Top-secret Chevy engine

One of four proposed new Chevrolet NASCAR Cup engines – which have been under top-secret development by the Rick Hendrick, Joe Gibbs, Childress and DEI camps – has already finished its first dyno run, according to sources, and two more versions are expected to be on the dyno in the next week or so. Chevy execs have been tight-lipped about the project, which is designed in part to meet the Toyota challenge next season. Mark Kent, GM's racing boss, and Pat Suhy, GM's NASCAR field director, would only say the new engine – whichever version is selected to be officially submitted to NASCAR by the Sept. 1 deadline – is on the fast-track. "We hope it's a Toyota-killer…. or that it's at least as good as the Toyota," Kent said. Toyota's Truck V-8 is considered the best-designed engine in NASCAR today, but NASCAR has said it will try to rein in some of the Toyota design aspects in its new Nextel Cup engine. NASCAR officials have spent more than a year articulating some 70 engine parameters in order to create a tighter box for all four manufacturers to meet in their various engine designs. However Toyota engineers have, according to their rivals, been able to. Chevrolet's engine design is the oldest on the Nextel Cup tour, OK'd in 1996. A 1999 proposed redesign and a 2003 proposed redesign were both rejected by NASCAR. Winston Salem Journal