Barry Daniluk Shatters The Naturally-Aspirated Three-Second Barrier

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Alberta, Canada native Barry Daniluk made a bit of drag racing history a little over a week ago at the Professional Drag Racer’s Association Southern Extreme Nationals when he recorded the quickest 1/8-mile elapsed time — and the first run ever in the three-second zone — by a naturally-aspirated, full-bodied doorslammer with a 3.989-second pass down the South Georgia Motorsports Park.

And that wasn’t even his best run of the weekend.

You never know if you’re ever going to get there so you just keep trying everything and anything.

After his barrier-shattering run during the fourth and final session of qualifying, Daniluk, the only regular competitor in the PDRA’s Top Sportsman division with a naturally-aspirated combination, backed up the number with an even quicker 3.979, 182.85 mph blast in the opening round of eliminations and clicked off another 3.986, 183.07 mph pass in round two for good measure.

For Daniluk, punching into the three-second zone was the culmination of three years of tireless effort on the part of the Canadian business owner and his engine builder, longtime IHRA Mountain Motor Pro Stock racer Ron Miller. Last year in Memphis, Daniluk got oh-so close when he lit the boards with a 4.009 in less-than-stellar air conditions, giving him confidence that the magic number was merely the right track and the right day from becoming a reality.

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“You never know if you’re ever going to get there so you just keep trying everything and anything. I wasn’t expecting it on Saturday afternoon in qualifying. When it happened it was a very emotionally satisfying moment, especially when all my fellow racers from the Pro Nitrous and Top Sportsman crews came to the end of the race track congratulating me,” Daniluk says. “I did it for my own satisfaction, I just didn’t realize how many others were following me on my journey.”

Daniluk says he prefers the naturally-aspirated, road-less-traveled method to his racing simply because “no one else runs it,” going on to comment, “it seemed like a really different thing to try and succeed in. Being the only naturally-aspirated car at every PDRA race is a lot of fun. I’ve never run power adders in anything I’ve raced.”

Being the only naturally-aspirated car at every PDRA is a lot of fun. I’ve never run power adders in anything I’ve raced.

Miller, from Lebanon, Ohio, sold Daniluk his first big-inch mill, an 832 cubic inch powerplant that he’d previously run in Pro Stock. Daniluk scored three NHRA Wallys trophies with it, pushing it to a best elapsed time of 4.09-seconds in the process. With the thought of “let’s go bigger,” as he shares, Miller assembled a new 5.3-inch bore space wedge engine measuring a meager 878-inches, which was later punched out to 932 and ultimately, to a throaty 978 cubes. Miller used an LSM block and CFE Racing cylinder heads that were “modified to the extreme.”

Putting the physical scope of the engine into numbers, the bore measures 5.125-inches, with a stroke of 5.930-inches. Daniluk utilizes Accufab throttle bodies, and its all controlled by a BigStuff 3 EFI system tuned by Brian Metz.

“The car is a total beast to launch…over 1,600 ft./lbs. of torque, and at mineshaft conditions it’s really an animal,” he explains.

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Helping Daniluk make incremental improvements, all the way to the three-second zone, are the continually spinning gears in Millers’ head.

“Ron can never leave the engine alone; he just loves to tinker on the heads and camshaft. And I’m no better,” he says.

Ron can never leave the engine alone; he just loves to tinker on the heads and camshaft. And I’m no better.

“With this being the first race this year we tried some weird things on the car to calm it down so that Adam and Andy Lambert at Precision Racing Suspension could tune the shocks. I think they were the final touch that put me into the three’s. Those two guys gave it their all. When they met me at the end of the track I’m not sure who was more happy.

“I couldn’t have accomplished this without Gordon Reiser, my one and only crewmember for the past eight years — we work so well together as a team. Ron Miller puts so much effort into an incredible, huge engine that runs so hard all summer without ever needing to tear it apart. Carl Rossler was also very helpful in the transmission department trying to control that beast. And Neal Chance converters…Marty is so wise on the torque converter side. But greatest support of all is my wife Sherry — I couldn’t do it without her support.”

Daniluk is hesitant to suggest that a five-second run is next on his radar, commenting with a simple “maybe”, and while he’s conservatively a couple of tenths away from the mark, it’s hardly out of reach. After all, no one thought they’d ever see a three-second run to 660-feet on pure, unassisted grunt, either.

Lead photo courtesy Gary Rowe/Raceworks.com

About the author

Andrew Wolf

Andrew has been involved in motorsports from a very young age. Over the years, he has photographed several major auto racing events, sports, news journalism, portraiture, and everything in between. After working with the Power Automedia staff for some time on a freelance basis, Andrew joined the team in 2010.
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