Projects Dodge This - 1939 Dodge Southeast Gasser Build

I was thinking that if you are just revving the engine in neutral you may not be moving the barrel valve far enough to get out of the idle bypass. You may have to load the engine to really see what the pressure really is.

 

That's what he's doing Rusty, It has to be wide open or it will never build pressure and unless he has changed it there is no jet in the idle bypass which makes it even worse. Got to fill a 3/8 line before it can build pressure LOL.

 

Yep just revving it in the garage and setting off the fire alarm. I don't think you can run slicks on a chassis dyno? So time to hook up some fuel gauges and O2 sensors and head to Commerce. There's got to be 2 tenths hiding in that elephant

 

Feed pressure is important as the spill return will take care of the any unused fuel.
As it does return to the tank it also absorbs heat from the engine.
This heat will expand the fuel and heat the tank fuel in the process.
The preheated fuel will then reduce combustion efficiency.


Sent from my SM-T805 using H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Rollers will tear the slicks up on a chassis dyno. Better to use a hard tire/radial

 

Saturday they are running some show at Commerce called Night of Fire so sounds like Night of Test N Tune to me plan to mount the O2 gauge + fuel gauge up where the GoPro can record both next to the tach. The Magneto negates any of that fancy Racepak stuff

So in the mean time - pulled the poor clutch out to see how much abuse its had. This is what the whole season looked like last year - so 2x the abuse this year. I called Pat Norcia and after some questions he said there was a video on Youtube that tells how to set up the Sintered Iron. Now that I can actually hit all 4 gears in the car, its time to get some of this fine tuning right. He is going to turn the surfaces and get it all back in time for a Saturday run.

 

Thanks for posting the video. I will hopefully be setting my clutch setup shortly so that will help for sure.

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Dang! Never knew there was so much to check when adjusting a clutch!

 

Yall are making me jealous with your fancy injectors and clutches!

 

More stuff starting to make sense - sometimes the car would drive through the clutch coming out of the burnout onto sticky track - well the base screws were all the way out. That's minimum base pressure - I thought that was max.

Then on launch at 6500 RPM the weights on the fingers must be adding clamping force, because it always grabbed and bogs the motor down. So the counter weights must be too heavy, because at min base pressure it should have slipped on launch and it never has.

My plan on this fresh clutch is 3 turns (like was supposed to be in it) make a pass and take one turn out. Then on the counter weight, plan to cut that weight in half to see if it won't grab so hard at 6500 rpm launch.

 

Just smile when you drive around them.

 

YouTube has video of cars with slicks on a chassis dyno

 

Make sure you weigh the counter weight that you have now (need a gram scale) then, if you take some out, or put some in, you know where you started. As for base pressure adjustments.., righty tightly, lefty loosely.

 

Racer X, I know Gene Adams very well. He has been a great mentor to me. Your absolutely right people should get their system flowed as it makes a huge difference to know that info. Saves alot of headaches! Here is a pic of Gene at his custom flow bench incase anybody ever wondered what one looks like. He told me only 3 of these models exist besides his. Hilborn has one and forget who has the 3rd. Notice his T-Shirt!

 

I owned a Dave Settles flow bench one of the best ever made at the time (20 years ago). I bought it and payed a ton of money for it used because I thought I was leaving a lot on the table with my pro mod blown and injected hemi. I messed around with it for quite a while with no help at all to my performance. Ended up being a storage table that I did use a time or two to flow my jets to make sure they were what the number's said they were and i did find some problems there. I finally sold it a few years ago for $2,000 just to get it out of my way. I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers but Tony's engine is performing very well. He has other problems but it's nothing flowing the injectors is going to fix. i don't want to see him get more lost because he send's his stuff off and has someone tune it on a bench. I have yet to find anyone that can bench tune a gas injection unit to an odd set up like Tony's and I have seen hilborn try. A gas set up has to be tuned to the engine. Alcohol is a different story it can be set up and will work right out of the box but we have to run gas.
The sheet racer X posted tell us that the pump is working good.

 

Flowing a pump gives you two things. Is the pump flowing to the maufacturers specs and it gives you a baseline so you know what you are starting with. its basic math to figure out a safe starting point. Its not for fine tuning. Flowing just the pump only gives you part of the info. The whole system needs to be flowed. Without flowing the system how do you know what you have other than looking at the parts and saying they look shiny and new so they must be good. Im not looking at this as feather ruffeling. I look at this as some experienced racers discussing the finer points of tuning cars. Its obvious by the posts so far there are some smart guys here. No b.s. possers. I like to hear others views because i pick up on things i can try on my own stuff.

 

Actually...... I believe on the Ram single disc, it's counterclockwise to increase base and clockwise to decrease. You are moving a spring hat (that's threaded in the center) down and up. Counterclockwise on the screw moves the hat down and compresses the spring. Maybe you were being facetious, never know....... I don't claim to be a expert by any stretch, maybe I'm hosed up........

 

I was just afraid that my way of doing things would offend some of the more technical guys. I posted what i did to keep Tony from getting lost where he really don't need to be working right now. And your right, now that I know we can openly talk about it I won't worry about anybody thinking I'm just being a smart ass. Keep in mind that the engines I'm referring to when I talk about this were Blown and injected on alcohol making around 3,600 HP so this stuff had to be perfect.
95% of the pumps that I flowed when i had my bench were almost perfect and the ones that weren't I took the cover off and it was obvious as to why. Most all of them were Waterman 18 to 22 gal. pumps.
When i set up a fuel system most of the time I had a good idea of where to start and what nozzles i needed to use. I flowed the barrel valve at 82% then fine tuned by ear and watching the pipes. (can't do that on the flow bench). Oh yea 82% is about 1 gal. per minute at idle these things used a lot of fuel.
Then I start wide open throttle out rich and make 330" passes, come back and read the plugs. At this point I start tuning individual cylinders and leaning the whole system to start getting the heat I need in the plugs. In the end with high speeds and all where they need to be it's making 3,600 and never once used a flow bench. All of this was in the old days we now have data recorders that have EGT's and tell us where fuel flow is, but I still get there the same way and have never trusted EGT's.
Of course I just hit the high spots on finding a tune up but y'all get the idea.
For the old school fuel injection just give Mike at Alkydigger a call and he can tell you the nozzles and pump you need if you don't know. I have to call him myself from time to time.
Anyway I guess I'm missing something or just hard headed but I just don't understand where a flow bench will help Tony's car especial now that it's been tuned at the track. He has the plugs looking close so what can the flow bench tell him except, it takes this much fuel to make your plugs look this way in his engine and his engine only, in the weather that it was that day.

 

Your right Tony to the left add's, to the right takes it out.

 

Good points. Well taken. I think a fuel system should be flowed before the engine is started for a base line reading. If there should be a problem with performance it could be flowed again to make sure the pump is not the problem. As most know when the pump starts to go there is a definate spike in rpm at the top end as its going lean. Hopefully its caught before it takes out a piston. I just like to know what im starting at so i can refer back if there is a problem. I agree a flow bench wont tune the car. It still needs to be done the old time consuming way you described. I have run several altered wheelbase mopars over the years with stack injectors. They were all original hemi cars. I also ran the car thats my avatar. It used a late model brad fat head blown nitro hemi backed by a bruno lenco. The tune up for that needed to be perfect also. Fires suck.

 

What if we agree on this. Flow the pump to make sure it's good (this will be for people that can't take it apart to look). I'm still not understanding why the rest of the system needs to be flowed.
And your right Fire sucks Maple Grove Pa. 2011. Can't tell the car is off topic because of the fire.

 

wow thats a fire. thats why all my fire protection is spec -20 along with 20lbs of cold fire. funny thing is the worst fire i had was at maple grove. i flow the whole thing to set the pop offs and to see what the gpm/pressure is at a given rpm. looking at my flow sheet gives all the info thats needed. the whole system is put through a test to recreate as close to possible what a actual run would look like. when its given the ok its put on the car with fine tuning to follow. i think we are mostly thinking along the same lines. we just do a few things a little different.

 

The reason I can't do mine this way is I don't know where I want the pop off to be until I start fine tuning. I never use a high speed or anything like that until everything else is where I want it. But I can see where it would help if you had an idea before hand. The pro mod stuff with the legal roots blower needed a high speed to open just before the gear change because the blower boost would start climbing slower and the pump speed would get ahead of it then it would go rich. But again the flow bench didn't know how efficient the blower was so this number could be anywhere from 7,500 to 9,500 RPM.s. The PSI screw blower never needed a high speed because the boost never stopped climbing.

Looks like you and I both need to stay away from Maple Grove LOL. And I have gotten slam off the subject of Tony's car on a flow bench.

 

Quain's right. Every single constant flow injection system out there is different. Alky is so simple because the tuning window as to where it will make good power is the size of Texas. You can pretty much take any pile of parts as long as the nozzles are reasonably close for your application and make it run pretty darn good. As for gasoline, I learned pretty quickly that the tuning window is more like the size of a hubcap. However, you can fudge some stuff to still make it run pretty good even if everything isn't exactly right. Like I said before, there is more than one way to do it. None of them really wrong and none really right. I have tried turning just about every knob on mine this year and honestly not found much. I have picked up some only because I was outside the hubcap (so to speak) but once you get close, it is what it is.

I've decided that the only thing that really matters to me is how it runs from 5000-7500 rpms and hopefully make it start and idle reasonable well. Also needs to take the fuel from idle to launch rpm on the starting line just before I let out the clutch. Nothing else really matters.

 

No, your correct, I was just jacking with him. It's righty loosy, lefty tightly.

 

That's Yesterday's Chili trying to get an edge on is all - I'm hip to his tricks.

So Quain do you have air supply helmets for a fire like that? Or you just hold your breath? Did you get burned?

 

No fresh air just hold your breath. Didn't get burned but got hot. I had good fire safety from White Safety. At our next Gasser race ask Dee and Greg about what I said on the radio, they was standing on the starting line when it happened. All of that because of a busted lifter.

 

Quain's you are absolutely correct about the tuning portion. Needs tuned to the engine. Flow Testing is merely a tool only really there to assure the parts and piece do what they are supposed (flow wise) to do and will help with a baseline only. That was the point of my post earlier. For finding more power using gas Gene has always told me to get the nozzles high up in the stacks. What are you thoughts with this?

 

Nozzels high in the stacks is better for gas but don't matter on alcohol, and really the only difference i have see is they idle better. I really think you have good power just need to get the car and Tony right. I'm thinking you have been 5.90s in the heat and it takes pretty good power to do that. 5.80 can't be far behind, just a little tweaking on those 2 units I just talked about.

 

The only thing I heard about having the nozzles above the butterflies...is when you run Alky you can have the butterflies frost up, so most run them under...but I'm definitely no expert.