Tony, after drag week! Here are the new throttle arms that Cam made for me compared to the old ones. I don't think these things are going to slip! Plus they look pretty.
Plan to go watch the Thursday at Cordova. What time should I get there? See gates at 7:30, racing at 8:00. I'd go to work for a while in morning if things really don't get going till a little later in the day.
Go as early as you can, I think the guys that get their best runs in, take off and head to the next track. So, you could miss some.
If the track is dry, racing starts at 8am. When a racer gets a good time slip, they pack up and leave for the next day's track. Everything is done by about 2:00 or 2:30. Get there early. Work the evening shift.
except for the lucky guys frantically fixing stuff so they can get on the road....and the few that are always way behind schedule...that's where the real action is
I just checked the results from yesterday, the first day of Rocky Mountain Race Week. The Gebharts are well represented in that event. I plan to meet them at Tulsa tomorrow. It will be interesting to find out how many of the family will run Hot Rod Drag Week.
Update on the Hemi Coupe: After we aborted the dyno testing session, I couldn't get the schedule to work out for all parties involved to dyno test again before drag week. My aim had been to test the eight carb intake versus the dual quad intake. But that won't happen before drag week so I decided to just go ahead and swap on the dual quad and test it at the drag strip. Plus I bought a different clutch controller, it's called bang shift Billy. It controls the clutch release through the hydraulic line using an electronic control that you access via Bluetooth on your phone. So you can adjust the grab point and the release rate in extremely small, precise increments The valve needs to get spliced into the line between the clutch master cylinder and the clutch slave cylinder. So I got the dual quad setup installed. The throttle linkage arm on the firewall is pretty much centered in the car so that it could work between The two rows of carburetors. So I started working on a Rube Goldberg type jack shaft setup to operate the throttle arms on the left side of the four barrels. But that wasn't working out so I came up with a simpler idea which seems to be working. Next I had to figure out what to do for air filters/air scoops. I have some vintage ones that I really like but they're going to be difficult and time-consuming to get mounted on there, and I couldn't figure out how to get filters into them. So I bought a pair of new ones from speedway. I got them mounted on there so they will work for drag week, but they're not my favorite as far as looks go. Then when I went to install the bang shift Billy clutch controller I discovered that the fittings I bought to splice it into the line where the wrong ones. So I didn't get that installed yet. I also installed a diaper on it and had to make up custom bracket to prevent it from interfering with the steering shaft, but that wasn't too big of a deal. The diaper covers up the sight glass that I have on the side of the oil pan so it's not a simple glance to check the oil level anymore. But it's not too hard to unstrap one corner and drop it down enough to see the site glass. At least if the motor is not piping hot. I changed the oil and filter, and the lube in the transmission and rear end, fixed the handbrake, did a bunch of miscellaneous little repairs and cleaned it up. I was hoping to get up to brainerd for a test night last Wednesday, but I wasn't ready. So yesterday we went to Rock falls. I was suited up, strapped in, three cars from the burnout box when it started raining. At first just a little bit. But then it poured. Eventually they called the race and I didn't get to make a pass. So this morning we went to Grove Creek which is the first half of a drag strip, and I made one pass. The trunk monky is too busy to help so I recruited my son Cam to come along. He's pretty smart with technical stuff so he was able to get the GoPro all set up, and adjusted the frames per second that it was filming i,n so that now it will actually record the readings of the air fuel ratio gauges. Previously the GoPro would not record them, they just showed up as a flashing light. We also mounted a GoPro under the car to get a good view of what the suspension does on launch. I used my best guess to set the clutch tamer which is the old clutch release mechanism. I launched it with the pedal on the floor and the two-step set at 5,000 RPM. The rear tires hopped a bit upon launch and the shift light came on almost instantly. I grabbed second, but the shift light stayed on, so I went for third, finally the shift light went off. I was thinking I had tire spin, but in hindsight I think it was clutch slippage because I had the grab point on the clutch tamer set too low. I did manage to get it into fourth gear before the end of the 1/8 mile track, and went 6.51 at 111. But some liquid sprayed on the windshield. I wasn't too worried about it because that's happened before when a little bit of water leaks out of the overflow tank or something. But when I got back to the pits, Cameron noticed right away that the radiator overflow can had a mixture of oil and water oozing out of it through the weep hole on the top. After it cooled off a little bit, I pulled down the corner of the diaper to look at the sight glass on the oil pan and there was no oil showing. So we pushed it into the trailer and came home. I have it in the shop, getting started on trying to figure out what's wrong. The cooling system holds solid at 25 PSI. There is oil in the water, but little or no water on the oil. Tomorrow, I'm going to bypass the oil cooler and see if that solves it. (Oil to water cooler) Hopefully it's nothing that I can't get fixed promptly. I'm definitely not throwing in the towel at this point. Video from the 1 pass today:
Good luck with your quest to get things sorted - I'm confident you'll get there. Been to Grove Creek a number of times, have several buddies that run there fairly regularly and am even getting more used to the eighth mile format. Made it to several stops on last year's Drag Week but don't think it can happen this time around so will be following things online as much as I can. All the best to you and the other HAMB guys running this event. I'm pullin' for ya!
Time to pull the right cylinder head. I also need to do some searching and see if I still have a gasket laying around here.
Good luck to all you guys on the crazy adventure called Drag Week. Hope everyone has a great time and the weather is in your favor. I will be following on the live stream. Go get um! Joel, sounds like you have a thrash going on. Wish you all the best.
Tony, glad you got it back together! I was wondering. Mikey, yes another last minute thrash, in the year I said I was going to be ready ahead of time to avoid the thrash. Cam milled the head flat for me last night, FedEx hopefully will show up with a head gasket tomorrow. I'll put it together after work, then Wednesday pack and load. Thursday I'm busy with a funeral, then Friday leave for Drag Week! Hoping I'll have time to stop at Cordova on the way for the Friday night test& tune
My car isn't ready for this year like I planned, but definitely next year. I will be at Byron and Cordova to spectate.
Well the new head gasket showed up yesterday. But it's not going to work. I have to use copper head gaskets because of the notch in the bore to clear the intake valve. Off the shelf gaskets do not have the needed notch. So I had my gaskets made up by Clark Copper head gaskets to fit. But they are out at least two weeks on gaskets right now. So I ordered an SCE Titan gasket from summit. The only one they had in stock in my bore size. What I didn't know is that it has a built-in fire ring. And that fire ring is not compatible with the wire o-rings in my block. Plus it is in the way of the notch. I spent a couple hours grinding on this gasket trying to make it fit but then I ended up giving up realizing it was not going to seal. The old copper head gasket leaked combustion, and it leaked oil into the water, but it did not blow out. So I cleaned it up, annealed it with a torch, got it nice and flat. I checked it all over with a micrometer and there is no thin spots. So I doused it in copper coat and installed it. My son Cam milled the head flat. So I'm hoping with the restored gasket and the head being flat that it holds. I've been working on it all day. At this point I'm about 2 hours away from having it all back together, filled up with water, and hopefully test driving it. Wish me luck, I need it!
I Got curious last night and mapped out this years route. No doubt the racers will end up on some side roads and the scenic routes in some places but this is the basic route.
The Jalopy Journal
