More to do than we thought...

We have a number of issues that needed to be addressed, and we are full steam ahead at getting them all sorted out.

We had to send out some parts on the motor to have some minor issues addressed. But we hope to have those parts back within the week. In addition to finding a few problems, like our rear thrust bearing which we believe that we understand the cause of that problem. So we will take care of that. It appears to be a drive line alignment problem. And we did find a gasket leak in the intake manifold, and will replace that gasket with a slightly different type of gasket that will give us great seal ability. So we think the motor will be good once we get it all back together.

The tranny also had a couple of problems after our beating up on it for so long. And we are lucky that it didn't really didn't do much but cost us a bit on our sixty foot times, and a bit on top end. But it didn't break and spread its guts and fluid all ove the track. So that is a good thing.

We will the new parts tomorrow, and the tranny will shortly be back as good as new. It was built well originally and even has a stock, but rare reinforced truck 904 case. So it is as good as a 727, but much lighter. That was our goal originally, and we were saved from spending more money and adding more weight because we could get a Protrans 727 in the time frame we had. But we did get this monster 904 built up for us by Paul Forte at Turbo Action. We only did one band adjustment over the first year and a half we ran it. And now, that same tranny will keep on moving our car down the track. As soon as we get it put back together.

And I also got tired of the hood pins we put on the car to replace the Dzus fasteners originally on the hood of drag paks.  We put regular hood pins on it, and they work just fine, and are definitely better than the Dzus fasteners, but keeping track of the 10 pins pulled from the hood, is a subtle but annoying task. And it wouldn't make sense to tie ten wire hold downs on it. So I have what I think is a better solution. They should be here shortly, and after we replace the existing hood pins, I will get pictures of the new pins posted. The should be as good as it can get.

So, life goes on, and the money goes out.  So we really do need to find a real sponsor, who is looking for broad exposure by what may just be the fastest and most competitive 5.7 or even 6.1 running today. If nothing else, we sure know to get ink.

Until Next Time... Race Safely, and God Bless!


David

Oh No! Say it isn't so! The Mega Maniac is broken...

After two races of increasingly poor performance. So we finally took things apart.

And although we liked the look of things at first, a closer look started to show some chinks in our armor.

A little off in the motor, and a little off in the tranny. Stuff that eventually would have caused catastrophic damage, was diagnosed. Parts are already on order, and things should be just fine with a little TLC, and some new fluids.

So now we know why the car wasn't running as good a sixty foot time as we expected, and why our top speed was down. And from this point forward, when we have a chance to take Top Stock Qualifier, we will again have the capability to reach out and grab it.

The transmission had already taken well over a year of severe abuse, so we suspected that it might need refreshing. And the engine had an awful lot of really high rpm, high speed runs on it too. And although the problems we found there were not really due to the engine itself, as much as they appear to be due to strain put on it by problems with the drive line. By strain, I mean abnormal strain, and we found some things thangs that weren't tranny, drive shaft, or rear end, but were just downright questionable. So we are taking care of them too.

So, if you are asking yourself "what racer do when they arent racing?"

I can tell you. They are  putting more hours, and many more dollars into their race car!

Until Next Time... Race Safely, and God Bless!

David

Norwalk, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and the Rest of it...

The Good:

We improved with every qualifying round. We even held the Top Qualifying spot for the night, went out the next day on our final qualifying run, we actually improved our time.

The Bad:

Charley Horse, Charley Bob Downing in his J/S new Mustang ran almost at teh end of Stock qualifyirs, and took the Top Stock Qualifyier spot away from us.

The Ugly:

Our first round elimination run was against a car that was slower than us, and that usually means that we can run them down, and either cause them to break out, or we can nose them out.

We dialed a 10.31, having run a 10.33 the previous day. And everyone was saying that the track was about 1 or 2 thousands quicker today. We had to rely on other people's opinions of the conditions because our weather machine broke. Oh well, others know what the weather looks like, and they had already run confirming their estimates.

We got beat to the line and didn't even run our dial. So we lost and were eliminated in the first round.

The Rest of it.

Somewhere along the line, probably in one of our runs in Indianapolis a couple of weeks ago, we lost some horsepower.

In Norwalk, before our last qualifying run, we pull coil packs, and checked plugs and saw that one cylinder seems to running extremely rich. The other 7 look just fine. We expected that it could be a compromised coil pack. If that was true we reasoned, then the plug wouldn't fire and burn up the carbon, which was the condition we observed. So we changed the coil pack. Then we ran, and it proved that it really didnt make much difference.

So finally, after running since the middle of last year witout ever pulling the engine, or even the heads, it looks like time to pull it all apart, and see what is wrong. We also will probably put our EGT sensors back on the car. I will have to go down to Dayton and pick up the electronics for it, order a replacement part that I expect it needs, and we will reinstall the monitoring unit.

We also will make a couple of other changes that we believe will be good for performance, but we have been saving them for "when we need them." Now, after two consecutive bad outings, we need them. So the game is on, and we will put all of our secret weapons into the car, and see what happens.

We probably won't run the car again, unless it is a test and tune, until the Nationals at Bristol Tennessee in the middle of June. So we will also get our tranny freshened up, and balance out our suspension. .

Until Next Time... Race Safely, and God Bless!

David

Norwalk, and it it is raining, so what is new with that?

Not a thing... We have been to more races that had rain, than seems to be fair... But such is life. Hardly ever fair...

Last night after we got teched in, it rained.  But we were back in our rooms, so that wasn't too bad.

Today, we made a couple of qualifying runs, and we in third place. The car just is not running like it has been running, but everyone is complaining about the "air", meaning the humidity, temperatures, density  altitude, wind, etc, etc...

 But we all run the same air, but the Mega Maniac was running exceptionally poorly. The fuel ratio was a bit rich, so we leaned it out some. Then we ran our last run, which was held in the evening in front of the crowd. It is unusual that Stock classification cars get to actually run in front of any fans. So this was cool.

We decided that since there were four Challenger Drag Paks here, that it would be a good show to have two pairs of Challengers race against each other. Mike Pustelney was there with his 392 Cubic Inch  (6.4) 2010 Challenger, John McCloud had his 370 Cubic Inch (6.1) 2009 Challenger, and Larry Smith was there with his 370 Cubic Inch (6.1) 2009 Challenger, and obviously we were there with our tiny little 345 Cubic Inch (5.7) Challenger.

It was fun to see the four Challengers run out that way. And it worked out pretty good for us too.

When the qualifying run was over, we were back in a familiar place, Number One Stock Qualifier...

Not sure that we can hold out through the next (.. and last)  qualifying run tomorrow, as there one car, the one who won the Top Stock Qualifier in Indy, and he is driving a ...... m u s t a n g ...... and I have a feeling he can go a bit faster if he really wants to do that.

But we have another little trick or two, we might pull out of our bag of tricks.. Did I mention that I am a professional Magician? Seriously I am, and Sunday evening is our Annual Magic Club Banquet... So when I say we have a trick or two up our sleeves, don't think I am totally kidding... Tricks are a lot easier with a deck of cards... but some magic is beyond the medium, so, tomorrow, we shall see.

Until Next Time... Race Safely, and God Bless!
David

All done with Indy

Unfortunately we lost in third round at Indy.

But the good news is that we got home early Sunday evening.

We did find a couple of issues that need addressed on the car, nothing that affected our perfromance in Indy. That was all us. Some wounds are worse when self-inflicted..But we are still learning about the car, and what it can do. Soour  next time out should be better.

It appears that the extra weight we had to add to make our class weight,  has affected our suspension. So we need to think about making a minor change, well maybe not such a minor change, to the suspension. But, time will tell

A couple of days before Indy, we removed the original front hubs and brakes, and installed a complete Strange Engineering front hub and brake system. But something is still just not quite right yet. So some phone calls and a few tweaks should take care of things. The front end wobble we had before installing the Strange brakes did go away. So the change wasn't a total loss. In fact it looks like a good move, but we just need to get a couple of answers and we should be just fine.

And one more thing. It appears that my car has gotten younger. It is a 2010 now, when all along, I thought it was a 2009.

Wish I could age in reverse like that!
Until Next Time... Race Safely, and God Bless!
David