Peek under the hood at some of the best engines of Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2021

The biggest problem about visiting the Monterey Penninsula for car week is knowing where you should be, there’s just so much to see. We could—and did—spend hours watching vintage cars tearing up the tarmac at Monterey’s historic Laguna Seca, but there’s also plenty to take in just walking through the paddock. We’ll take just about any opportunity we can to see race engines when they’re out in the open, so we poked under some hoods and bonnets and asked about some of the rare speed parts that are normally out of sight.

One of our favorite paddock finds was the pair of DeKon Monzas prepped by Chad Raynal and his shop, Impeccable Inc. Both use Lucas mechanical timed injection on their small-block Chevy V-8s, with a fuel metering unit that is driven off the back of the cam. It has a barrel with timed ports that allow the fuel to only be injected at a specific time each intake cycle. As opposed to sprint-car-style mechanical injection that is always flowing, these systems offer better part-throttle drivability. Laguna Seca is a trying course, with hard braking zones and turns that require gradual throttle input. Raynal explained that the typical mechanical fuel injection for a sprint car wouldn’t work as well, “They’re just on the gas, or off.”

On the orange Monza, the fuel metering unit is right where you’d expect to see the distributor, which is now tilted 90 degrees from where you’d expect to see it.

Just like on track, the paddock is filled with a huge assortment of engines, from minuscule to muscly, and all offer some form of eye candy. If you’ve got a project car and are in search of some engine bay plumbing or induction inspiration, spend a few minutes looking at some of these race mills and have a notebook handy.