103. Dragstalgia 2017, not a vintage year!!!!!

The car is nearly back together, Mike Oates ordered some fittings earlier in the week and they turned up in time, the team could hardly contain their excitement, we had only made one meeting earlier in the year and this was going to be the big one we knew that if everything worked as it should have we could really run some numbers, remember we hadn't done any testing in fact the engine hadn't been run since May where we torched the heads again.

So Dave and I made our way over to pick the trailer up Thursday evening, we left a day earlier as this meeting had now got so big if we didn't get there early enough pit space became a problem..later that evening Steve and Justin turned up and set up their tent ready for th three day event

As you can see we still need to get all the trailer wheels blasted and coated, one just looks silly and I still haven't found an American style anti sway bar that will keep the truck and trailer level on top of this the new trailer plugs I fitted didn't cure the lack of trailer brakes so I had to take it easy. We set up camp, had a couple of drinks and went for a wander round to see who was there already...mainly a large contingent of Scandinavians who had made the trip over just for this  one meeting.

Up early Friday morning, things still needed to be done to the car, first all the batteries needed charging, Steve needed to set the backlash on the car fit the headers and the new diaper, then Mike Oates turned up with more fuel and  the fittings we needed to finish off installing the High Speed Lean off Valve.

When all this was finished the car was fired up and everything looked OK Steve backed off the timing a bit to take out some power as this was our first run on the rebuilt engine. So after putting a heat cycle through the motor and checking out everything we towed down to the start line Friday afternoon.

We ran a solo the motor fired up OK I made my way round to the start line where Dave got me to spin up the slicks in the water trough the burn out was good I left the line pretty sharpish, well it was sharpish for me in fact it was the best reaction time I had ever made. The 60ft time was crap we had taken a lot of power out of the motor but we also know that we have a slow trans brake solenoid, something else to look at soon, the run felt pretty good.......

I hadn't driven the car for a wee while so one peddle and through and not giving it too much just to re-acclimatise myself to the cockpit, I pulled the chute, I didn't need to but I thought it best to make sure it still worked like it is supposed to and as I shut the motor down I heard a"pop!" I got off at the first exit and was picked up by the team where I was told I had just run a 9.5 at 144mph, that will do for a shake down now to put the power back in, but alas after trying to fire the car back up in the pits we immediately knew something was wrong, the heads were taken off along with the injection system and then the fuel pump and the front timing cover.

We found the timing  chain pulley had come off the cam shaft the resulting damage meant we were out of the meeting and possible the rest of the year. I could have cried, in fact I did, it was just about all the money that we had put tin to the car it was all the time effort and hard work to get her to Dragstalgia. The car had worked fin the fuelling had been nigh on spot on Thanks Mike, we were looking forward to running numbers as quick if not quicker than Mark Cousell was running, the car was set up to run at least 8.4's.

The Culprit

We have a few of these bent push rods

We have a few of these smashed lifters too

Spud drive is worn

We also managed to bend the shaft on the fuel pump and we know we have some bent valves wont know how many till we take the head apart, I found this on Facebook recently and I think it sums up everything.

So on Saturday Steve took the heads back with him Dave, Lorni and I packed all the other bits away, we stayed for the whole meeting and watched some incredible racing well done to all the Wild Bunchers for putting on an incredible show and all those PB's..brilliant, We had a party in the pits with live music which was great, But after watching the finals in Sunday we had to put the rest of the bits and pieces away and hitch up the trailer and go home.

I would like to thank everyone that helped us and came round to give the team some advice we are going to take a breather now before we do anything else and take stock of what we have and what we need then make a decision on what and when we are going to do if anything.

Until we are back on the track to all Wild Bunchers run fast run safe and hopefully we will see you all in the not too distant future.

102. Dragstalgia 2017 getting close

I can't believe how fast this year has flown by, nearly time for the the best meeting of the year, Dragstalgia, if I didn't have any involvement in a team at all I would still attend just to watch and it looks like every year the event just keeps getting bigger and bigger which is good for our sport. It's always difficult doing any work on the dragster as it is located in a secure parking establishment but we only have one entry key fob to get into the place so organising anything is a nightmare and that's discounts the distance everyone has to travel.

So that parts that were ordered gaskets and nozzles finally turned up the nozzles took nearly 3 weeks to get here,

New larger nozzles = more fuel

 the new Diaper only took 3 days??? 

There was a time when the injection system was in London the heads in Swindon, the headers in Sutton Coldfield and the car was in Bedford and I was beginning to wonder if all these parts would ever see each other again. The heads and rocker boxes were finished last Friday so Steve arranged to come up to the car and fit as much as possible in one day with help from Brother Dave and Steve's friend and now part time crew member Justin who took most of the photo's on this page.

It's not easy working in a confined space and the trailer is a smaller than the old truck so a lot of the loaded gear had to be placed outside, first job then was to replace the heads, these had been welded up and had new valve seats cut by Mr John O'Sullivan,

Again not an easy job when you haven't got much room to play with, god how I envy those lucky racers with a garage big enough for their cars or a workshop, Once both heads were back on and the in let manifold dry fitted to check the part alignment it was time to bolt everything together and this time we used the correct size inlet manifold gasket, this time they might actually hold and save us from more engine damage!

Obviously there is a lot more going on here push rods valve train and everything else has to be fitted as well and checked, and on top of this Steve had to change the sump gasket which is even more of a pain because of the lack of room, but after a long day everything that was planned to be done was completed.

Even the new rocker boxes as the old ones had one side chamfered to fit the old inlet manifold and the were starting to crack, so the car is just about together again, jobs still to do include setting the back lash re-fitting the headers that are with Andy Stones waiting to be chromed up, we still have a high speed lean off valve to fit with help from Mike Oates of Fiddle Head slingshot fame, then we need to run a heat cycle through the engine if not two or three but that will have to wait till the Friday of Dragstalgia so we are cutting things a bit fine but! as long as everything works on that Friday it will all be worth it. The Tow truck, Dodge Ram was MOT'd last week I still have to sort out the levelling on the trailer but that can wait till after Dragstalgia.

As always it's been a bit of a rush but we are nearly there so now looking forward to Dragstalgia 2017 bring it on!!!!!!