FONTANA, Calif. -- Hard work and patience are starting to pay off for the Ford teams in the Chase as performance of the FR9 engine continues to increase.

"We are coming on at the right time with the teams and the engine," said Pat DiMarco, Ford's NASCAR program manager. "It's been a tough year and a half, but everything is pointed in the right direction for these last seven races."

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It's been a tough year and a half, but everything is pointed in the right direction for these last seven races.

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-- PAT DIMARCO

The new Ford piece was released for competition at the end of last season, but its use was sporadic. It wasn't until the Michigan race in June that all Ford teams began using the new engine full time.

Since then, teams have gained a greater comfort level and are willing to push the engine to its limits.

Greg Biffle, who won last weekend's race at Kansas and is 85 points behind series leader Jimmie Johnson, agreed.

"Especially after last week ... we definitely tested it last week. The engine was on the chip for three-quarters of that race from just past the flag stand all the way to the corner," Biffle said. "The engine shop said, 'Make sure you don't run this engine on the chip.' Of course we listened to them and then ran it on the chip for three-quarters of the day and the thing lived the whole time. Actually, preliminary things back say all things look good in the engine, the valve train, everything ... so maybe we can get another 100 RPM in the future."

DiMarco said teams are able to run more tape on the front for more downforce because the FR9's new cooling system is more efficient.

"The teams can start taking advantages of those benefits more and more every week," he added. "They can start running more RPMs also, because there's no anxiety about the reliability of the engine."

One of Biffle's teammates, fellow Chase driver Matt Kenseth, said he has seen recent improvements, but the teams and engineers have work to do.

"I think the engine has been helping a little bit. I think there's still some room for improvement ... because we've only been working on it for six months or a year, whereas we worked on that old engine forever," Kenseth said. "I think it's certainly an advantage and it's better than what we had, plus they keep getting it better."

Biffle said the turnaround for all three Roush Fenway Chase drivers came in Chicago. He said it was partly the engine and partly changing the suspension package on the cars. Performance really picked up across all three teams.

Even though he blew an engine in Chicago, Biffle said he was contending for the win at the time of the malfunction. Since then Roush's mile-and-a-half and two-mile programs have been strong and the Ford camp is poised to start collecting its fair share of wins.

And while four-time defending Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson is the prohibitive favorite to win Sunday, Ford is the manufacturer with the most victories at the Auto Club Speedway.

With 10 Cup victories, Ford has won at least one Fontana race in each of the past nine years, and all three Ford Chase drivers have Cup victories at Auto Club Speedway. Kenseth leads the way with three, while Biffle and Edwards have one each.