One of the reasons we love the 2014 PRI show (like every other year of the PRI show) is that the whole thing is chocked with hardcore parts and components. There are no light up blinky things, no spinner wheels, no dashboard hula girls. This is chassis, suspensions, engines, CNC machines, and all of the parts and pieces that keep racing engines and teams moving. At the heart of it all are engines. We’re talking stuff like the little Cosworth V8, the big honking Cummins diesel powering the dragster below, beautiful cylinder heads at Alan Johnson Performance Engineering, and so much more that our eyes occasionally roll back into our heads while walking the floor. To give you an idea of the range and scope of the show on the engine front here’s a collection of photos that highlight some of our favorites from day one. Mind you, we have not even finished making one complete lap of the show yet, so there may be more examples of prime internal combustion engines that aren’t in here. We promise that we’ll continue the brutal hunt for more today!

The big trend we are seeing on the hardcore engine front is the rise of “pretty” engines, specifically those that are completely billet from top to bottom. Mike Moran was the guy who we believe led the way on this front and everyone else is jumping on board. We realize that billet valve covers make things more rigid and look incredible but are they are necessity? We’re not crying about this, rather just taking note. There is nothing wrong with things looking good, we’re just wondering if the “looking good” end of things is even more over the top than it needs to be.

We know you love horsepower and there’s LOTS of it in here –