Jason, thanks for the loaner offer but, my little car is ready to go. She broke her crankshaft 20 miles from home on the way back last year (still limped all the way home!!!) but she was back together a week later. I started a new company in January and can't be gone the extra 4 days it takes to drive, so I'm putting my candy ass on an airplane. I hope you can make a mad thrash again this year and still keep everything inside the pan. Your car is the only canidate with a real chance at the nines this or any year and I want to see you do it. This year is gonna be a big one for the Cup, lots of great cars looking for a shot at the title. I can't wait. All this race talk makes my gas pedal leg start shaking..... See ya, -Abone.
Another Mad thrash it is..... I thought retiring from the USAF would give me time to work on my own stuff,,,, however I cant complain cause I have been able to help my sons, Thor fully restored a 1974 BBC Monte Carlo with a 6-spd and Brock built a chop top 383 s-10 for highschool. Now they are my slaves till we hit the road to Joplin, Thor is lapping valves and setting spring heights while Brock and I assemble the bottom half. This year Im gonna try to keep it together, running my 10 year old summit hyd flat tappet cam, and lower boost than last year (6 lbs vs 9 lbs), BUT I will bring an extra pulley just in case. Muwahahahaha!!!!
hes like the Mexican bandito unicorn...... you may hear about him, but will you actually see him? fabled creature. i hope theres a sighting.
Did you ever get any indication of what caused all your guts to come flying out last year? .....or the year before.... Lots of boost and a fuel/timing issue usually makes a hole in a piston or a smashed ringland and leaves the rotating assy alone, but your rods looked like soup. Quite odd... Good luck, -Abone.
I've had several very sharp mechanics/machinists look at the damage and all we came up with is these best guesses: main bearings have irregular wear on opposing sides of the upper and lower as if the crank was flexing or the block was "out of true". Block measures fine (but was in a bind on the solid mounts especially while the frame was twisting. I cut off the solid mounts and added rubber mounts with a safety chain. The old crank is still at a machine shop and they will be letting me know if it was tweeked. Rod Bearings on two cylinders were flattened out. Rods were stretched but not enough to fully explain the bearings. Two guys seem to think the rods failed first under WOT loading but one guy said he believed it was a fatigue failure that was caused by high temps and thinning oil during my 220 dgree trip to the track (I forgot to cut the coolant hole in my head gasket) All agree that the combination of bearings does not look like consistent oil starvation. I also found that my valve retainers and keepers were failing because I tried to use too large of retainer from my roller cam on the lighter springs from my baby cam. Apparently if the retainer binds in the spring there is no point to absorb harmonics and the keepers wear against the valves. I had two valves about to free themselves on a journey into the oil pan. This year ive converted the block from gen IV series cooling to Mark V parallel cooling (adding holes to block and head gaskets), and wish I had time to upgrade the 40 year old radiator. So I will make sure temps stay below 200. I will also need a co-pilot to keep an eye on the oil pressure during a few shake down runs. I hope the pressure doesn't drop during high RPMs. I don't have faith that the steel crank and scat rods are gonna fix my problem. So Im gonna try to take it easy this year and lower the horsepower. Besides,,,traction is my biggest problem.... All that to say this,,, I wont be running my hardest or in the nines this year, unless somebody shows me some tail lights,,, then I guess I will swap pulleys and see how well my oil pan holds up...
Hey Guys, Thanks for the love, I will not make it this year, I hope Robert can break away and make it. Gonna miss it badly though. I put new rear end set up in the 55 blower car to make the YaY-Hoo cup challenge but it went away during test and tune. Maybe got a 100 miles out of it. I will be ready for next year. I'm not going back unless I can make a run at the cup...I know I will regret not going, but I have to live with it...Have fun and be safe !
Yeah, I'll agree that's a long to drive for "A" beer so I'll buy you one also. Come on you know you want to.
Dennis, I'll bring a cooler of Shiners, as long as we can keep Robert, at bay....hahahahaha Get your tail up there........
Fresh out from the acid and ready to be stamped, a new Yay-Hoo Cup Champion dash tag is ready to be claimed. ....Who's it gonna be? It could be you!
Just got the Chicken Coupe running again and leaving out to hot springs Arkansas in the AM.... from there I will begin a 300 mile drive.. Crossing my fingers cause the the steel crank I bought at a "good deal" was under cut for drag car and the Oil Press is 20 at idle with temp.... Not a good sign for the guy in the lane next to me,,,, cause I aint scared and that plaque is SOOOOOO SEXY Im gonna do what ever it takes to get my name on it......again......Muwahahahhaha!!!!! Disclaimer...... if I fail,,,, I will still be SMILING,,,, thanks to all the Yay-Hoo's for reminding us that HOT RODS need to be DRIVEN !!!!!
Snapped an axle Saturday at the drag strip. But I found 2 10 bolt rears on craigs list sunday to rob the axles from. Back up and running sunday nite. Still driving it out from Denver. Probably not gonna beat ya schaefer but it will still be fun. Leaving thursday morn.
You already have me beat at driving the longer distance!!! Look forward to seeing ya there! I didn't get a chance to put 355 gears in mine so the 411s will keep me crawling.... Instead of gears I used my last wish to run pipes out the back so I wont be affixiated while I drive (guess I'm getting old)
The Jalopy Journal
