88. After the Lord Mayors Show...July Shootout

Well we had the best of times at Dragstalgia 2016 just a week ago, oh how quick things can change!!! but as I keep getting told "that's drag racing"

So we made the decision to go the July Shootout at the last minute, Steve said the car was running pretty consistently so it shouldn't be a problem to run it on Saturday without him as he just couldn't get any more time off work, well and keep his job that is. So Dave and I took the car up to Shaky we set up camp Friday evening and Dave changed the oil and charged the batteries up ready for action Saturday morning.

Friday evening we sat and watched a hell of a sun set, then walked up to Kenny's bar and had a couple of small drinks and went to bed all excited about what we could run int he morning.

Well Saturday came and we were ready, we went to the line to do observed runs to get my licence signed off at the second time of asking, The burn out was good all the gears were working well I took the green floored her and instantly I spun the wheels up it was like driving a drift car it went one way then the other, I had to lift once but it was getting scary I nearly had back out of the run altogether for my own safety, we still managed to run a 9.2 at 150mph, I am going to have to say this and I know I wont make many friends but... I am afraid that the track just wasn't up to the horsepower and I know I wasn't the only one to mention that this weekend, for me and one or two others it was down right dangerous so I might have to think abut not going to the smaller events and just run at the events where the Supercharged Outlaws and Outlaw Anglia's run, as the track seems to be better prepared when they are running and of course they rubber up the strip better. I was told by my observer that I was still spinning the wheels at half track...change of underpants run.

Second run more of the same I changed lanes just to see if one lane was better than the other and the answer...no! , at the hit the wheels spun up and it just got worse till I had to back out of it. I was told this time that I was dropping cylinders hmmm. More on that in a bit.

Before anyone hangs me I love Shaky I love the atmosphere of the place and yes I agree it is the home of sportsman racing, and I do support the track but! we are now making some serious horsepower and for whatever reasons my car is having real problems with the lack of traction and at the smaller meetings it could be dangerous to my pocket and my health I run the car entirely from my own pocket, so it makes sense to not attend the smaller meetings anymore. I will of course still be at the larger meetings like the Nostalgia Nationals etc.

Concerned about the dropped cylinders Steve told us over the phone to change the oil and check to see if there is anything in it that shouldn't be there and the same for the oil filter. both were checked and nothing was found so we charged up the batteries fuelled her up then warmed her up on the stands, everything seemed fine so we went for our third run, on the burn out the engine sounded poorly so Dave shut me down on the line and we owed back to the pits, a phone call to Steve resulted in us stripping off some body panels ready for when he got to the track the following morning, so a little be it deflated we sat and watched yet another amazing sun set and then joined in on the Wild Bunch annual Fancy dress party........

photo's by Lynne Coulsell

..... where I got "Flanned" by the Phantom Flan Flinger., thank you so much Andy!

So Steve turned up early and started work on the car he checked out the flex plate first as we had been having trouble with starting, then fitted the new starter, he then checked the compression on the motor and found two cylinders were right down. So the right hand was taken off and the damage was there to be seen we had torched the head, blown a hole between the middle two cylinders.

I went to watch the rest of the "Bunch" run and when I got back to our pits Steve was a bit distraught  he apologised to me and said he had caused some damage as well, I asked him what he meant and he showed me the two back pistons and you could see they were marked, when Steve had rebuilt the motor at the beginning of the season he had put two of the pistons in the wrong way round!

Luckily it would seem that torching the heads had helped us find this other problem before too much damage was done, so what now? well the heads are already at John O'Sullivan's  engineering workshop for welding and skimming, the block will be off for checking next week just hope if it needs a re-bore it isn't more than 10 thou or we will need new pistons as well, Steve with Steve Field will be checking the crank and shells out at the same time, any engine damage is bad news but this could have been a whole lot worse.

So the thing is at Dragstalgia we could hear a squeaking noise when we turned the motor over on the starter, hence Steve checking out the flex plate, starter etc we now know what that noise was, the hole blown between the two middle cylinder so that means we ran an 8.70  using the wrong heat plugs and wrong reach plugs, two cylinders with little or no real compression and two cylinders not working properly as the valves wee hitting the tops of the pistons and obviously we were also running her far too lean still, so what the f**k will she run when we sort out these problems???well you all know what I am hoping for. I would like to thank everyone for their input over the last couple of days regarding the head and how to avoid the problem in the future we will be looking in to this very soon.

So it was back to watching the racing well done to all the Wild Bunch for putting on such a good close show and it was good to see Nile Lane returning in Azbo and wow he hammered his personal est by running his first 8 at 8.85, that new Jeff Bull motor is a strong 'un.

The weather remained good so even though a few of us were having a wee problem or two the remaining 6 cars did well, now the race is on to get Tight Fit ready for the Hot Rod Drags, see you all at the track soon.

And if we don't get her ready in time then have a safe race guys and we will be back next year fitter faster stronger...I hope, as we continue to learn how to run one of these monsters, I think we are getting close?