Being a lion tamer and tuner on a blown Pro Modified have a lot in common: they’re both interesting jobs that involve trying to corral an angry beast so it performs how you want. Fortunately for the Pro Mod tuners of the world, they don’t have to worry about the car mauling them, but they still have the difficult task of making something very unruly behave.

The Jones Racing Enterprises (JRE) team has found a way to soothe their savage Pro Mods with help from FuelTech ignition and ECU components.

The JRE team already has established itself as a player in the Pro Mod world with their duo of blown Frankenstein Engine Dynamics-powered Chevrolets, but in the search for more power and tunabillity they decided to switch from the traditional MAG44 system to a FuelTech FTSPARK coil-on-plug setup. In addition to the ignition change, the team is also now using FuelTech ECUs to control the EFI system on each engine.

Making a switch like this in a class that hasn’t seen a mass migration to this technology may seem risky, but according to Luis De Leon from FuelTech, JRE was ready to take on the challenge to gain more performance.

“As with any drag racers, the first concern was to find more power. Then they also wanted something more reliable and easier to use. After they figured that it was even better than expected, they saw the chance of trying EFI and improve not just ignition, but fueling too. Removing jets and old solenoids from the equation, they could manipulate fuel better.”

An advantage of making the transition away from the MAG44 system is the number of mechanical parts it removes from the car that could be failure points. There was also the weight reduction the team saw from going to the FuelTech components. The system provides an extra layer of reliability, as well, and saves the team money in parts.

JRE saw a big opportunity to gain some more tuning abilities by switching to the FuelTech parts. In the Pro Modified world having any tuning advantage can be the difference between winning a round or packing up and going home on race day.

“Tuning-wise, this change opened a larger timing window for JRE. Power management can be done many different ways. FuelTech ECUs, with their new proprietary timing control management, can use timing swing to a rev-limiter like a two-step and transbrake. This can be done without dropping a hole or going negative and back to normal between holes in a way a distributor would not allow.

Fueling is based on a Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) sensor and not a barrel valve with timers. That means that if you have more air, the unit adds fuel based on the tune; if there’s less air, it will remove fuel. This makes it so much easier for the tuner to only fine-tune for the track and weather, but not have to completely re-tune for weather changes,” De Leon explains.

This type of conversion can also be applied to other classes of racing, as well. In Top Sportsman and Top Dragster, there are more roots and screw blower combinations showing up at each event where this technology could be used. The power management and predictability of a conversion to coil-on-plug and EFI would benefit bracket-style racers.

Head over to FuelTech’s website to get more information about their coil-on-plug products as well as their line of ECUs that can be used on many different EFI combinations.