Bottom line:
They're going back to the 3.5 L displacement, which apparently will add 300 miles worth of life to the engines.
It'll also give the engines more torque for the road courses.
Today's Indy Star had the item today. Here is the link:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dl...608230451/1052
My Thoughts:
1. The lowered the displacement to 3.0 L beginning with the 2004 Indy 500 was due (according to the IRL at that time) to the speeds getting too high with the 3.5 L engines...
So what will be changed on the return to the 3.5 L engines to alleviate that issue this time around?
2. At least on the Ovals, I thought that the 3.0 L engines gave us better racing, and they required drivers to do a decent amount of shifting to keep the revs up in the engines....
The 3.5's didn't require that, and I think this is a downside to returning to the 3.5 L configuration.
3. The "needed" change to the 3.0L in 2004 has now reverted back to where they were for most of the life of the IRL in displacement...thus the change was expensive and short-lived when compared to the life of the Series itself.
Sorry...but this doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless Honda requested it.