Projects Dodge This - 1939 Dodge Southeast Gasser Build

Have you ever had your engine on a dyno. I would like to know what you are getting out of it compared to the top cars HP. Where are you in the pack. Upper end, middle ?

 

Yeah me too. If I get time before Thursday, I'll run to the tire store to swap that shiny stuff out ......

No its got "non SBC mounts" so it hasn't been on a dyno yet. One car I know for sure was on a dyno before the last race - BBC think its 500 cubes made 1130hp. My car is probably 3/4 down the pack. 5.70 is the norm and 6.20 is the low. The B/G winner is running 6.20.

 

Bangshift part 2

https://bangshift.com/bangshift1320/southeast-gassers-coverage-from-mooresville-dragway/

 

From Part Two

 

Great time in Virginia. Smoothest track we’ve ever been on. Gabe made it to the finals again after breaking a rocker arm and a mad thrash

 

Saturday pics

 

Great behind the scenes shots and the food looks So Good! Thanks, Carp.

 

Always enjoy your pics Tony,How was the crowd count?

 

That track was amazing! Wish we could have stayed for more than a couple hours (don't ask). Great folks, great food and great racing!

DOM the crowd seemed a little light to me. But the place is big, so they may have just been spread out.

Hope the SEG comes back up this way again. This track is only 5 hours away for us.

Thanks for the pics and videos Tony!

 

It was a little light on the crowd but we've never been here before not sure folks knew what we are doing. That track is fantastic. The elevation was tough though the DA was 5300 compared to Lyons reading 1500 in the evening.

Here's the Mooresville race video :

 

The SEG gets picked up by Discovery Channel and you guys will pack the stands everywhere you go.

You need a manager?

I'm sure nobody around here knew about the race. It's a niche kinda thing till the people see the races and race cars. Once they do, they're hooked like a crack whore!

 

And a shout out to two SEG ladies. Kim for being the hardest working woman I saw there. Constantly in motion. And Miss Cynthia for driving the hell out of that gasser. Hadn't realized how far she had come since the last time I saw her race.

 

Man you aren't kidding there - we used to hear her car go down the track and say "Quain was driving - must be testing something" Now you can't tell who's driving, that girl is on fire.

Kim has blisters on both feet - but you can't stop her so what do ya do.

Here's something I found on Wednesday before the race. This season has killed 4 sets of rod bearings and one engine block. At first I thought the magneto was doing it at 9500 rpm (still not a good thing to zing that high), but finally got to the root cause.

At Moorseville the engine never went over 7500 rpm. Everything seemed fine. Wednesday went to crank up the engine and it was slow to crank. You got to be kidding me! So I opened the oil drain plug and out came 1 gallong of gas mixed with oil. The consistency of pure water. I pull the pan and a few rod bearings and they were wiped again.

Ok found the source of the rod bearing failures- now how does 1 gallon of gas get to the crank case ? It would hydraulic if it was dumped in the cylinders. The only other place is the fuel pump inside the timing cover. Either the fuel shutoff is leaking - which would be weird because for 2 seasons we never even had a fuel shutoff and it wasn't a problem or the pump seal is blown and under running pressure its dumping gas into the crank case.

This fits with the weird oil pressure gauge swinging all the time. (Well it would swing until it spit the rods out. )

So Thursday I changed all the rod bearings and put it back together. Put in a different fuel pump. Raced all weekend - no gas in the oil! Just when I thought everything that could go wrong on a race car already happened ......

I'll post some pics from my phone because everybody loves pics

 

Kinda hard to see but the top pump has that blue color from the race gas on it.

 

Tony, Thanks for the pics and updates. I see that you went back to the "dirty" look on the rims, personally, I like that better. Later, Carp

 

wow man, glad you caught that in time! Kinda looks like the hex is twisted on the old pump, how does that happen?Now that you know the deal with the oil and bearings, are you gonna spin it higher again?

Nice looking wheelies at Radford!

 

Yeah I don’t think it needs to go over 8500

Must be an optical illusion on the hex.

Kim went to Johnny for bearings Thursday morning lol

 

As a lifelong student of lubricating oils who has tried all sorts of oils in all sorts of engines from finely tuned racing engines, to competition go karts with modified B&S engines turning 13K rpm, down to worn out old stockers that you check the gas and fill up the oil!
And I can say without a doubt that gasoline, even blue racing gas is a piss poor lubricant! Glad you found this before you went back to race again.

 

Yep that would have killed another one. I'm thinking the engine that popped in Lyons was already full of gas before the run that killed it. The pan opened up so I didn't have any evidence of the gas. Gotta drain the oil each race I guess.

 

Don't know a helluva lot about stack injectors,, but just sorta assumed they used a belt driven pump mounted externally somewhere on the engine. Do they all use that pump setup in side the timing cover?

 

You can run the pump off a belt drive. That's the way mine is set up.

 

That's how I have mine also. It can't leak into the engine that way.

 

Thanks for all your posts, this thread is a great learning experience. Probably a lot more enjoyable for me than for you, or at least a hell of a lot less painful....

 

Might look into this. First pump that leaked like this. Hard thing to catch. I removed the dip stick or could probably see the pan filling up.

I don’t even post some of the stuff I mess up hahaha

 

Here's the Virginia race :

 

We had a great time at Knoxville and got back into the 5.90s by pilling it rich and leaning the barrel valve until it almost won’t run. See it wants more fuel on top but that makes it bog off the line.

But I also got to witness another fine southern tradition - the boss hog crooked cop