our first run with the head. I put 1 gallon of fuel more than I normally ran to be on the 'safe' side, along with what I figured to be a conservative gear ratio/clutch setup. Luckily I put that much fuel in it, as it ran a 5.66/252 the first lap, and burned all the cad off the plugs. The motor makes so much more power above 8200 that it breaks away from the clutch and ramps straight to the gear shift instead of 'curving' to the shift with lockup.

Personally, I can vouch for the service and support we have recieved from the Noonans since switching to their head. You also tap into their experience on the spintron with this combination.

Repairs/Servicing here in the states will be handled by Matt Bieneman of MBE Cylinder Heads. MBE has the same CNC equipment NRE has and the programs to recut the heads to original specs. No need to send the heads back to Australia for repairs.

Go to www.noonanraceengineering.com to find out more or call Jeff Burnett of Composite Specialties is the US Distributor for NRE. He can be reached at (317) 852-1408.

An A/Fuel head is currently in the works along with an Outlaw head for ADRL competition.

 

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Just found out Wes Johnston had the X-1's on the car at the ADRL Finals in Dallas and went 206+ on several runs. Mike Janis also used these heads to run 3.73 on his way to winning the Shakedown in E-town.