After several decades of being deeply tied to Southern California, Toyota Motor North America moved the majority of its operations to Texas in 2017. New chapters are being written in Texas, but its history in California hasn’t concluded—in fact, thanks to the company’s extensive involvement in North American motorsports, one of the remaining SoCal facilities is running stronger than ever.
Toyota Racing Development (TRD) established its facility in Costa Mesa, Calif. in 1995, primarily focused on building engines for the era’s IndyCar racing efforts. The brand exited this top-tier open-wheel series some years ago, but it’s still busy as ever engineering and building engines for a handful of other series, most notably for nine teams spread across NASCAR’s four individual series.
Recently, I was invited to take a look behind the scenes at what exactly goes on in this nondescript building in the heart of Southern California’s Orange Coast region. Rest assured, everything happening inside was anything but nondescript.
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Besides NASCAR’s top-level Cup series, TRD also supports teams in its Xfinity, Craftsmen Truck, and Menards series, bringing the count to over 25 cars. Each has its own rulebook with very particular engine specifications covering everything from displacement, to valves, countless dimensions, and more. It also provides engines to a number of smaller series across America’s midget, sprint, and late model disciplines, plus its Gazoo Racing efforts—though, the latter is more part of Toyota’s Gazoo Racing facilities in North Carolina and abroad.
That’s a herculean amount of metal to machine, engines to build, and then rebuild as each series’ season progresses every year. NASCAR Cup alone accounts for 38 races, so there’s very little downtime inside of 365 days.
Touring TRD’s facility, I unfortunately wasn’t allowed to take photos of 98% of what I saw, as the company is very protective of what can and can’t be published. With such tight rules to operate within for each series, even the most minuscule piece potential of competitive advantage must be protected.
But let me tell you: What a neat place to stroll around in. The most impressive part was a massive row of 5-axis CNC machines cutting out cylinder heads and blocks from solid chunks of metal, polishing their ports, and then sending them down the line for precision instruments to double-check their accuracy. But seeing the engineering process in general was truly something to behold.
Maximizing the Rulebook
One thing that was quite apparent was the herculean amount of effort dedicated to the margins within series rulebooks. Focusing just on NASCAR Cup, the rules require each engine to see a certain number of races before being rebuilt, though, certain components can be replaced in between each race. Restrictions are denoted by large plastic tags with individual bar codes and serial numbers. If they don’t jibe with every race’s tech inspection—meaning, certain components have been replaced before they’re allowed to—it could automatically disqualify a team. There’s no doubt that Toyota engineers have to maintain care while crafting together these high-horsepower hunks of metal.
The rules specify that the engine must be around 5.7 liters and have a single cam (thus, a pushrod-actuated valvetrain) with two overhead valves per cylinder. Redline reaches 9,000 RPM and output is rated at around 700 horsepower. While these are tantalizing specs to anyone well-versed in street car specs, it’s tough to meet for motorsports duty. Each engine is expected to last around 1800 miles, which works out to just 2-3 races. TRD engineers commented that by far the biggest hurdle is valvetrain reliability.
There’s no doubt that this technology has been around for a very long time and is completely maxed out, but there are still reliability issues, such as valve and valve spring failure. When a component failure happens, TRD has a team of engineers ready to thoroughly investigate its cause. With massive electron microscopes on-hand, they can often trace it back to the foundry of the metal from which the component was formed.
One engine takes roughly 80 hours to build, fully dressed and ready to send off to one of TRD’s teams in North Carolina. But not before the dyno session where TRD personnel measure horsepower and torque, as well as test durability. They’re even able to simulate the weather conditions in which the engine will be operating—anywhere in the country, from the dry desert of Phoenix to high humidity of the Midwest—and simulate different tracks’ features.
Logistics, Logistics, Logistics
One can imagine how much of a numbers game this quickly becomes when the season is in full swing. With 38 races on the Cup calendar, and an engine only lasting two-to-three of them, that’s a lot of planning and, well, shipping.
Generally speaking, an order of engines arrives early Friday morning and is then on its way via truck by Tuesday, where it’s then installed and ready for the next race. Previously, engines used to be air-freighted, but that became too costly, so it’s all done over the road, from one coast to the other.
Trickle Down
Unlike its bait-and-switch tendencies in the political landscape, trickle-down is a major factor in automotive technology, starting with companies’ motorsports efforts. In addition to “race on Sunday, sell on Monday” marketing, the lessons learned and materials utilized in building high-horsepower engines. Power is a key result of efficiency, and the work of TRD engineers is constantly teaching the company more and more about ways to improve its products’ reliability, power, and efficiency in everyday, point-A-to-point-B use. That may sound a bit mushy mouthed marketing speak, but it’s the truth, in fact it applies to any automaker involved in motorsports, whether it be Toyota, BMW, Mercedes-AMG, Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Lamborghini, or any other operation in this realm.
This also takes the form of component design and production, like TRD’s upper and lower control arms, and other suspension and chassis components that fill out its off-road truck accessory catalogue. The same machines and processes that finely machine components for Charlotte Motor Speedway also create crucial suspension components that improve performance out on the trail.
Toyota personnel were particularly proud of the fact that they utilize processes perfected in motorsports to design and produce such components.
It was quite enlightening getting a behind-the-scenes look at TRD’s facility in Costa Mesa, California. Not only is it nice to see that the company is still heavily invested in the Southern California economy (I’m partial to this as a resident of the region), but also how extensive its engine development and production activities are across a variety of North American motorsport disciplines. Especially in NASCAR Cup. And, how the lessons learned here translate to research and development for the brand’s roadgoing efforts.