100. Spring Shootout at Shaky

The team have been looking forward to this day for a long time we last raced July last year it's been a long 10 months. Dave and I picked up the trailer Friday afternoon and made our way to Shaky, The first problem we encountered was,once the trailer is hitched it is dragging the back of the truck down so I will have to go and look for some sort of spring assist system for it.We got to the track around 3.pm and set up camp.

This is the first time we had tried to use the pop up gazebo and it wasn't that difficult to get up and tight or should I say wind proof...ish. Then it was time for a quick bite to eat and over to Kenny's for a wee drink.

Up early in the morning waiting for number one son and crew chief to turn up, now what  most of you wont know is that Steve had been off work as he had torn his calf muscle, in fact two days previously we weren't sure if we were gong to make this meeting at all, without Steve I wont risk running. Steve had his friend Justin with him to help him drive the car over.

So a quick bit of fettling went on, fuel and oil went in and we fired her up and she sounded awesome as ever, once warm we took her off the stands and pulled her out for our first hit at the track. Now there has been some talk about the safety of the track following an accident there at the last meeting, I have to say there have been times where I would definitely say the track has been marginal for our car, not all cars but for some reason ours does seem to be affected quite a lot by the bumps and traction or lack of it at times, but you tune and drive the car accordingly which is why you qualify first, to dial in to the track so having said that, it had rained overnight and it was still a little cold on the first run so we took things a little easy....and what did we find? the track was bloody awesome the guys have been working on it for four days we hear, and what a job they have done,if the track is in that condition all year we will be having a blast.

We have a new start procedure now so what we do is get the slicks into the water box give the car a quick blip to spin the tyres up in t he water to clean them move forward and then hit it in first change to second, the result is better burnouts and cleaner slicks. As I said the track was brilliant, we used the trans brake the result? the fastest 60 foot to date and the quickest run we have ever recorded at Shaky, I am now wishing we had leant on it on that run as it was to be our only run of the weekend.

Now I said the track was brilliant but! the shutdown area is bumpy and can rattle your fillings out, but on this run something happened that was a first, the car bounced, and when I say bounced I mean all four wheel left the track on the second bounce and yes I was a little worried when she came down and bounced again I did think she was going over at one point. quite scary. 

The dragster came down so hard it ripped the diaper that hangs just under the sump luckily a check of the sump found no damage, we were lucky , then a strange thing happened on the tow back, Dave was sitting in the dragster when I noticed and aircraft approaching I did think at one point that it was either trying to race us or was going to land on top of us..

..thankfully it did veer off and land in the field next to us.

Back in the pits Steve said he wasn't happy with the way the car sounded so he took all the nozzles out and checked them and cleaned them, we found a couple  that were half way blocked , one by an insect, he also wanted more power seeing that the track was so good so we put more fuel in her, little did we know that the damage had already been done. So another warm up that I didn't see or hear as went to watch a few of the cars run, Steve reckoned the car sounded so much better far crisper and on top of this he wound the rev limit up a little bit on the trans brake, We were up against Bob in Time Traveller 2, gee thanks!  I pulled what must have been the longest burnout I had ever done I really wish someone had got that on video but no, when I stopped the revs came up I thought that maybe when Steve had changed the pill he hadn't re-set the tickover I put her in reverse and she shot back at 30mph I had the brake on as hard as I could I went to the line but couldn't hold her so I shut down, We got pushed back Steve checked everything over and we fired her up again quick burnout and up to the line, trans brake set and off..but she bogged and then wouldn't pick up I took my foot off the throttle but she kept going at a rate of knots so I shut her off and let her roll off the track. I waited for Steve and Dave to pick me up, Steve got out of the car and said, "Game over" We have torched the head again or something similar, That's why the revs went up it was leaning out!!!.

So back in the pits and Steve starts to take the engine down first thing he finds is the inlet manifold gasket has blown through, looks like we were sent the wrong size, well that will let air get drawn in and lean that cylinder out along with the earlier found blocked nozzles.

Low and behold there! it is a hole in the head in the same place as last time so after a complete rebuild over the Winter it looks like we will have to do it again, could have been a lot worse I suppose but that was it for us for the weekend and probably wont be out again till Dragstalgia which is a great shame after all the hard work that had already been done on the car.  It kind of knocks the enthusiasm out of you, so once again we have a car with half an engine in it, a trailer that wont sit level what more could go wrong..... Oh yea! the trailer brakes packed up altogether so I had to tow the 4 ton beast all the way back to Bedford with just the trucks brakes....wasn't easy.

So we will get the head's welded up, skimmed if needed, order the correct gaskets and find another engine diaper and we will try again, Steve thinks we should go up a size on the four middle nozzles to help cool off the problem with the exhaust valves being so close to each other on the middle cylinders.

Fuzzy video of the damage and Steve taking the motor apart

I just hope that I can afford to get the parts in time for Dragstalgia and that Steve can find the time to get all back together again, We will give it our best shot.

99. If at first you don't succeed then test and test and then test again..!

This Sunday just gone 30th April 2017 was the first time we could get the whole team together for weeks, The day before , Saturday, Steve and Dave had gone to the car to replace the valve stem oils seals on the right hand cylinder head and to  replace the sump bung and balancer bolt and to fit the fuel catch can so we can stop the track crew having to mop up after us every time the car runs. Sunday morning Lorni and I were up early around 5am after about two hours sleep, the idea is to get out and over the Dartford Crossing before they start charging which is 6am. Which we managed with a couple of minutes to spare.

We met up with Dave and Steve at the trailer which we hitched up  and towed out very quick, it didn't take long to get the car out and have the camp set up for the day,

The guys didn't take long to get the car ready and then I was on my way to sign on for the day, I asked at the office if Ian Marshal was back to work I was told no not yet why?I answered that I wanted to do observed runs so I can licence, the lovely Carol told me she can sort out that, just let her know when I am running so she can watch, I was then asked how long have I been running the car? well now this is our fourth year already.

We towed down for our first run, there were a lot of cars in the pairing lanes the bank holiday sun had bought them all out and quite a few bikes as well, we were told that all race cars were to run solo, We thought the track would be OK as there was some heat and it had been prepped well as some American guy was going to be licensing in a top fuel car, so we started her up made our way to the water and performed what was till then the best burnout I had ever done...All the video clips are a compilation of both Lorni's behind the car shots and Steve's video clips from his phone at the side of the track which is interesting as the side on clips make the car look as if it is going in a dead straight line whereas Lorni's videos shows what really happens.

But! the burnout was as far as it went as the car just suddenly stopped, died, nothing, I tried to restart her on the track but she wouldn't have it so I was pushed back to the barn where I told Steve I bet it's the coil lead again so off came the bodywork and there it was! not on the coil,so with some borrowed pliers and a screwdriver we were back ready again, second attempt at our first run.

This time it was a pathetic attempt at a burn out I only managed to just smoke one tyre, the actual run was a disaster as you can see, came off the line turned right and then went for a quarter mile wiggle with me peddling like hell, oh well at least we got up the track.

When we got the car back to the pits I found oil on my helmet visor, Steve found the culprit the rubber oil seal under the distributor was leaking, maybe some got on the slick, crap burnout, dodgy track who knows? we were ready to try again, another long wait in the pairing lanes and as we got nearer the front then we heard the announcement that came over the speaker system that there was  to be a lunchtime break for around half an hour, So out of the car, and I had a walk around and chat with some of the other drivers, then back in and get ready for run 2. We had also lowered the tyre pressure to try and get more traction.

This time the burnout was again brilliant for me, I tried to "back up" a lot quicker which is difficult as the spring pressure on the throttle is so high just touching it doesn't work, to overcome the spring pressure usually means the revs come up rather high which would mean shooting back at a rate of knots. This time we got off the line a lot better but! the run was still all over the place even though we hit a 9 second run it was still not where we really wanted to be.

Back in the pits I found oil again even though Steve had tightened the distributor down it was still weeping Steve also found the timing was now out so it looks like the dizzie moved when he tightened it up, so with the timing sorted and some gasket sealer around the dizzie and the pill size sorted we went for another run, ooh I almost forgot, after the second run I went to the office to get my timing slip and had a word with Carol and yaaaa my licence was signed off, nearly had a weepy moment myself.

Time to go down for our third and what would be our last run of the day, Steve told me to try out the trans brake and see if we can get our 60 foot times down, I got him to double check the wheelie bar first! he set the trans brake rev limit to 4900, We were called round and this time Steve and Dave wanted me to pull a little further forward on the track before I started my burnout so I could get some tyre rubber down past the start line, the track temperature was starting to drop. We had also lowered the tyre pressures in the rear slicks again to just over 5 psi.

I managed another great burnout even the commentator mentions it if you listen hard enough. Since we changed the axle gear ratios I now start the burnout in first then as soon as the slicks spin up I change into top and it seems to work, the run itself wasn't spectacular still a high 9 at over 144mph which was better I suppose, we didn't have the revs set high enough for the trans brake to be effective and the car is still wandering around, maybe the driver has just got to get used to it and hang on for grim death? again the dizzie seal was still weeping so that is something we are going to have to look at. I also pulled the chute on this run and it worked, dam my shoulders are sore this morning , why am I surprised well I tried to pull the chute on on both the previous runs and it didn't work !! LOL good job I wasn't running at 300 mph? The chute pin had got stuck.

We still seem to be chucking out blue smoke out of the right hand bank on the burnout it goes away quick so what we think is, when we got the block re-honed we were told the block was honed as far as possible without having to replace the pistons so it looks like that we will have to go down that route at the end of the year  we will put up with the puff of smoke for now as it is not damaging the motor.

Talking of  burnouts I have made a compilation of the burnouts we did on the test day from both cameras, yeah I know I have far too much time on my hands but it's fun....enjoy

So we packed up ready to make our way home Lorni and popped into Blackett Photography's place and saw a brilliant photo of the car so we bought three copies one for Dave and Steve and one for me...

I think I can see me using this photo for my profile picture very soon, So back home, we have a car that is producing power and is wandering around a bit more than usual, probably due to the aforementioned "More Power" we have a leaky distributor seal and still have one or two doubts about the axle ratio change we made, So on to Shaky in two weeks where we will put it all to the test and hopefully improve further. We should get our chassis tag put on the car at Shaky and of course the most important thing of all, I am now fully licensed. So thanks to everyone that has ever helped us or given us advice and a special thanks to my super crew of Steve and Dave, and the part timers of Al and Phill and Andy. and of course to the track crew at the Pod for giving us a track that we can use.