We arrived at National Trailways on Thursday morning. The plan was to take advantage of the Thrsday Test N Tune, and find out what kind of times the car will really do. But, there was a program running early in the day, as a rain make up. Well, that program ran into teh night, and so there was no Test N Tune.
OK, so we missed the Test N Tune, on Friday, the Sports Nationals starts!
Except, it rained most of the day, and ultimately, the three day event was turned into a two day event. So, we ran a 9.85 time, and were qualified #1 for about half an hour. Then Charley Bob Downing in his Mustang went for a record run, took the number one qualifier position, and also will get some horsepower on Monday. But we went into Class Eliminations, and after running our 5.7 Hemi against some pretty fast A/SA cars, including a 6.4 Hemi Dodge Challenger, and a 6.1 Hemi Challenger DragPak, won the A/SA Class. The winning run came at around 11 PM. Our Class win came against the 6.4 Hemi, and it was late. The temperature was dropping fast and there was dew on the race track. Needless to say we, and the other car spun our tires on the wet track. But we recovered, and won. Yeah! Another Wally! A very good day.
After the scale check to make sure our weight was legal, and the fuel check to be sure our fuel was legal, we were told that the photographer had already left, so we drove back to the pits, and we could get the pics take Sunday Morning... But wait, a tech rep came and got us, and we drove the car back down to the photography backdrop for pictures. I will explain in the next paragraph why I even tell you this.
Keith started the car to drive back to the pit area, and the car made noises that we didn't like. He immediately shut it down. We started it again for moment, to try to identify the noise, and after a moment of only concluding it was bad, shut it down again. We drove the our pit cart back to the trailer and got our tow strap, hooked up the car, and towed it back, up a pretty big hill, and to our pit. Our little cart, like the car, may not look big, but it does a nice job.
We pulled the oil filter out of the car, and began to tear it apart. It was now about 11:30PM and after struggling with it got the filter apart. If it shows us bearing material, then we have a big problem. Almost anything else, is still a big problem, but other things aren't as destructive as spinning a bearing like we did in Indianapolis. The pit area is well lighted, and we are trying to figure out exactly what might be wrong.
We start pulling plugs to see if there are any symptoms there. Cylinder number spark plugs, are clean whereas all other plugs are black for running too rich. So what does that mean? Black, running rich is the norm for us. So why are the plugs from number 3 clean. Maybe a bent valve. Maybe a broken rocker arm. Lots of maybes. It now midnight, and suddenly the lights go out, and it is as dark as a cave at night. Apparently the track shuts the light off at midnight. Rats! What now.
A Super Street guy pitted next to us, came over with a flashlight, and I found my flashlight. We messed around for another half hour, and decided that we couldn't see things well enough. So with the help of our neighbor, we pushed the car into the trailer, fired up the generator and turned on the fluorescent lights in the trailer. But the lights flickered too much, and was driving us crazy, so we got our two trouble lights and had a little light. We did a compression check and decided that cylinder 3 had too much compression. That could be caused by several bad things. But our best guess was a bent or broken valve. It was about 2 in the morning by then, and we decided the problem was probably beyond us right then. So we went back to the hotel. At the time we left the track, we were sure that we had a really big problem, and that we would be leaving early Sunday morning
We got back to the track at about 7:30 AM. So there we were, with four hours of sleep, back trying to figure out what was wrong.
After taking about the symptoms, and possibilities, being short of sleep, and pretty testy from that lack of sleep, we kept asking each other: What could it be. Now it was getting late and soon Stock would be called. There is no way, we can get things fixed, and get reading for Stock Eliminator in a little more than an hour. But one way or another , at the track, or back in the shop, things need to be taken apart, so even if we cant get it all back together in time, we can find out what caused the problem.
One possible thing that could cause the problem might be a collapsed lifter. To find out, we need to pull coil packs, intake manifold, calve cover, rocker arm assemblies, push rods, exhaust headers, and the driver side head. That is a couple of hours work, so although we knew it was absolutely assured that we couldn't get it apart, fixed, and back together in time to run, we still needed to get it apart to find out if that is our problem. And if we find almost anything else, we couldn't get it done anyway.
So apart it all came. The car was still in the trailer, and that made it hard for more than one person to do a lot of things. But since it is now daylight, we pushed the car mostly out of the trailer, drained the water, and shortly had the manifold off. Then came the coil packs, the valve covers, the rocker arm assemblies, and we decided to try pulling the head without removing the exhaust headers. As I recall, Chris and I pulled that driver side head with header still attached. So to save time, and effort, decided to try it again. It worked, we moved the head just enough, with header still attached, to remove the lifter cradle, and the lifters. And guess what we found? A collapsed lifter. We have spare lifters, so we could replace it. They had just called the left side of the Stock Elimination Ladder to the Staging lane. No way we could get it all together in time before we are called, and cant make it.
But wait, we have come this far, and I hate giving up. I will not quit!!!!!!!!!!!
And there was no resistance. Both Keith, and Ed, who joined us for this trip and was extremely helpful, were in synch with me. Lets just try! And we did. The new lifter went in, the head went back on. The rocker arm assembly went in, the rocker cover went back on, intake manifold went back on, spark plugs in, coil packs on, everything was connected, we put water in, and hoped for the best. The car was started, and it sounded great. We backed it out, drove to staging lanes, and got there right in time.
We actually won our first two rounds of eliminations, and in our third round, we ran a 9.91 on a 9.3 dial. That is bad. You cant run faster than your dial in, so we lost that one, and were done. But in my mind, we won just by getting the engine diagnosed and fixed in time to compete.
God Bless, and Race Safely!
David
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