Event Coverage Through the eyes of a Trunk Monkey: Drag week in a hot rod

Thanks, but I already read Joels post on Moparts.com, and didnt see much of anything on the bottom end.

 

Slayer, here is the scoop on the Hemi:
Short block:
.060 over 392 block 1/2 filled with Hardblock polymer fill, O-ringed deck
Bronze bushed lifter bores, bushings drilled for full oil pressure to lifters
4.525 (5/8 stroker) billet crank. I am not sure of the brand, I bought it used and it is unstamped
Milodon steel 4 bolt main caps
TR Waters main stud girdle
7.1" Oliver steel parabolic I beam rods
Diamond 13.5:1 pistons
Total Seal rings with C33 nitride chrome plating
ATI small block Mopar Superdamper, bore honed and keyway re-broached to fit Hemi crank

Heads:
Hot heads aluminum racing heads, ported by Nick Smithberg
2.200 Ti intakes 1.800 stainless steel exhaust valves
bronze guides
Clark copper head gaskets

Valvetrain:
Milodon gear drive
Comp Cams conical valve springs and Ti retainers
Pac tool steel 7 degree locks
Comp Cams roller, 280 degrees at .050, .727" intake and .675 exhaust lift
Isky bushed roller lifters with pressure oiling to the axles
Missle roller rockersthat I drilled and tapped 4-40 set screws into the bushings to prevent rotation
Smith Brothers 3/8 " x .120 wall pushrods

Oil system:
Titan oil pump
Internal oil lines bypassing the cam bearing oil feeds, sending full pressure to the rocker arms (For drag week reliability)
A pair of -8 oil return lines from each head to the oil pan. (to get all that oil out of the heads)
.024" hole drilled in the rear oil gallery plug to spray on the cam gear
Ishihara_Johnson crank scraper, reworked by owner
Charlies aluminum dragster oil pan with trap doors and diamond screen oil extractor, sight glass added

External:
Hot Heads valve covers and timing cover
vintage magnesium valley cover
MSD distributor
Taylor Spiro-pro plug wires
custom built headers
Edelbrock 8 carb X3 intake
8 1-1/16" Holley 94's
custom built linkage

Driveline:
Mcleod aluminum flywheel and RTX twin disk clutch
Quicktime scattersheild
T56 Magnum 6 speed trans, 1-4 gears faceplated, REM polished and cyro treated by Liberty
aluminum driveshaft, 1350 u-joints
Moser 9" with 10 bolt pinion retainer, steel spool
Moser 4.57 pro gears
Moser 35 spline axles

I think that about covers it. As you can see, I did everything I could to build this thing to be bomb-proof.

 

after that, I'd be embarrassed to tell you what I have in my old Chevy engine. just a bunch of old stock parts.

 

yeah, thats some serious shit!

 

Squirrel, to make a ton of power without boost, my plan is to spin this thing some serious RPM and still hang together. The heads will support it. This motor is basically built the same as the motor in Quick and Dirty, and that thing has seen 9000 rpm and makes a good 200 horse more than I have made. But I have run it very conservatively so far, until I get it on the dyno and sort it out. At Drag Week I shifted at 6800. I expect a lot more out of this engine, thus the overkill build.

 

Mercy, not ya grandpas Hemi.

 

Slayer, the rods are 7.1-in. I'm not sure on the stock length, I know a gen 2 Hemi is 6.86". I have the rod journals on the crank ground down to the 2.2 inch big block Chevy size so I can use the cheaper, more readily available, Chevy rod bearings.
On a race motor, I generally adhere to the old axiom "if your bearing clearances are too loose, only you will know. If they are too tight, everybody will know". So I set them up in the .0035 + range.

 

13.5 to 1 pistons, what fuel are you using out on the road ?

 

I use 93 octane, plus dump in a couple cups of klotz octane booster. It seems to do fine that way, but I don't get on it too hard on the street anyway.

 

Do you have a engine oil temp gauge, Hardblocked 1/2 full wondering what temp the oil gets to ?

 

Tick, It runs well under 180 all the time. It has a water to oil heat exchanger mounted on the oil filter adapter that cools the oil with engine coolant. This type of cooler is very effective, yet lighter,and more compact than an oil to air cooler.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Engine-Oil...2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

 

Jeff called me up this afternoon and said that he had tried to start writing the story again. In a half an hour he got out about a half a sentence. But then things started to flow and he got the next installment done!


Not far out of the Gate of US 131 Dragway is a small gas station, and we always fill the street tank with fresh 91-93 octane, depending on what the station has. Some Klotz Octane boosted is added before filling up. In 2018 we used the stuff to keep the 13+:1 HEMI happy on the street. On our first attempt to measure the Klotz out, it didn't go so well. Joel had brought with a plastic measuring cup, and when I went to clean it out, the cup was melting from the Klotz. It's some nasty stuff, and you do not want any to get on you. We quickly learned that a stainless steel cup was needed, and Joel had purchased one in 2018. Problem was, we didn't have it with this time. Add it to the list of things needed at our first stop. We were also in need of a transmission type funnel for filling up the street tank in the Coupe. Those work best as the tank is in the front part of the trunk area of the Coupe, and while on the road, the trunk is PACKED with our needed stuff for the week. Without a funnel, we needed to improvise on Drag Week right away. I happened to have a almost empty Root Beer bottle, and that soon served as a funnel, and measuring cup once we found a knife. Add a pocket knife to the list.

Once we were gassed up, and fresh snacks for the trip, we got on to US 131 South, and headed to the first exit, so we could find a parts store, and get a new brake switch installed in the Coupe. Not far off the route we found a O'Reilly's Auto. Joel parks the Coupe out of the way of normal traffic to the store, so he has room to fix the switch. As we walk in, there is a customer installing new headlights into his clapped out truck. If we hung around long enough, we might have picked up a few new swear words. He didn't look like he was having a good time. Joel walks in ahead of me, and the lady behind the counter gives Joel a quick glance. Not sure if she is seeing things, or if she just witnessed Blake Sheltons stunt double walk in after a bad accident? Joel asks for a brake switch, and I start wandering around finding things we need for the week. A pocket knife, a funnel, AF sensor, Pipe thread tape, electrical tape, bottle of Old Harper, a crescent wrench for the AN fittings, and a plastic comb for Joel.

Not able to find a steel measuring cup, I told Joel I'd walk over to the WalMart next door, and see if I could find something there. "OK, but just get the essentials." "What do I look like, an idiot?" More walking... It took me a couple minutes to find the Household good area, and see what was available. last time Joel was able to just buy a single cup, but this time, all I could find was a stack of cups. It's all they had, and I didn't want to waste any more time in the place than I needed. I walk back to O'Reilly's, and Joel was just coming out of the store. I show him the measuring cups, and Joel asks "Are you baking me a cake?" "It's all they had. I can keep one, and toss the rest, but never know if we'll need them."

Joel got busy working on the brake light switch, and we finally hear the familiar rumble of a Drag Week car off in the distance. First one we've seen since we left, and here it's Clark Lamb, and his Dad, Bill. "What do you guy's need?" we asked. "Set of air shocks" Clark replied. Good luck with that one... Off Clark went into the store. They must have had a revolving door we missed, because as fast as Clark walked in, he walked out. They wished us good luck, fired off the worlds heaviest small block, and headed down the road.

"I think I got it." Joel said still leaning in the Coupe to repair the brake switch. Power on, left blinker, right blinker, brake lights, tail lights. Everything is good. Lets hit the road! We pile ourselves in the Coupe, and head East to US 131, then head South. Joel quickly merges with traffic, and as I'm glancing down at the route sheet, smoke starts entering the car. Oil on the headers? Intake leaking? Valve cover gasket? "Joel, we better get off on the next exit, and see where that's coming from" With a concerned look on his face, he agreed, and we took the first right, then saw a Loves gas station on the left. Joel finds what he thinks is a good place to park... Right next to dog pen area, where the sprinklers are running. Hop out of the car, and take a quick glance at the HEMI. Nothing there.. Bend down to see if anything under the car is dripping, "Awe SH!T!" I tell Joel. "What?" The entire bottom of the car is covered in gear lube. It doesn't take long to find out where the fluid is coming from. The rear seal has been pushed out of the tail housing. This isn't good. We discuss things a bit, and Joel thinks that maybe when he installed the oil pump in the transmission, that it might be building pressure, and pushing the seal out? Maybe the vent was plugged? "What now Joel?" "Well, we will have to pull the transmission, and fix it. Maybe take the pump out?" "No way..." I told him. It took Joel months to reassemble that transmission at home, with a fully equipped shop. No way we could do that here in a Loves gas station. We could be done with Drag Week right here...

 

Wow! This is getting intense now.

 

The trunk monkey has been hard at work on another installment of the drag week story!

On Labor Day weekend, prior to Drag Week, I was at Thunder Valley Dragway in Marion South Dakota. While there, I met up with Moparts members J Body (Jay), Big Dad (Daryl), and Dakotahotrodder (Wade). Wade had stopped by the track to hang out, and brought with some home smoked ribs, BBQ, and plenty of Hamm's beer. Perfect track food, and it was delicious. One of Wade's buddies, Matt was there, and we began to talk some, and the discussion of Drag Week came up. His face lit up, and he said that he was going. I asked if he was spectating, or entered in the event? "Oh I got in!" "First time?" "Yeah, what can I expect?" I just chuckled, and asked what car he was bringing? He told me his Mustang blew up earlier in the year, and he was bringing a "Plan B" car. Plan B cars are not unusual for Drag Week, but when he told me it was a newer Chevy Impala SS, with a LS engine, I asked him "Aren't those front wheel drive?" Yeah, why? "Do you have slicks or Drag Radials for the car?" No... was his response. "Well you're going to need them, or you can't run the event." I know in the back of my mind, Matt was thinking, what was he going to do? I was also thinking great, if we needed help, we could maybe have Matt give us a hand, as he was entered in the event. Little did we know that we would need matt almost immediately on Day one...
While Joel was looking up some info on the pump he installed in the T56 magnum, I placed a phone call to Matt. "Hello." "Hey Matt, where are you?" "Still at the track, just watching some cars." "Have you made your run, and turned in your time slip?" "Yeah, why?" "We need your help." So I gave Matt our location, and he and his Trunk Monkey Lance headed our way. Since they were already switched over to Street trim, and packed up, it only took them 20-25 minutes to arrive at the gas station. While they were on the way, I told Joel to move the Coupe, so we were not getting sprayed by the sprinkler system, while we were working on it. "Good thinking."
When Matt, and Lance arrived, we told them the situation, and with some digging on the internet, Joel was able to find out that if he removed one of the plugs on the transmission, installed some fittings, and a oil cooler, dumping it back into the fill plug, it just might solve the problem. Joel then got on the phone, and called the near by NAPA store, and told him that they did have the oil cooler, and rear seal he was looking for. So with a list of parts he thought were needed, Joel and Matt hopped into the Impala, and off they went. I got started on cleaning the bottom of the Coupe, and removing the rear drive shaft loop, and driveshaft. Lance was helping by handing me new clean paper towels.
Disclosure: I was not there to witness the following that happened, but was told the story by Matt.
Joel and Matt arrived at the NAPA not too far away, and when Joel walked in, the lady behind the counter wondered if she too was seeing Blake Shelton's Stunt Double after a horrible accident? Joel assured you he wasn't, and had absolutely no clue who that was. matt nudged him, and said "Lets get what we need, and get going." (I'm glad it's not just me pushing Joel.) The lady was super helpful, and most likely a Saint to put up with Joel, and his 10,000 questions. Fittings, Check. Cooler, Check. Trans Fluid, Check. Rear seal, Check. Matt asks Joel, what about hose? "Oh yeah, gonna need that." lady asks Joel how much hose he needs? "Hmmm... Not sure where we are going to mount a cooler, so give me 12 feet of hose. If we are short, Matt can drive me back up here." Matt replies, "Get 14 feet!" Joel pays for everything, and they hop back in Matt's Impala, and head back to the gas station.
Once back at the gas station, We looked over everything, and Joel got busy installing the fittings in the transmission, and then it was determined that the cooler could be mounted right under the trans, and held in place with zip ties. With only needing about 3 feet of the 14 foot section of hose, Joel looks at Matt, and asks if he can drive him back to NAPA, and return the remaining 11 feet, since he still had the receipt? "NO." was all Matt replied. LOL! OK, on to the next problem. The rear seal. We removed the new one from the box, and compared it to the current seal. Nope not even close to fitting the transmission. Now what? We could attempt to clean the old one, and reinstall it. If the cooler idea works, we should be good? Now how do we get it on the tail housing? "Joel, I have an idea. What if we use one of the measuring cups as a seal driver?" "Lets try it." So we cleaned the seal, and tail housing up with brake cleaner, and then found the correct size cup to fit the seal, and drove it home with a hammer. While I finished that, and started to reinstall the driveshaft, Joel, was putting fluid into the trans. Rear driveshaft loop installed, Floor pan reinstalled, pack all the junk we had scattered in the parking lot back up, a quick trip to the bathroom, and get washed up, and we were ready to hit the road again. Matt, and Lance said they would follow us, and make sure everything was OK. We piled back into the Coupe, Joel fired the HEMI up, and pointed it South bound on US 131 for the 3rd time. As we merged in with traffic, I saw a sign for a rest area a couple miles ahead. I told Joel we should just do a quick stop, and make sure everything was where it needed to be, before we got too far away. "Good thinking." So we roll into the rest area, and I quickly unbuckle my safety harness, open the door, look under the car, and give the Joel the now too familiar "AH SH!T!" The seal had pushed itself out again. Luckily for us Matt, and Lance pulled into the rest area behind us. Looking back, I'm sure they wished they hadn't.
"Now what Joel?" "Not sure. We might have to drop out, but I don't want to after that pass this morning. It's Drag Week, and we have to do what we have to do." Crap, it's going to be one long night... "Joel gets on his phone, and tries to call someone that knows T56 Magnums, but isn't having any luck. I do a Google search for "T56 magnum pushing out seal". One of the search results led me to a web forum, that had discussed this problem, and what a POS the rear seal was for these transmissions. One member had suggested using a Ford C6 transmission tail housing seal, as it was the same dimensions, but a old school type that was encased in steel, and not just a rubber POS. That member was even good enough to give the part number. I took a screen shot of it, looked it up on NAPA's website, and it said it was in stock at the location Joel, and Matt were just at. They both hop in Matt's car, and head South on US 131 about 10 miles before they can then head North back to NAPA. I'm sure when Joel (Not Blake Shelton's stunt double after an accident) walked in, the lady thought great, not another 10,000 questions... Joel just gave her the much needed part number, said he would sign an autograph, but she just wanted him to pay for the part.
While Joel, and Matt were gone, I started to get things ready for the new seal. Hoping it would work when it arrived. One thing I forgot to do before we left the track was fill up the rear slicks with air. In 2018 when we left the track, we would have to search for a gas station that had air, and then pay to fill the rear tires for the drive. This year I brought with my Dewalt cordless air compressor. With no clue if it would work or not this point, I hooked it up to the right rear tire, set the air pressure to 25lbs, and turned it loose. I had heard stories of these type of compressors not working, so I didn't have high expectations. After about 2 minutes, the pump shut off. Great, battery must be dead already. Nope. Tire had 25lbs of air in it. Impressive. So I unhooked it from the right tire, and hooked it up to the left side. 2 minutes later, and that tire was at 25lbs. I was sold on the small compressor, and it proved to be a great tool all week.
Lance, and I, had some time to chat for a while again while we waited. A few people stopped by to look the Coupe over, one guy stopped by in his Trans Am, and asked if we needed help. "Thanks, but we got it covered" He had to tear out of there to impress us I guess? My visual ET guestimater said it ran 17's in the 1/4 mile. Next thing I know, this small pickup pulls up next to the Coupe, and a guy gets out laughing. He looks at Lance and I, says I don't know you guys but I got to show you guys this. He holds his phone out, and shows us a meme that his boss sent him. He then got back into his truck, and drove away. Lance looks at me and says "What the #$*@ was that?!!!" I just looked at him, and said "Welcome to Drag Week!" Not 5 minutes later Joel, and Matt arrive. With the seal in hand, I crawled back under the Coupe, and sure enough it was going to fit. We got out the proper sized measuring cup, and drove it into place. The cups were well worth the $7 price now. Reinstall the driveshaft, the rear driveshaft loop, stuff our gear, and tools back into the trunk, go use the bathroom, and clean up, and pile ourselves back into the Hot Rod. Joel points the Coupe South now for the 4th time. "I can't believe we're really doing it!" I'm glad Joel still has enthusiasm at this point. We merge back into traffic, and once again, we decide it's best to pull off on the next exit, and check for leaks. By this time, if I were Matt, and Lance, I would have kept heading South, and tell us we were on our own, but they didn't and followed us. Must like punishment? We quickly find a small parking lot, and I told Joel, just keep it running, I'll hop out, and check. If it's good, I'm hopping right back in. With the Coupe stopped, I quickly get out, look under the car, and THANKFULLY the new seal is holding in place. No leak. Joel gets us turned around, and heads back to US 131 South for the 5th time. With a sigh of relief, we just might get to our Hotel 250 miles away before midnight.
I must say, the rest of our trip went fairly smooth. We had a couple check points. The first one was across from a gas station, and we filled up there, and got a slice of pizza to go. By the time we arrived at the second check point, it was very late. I dug out my LED light from the trunk, and we did a once over of everything to make sure fluids were where they belonged. No leaks. Whew... Last leg of Day one... Joel informed me that he wanted to go over the Coupe when we arrived at the hotel. That would include changing the oil, setting valve lash, and he wanted to retorque the cylinder heads. Changing oil, would mean a stop at WalMart to pick up a new drain pan. When we arrived at the WalMart, I jokingly asked Joel if we were going to change oil in the Garden Department again, like in 2018. "No we'll do it at the hotel." We made it to WalMart about 15 minutes before they closed, and I would just stay outside with the Coupe. "Just get the essentials Joel!" "Duh, whadda ya think, I'm an idiot?"
Joel walks out of Walmart, and hands me the giant oil drain pan. Guess I'm going to be holding this in my lap until the hotel? "It's only a couple miles." Joel says. I'm glad Google Maps is a better estimator of mileage, than Joel is with the time it takes to finish a project. Only a few minutes later we arrive at our Hotel, and we see a bunch of Drag Week cars. We were one of the first to leave the track, but definitely not the first to arrive at a hotel. "Hold on Joel, I see Squirrel's Nova here. What kind of a place did you book for us?" We know Jim is known for liking dive places, so I was getting a little nervous. 'I'll check us in, and you get started on the oil change." 10-4...

 

Wow, what a great read. I saw you guys at 131 on Tuesday, I wish I had said hi but didn't know who you were. I did talk to Squirrel. Anyway you guys are amazing! Please continue!!!

 

Joel - I thought C6 used the same rear seal as 727 and 833 ???

 

Jeff may have been mistaken on that detail. My memory says it was from a Ford AOD. But he's the one who looked it up, not me. Whatever the case it fit in there much snugger. That poor measuring cup took a thrashing! I was surprised it didn't crush

 

Greg, yes, too bad we didn't connect!

 

My prolific trunk monkey has been hard at it, and he just posted then next installment of the story:

On a normal vacation when you arrive at the hotel, you are usually done for the day. Not on Drag Week. Between working on the car to be ready for the next day, and chatting with fellow Drag Week participants, there is still plenty to do. As soon as we pulled into our Hotel parking lot, Joel went inside to check us in, and I removed the trunk lid, and started to get tools out, slide the drain pan under the HEMI, and started the oil change. Fist was to remove the oil filter, and make sure to check for the gasket. Sure enough the gasket had stuck to the oil cooler, just like it did in 2018. We didn't need to seal coat the parking lot, like before. (I still want to see the WalMart security video of that mess.) I filled the oil filter as much as I could with Valvoline VR1 20-50 race oil, applied a light film of oil on the gasket, and screwed it in place. Next was to drain the pan. I located the proper allen head wrench from the tool box, and started removing the oil plug. The hot oil rushed out of the pan, and quickly overfilled the top of the drain pan, and overflowed out onto the asphalt. So much for not making a mess... Guess it's a Drag Week ritual for me? About this time Joel arrives back to the Coupe, when I asked what took so long he told me he was swarmed by his adoring fans, signing autographs, and telling everyone how he did a huge wheelstand that day. He said he posed for a couple pictures after he used his new plastic comb... After he was able to break away from his cheering section, he told them he was going to get busy doing his work on the Coupe. In reality, he just was talking with the night clerk at the Hotel front desk. The only autograph he signed was to pay the bill. He started removing the spark plugs, valve covers, and starts checking valve lash. Meanwhile I'm pouring in fresh oil into the HEMI. We did talk with Squirrel a bit, but Jim retired to his room not long after we arrived. Always great talking with Jim. With a name like Squirrel, you would think he's a wired up, chatterbox, but not even close. Jim is super laid back, and after 10 minutes of talking with him, you'd think he was a Librarian. Full of knowledge, but very soft spoken.

We did a attract one drunk guy watching us. He even offered me a job, making way more money than I make currently. When I asked him what's the catch? He told me I'd be living on the road 330 days out of the year. I told him no thanks. I like where I live, and I'd most likely have to miss future Drag Weeks. Living out of a suitcase 10 days out of the year on Drag Week is long enough for me. With most of my work finished, I told Joel, I was going to the room, and retiring for the night. Since I hadn't slept the night before, he was more than OK with that. I grabbed my gear, and headed in. After rolling around in parking lots all day, a hot shower felt great. It was around 1:30am when my head hit the pillow. I barely remember the bull running through the China shop aka Joel coming into the room, so I must have been tired.

The 6:00am alarm went off way too early. As always, I got up before Joel, and headed to the bathroom. When I finished, I went to flush the toilet, and nothing... The image of harry in Dumb and Dumber immediately went through my mind. At least Joel didn't put exlax in my drink the night before, like in the movie. Even better that Joel didn't go use the bathroom ahead of me and drop a stink pickle in the can. I checked the sink. No water... With no water, that left the possibility Joel didn't take a shower the night before, and I'd have to put up with stench of him. No worries. He left a trail of hotel towels everywhere. That nightmare was diverted. I walked back out to the room, and told Joel the bad news that there was no water. No water also meant that Joel couldn't get his morning coffee. Great, he's gonna be in a fog more than normal today. To my surprise, Joel quickly got up, dressed, grabbed his 6 travel bags, pillow, and headed out the door. We loaded up the Coupe, removed the boot from the front tire, and headed to Summit Motorsports Park.

The track wasn't too far away. The air was cool, and it was the first time we kept the side windows up in the Coupe. Amazing how much quieter the ride is with them up. We arrived at the track about 6:40am. It was rumored that the gate would be opened for the racers at 7:00am. Joel said, "Lets get busy, and change the car over now." "We better wait, just in case the line starts moving, we don't want all our stuff all over." "I guess so, but I'm going to remove the rear spring rubbers now." No big deal, that was a simple job, just required lifting the car with a bottle jack, and that was easily accessible in the trunk. While in line we also shut off the ball valve for the street gas, and ran the Holley 94's dry. Then open up the race gas ball valve, and fill the carbs with 110 octane race gas. At 7:00am exactly, Bill Bader, the owner of Summit Motorsports Park, opened the gate himself, and cars immediately started to make their way to the pits. The track at Norwalk is nothing short of amazing. Not a speck of dirt anywhere. Joel asks where we should park, and I told him as close to the staging lanes as possible. He does the best he can, and we hop out, and start switching the car over to race trim right away. Empty the trunk, remove the passenger seat, remove the exhaust, Air cleaners. The car is quickly ready to run, and Joel heads to the staging lanes. The track was to go hot at 8:00am sharp, so we had a little bit of time to chat with others. As I walk up to the starting line, just to look the track over, and be amazed that such a nice track exists, I get a phone call from Joel. "The HEMI is a quart low on oil. Can you walk back to our pit, and get one, and bring it here?" Sure... I made my way back to our pit spot, and found a quart of oil, and made my way to the staging lanes. Joel sees me, and then says "Did you bring a funnel?" "No." We need a funnel." "Figure out a way to put it in, or walk back yourself." Joel got the oil in the HEMI.

8:00am, and as promised, the track went hot, and cars started making passes. Joel was only 15-20 cars from the front of the line, and it didn't take long for him to pull into the burnout box. After a decent burnout, Joel staged, and when the lights came down, he dumped the clutch. The car seamed to slip the clutch, and looked lazy compared to the day before. Never the less, Joel rowed through the gears like a pro, but around the 1000' mark got out of the throttle. The scoreboard lit up. 10:35 at 115mph. Wonder what that was all about, and will Joel take that run? We knew Mark Fisher was in first place with a comfortable one second lead, and third place was a full second and a half behind us, but was that good enough for Joel? Guess I'll find out, when we meet up.

As I'm walking back to the pit area, the concession stand is now open, and not much of a line, so I see what they have, and the breakfast sandwich looks like the breakfast I needed. It didn't disappoint, and was one of the best meals I'd had on this trip yet. When I got back to the pit area, Joel had just arrived. I asked him if we were going to hit the road, or make another pass? "Hitting the road!!" What a relief. Joel walked off to turn in the time slip, and I got busy returning the car to street trim. Now normally on Drag Week, you bring your time slip to the tower, and route sheets are given to you there. At Norwalk, they were having people turn in time slips at the hospitality center. We missed that memo, which was too bad, as it wasn't far from us. Joel got a slight run around from that, but was back fairly quick. All that was left for him to do was install the rear spring rubbers. With that done, we were ready to hit the road. Time it took to switch the car over? 21 minutes. We left the gates of Summit Motorsports Park at 8:48am. The earliest we had ever gotten out of a track on Drag Week. Time to find a gas station... The closest one was about 10 miles away. Once there, Joel saw another Kodak moment. A Moose to stand next to, and take a picture. It's not like me to do so, but why not. Joel can't be the only dork on Drag Week.

 

I consider coffee to be one of the six essential food groups. So when I woke up Tuesday morning with less than 5 hours of sleep and no water, I was highly motivated to get out of that place and get somewhere where I could buy coffee. It's a good thing reaction time doesn't matter at drag week, because I didn't end up taking a break and finding some coffee until after I had made my pass!

Since the pass on Monday had gone so well, and I felt there was opportunity to get the car into the nines, I did what any normal racer would do. I changed my launch RPM from 4600 to 5000 RPM. One thing I quickly learned the hard way though, is that one of the settings on the clutch tamer has a tendency to vibrate out of whack on the street drive. So the perfect setting on Monday, unbeknownst to me, no longer existed on Tuesday. Hence the clutch slippage at launch.

Also, like Jeff mentioned, on that pass at Norwalk Tuesday morning the car started to lay down on the big end again, so I got out of it. I wasn't sure why it did this when it ran so nice on Monday. But after the long, strenuous day on the road Monday, and with no chance of changing my second place to a first, I thought it was best to turn in the slip and get on the road now and figure out the problem later. The most important thing on drag week once you have your time slip turned in, is surviving the trip to the next track. And hopefully get to the hotel and get any maintenance done and get any changes done, and still allow time for some sleep. Any changes to the car for the sake of gaining performance on the track can wait until after we have made the trip. With this early start on the drive I was optimistic about getting into the hotel early, enjoying a nice dinner with the trunk monkey and some fellow drag weekers, (hopefully I would get chance to buy dinner for Matt and Lance to show my gratitude for all the help they gave us yesterday) and then getting a much needed eight hours of sleep! Plus the drive would give me time to contemplate why the car faltered again and what I was going to do about it.

At Norwalk, while I was wandering around trying to figure out where I turned in my time slip, I heard a familiar voice calling my name. I turned around and there was my old pal Dave Dudek, who I haven't seen in at least a couple of years. It was a pleasant surprise to see him there! We did some very brief catching up, but I knew if I didn't get back to the pits soon, I'd be subject to a severe tongue lashing by the impatient trunk monkey!

Here is Tuesdays pass:

edit: for some reason I can't get the video link on the hamb to start at the right spot. So you will need to fast-forward to 1:04:53

 

I know you've got a lot on the go right now so just want to say I appreciate you taking the time to update this thread. Also, best of luck on your Corvair journey.

 

Joel. This is a fantastic read. Thanks so much for sharing the adventure. Because I race and street drive my old drag coupe, I can relate heavily.

 

Circling back to Monday and the transmission rear seal being pushed out, the situation brings a couple of things to light:

First of all, I have a tendency to be overly fanatical on trying to build reliability into the car. This probably stems from the experience of my first to drag week adventures with Jay. Jay was a pioneer in this drag and drive stuff. They learned from hard experience all the stuff that can go wrong when you try and drive a racecar on the street. So in 07 and 08, we were working on repairing the car constantly.
So when I heard that these T 56 magnums can cook the gears in the front of the transmission on a dragstrip pass, and that there was a pump that could be installed in the front cover that would pump fluid back to the front, that modification fit perfectly into my obsession. But after installing the pump, I had only driven on local streets short distances. Never on the freeway.
So that leads to the second thing: when the car breaks down on the road, I have a tendency to act too quickly and not really think it through thoroughly. On Monday when we discovered the problem, I felt the transmission and it seemed abnormally hot for short drive we had taken. Could the pump have created excessive heat or pressure inside the transmission that pushed the seal out? I had no issues in 2018 with the transmission, and the seal had not been removed from the tail housing since. So in my hasty judgment, I decided the pump had to be causing the issue. My first thought was to take the transmission apart and remove the pump. I could see that the trunk monkey had no interest in that idea. My next school of thought was that usually when a pump is installed in these transmissions, it is to move fluid through an external cooler. I did it without the cooler, because I had not previously had a temperature issue. I just wanted the fluid back on the front gears. So installing a cooler seemed like the thing to do to solve the problem. And that’s what I did.
Besides a huge thank you to Matt and Lance for rescuing us, I definitely need to give a shout out to Becky at the Plainwell Michigan NAPA store! I walked in the door asking for a transmission cooler and a strange combination of fittings. Becky went right to work on the problem, immediately understood exactly what I was talking about and what I needed, and worked through several potential solutions until she came up with one that worked perfectly. Awesome service and extremely knowledgeable counter people!
In hindsight, the very first thing I should have done when the seal pushed out was to remove a floor panel to check the vent on top of the transmission. No matter how much heat or pressure the pump tried to produce, it should’ve gone out through the vent and not affected the rear seal. But I didn’t think of that at the time. The second time the seal pushed out I did think of that. I sucked on the vent tube and it was open, in proper working order. And my opinion of the transmissions temperature was pure folly. Without a measuring device what good is it to stick my hand on there and say it’s hot? I’m afraid that the whole escapade of installing the cooler was a waste of time. I think the seal was just a piece of crap and fitted too loosely into the housing. Oh, well. Live and learn!

Some random pictures: Wally World at 11:00 pm monday with a worn out trunk monkey, my time slip from Monday, everybody's friend Jesse brought this crazy John Deere race tractor he calls Junior, the guy with the white Monte Carlo helped me out in the tech line by lending me tools to work on the brake light switch dilemma, the yellow hot Rod is also in the same class as I.

 

Love it Joel. This is what Drag Week is all about. The highs, the lows. the wins . the losses, and of course the best time you will ever have with your hot rod, with the most amount of human suffering,LOL

 

My esteemed trunk monkey has just written the next installment:

While the route on Day one mainly kept us on 4 lane Highways, Day 2 sent us on some smaller 2 lane roads. While I was looking over the route sheet, Joel asks me where the first stop was, and what were we looking for? "Says it's a Loves gas station, about 90 miles away." Thinking to myself, that's probably the most boring check point they could have found. We have stopped at some interesting roadside attractions over the years, and this was going to the bottom of the "interesting" list for sure. While in route, we caught up to some other Drag Week cars, and they obviously were members of the 50-55mph club. The Coupe isn't happy running 50-55mph. That requires being in 4th gear, and with the T56 Magnum being faceplated first through forth gear, it leaves a lot of slack in the transmission. It works perfect under wide open throttle, but under part throttle, the slack makes the car jerk around quite a bit. With fifth, and sixth gear fully synchronized, they do not have that problem. "First chance I can get, I'm passing these guys" Joel tells me. "OK". As a safe spot open up, so do the Eight Holley 94 two barrels. We go around the first car about 70-75 mph, and Joel backs it down to around 63mph. The Coupe is running decent. Oil pressure looks good at 70lbs, water temp is around 150*, and oil temp is 170*. It's actually a very nice day out, and THIS was the nice part of Drag Week. I mean what could be cooler for a gearhead? Cruising in a old school Hot Rod, with a 392 HEMI stuff in it, and to make it even more wild, 8 carburetors sitting on top of it? We approach a couple more 55mph club members of Drag Week. Both pulling trailers. "You'll get around one if your lucky, but we have a turn coming up in a couple miles." I told Joel. A safe spot open up, With a loud CLANK, Joel shift the T56 into 4th gear, and opens the HEMI up once again. He wasn't having anything to do with just passing one car, he was going around both of them. As we were coming up to the second car, I glanced at the GPS speedometer on Joel's phone, and it said we were doing 94mph. We went around both cars like they were tied to a tree. They just gave us a thumbs up, as we waved when we blew by them. A few miles up ahead, we were stopped by a train, and the cars we had quickly passed, were right behind us. A few people used the time to get out of their cars and stretch out. Our first check point wasn't too far away at this point. I still can't believe they were having us go to a Loves gas station. "We'll get gas there." Joel said. When we got there we could see how much gas we had used, and calculate how much we would need for the remaining 200 miles. With the train finally passed, we were once again on the move. "Gas station is on your left Joel". "OK, I see it." We roll up to the gas pump, and get out. Right behind us another Drag Weeker pulled up to the pump next to us. I hear Joel, "TONY! How are you doing?" Tony McDonald was also running in the Hot Rod class in his very cool 38 Dodge pickup, powered by a 340 Mopar with a 5 speed trans. Joel and Tony, have known each other through the H.A.M.B. (Hokey A$$ Message Board). "Tony tells Joel that when he was behind us, he was getting something sprayed on his windshield?
Oh, oh... Wonder what that is?

 

The saga continues:


Worried about the possibility that the transmission was leaking again, I crawled under the Coupe, and took a quick look. Everything looked good. No visible signs of anything leaking. No idea what it could have possibly been? While at the gas station, I watched the cars we passed just a few minutes earlier, take their picture to prove they followed the route, and instantly pull back out, and hit the road. Meanwhile, Joel was busy yacking it up, and mentions he needs to use the bathroom... Well at least we weren't trying to pound a new seal in the back of the transmission. Joel walks out of the gas station with a fresh gallon jug of water. "Are you a Camel?" I asked. "Saddle up!" he replies. Tony said he would just follow us on the route, since he was running solo. Roughly another 100 miles up was our second check point of the day. The Coupe was starting to run a little warmer, but we just figured that the air temp was rising as well, so it wasn't a concern. 165-170* was nothing to be concerned about, but it was higher than before. The second check point was much nicer than the first. It was a parking lot next to a lake. Plenty of room to have Drag Week cars fill the area while pulling trailers. We chatted quickly with others, did a gas check to see where we were at, and determined that we'd need to stop one more time. Tony, once again said he was getting a liquid spray on his windshield. Another check under the Coupe, and nothing was obvious? So we once again, hit the road, and found a nice small gas station. What looked like a small station turned out to be a very cool General Store. Once inside they had everything. While I was inside looking around, Joel was out taking pictures of his actual look alike, and this one wasn't to be confused with Blake Shelton. Joel also made friends with a cow. He wasn't about to try milking it like he did in 2015, when it turned out to be a bull, and gored him. Joel, and Tony found their way into the store, and Joel asks what I'm looking for? I told him I was looking for something to mess with Jeff Oppenheim, and I found the perfect thing to do so. A 4 foot long feather duster. Joel asked "What are you going to do with that?" "Zip tie it to Jeff's parachute mount while he's at the hotel." Joel advised me that once the joke starts, that there will be repercussions, and he didn't really want a part of that. I told him it would be fine. Jeff's a good sport. When we got outside, Tony gave me a weird look, and asked, "What's that for???" "I'll tell you later." LOL.
We once again wedged ourselves back in the Coupe, and got back on the route. Tony was closely following behind us. With less than 100 miles to go before we got to Indianapolis Raceway Park, we were feeling pretty good. The Coupe was running decent, maybe a little warm, but humming along. I was surfing Facebook on my phone, when all of a sudden felt the racing harness tighten way up, the tires on the Coupe started to howl, and Joel was steering the Coupe like Sammy Swindell in a Sprint car. I looked over my left shoulder to see where Tony was, and I see him going down the ditch past the turn. Dust is flying everywhere. I looked at Joel, and asked 'What the hell was that?" "Almost missed the turn!" ALMOST??? "Where is Tony?" I asked. "He's back there. Ship shape, no problem."
Not too much further up the road, and the temp on the HEMI is now climbing at a much faster rate. It's getting close to 190* on the water, and 200* on the oil. "We need to make a pit stop Joel." "I'll find us a place where no other Drag Week cars are going to stop." About a block off our route, Joel finds a small park/picnic area. Tony follows us. And we all park in the grass. Tony quickly hops out, and says, "For sure you guys are leaking something." We told him the HEMI was starting to run hot. Joel got a concerned look on his face, and said that he might have made a mistake retorqueing the heads the night before. Joel opened up the radiator cap, and it was almost empty of water...

 

The sheriff is near!...?

 

Hooray, we finally have the next chapter!

"What is your concern of re torqueing the heads Joel?" His concern was that MAYBE, be redoing them, it messed up the Copper head gaskets, and it would be leaking water into the oil? I crawled under the car and took a look at the oil sight tube, and it looked like the oil was clear, and not milky. It doesn't take much for it to look like a milkshake, so nothing was going on there. We looked over the water lines, and one of the lines coming off the head, had some white residue, like it had been leaking, but not enough for the engine to be down over a gallon of water. We took all the water we had, and filled the radiator as much as we could, and then Tony brought us enough from his cooler to top it off. With less than 80 miles to go, we figured we could make it to Indianapolis Raceway Park. Once there, we could stop at a parts store, and get a bottle of sealer, and put it in the radiator, and hope it held for the remainder of the week. The break was actually nice for a change of pace, and it was a lot of fun talking with Tony. Wanting to get to our Hotel outweighed the break though. "Lets hit the road!" Joel told me, and we crammed ourselves back into the Coupe. Water temp went way down, and the oil pressure raised up 10lbs from being cool again. We quickly got back on the route, and headed towards IRP. It didn't take too long, and traffic around Indy got worse, and worse. We came to a stand still at one point, and I had the door wide open to get some air moving through the Coupe. I'm sure the lifeless souls in their Prius's were wondering just [censored] we were doing, and how dare they drive such a menace to the environment? We survived, but the temp gauge was climbing once again. Figuring it might just be from sitting in traffic, but we would need to find a parts store ASAP. The temp didn't go down much as traffic started to move once again. Something was going on with the engine, and being this far from the home track, and Truck/Trailer, wasn't the best feeling. A little ways down the road we were somehow separated from Tony. His GPS route planner took him a different way ours did. How that happened, we have no clue? Shortly after that the skies opened up, and it started to rain. Not wanting to drive in the rain on basically slicks, and having flashbacks to 2018, Joel wisely pulled off the Freeway. Not 2 minutes later a concerned motorist pulled up behind us, and asked if we needed help? "No, we are just trying to avoid the rain." Joel, then limped the Coupe to a empty parking lot, and we got our the Route sheet to make sure were on the correct path. We were, and as fast as the rain came, it was gone. I wiped down the windshield of the Coupe, and we headed back to the Freeway. We located a ORielly's Auto on the phone, and headed to it. Tony had got ahold of Joel, and said he would meet us there.
As we got closer to the parts store, it was quite clear, that we were not in the nicest neighborhood of the Indianapolis area. Joel pulled the Coupe into the parking lot, and I told him I'd stay with the car and look things over. Tony pulled in right behind us. As I was looking the HEMI over, I could not see anything that looked out of place. Tony walks up behind me, and says, "Did you see that? A drip of something just hit the ground." A ha... A clue. I crawl under the Coupe, and see where the leak is coming from. Joel had installed pushlock hose fittings on the oil cooler lines, and it looked like it was coming apart. I told Joel to grab some hose clamps inside, and just make sure he only got the essentials. "You think I'm an idiot?"... As Joel walked into the store, Tony looks at me, and asks "Do you want a beer?" It's hot, a muggy... Of course I want a beer! Tony extracts a ice cold of Old Milwaukee from his cooler, and hands it to me. I like Tony.
While BS'ing with Tony, waiting for Joel, we discussed where he was in his class. I told him he was in 5th place, but not far out of 3rd place. It's too bad he took a bad pass on Day 1, since he forgot to take off his air cleaner. Had he taken it off, and made a normal pass for his truck, he would have clearly been in 3rd place. There was an outside chance he could still pull it off. "Why did you tell me that? Now I have to try!" I wonder what is taking Joel so long? Never mind it's Joel. Nothing usually goes fast paced with him. I told Tony I'd be right back, as I wanted to see if Joel was telling the parts counter guy how he looked like Blake Shelton. (Which I can 100% guarantee, had no clue who that was). "Joel do you have the hose clamps?" "In the box. They are already rung up, so you can grab them." I scooped them up, and headed back out to Tony, and the Coupe. I grabbed the needed tool, opened up the hose clamp to wrap it around the hose, and laid down on under the HEMI, and installed the clamp. As I tightened it up, water started POURING out of the fitting, down the hose, and my arm. Luckily it wasn't boiling... OH OH... That's not good. I quickly removed the clamp, and as I was doing so, I noticed the end of the hose rotate. I reached up with my other hand, and sure enough the AN fitting was loose. I got on my phone, and called Joel in the store. Told him to hold off on buying the Ceramic sealer, and we found the water leak. I grabbed the All16th's wrench we had bought on day one, and tightened the hose fitting back up. I'll have to blame Joel for that one, as I've never put a wrench on those fittings. Maybe Joel forgot to eat his Wheaties that day?
The reason Joel took so long inside the store, was he was going to install a new fuel pressure gauge, and was trying to get all the parts needed to mount a gauge on the cowl, so he could see what it was reading going down track. Once outside, and a box of parts in hand, it was determined that it was going to be too big of a pain to attempt. "Lets get to our Hotel" were the words I was waiting for Joel to say. First we had to stop by IRP, and our daily route would be complete. The next morning the drive from the Hotel to the track, could be accomplished anyway we wanted. The route had us take some nice side roads, with plenty of trees, and shade. We made it to the front gate, and Day 2 was officially in the books. Sort of... Only a few minutes upon arriving at IRP, a familiar Drag Weeker pulled in behind us. "Matt! how are you guys?" "Doing good." "What time did you guys leave Norwalk?" Matt said around noon. We left 3 hours ahead of him, and Lance. With a shocked expression, "And you guys are just getting here?!" "Yup." I'm pretty sure both Matt, and Lance, were happy we didn't call them again on Day 2. Joel then decides we need to borrow a 5 gallon gas jug from Tony, and it was only a few miles to our Hotel. Great... I guess I know where that is going. The trip to the Hotel was pretty simple, other than not having any spare room with a 5 gallon fuel jug in my lap. I still can't remember why we even needed it, other than Joel wanted to torture me? It was nice arriving at the Hotel before the sun set. We had heard there was a storm coming through later on, so we needed to adjust the valves right away. Joel made a phone call, and got us a Pizza delivery on the way. Thinking the beer Tony gave me earlier on tasted way too good, even for Old Milwaukee, I better see if I could go buy some more. A gas station was within easy walking distance of the Hotel, so I made my way to it. Not a single cold beer in the place. I could buy it warm, and find out a way to cool it down, but that wasn't really an option. I was then told a liquor store was just a couple miles down the road, and they would have cold beer. I told the clerk, no thanks. I've already walked 58 miles in the last few days. As I made my way back to the Hotel, more people had arrived, and one of the cars had a crowd of people around it. Most of them had Drag Week shirts on from years past, and they were way to clean to be participants this year. "Want a beer?" One of them asked. "You are a saint" I told him. "That cooler is full of ice cold beer, and since you have a wrist band on, you can take as much as you want." The guys had mostly competed in Drag Week in the past, and since they were local, they figured they would hang out, and meet up with old friends, and make some new ones. They had a stack of Pizza boxes on a tailgate of a truck as well. I grabbed a couple beers for me and Joel, and went back to our room to eat our Pizza. The A/C was a nice welcome for a bit. Daylight quickly turned to night, and Joel got busy doing his thing to the Coupe. I probably spent more time than Joel wanted me to, talking with people, and just hanging out. Hey, we are on vacation after all.
Wanting to make sure we got up early for the next day, I headed in, and took my shower. When I got out, Joel was just getting to our room, and told me to look outside. The skies had opened up, and the Coupe was getting a good soaking.

 

Most delightful Tale, glad you took us along!