47. First it comes apart.....

What a day it has been, I have been stuck at home still feeling like crap after suffering some sort of virus for nearly two weeks now, while I have been stuck at home Steve...crew chief and number one son has been very busy, he loaded up his car in Swindon and headed for the bad lands..well Bedford and in what looks like pouring rain started the arduous task of removing things...lots of things.

Ok so before that he managed a test fit of the new gearbox. bearing in mind that this on is a standard length box as opposed to a short tailed box that was in the car before it hit the self destruct button....

And low and behold...miracle of miracles it dam well fits, no machining or fettling required..there is a God after all.

So just as the rain came down the hard work started...remove axle take gearbox out again loosed all bolts and get engine ready for removal....

Making very careful not of where everything goes..pipes..wires etc then lift engine out and on to floor...

So at this moment the car is looking very sorry for itself with no drive train in it but not for too long I hope and no bodywork either......

So the engine is now winging its way down to Swindon where it will be stripped and all components checked and as I have already said if t he budget is there we will fit a stroker kit to her the block is going for crack checking and repair if needed. We still have the tank and wind shield to fix up and then get the car tagged I will sot some of the wiring out and then put her all back together again in time for February...fingers crossed.

46. The hard work starts..

I used to read reports from other racers that said the "off season" went too fast I now know what they mean it only seems like yesterday when we blew the gearbox up at the Hot Rod Drags and here we are in November and I am looking at the first RWYB's on the new race calender from the Pod for January????

So what are we up to then??well first off last Sunday I met up with Mark Coulsell who was letting me have his old Rocker boxes as we managed to crack one of ours...right next to where the bolt goes so don't think it can be welded.

The trip back wasn't so nice as we had the biggest downpour I have seen in ages..I hate this time of year.....

This was the view over the Thames on the Dartford crossing..miserable.........

In a few days time my crew chief and number 1 son Steve, is going to be taking the engine out of the race car after trial fitting the new gearbox, the engine will then be taken to Swindon where it will be stripped and inspected and repaired /  new parts fitted where needed and if the budget allows a stroker kit, I was going to have the hand brake removed and foot-brake fitted but I have been advised that maybe a left foot brake is not the wisest thing to fit to a dragster so maybe we will just upgrade what we have instead.

The master cylinder has been leaking for some time now and it looks like the lid does not seal but the brake fluid has taken a lot of paint off the chassis so that will be sorted as well, I am going to have a look at uprating the wheelie bar brackets...hmmm just in case.....

Talking of bodywork I found this piccie of the car in it's previous guise I would love to know where the front bodywork went???

The new gearbox comes with a trans brake so we are looking at how to set up the "two step" on the system so we can really improve our 60ft times..we are hoping to get it all back together and running for mid to end of February so we can go testing in March and get the car tagged ready for competition.......which means I have to get a licence so get fit time..well nothing much else to do in Winter is there..got to lose a few stone I reckon and that will make getting in and out of the car a bit easier might even make it go faster...?? talking of which if we just upgrade the engine we have without making any further modifications we want to run in the 8.7 sec range at least, if we go this route then I will be looking at putting together another block over the coming year with all the mods on i.e. ally heads, Scat crank etc ready for the 2016 season...and if I happen to find a supercharger sitting around doing nothing then you never know...??? now will my engine as it stands run with a drop of  Nitro in the tank???? Super_pro anyone??

45. Next year 2015??

We are in October and it is really time to start thinking about next season,what do we want to do? what class? etc and of course what to do to the car, so after much discussion with my Crew Cheif and my Wife this is what is going to happen over the next few months ready for next season...of course best laid plans and all that but! I am  keeping my fingers crossed.

Part 1 of the plan is already completed this weekend I am going to pick up the gearbox that was in Al's Gasser and modify our car so it fits, this gearbox has only 7 or 8 runs on it since it's last rebuild and it manages to handle the power of the Gasser without any problems so our small block should be a breeze.

After making the gearbox fit, the engine is coming out and going down to Swindon where my son and crew chief is going to strip it then send it off for crack testing and repair as necessary we are then going to fit a stroker kit to it which should up the cubic inches to around 400 and a bit..

Going to make sure the Scat crank has a double key-way so that we can stick a blower on this engine in the future if should wish to go down that road, I would love a set of Ally heads for her but I am not sure if the budget will stretch that far but we will see...but if anyone has a good second hand set then please get in touch via our Facebook page.....

It may be the case that we will have to get the original heads flowed and ported for now, a new cam and lifters and springs will go in as well and probably a new timing cover so along with  the new gearbox that comes with a trans brake and some new injector parts to help tune the fuelling we are hoping that we can get the old girl into the mid to low 8 second bracket which should see us run competitively in the Super Pro class.

Of course we also have to get her re-tagged, again if anyone knows how to go about this please get in touch I would love to know, the chassis is also going to Swindon where a left foot brake will replace the old hand brake system which is not man enough for the job really.

Whatever happens we are looking forward to next year where we hope to run faster and quicker and be a stronger team and you never know we might even bloody a few noses along the way...we can hope.

Until the new season starts I will keep looking at this video t keeps me motivated and stops me thinking about how better I could spend this money

Welcome to the Thunderdrome from NGK Torque on Vimeo.

44. Might be able to go racing next year after all!!!!

The last few weeks have been a wee bit torrid, I had even thought about selling up and quitting as money as always is an issue but!!  the events of the last few days might have solved a few problems for us..by us I mean of course Slimline Racing.

After the Hot Rod Drags at Shaky our car looked like this...again.....

Steve and Dave have gotten very good at removing the gearbox and on Tight Fit that is no mean feat, but we don't really want to keep on doing this, the damage to the box was severe and the legend that is Al O'Conner showed us what was happening and what had happened in our gearbox, the problem is our box still has a lot of standard parts in and they are simply not up to the job and as Steve manages to squeeze more and more power from our engine we have overpowered the box.

Next job meant some serious measuring we needed to know the difference between our gearbox which is a short tailed power glide and a standard length power glide gearbox.

The difference in length is due to the tail pieces as you can see in the photo's above there is about 2 inches difference...the bottom one being the short tailed.

After some careful scrutiny it looks like there was some modification done on my prop shaft which has resulted in the shaft being just about 2 inches longer than it should be....result net difference equals ...zero soooo it does appear that a standard gear box will fit in my car with none or very little modification required.

Having had a word with Al he is willing to sell me the gearbox that is sitting in the ..just a bit famous...Al's Gasser which has only done 8 runs since a total rebuild with all the right parts including the  Trans Brake for a very reasonable price..so that's that sorted...next I have to find out how to get the car re-tagged for next year. but that's another story for another time....for now!!

43. Oh boy just when you think......!!!

Even though we have had a good time this year it has not been without it's problems, for some reason we keep shredding gearboxes this is not a good thing as the do tend to be a bit on the expensive side.

So after the last gearbox problem  we decided to try and see if we could beef it up a bit so bearing this in mind the gearbox was taken to the legend that is AL O'Conner to asses the damage for us and if possible fix it..

The famous Al's Gasser peaking out from the garage

A couple of days later I get a call from Al to tell me the bad news which is? he found some bearing material in the sump and the planetary gears are breaking up, so it looks like this box is toast, the only problem is this particular powerglide transmission has the rather rare short tail piece as opposed tot he regular one or the "Shorty" and it looks like it is as rare as hens teeth,...oh!

We do have some options we can try and move the engine forward by a couple of inches and see if we can fit a standard powerglide in, we can scour the internet till we find another rebuilt glide with a short tail piece or just give up!

Well giving up is not an option I haven't finished with this little car yet, one way or another we will be back racing next year even if I have to have a new chassis made.

Now of course if I had the money I know what I would have built and I wouldn't be one those new rear engine clone cars that all look the same and sound the same and run the same numbers it would be something like this......

I realy wish I had the money to build a modern day replica of this car..Dennis Priddles's Mister Revel oh well we can dream..can't we?

42. Its been a hard long year but fun

OK folks here we go then, this is an end of year report if you like, Just over a year ago I had a silly idea to have a go at drag racing , after 40 years of spectating and at the age of 55 I went and did it, I ended up with the car that Laura Turbeville had been campaigning.

I had not intention of licencing for the first year a I thought it would be a good idea to just stick to RWYB's until we understood what we were doing. It has been a steep but interesting learning curve.

We have had our share of problems, we found the front timing cover was badly cracked and leaking oil all over the place, this is when we found John O'Sullivan and his engineering works. we then found a cracked tail piece on the gearbox when we serviced it, this was also sent off to big John for welding, then the gearbox destroyed itself we managed to get it back and running just before Dragstalgia which was one of my target meets for the year...

It was at this meet that we at last gave the car our identity and changed it's name to Tight Fit...for a very good reason..it was.

Dragstalgia 2014 will remain in my memory for a very long time it was everything I thought it would be and more,we were pitted between Mo Blackburn and Steph Milam, we were very ably looked after by Claire and her bicycle, we made some good friends..Ove and his family and team from Germany for one, we met many more racers that I had only ever watched I was enjoying every second of this. We ran our best time to date 9.2 seconds and I got to run against other cars, the first being Miss Winter from Germany.

Photo courtesy of Mike B

One thing I did notice at this event was the amount of vapour/smoke that was coming out of the engine breather hmmm!!! so one more RWYB at the Pod before the Hot Rod Drags it was at this event I noticed there was a discernible difference between the two lanes at the POD the spectator lane was far more lumpy and unsettled the car and I never ever got close to what the car was capable of in that lane, at the European finals other racers also mentioned this problem about the bumps that were appearing in that lane..all this after all that money was spent an resurfacing, perhaps a few quid on drainage wouldn't have gone amiss.

Anyway onto the Hot Rod Drags at Shaky I have never raced there and was looking forward to it, I like Shaky I like the laid back atmosphere of the place and how helpful everyone was but...and there is always a but! I did notice a difference between the lanes or is it me? is there a difference? I maybe getting paranoid about it and then there is that bloody bump where the other runway crosses the shut down area, my god what a tooth rattler why oh why don't they just fill in that bit with a piece of tarmac or is that too simplistic a solution? and get rid of that problem once and for all, I watched a couple of outlaw Anglias take off on that bump.  before anyone starts lambasting me I did say I liked Shaky but it does look like the place has been left to its own devices for too long and needs some money spending on it, and yes I will be going back. They do have to get the basics sorted though and safety must come first. I can put up with that bump and so can my car but I dare say there are other cars that can't. I' know that some cars can't race there as they would be seriously damaged it would be great to see all types of cars back at Shaky and get crowds as big as they were at the Hot Rod Drags at all meetings.Please remember these are my personnel observations from a stand point of a being a Shaky Virgin.

We had a few problems at Shaky we changed the injector ram pipes for longer ones, not only as we were advised to by Hiborn themselves but ..Dam! the car looks better with them! and we adjusted the clutch and changed the springs in the magneto so after three runs I only managed a best of 10.0 but I also managed to get a face full of methanol and oil and then gearbox oil, With a lot of help form people like Mark Coulsell we managed to sort out the timing and the fuelling problems and boy did that make a difference but we managed to knock a couple of holes in the  gearbox and oil the track. So that was it for us for this season.

We found the engine needs a rebuild we were getting far too much fuel in the sump this goes back to the vapour through the breather looks like the rings have gone we also found one the rocker boxes was cracked, so the engine will be coming out over the next few weeks, the gearbox will be repaired unless I can find a suitable replacement, the car will also be re-tagged  and I will apply for a licence for next year.

With a gearbox that works properly and an engine that has some compression and that will burn all of the fuel and not let half of it slip into the sump we should get back to running 8's I am now on a diet and keep fit program to help me shift a bit of weight which should also help and on top of that we found that the MSD box was set to 6 cylinders and not 8 so all things being equal we should be able to compete in Super Pro next year as well as staying with the Wild Bunch who are just the most incredible bunch of people in the land.

So I am looking forward to next year and again running at both Santa Pod and Shakespeare County Raceway and having some more fun with the Wild Bunch and maybe getting stuck in with the big boys in Super Pro.

I would like to say a big thank you to my ever so understanding wife Lorni and my super crew of Steve and Dave who I did promise a go in my car at the end of the season unfortunately the damage is such that this is not going going to happen this year, but there is always next year. A big thanks to all the track crews and safety people at both the Pod and Shaky for all their hard work and all the people who have helped us out and advised us during the year.

I also found out that we had appeared in a foreign magazine ..woo hoo we are famous LOL

So this was our rookie year I spent far more than I thought I would ever have to, I have had far more fun that I ever thought I would, I went faster and quicker than I thought I ever would, and I made some serious friends I have loved it, and I am going to spend more money that I don't have to ensure we will be back next year faster quicker and bigger than ever.

These are the rantings of a rookie driver and team owner who never thought he would ever get to do this, what an incredible sport and it is full of incredible people who I have nothing but respect for even more so now I have changed the side of the fence I sit on. Roll on next season.!!!!!

41. A day to calm down....

So after a very hectic weekend life returns to normal I am back working, I am also black and blue thanks to the bump halfway down the shut-down area at Shaky, yes I was warned about it but! I didn't think increasing the tyre pressures by half a pound would make such a difference to the "bounce" LOL

So where are we at the moment then? Steve is busy ferreting around trying to find the bits we need and maybe even the services we need a little nearer to home he is tracking down a hopeful or two as I type this. I know this will not be a cheap problem to put right but hey! if we want to continue racing it has to be done.

I think I can say we (the whole team) enjoyed the weekend even if it was a little disappointing with regard to what we wanted from the car and it was hard work the crew were very busy most of the time in fact my younger brother found the whole thing just a bit too much on Sunday.........

On the upside I did find a photograph on Facebook that showed that we had managed to get the power back again, insomuch that after resetting the backlash and the timing and resetting the butterfly settings we got back some of what has been missing since the gearbox rebuild, in fact it was such a good photo I bought the original from Mike B's photos.

This photo clearly shows smoke form the burnout, something that has been missing for some time till yesterday, it's a shame that it was on this run that the gearbox let go and I am sure I was heading for a very low 9 if not a high 8 second run...oh well next year then.

I was also sent this photo I do like this but there is no information with it regards who took it ect so if anyone recognises it  please let me know so I can give it the correct compliments. I just found it after looking through all of Facebook that is a photo taken by Steve Weston

Dam I still think it;s one of the best looking cars in English drag racing, but then I am ever so slightly biased aren't I?????