Here is Dave relaxing after a hard hours work LOL
Now as you can see we have fitted the longer injector pipes, this is after consulting Hilborn themselves who assured us that the long pipes would improve low and mid range torque and not affect our top end noticeably and of course there is another reason.........
.. the car looks so much better with them on than the cut off ones. Anyway that was us for Friday we made out way to the bar and had a couple of drinks and listened to a really awesome Rockabilly band in the marque.
Will get these chromed eventually
Saturday morning arrived along with my crew chief and other Brother Andy, first order of the day was to service the car then go for a run ..which we did but unfortunately there wasn't enough water put down so I didn't strike the tyres on the burnout so I had to be a bit careful on the launch and I short shifted to be on the safe side. the result was a low 10 second run.. not that good but it was a run.
Steve then went about changing the springs in the distributor as the old ones were stretched and not working right, next run, first off the car is now more difficult to start, she popped back a bit more than usual but we went for the run anyway, I managed to get a face-full of methanol on this run which was back in the 9's so a bit more fettling and away we go with run number 3 again the car is difficult to start and I have to keep the revs up to keep her running, yet another crap burnout and on the run I got a face-full of oil as the rocker box gasket blew, still in the 9's at 140+ mph but still not where we wanted it to be.
Returning from a run
At this point I have to say a big thank you to Mark Coulsell and the Limited Funz team for all their help and advice and to everyone else that came by and gave us advice and tried to point us in the right direction, this what makes Drag Racing so good and even after all the problems we had this weekend this is what gives us the motivation to put things right spend more money than we have and to come back racing, cheers guys I really do mean it.
So the upshot was we had managed to throw the adjustment of the butterfly's on the injectors out on the front two cylinders they were running far cooler than the rest of the cylinders and we had a crack in the rocker box, so on Sunday we had to put tall this right, first we put the old springs back in the distributor Steve then adjusted the butterfly's, I did hear him swear a couple of times when he let go of the feeler gauges as they slipped down the injectors so thanks to the Wraith Child team for the lend of their magnet on a stick. We then sealed the rocker box as best we could till we can get it welded up and then Mark and his team helped us with the timing set up Oh and congratulations on your 8 second 150mph runs...(bastard) LOL
Marks gorgeous looking rather fast slingshot
So now with then engine sounding really good and angry we go down for our first run on Sunday I decided to try the other lane I had been running in the checker board lane all Saturday, for the first time in ages the burnout was strong..well for us anyway, we got smoke of the tyres at least and everything sounded really good I was running against another car for the first time this weekend, the lights counted down I buried the throttle and she pulled like a train..yeee haaa, shift light on go for second...nothing...tried again..still nothing then I noticed a thin film of oil on my helmet.
..ooops, something has gone wrong so I remembered a piece of advice I was given a little while back in case something like this happened...Don't touch brakes, shift to neutral and let the car roll to a stop, I got off at the first exit. The guys in the top end crew came running over to see if I was ok, apart from not being able to see I was fine they told me I had puddles of oil under the car and that I had oiled the whole track, So apologies to everyone it was never my intention to do that believe me.
I just noticed that at the hit the car turned hard right, I was too busy keeping an eye on my opponent in the other lane, I wonder if the oil had already gotten onto my slicks, a real shame as it was on a good run I could actually feel the difference between this and the other runs we had completed on Saturday.
We towed the car back and took the bodywork off and what we found was not good...we had two holes in the gearbox and all 7 litres of oil had gone....
So the car was dismantled the axle removed and the gearbox taken out.......
What we found was the governor had sheared a bolt in the output shaft and had come loose in the tail piece and the weights had smashed holes in the side of the casing.
We had only had the gearbox rebuilt just before Dragstalgia so you can imagine this was a huge downer for us and I have to admit I seriously though about quitting for while back there.
It was the first time we had raced at Shaky and apart from the car problems we had a really good time, the track crew were great and I found the track to be a lot better than I was told to expect, Ok so there is a big bump or two halfway down the shut-down area but you get used to it. the shut down area is a lot longer than the Pods so didn't need to use my chutes at all, and two great bands in the marque..brilliant, but I must remember to bring my own loo rolls with me as the ones in the toilets seem to disappear at night!! LOL
Anyway that is it for the season for us now...probably. We do have plans for the engine and now of course the gearbox but we will be back next season faster and quicker than ever we will get that elusive 8 second run and you never know we might even be able to race Mark on even terms, although I know we will never be able to match those Freddie esq burn-outs LOL
No comments:
Post a Comment