Drag Racing Online

Ed. Note: Wady Hamam or Pro Mod Wad as he is known in the business is NOS's main nitrous Guru. He has been involved in nitrous oxide injection almost from its inception especially with the Pro Mod division.. He is originally from the Buffalo, New York area and has been involved in all types of racing from flat track motorcycles to fuel dragsters. In his wasted youth he even raced a fuel funny car powered by a blown and injected small block Ford! He and his brother campaigned a front motored Top Fuel dragster and lost a race against Don Garlits at the now closed Niagara Falls Dragway. His advice about nitrous problems is highly sought after but he is hard to get to. He has agreed to answer one question every couple of weeks for Drag Racing Online readers. Email your questions to: promodwad@racingnetsource.com, and he will answer the question he finds most intriguing.

Dear Pro Mod

I’ve been hearing an awful lot about ignition systems now on the market that have the capability for individual cylinder timing. I have to think that this would be a great tuning tool for nitrous Pro Mod racers. I looked around at the IHRA event at Darlington and it didn’t appear that any of the hitters were using these types of ignitions.

My question is, would this type of ignition offer a performance gain and if so, why aren’t more guys using them? And will one of these ignitions work on my street / strip carbureted car?

Steve Bass

Steve,

The ignition systems you are referring to are known as ICT or Individual Cylinder Timing control. You are correct that this ignition system is a valuable tool for high horsepower racing engines. For instance, John Montecalvo in IHRA mountain motor Pro Stock has run into the 6.50 zone with the Holley Annihilator ICT ignition.

Jim Yates in NHRA Pro Stock and Steve Johns in Pro Stock Truck both also run the Annihilator. They have also run very well since the season’s start.

In IHRA Pro Mod, Harold Martin runs this type of ignition system incorporated with his EFI induction system. Harold runs in the 6.30’s at 221 mph.

The reason these systems are so valuable to tuning a race engine is you do not penalize the performance of the entire tune-up to correct one or two hot or cold cylinders. You simply advance or retard timing in the troubled cylinders and you have your problem corrected.

The ICT is very adjustable as you can move timing by cylinders or rpm or by time functions during the run. You can advance or retard randomly as necessary to achieve maximum performance.

If there is a negative side to this style ignition, it is that the programs need to be set with a laptop computer; this can be an expensive purchase and, in some cases, more than the average racer wants to be troubled with.

As far as use on a street / strip style car, this is a very good choice as it would give you the ability to program for street driving a normal or slightly modified timing program, and then for weekend drag racing use a highly modified program for maximum performance gains. The major plus of this type ignition is that like all good electronics, it is the system of the future. It also is very compatible with carbureted engines or electronic fuel injection.

There are two or three different companies that offer this type of ignition now and I would highly recommend this ignition for any serious racer. I feel as performance levels continue to improve, you will see many more of the heavy hitting race cars tuning with ICT ignition systems.

Regards,

Pro Mod Wad