Some goals met, and a little dissapoinment

I just got back from the Divisional at Bowling Green Kentucky.

We put the new engine in the car, and needed to get some runs on it before Indianapolis this coming week.

With a new engine, you have several questions including the obvious one, will it run? Other questions include, how fast will it run? Is it as fast as we expected,or do we still need to do "things" to make it faster? And what kind of settings are normal for this engine. Oil pressure reading, and even water temperature vary from engine to engine. So it is neccesary to know what is "normal" for this engine.

Well the good news is that we ended up as the number 2 qualifier, and if we hadnt been a little careful to avoid running too fast and getting horspower the week before Indy, we easily could have been #1.

We were, however #1 among all of the Dodge Challengers (6 total including us)  running at this race.

We got the track early to run the Test 'N Tune, again hoping to see how fast we could go, and getting some runs on the engine. But our last run in the test session (Test session runs dont count against you in the NHRA no matter how fast you go...)  when we were going to let it all out, we ran down the track with nice start. But when the car shifted into third gear, the engine rpm went high as if there there wasnt any load on it, and then went down fast.

Keith shut it down and coasted to the end of the track. I immeiately knew something was wrong during the run, by the fact that the time was slow, and the speed was way down. So I hurried in golf cart to turn off from teh track to see if we needed to tow the car back.

Before I got there, the MegaManiac was already apparenlty easily, motoring towards me, past me, and back into our pit.

Keith confirmed what had happened, and we put the car up on jackstands, drained teh transmission fluid, expecting to see all kinds of nasty things in the fluid. The fluid was clear..

We then pulled the pan off of the transmission, and saw that the filter was completly clogged with some black ugly looking material. The fuid was clear, and the black stuff was not anywhere else in the transmission.

We replaced the filter, and put the same fluid back into it, with another quart of new ATF.

Our first qualifying run was going to tell us whether the clogged filter, or something else. Keith took it easy and after the car shifted correctly into third gear, we knew it good. A strange issue, and one that concerned us, but turned out OK.

We had a first roung against a good driver and car, and in an attempt to make sure we got a quick start, we got a little too quick, and red lighted.

We were all dissapointed, because we though we had a pretty good chance to go some rounds, bu that is racing; red by .006 is pretty close to 0....

But, we did the runs on the car, and confirmed to ourselves and others, that we are a force to be reckoned with.
So, the car is in the trailer, and the trailer is sitting #42 in line to get into Indianapolis, and will be pitted tomorrow morning.

We have a couple more  tweeks to make, and think we have a pretty good chance to run very well there.

God Bless and Race Safely

David

Thoughts of last year....Pomona, CA

Pomona Ca... Strange situation...

Something just came to mind about our experience last year in Pomona.

One morning, we were driving to the track, we stopped at a loal shop to pick up some incidentals...

Suddenly, a mortorcye policeman, who just happened to look a lot like Don Imus, a previously Cleveland radio personality, and now famous for making a comment about "nappy headed whores", in reference to an east coast college womens basketball team, came up to us, and asked for identification.

Before we knew what was happening, we were handcuffed and sitting on a curb. Apparently, the dealer plates on Keith's truck caused him some kind of concern.  He insulted us, and accused us of all kinds of criminal acticities, and searched the truck. Well, as a devout Christian, and Keith and his wife being the safe, we really weren't all that concerned. We had done nothing wrong, and have nothing to worry about.

After at least forty five minutes of insults, and stupid questions from the Imus look alike, , and another couple of officers showed up. One of them happened to be a Drag Race fan. And fortunately, he apparently outranked Don Imus, and was a reasonable person.  He put at ease immediately, assuring us that it wouldn't be long, and we would be on our way.

A few minutes later, and we were uncuffed, lectured by Imus for not having the tag permanently attached, and we were on our way back to the track at Pomona.

Kind of funny in retrospect, and as far as I can remember, we never spoke about it again.

But Keith did permanently attach the license plate. But next time we get together, I will  remind them, Keith and Tonya, and we can laugh about it all over again.

Some of the most interesting and strange things that happen when you travel coast to coast to race, get dropped between the cracks. This just came to mind, and I wanted to share it with you...

Stay tuned for more. God, life is good!

God Bless, and Race Safely!

David
The New Hemi Guy

My, how time flies...

Pretty soon, it will be time to race again.

And we go over the peices and parts from our broken engine, and look at putting together our new engine, we continue to wonder how we ever ran as well as we did before.

From valve seats that weren't seating, losing compression... And not from just one valve either, but from quite a few of them......

....to fuel injectors that were not doing their job of properly injecting the fuel..

Previously, we ran an awful lot of races, and ran very fast for many of them. But then we started losing power. But it wasn't until we ran our backup engine, that we began to suspect that the killermotor had issues.  How else can we account for a plain vanilla engine running as well as it did, when our killer motor wasn't much faster.

But now, we know why the Killer motor was down on power.. And that knowledge is going into the new killer motor.

So, by the time Indy rolls around, our new killer motor should be back together, and wrung out a couple of times at a local track.

So look out Indy! New Hemi Racing is coming to a track near you. And we are again ready to race.

New Hood hold downs by Quick-Latch

First, let me say that Drag Pak #24 has more unique innovations, and changes from the way the car comes,  than any other Challenger Drag Pak. I won't go into the entire list of them, because some of them are "Secret Squirrel" Information. And that information is held quite close to the vest. But this is only one of many, many things that are different on this car, and one of the reasons why we run more consistently and faster than any other Challenger Drag Pak with the same number of cylinders, and within 50 cubic inches. But we also do it with less stress, and grief.

If you want to get the whole list of what we have done, the book "The Definitive Drag Pak" is available on disk, in PDF form for only $500. And this book is the Secret Squirrel version, with absolutely nothing held back.

This post is about just one innovation that we have been  slowly evolving. Our hood attachments.

As reported previously, we lost the original hood in Las Vegas last year. The Dzus fasteners just were not reliable enough. As demonstarted in thr fact that we lost the hood at 135 MPH as we crossed the finish line.  In addition, from the time we got the car, the fasteners were, at best, inconvenient. And mostly they were a means to scratch the hood, and battle to get get them latch, and open. Ask any Drag Pak owner, and they will tell this is one of the most inconvenient things about this car.

Evolution One: When we got the new hood, I requested that it not be drilled or have fasters install. We had decided to use conventional  hood pins. So we made new brackets, and the hood pins did their job. The hood was easier to get open when necessary, and stayed down when it should.
But when you took the pins out, you had to keep track of the 10 loose hood pins. We would set them in pile, or drop them in a cup. But I was always aware that if we lost one Not a really big deal, but just an inconvenience. And although this sure beat the Dzus fasteners, I am all for making racing as convenient than it absolutely can be. That doesn't mean I think I can make racing easy, I can't. racing is hard work. But I sure can make it easier than it has been.

Evolution Two: At one of the races, a representative of Quick-Latch came by and I got to see some samples. Immediately, I  could see that we could remove our concerns over losing pins, and get a much better, smoother appearance. And they wouldn't take much modification to what we already had done, and they are NHRA approved.

And here it is. While we waiting to get our new engine together, we finally had a chance to make some minor changes to the custom brackets we made for the hood pins, and install the new latches;  So, here is a better way. What you see is a bit more than the Quick-Latch Polished Mini Latch. We installed a washer under the pin bucket, and above it on the hood. There are four rivets holding the top washer in place. This washer, and rivets and probably not needed. But the Quick-Latch Min in not terribly big, so we felt comfortable leaving the large washer with rivets in place. We had used them for the hood pins, and some day we remove the rivets, and put pretty chrome washer in place under the latches. But that is not a real high priority at this point in the evolution.

What do we like about the Quick-Latch? Well, you press a button in the center of the latch, and it releases. We opted for the optional springs, so that the hood pops up away from the latch, when the button is released. And it works great. It isn't without its' own little quicks. The order that you pop the latches, is based somewhat on how they are installed, and you have to determine it yourself.

This is a look at one of the installed latches.

The center part, about 1 inch, with a small button

 in the center of it,  is the actual latch.

You press that center button to release the latch.

This is what they all look like when istalled.

Neat, clean, smooth, and easy!!!

 

They look nice and work good. Although they cost a little more than hood pins, but they still are better than any other solution that I have seen yet. You can do a whole hood for less than $300. And after you scratch your paint a few times, or lose your hood once, or just go through the rat race of unlatching, and then relatching them after fuel check a few times, and $300 isn't too much after all.

God Bless, and Race Safely

David

The New Hemi Guy

Want to see some broken parts?

Not everyone who watches this blog is a racer. Most racers have already seen too many broken parts to take any interest in what I am showing you. But for the rest, you may find it interesting.

First, let me explain what we ultimately determined was our problem. We had about 160 runs on the motor, and the rods are made in China. What this means is simple: First,  it is hard to find much of anyhting that isnt made in China, and two the quality isn't what it used to be when it was mad ein America. But this would/could be true of any rods. The big end of the rods, tend to get out round, and when they do, they put unusual pressure on the bearings, which then tend to fail, and then the rod breaks, and then the crank gets hammered by the broken rod, and the block gets cracked.

The top two pictures are the rods.

The one below is obviously the one that totally broke.

The pictures below are the cracks in cylinder walls.

This cylinder, you can see, is more than cracked.

 I didn't show the crankshaft, but it was beat up pretty badly, and was totally unusable.

So there you have it. That's what broken parts look like. And we now have broken a total of 4 motors, two 6.1s and two 5.7s, so what is next?

Hopefully, there will be no more broken engines. But if there is, we will build another engine and race it!  Never give up! And it will take a lot more than broken engine to make us give up now.

God Bless, and Safe Racing.

David

Stanton Michigan

Surprise, Surprise. Our backup motor pushes the car down the track pretty well.

We qualified number 8 in stock, out of 58 cars.

Unfortunaly, in our first round of eliminations, the car did something to us that it done before..

It ran way too good. We ran a 10.11 on the brakes, with a top speed of 100 mph. 

So we lost a double breakout.

Now we have some time, and some parts will be in to shop this week, and other work is already underway, for our new engine. I won't say which engine we will run in Indy, 5.7, 6.1 or 6.4... We can run any one of these engine in A/SA and we will run A/SA in Indy.

And naturally, we want to win at Indy, so you can be sure that we will run whatever engine gives us the best chance of winning.

And as much as I like the idea of David vs the Goliath, the 5.7 doesn't have the kind of torque you get with a 6.4. The 6.1 isn't so bad either, if built right. And we know how to build these engines.

So wait for Indy August 31-September 5, 2011 and see what happens next.

God Bless, and Race Safely out there.

David