55. We hunted high and low but we found it.......

But first! some good news!.. our race car transporter which is a converted ex council mobile library has passed it's MOT, it needed a few bits doing to it and the final bill was over a grand but I now have brakes for the first time since owning it which make driving it so much easier...

...and secondly my tickets arrived for Dragstalgia 2015 I had entered even though at the time I wasn't sure if we would have a race car ready or not.......

Right...now the hunt for the engine, we knew roughly when the ship carrying our precious new engine was leaving the States and when it was arriving here in the UK, but we needed more precise dates and timings as I had other meetings to enter...or not as the case may be  depending on when the engine arrives. So yesterday I started phoning around and I eventually got hold  of the right number for the shipping company here in the UK who informed me that e-mails had been sent to inform us of the arrival etc etc. The ship had docked in Southampton not London and had arrived earlier than expected, the engine had been in Southampton since the 12 March but....somewhere long the line a letter had been dropped from Steve's e-mail address so he never received any of the notifications..never mind all sorted now.

After filling in tons of paperwork then scanning said paperwork and sending it all off to the appropriate place the engine should be on it's way to us in the next day or so, I now want to have a wee whinge..and Jerry if you are reading this it has nothing to do with SAG performance it is just my whinge at "Rip Off Britain" and to let any others who go down this route to watch out for some "Hidden " costs..once you have paid for shipping you would think that's it wouldn't you...but no..see below.

As you can see I have had to pay another £450  just to get it out of storage/the warehouse. This does not include duties and taxes..please bear this in mind when costing up as it can make a big dent in your budget.

So while all this was going on Steve has been busy in darkest deepest Wiltshire finishing off some other tasks....

The brass gear drive has been fitted tot he dizzy the inlet manifold is the cleaning bath, the tank has been welded up and the brakes are being upgraded, then there is some wiring to do. There was a point some time ago when I really didn't think I would see our car back in one piece ever again ....

But now everything is coming together and I am getting really excited about hearing the engine start up for the first time....

Steve has already got the new nozzles in place ready for this momentous occasion I will be putting video clips of this and the subsequent runs onto YouTube on our channel ...

www.youtube.com/channel/UCWy-vhhDdvoQcuMasDRWU2Q

Or just search for Slimline Racing on You Tube  and look for the dragster.

UPDATE 27/03/2015: 04:45

Paid the VAT (taxes) and Duties yesterday afternoon, got mail to say Engine being delivered on Monday 30th...but with some damage to the crate/packaging, seems as though nothing ever goes smooth for me!!! 

54. First entry list posted on Eurodragster

It's nearly time for the first race meeting of the season,we know this as Eurodragster has posted the first entry list of the year...

See the news section

Unfortunately even if we had the car tagged and I had my licence sorted we still wouldn't be there as the car is not ready yet and wont be for a little while yet..So where are we at the moment then? sort of caught in no-mans land, The truck is in Swindon having an MOT done got Locked out of it as well LOL. Lorni and I picked the truck up on Thursday and got it ruining it still had the car in the back...

As you can see it is still in bits, we have the new gearbox in the back of the truck ready for fitting, the engine is on it's way from the States and should be in the country on the 17th March, before that the chassis is going to be cleaned up a bit as the brake master cylinder had been leaking and that has taken some of the paint off the chassis rails. there are other little jobs to do like refit the tanks once it has been dipped and the injector stacks are having the same treatment, new callipers and master cylinder are going to be fitted and a new screen fitted. Headers are going to be cleaned and polished. We still have to find a dip stick for the gearbox and a UJ that fits.And we have to fi the new injector nozzles and pils.

 we are going to take our time to get all this sorted properly as it al costs a lot of money and I wont be able to do this again so got to be done right no rushing!

Two other small parts have been ordered one being an air / fuel sensor and monitor so we can keep an eye on what's going on..

And the other things we have had to source is a bronze gear drive for the dizzy because of the make-up of the new cam...

So still a lot to do but by the middle of of April I hope it will be altogether and ready to run in time for the Nostalgia nationals at Shaky.

We will of course be attending a couple of RWYB.s first to do some testing..phew! who said this was just a hobby eh?

53. Nearly there

It was a bit of a gamble going for a brand new motor not forgetting the investment cost but! I have to say that I have been extremely impressed by the customer service and technical expertise from the company that we eventually found to build our new motor.....

Click on image to open web page

Jerry, who we have been dealing with has been brilliant, nothing gets done without communication with us first, and there has been some changes to the build spec as we have gone along to improve reliability and performance,at every stage we have been sent photo's of the build and updates I can't recommend this company enough, The build spec and quality of our engine is very high and even with the  dreaded import duties etc the total cost is still extremely competitive.

I have let number 1 son and crew chief Steve deal with most of the engine spec and build and I dare say he snuck in a few upgrades when I wasn't looking but the bottom line is this, the engine has been competed and is ready for shipping.

We are hoping for an impressive increase in performance form this motor, yesterday the new injector nozzles and pils arrived from Hilborn so owe now have everything to put the drive train back together we might make the start of the season after all.

Next on the list is getting the truck MOT'd in a couple of weeks time so that we something to get the car back and forth to the track with....fingers crossed.

Then its a case of getting the trans brake wired up and beefing up the wheelie bar brackets as I have a feeling they are going to be tested ...A LOT now that we have doubled out horse power, just need to find a trans brake cooler now, the brakes have been upgraded and a new screen made the tank has been welded up and more permanent fittings put in. only got to rejoin the Wild Bunch, renew my SPRC membership , pay for a medical and get the car tagged..not a lot to do really....NOT! ..Oh and I have been told by many racers that with this massive increase in power I had best invest in a some new underwear...thanks boys just what I needed a confidence boost...LOL!!!

52. More parts every day

Ok so time to get the lead out I suppose as every day brings the engine nearer to completion the latest news from over the pond is that the engine is now going together....

So that's the pistons and crank in place now it's beginning to look like an engine, more arrivals on the scene are the upgraded valves....

I believe the heads are also there just waiting on the roller cam now, nice new shiny engine I am getting all excited now

51. More bits...!

Hot of the press... we have been in touch with our friends at Hillborn, we are going to need some new parts for our injection system so we can get the fuelling right for the new motor so new nozzles and jets and a couple of gaskets are now on their way from the States.

We also have some piccies of new parts that have arrived ready for assembly.....

here you can see our nice new block freshly honed and "filled" ready to go...

And out custom made pistons and forged rods all ready to fit once the crank arrives, then the whole rotating assembly will be balanced...waiting for the heads and valves now...not long I hope!

50. At last a plan for the rest of the year.

The start of the new season is fast approaching ..too fast at times and what with some serious family shit to take care of I haven't really had the time or even the motivation to put anything new on here for some time, but that does not mean nothing has happened or that plans are not afoot for the new season.

So first things first, plans have been made to get the truck MOT'd I have to take it down to Swindon where it will be sorted, this happens to be where number one son and crew chief lives so there will be some work done on the race car while it is down there, the new brake callipers will be fitted along with the new gearbox and trans brake will be wired up and a cooler for the power glide will be fitted, the tank is being repaired as we speak so that will update most of the parts on the car ready for tagging as I would like to announce that Slimline Racing will be competing in some Super Pro Et rounds this year we will be renewing our membership of the brilliant Wild Bunch as well, I have managed to shift nearly a stone already so getting sorted for my licence.

So that just leaves one more thing.......motive power! after a lot of discussion and help and advice we have gone for a new engine it is an a Dart Sportsman block that was going to be 454ci but because of the compression ratios we have now dropped that a little to 441ci

So here is our new engine under construction in the States, she will come with a custom grind roller cam forged crank and con rods special made just for us custom pistons sealed for life rings ally heads high tech valves and springs.....

We will be using our own manual  Hillborn injection set up with new nozzles and pils of course we have a delivery date of 3 weeks from today for the engine and two weeks for the pats from Hillborn which ties in nicely to where the truck and car will be at the end of Feb beginning of march, when fitted the car will be taken round to Mr. John O'Sullivan's workshop for first fire up and tuning ready for a RWYB test session in March so we are ready for April.

Of course this is now getting way out  of my hands as ar as technical and financial matters are  concerned so today I made an agreement with my son and signed over my share of the car to him for a nominal sum, I may of course keep referring to the car as mine but in reality I am nothing more than a driver now so when I say me. mine or I, I do mean theirs.

This ia going to be very interesting as this engine will be producing around double the horsepower of the previous unit somewhere around 900 -1000 bhp at a max rpm of 7200 torque comes in at around 2800 rpm and yes we will be ultimately looking for a 7 second run..woop woop roll on April.

49. "It's beginning to cost a lot like Christmas"

Wow where did that year go??? I started this year with absolutely no idea what I was letting myself in for..and now I'm a drag racer!  We have met some of the nicest people in racing full stop. The Wild Bunch, what a great bunch of people I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to my racing career.

So where are we then after all our engine woes..well that's a surprise and if you read through this blog you will find out at the end...LOL

This brilliant photo was taken by John  Kennedy of johnkennedypotography.com  at Shakespeare County Raceway, because of the lane I am in I know this was when the gearbox let go this was just the start of our woes as we decided to strip he engine at the same time as repairing/replacing the gearbox and...well if you read all this blog you all know what we found.

This was the lowest point of the year, I really couldn't see how we were going to continue I had spent so much money on the car and truck to start with, then had to replace the truck and repair then replace the gearbox it was all too much, this all happened in the same month that I had already paid for the road tax and insurance on the truck and the storage fees. I really thought about calling it a day and I thought of myself as a silly old git for even trying to do what we were doing,,yeah depression...big time! I didn't even want to t think about drag racing ever again.

Luckily I have a wonderful Wife and Son, Lorni reminded me how much we had tied up in this venture and that it was too much to let go and number one Son and Tight Fit Crew Chief Steve, went to work to find a replacement engine, what we found was, there isn't a lot out there at the moment well not Small Blocks anyway, we even though about fitting a big block in the rail but! too much work to adapt the car, because of what had happened we were put off looking at anything second hand..unless it could be proved that it had recently been refreshed, we found nothing that we thought would be useful to us.

So Steve went looking for new bits and he scoured the States and eventually realised that whatever we do it is going to cost a fair bit of money and even though the prices for new gear in the Sates isn't too bad but!, by the time you added shipping, duty and Vat it was too much.

So another month went past and we kept looking and it soon became clear that if we didn't go for a new power plant then we weren't going to race in 2015, Steve found a company in America that would put together an engine for us for a reasonable price, Steve has been haggling with them and checking on them of course so it looks like we are going to order a new engine from them this week 3rd week of December 2014.

So as we speak Steve is working on the car he is taking the tank out to repair the union on the fuel line he is taking the master cylinder and callipers out to update them with better items and he is also taking the screen with him as we need to make a new one.

If you look carefully you will see a well placed piece of duct tape as I split the screen with my knee getting out of the car at Dragstalgia,,yea a diet is also on the cards LOL

OK so back to the engine then, what we are getting is a 454 stroked Small block putting out around 800 horses we want to run low 8's or even drop into the 7's We are hoping to get the car re-tagged in the new year and I am going to  try and get a licence so we can have a go n Super Pro, we will be staying with the Wild Bunch.

 This is the spec of our new engine with maybe one or two changes that we are talking to them about at the moment yes it is going to cost me a lot of money and it will mean my motorbikes will have to go but it will be worth it,and yes we are going to use our old injection system because I love the look..

So with a bit of luck and a following wind we will have everything in place to go testing around March and try and get my licence signed off, it looks like it is going to be an exciting year it also looks like there are going to be a lot more cars in Super Pro if what I read is right and I am really hoping that we can have everything sorted and have the car running good for Dragstalgia 2015.