Our tow truck which is a 2002 Dodge Ram 5.9 litre 1500 has been playing up a bit over the last 12 months it had been losing oil, water and power as well as juddering a bit while pulling away so after sorting out the workshop the next thing on the agenda is sort out the truck.
First things first the front suspension has taken a battering pulling our race trailer, The trailer is a nose heavy american style trailer and it pulls the back of the truck down which in turn lifts the front right up where it shouldn't be, so most of the front suspension part were replaced bushes top and bottom arms etc.included the shocks as the original ones were in a "bit of a state" And while Steve was at it the rear shocks were changed as well.
Next job was service the gearbox, sump and filter removed and.....bits of metal in the sump parts which looked like bits of a retaining clip, Steve did some digging around and found that this is again another "common Fault" with the Dodge also the had been other damage int here and the clutch plates needed replacing so with his usual gusto Steve stripped the box down and rebuilt it...using his now new workshop! The rebuild kit was ordered and duly arrived but when Steve took the pump apart he found a broken spring yet another "common fault" so new parts ordered.
All rebuilt back to factory specs, this is when Steve had one eye on the impending closed doors test weekend of the 4th and 5th July even though the team were going to sit out the whole season to update and sort out all the racing gear withdrawal symptoms had set in but! there was one other problem while under the truck Steve found a water leak and it looked to be coming from the thermostat housing so a new one was ordered but it didn't cure the leak, So more digging around and yes another "common fault" is the front timing cover as it has water running through it and it wears and leaks so another part was ordered and a new timing cover was winging its way from American , this arrived with just a few days left before the test weekend. Steve stripped the front down and the old cover replaced with the new timing cover and what do you know?...leak cured.
Time is running out so just a couple of days to go Steve filled the gearbox up with oil and took the truck to work with him just to check it out but just outside Swindon the truck decided it only had one gear...so the truck was carefully and slowly returned to base and now no hope of getting to the test weekend. Turns out that yet another "common fault" was to blame for the failure. A governor/speed sensor was faulty a new one was ordered but wont arrive till the end of this week.
A shame but there is it not a lot anyone could do about it I am sure there will be more test weekends coming up, In the meantime there is also the problem with the rear suspension as I said the trailer is really heavy so it looks like a set of air bags will be going on the back and the LPG system is going to be sorted soon as well and re-certified. Once that is done it is time to turn our attention to the trailer then the race car itself new rear gears and bigger valve springs so we can use the 9000 rpm it is capable of and not the restricted 7200 rpm we have been running it with.
And some people think we just turn up and race eh?? keep safe folks see you all soon I hope.
Just because we are sitting out racing for the year...maybe? doesn't mean that we are not busy at Slimline Racing HQ, first off is the HQ we didn't have one our HQ was the trailer which meant when we had to do anything to the dragster we had to meet up from all points West and South then take the dragster out of the trailer to work on it usually in wet and cold conditions and occasionally ..snow! So first thing to do...man shed! or to better describe to it as....a workshop. Steve already had a big wooden shed in his garden but it was falling apart so a new one was needed what Kerry didn't know was Steve had ordered a 20 foot by 10 foot metal structure to replace the original one. A lot of clearing and digging was done and then concrete poured for the new base.
Saga of the workshops
First Workshop
The idea being that the new fence panels can be removed and the dragster wheeled in form the road behind and at 20 foot long the dragster fits in no problem but the big garage which is what it really is comes in kit form from Australia when I say Kit I mean lots and lots of bits and pieces.
So Steve got his tools out dismantles the old shed got all the bits and pieces out ready to assemble the new workshop, only it didn't quiet go to plan, after hours and hours of drilling and screwing and marking out on the floor something was wrong! the completed workshop wasn't square and the doors wouldn't fit properly so Steve tried to manipulate the panels but it just got worse and worse then Steve got mad..short fuses run in the family. anyway the workshop got beaten up and ended up at the local tip!!
Second Workshop
After he had cooled down a bit Steve ordered another one and paid for their own fitting team to come and put it up for him.
The new workshop duly arrived and a date was arranged for the fitting team to come and put it up, it was supposed to go up in a day.
The parts were all laid out ready for the assembly, the fitters got some of the panels together put a corner of the workshop up was about to put a brace up when the wind got up the structure fell over and buckled....end of workshop number 2.
Third Workshop
The fitters apologised and ordered a replacement workshop, that was the end of the year so the new one wouldn't arrive till January. Then the wait for the fitting team but it appears that when the team turned up to assemble workshop 3 there was some parts missing so once again Steve waited and then at last the fitting team re-appeared with all the parts needed and they put the new workshop up...yaaa!!
But after closer inspection Steve found that the had buckled some panels missed screws and bolts out and even worse that that they had assembled the whole thing too close to the dividing fence between Steve's place and the neighbours garden!!!
Lots of irate phone calls later and Steve was offered £200 to forget it or £100 and the fitters would come back and move it, Steve was of course not happy with this as the fitters had screwed it up twice now so another phone call or ten and Steve got the whole fitting fee refunded and he is now going o move the workshop over himself and fix the other problems but...we now have a HQ.
Slimline racing has had a good year this year we haven't blown the motor for the first year since we started racing. Steve and Dave took the car to the Nostalgia Nationals and had a few problems. Steve was not happy with the cars performance and couldn't see any point in continuing with the rest of the season so I bribed him with a new camshaft and low and behold we were at Dragstalgia where after a day of fettling and running to Huaser racing for some shims we got the girl running.
Ready to run at Dragstalgia 2019
After going backwards for the entire meeting with regards et's we eventually, on the very last run got it together.. The journey to Dragstalgia 2019 was an adventure in itself for me as I rode my motorbike all the way there and back from Gandia in Spain 2800 miles in total and it was worth every bit of it. Steve then decided to take the car to a couple more meetings where he smashed my best times out of sight eventually running an 8.3 and this with an engine that had been restricted to just over 7000rpm when in fact it could rev up to 8500 and maybe more? because of the problem with the valve springs. Add that coupled with the wrong final drive gearing and we reckon there was another tenth in that set up.
Sore bum time only 2800 miles to go
So after what turned out to be a dam good year in the end it's with a heavy heart I must announce that Slimline racing will not be appearing at the track in 2020, A lot of work needs doing to the whole operation, first off the tow truck, our Dodge Ram needs both set of lower arms and ball joints doing probably due to the angle she ends up at while towing the trailer so an air assist jack up kit is going on as well as repairs to the gas system. The trailer needs a new floor, repairs to the braking system and some upgrades to make life at the track a bit easier. The race car also needs some work, We need some bigger stronger valve springs in order to get the engine running at peak performance however the spring ratings required come with a slight problem they have a bigger diameter than our springs, so the head is going to have to be machined and the valve spring seats made wider, the rear end gearing needs changing as well we went from 411 gears to 378's and that was just too big a jump so some 380 gears will be sourced and fitted that will give us the performance we need to complete what we set out to do all those years ago. The chassis and body could do with a clean up as well, in fact Steve is in two minds while she is stripped down whether to get a new chassis made...hmm we will see. All this will take time and money so we will take a break in 2020 but will be back out in 2021 faster than ever and you never know it may be a re-vamped Tight Fit or maybe even a Tight Fit Too?? and hopefully we will get a few more of these trophy things..
I know Dave will be at the track next year and I will also make the effort to get over to at least one of the three Nostalgia events and yes I will be riding over again, So from all of us at Slimline Racing have a great Christmas and New year have a fast and safe 2020 see you all soon.
I did say that after the Mopars that would be it for Slimline Racing for this year but after such a successful meeting well...?? the decision to go to the HRD's was very late one as Steve didn't know if he could get the Friday and Saturday off of work till the Thursday before the meeting. So it was all hands to the the pumps or was it? It would appear that senior team member and now occasional driver Dave was already going to the meeting anyway so some phone calls were made and the team set off Friday for the Pod where some last minute adjustments were made and camp was set up everything was ready for the morning.
Saturday arrives and the weather is just awesome even Colin in the tower can't stop reminding everyone how good it is PB's after PB's were set in all classes. Steve managed the obligatory 3 runs with the Wild Bunch helped out this weekend by Dave's better half Jeni.
First run of the morning was against James Auld in his Little Faus dragster Steve managed 8.55 at 154.15 mph not exactly where we wanted to be but it's a start so some fettling with the fuel system was in order to try and regain the 8.3 performance of the Mopars, Next run was against a RWYB Barracuda this time he managed 8.46 at 154.8 mph so more fettling with the settings and then the last run of the day against Phil James in Rampage where Steve carded an even slower 8.63 at 152,12 mph. Again this was no-where near where we wanted to be but on the last run Steve managed his best ever 60 ft time of 1.18.
Some head scratching overnight lead to some more fiddling with the settings. Sunday arrived with decent air but not as good as the previous day Steve's first run was against the Jag V12 powered slingshot The Boston Straggler this time on staggered (handicapped) lights.Steve managed to run 8.53 again! at 154.75 mph.
Video clip courtesy of Jeni
Next run was against Graham Rawlings in the insanely quick little air cooled VW powered slingshot Steve had spent the most part of Sunday trying out different settings for the fuel system to try and emulate the previous meetings performance and p to now this had still eluded him.
Video clip courtesy of Jeni
On this run something went wrong Steve launched in second gear and only realised this when he went to shit into second this resulted in a 9.18 at 152.07 mph run never mind. Last run of the day was against Kieth Crampton in the gorgeous Soul City Shaker Steve ran another 8.54 at 154.72 mph all the runs on Sunday were against a dial in of 8.4 which we thought was a bit on the conservative side after what we ran wt the Mopars.
No matter what Steve did to the tune it looked like we had an 9.5 bracket car this weekend? why? we have no idea but we do know what we need to go forward. Next we have a few tings to sort out like the screen on the car and getting the fire suit re-tagged and we need to look into Hans devices for next year so even though this was definitely the last meeting of the year for the Tight Fit slingshot and Slimline racing we will back bigger and faster next year.........probably!!!
This meeting was not on our radar for this year, as it has turned out it was a good job the team went to the Mopars as it looks like Steve can't get the time off for the Hot Rod Drags. After Dragstalgia and the disappointment of the performance of the new parts till the very last run we needed something something more to cheer us up. The last run at Dragstalgia proved we had some horsepower at last and that we were going the right way with the tuning. It was decided at the last minute to attend the Mopars but with a depleted crew as I was back in Spain. Steve and Dave too the car to the Pod Friday morning to do some work on the car before the RWYB session started at 12 O'Clock. A couple of days before this Steve and I decided it was about time to let Dave have a go in the car. Every time we had tried to sort this out in the past something had gone wrong with the car but for now she was running OK, So Friday afternoon Dolly Dave Dream got togged up and towed down for a run.....
Video Courtesy of Santa Pod Live TV to watch the full video click here
No-one expected what came next, the track was good the car was running ok and after a lot of work on her in the last 12 months she now runs straight...ish but Dave's first run was arrow straight and fast he went through in 9.1 seconds and if he had not come off the the throttle early as he only hit 133 mph it would have been an 8 second run, a later run with a two step off the line resulted in a 9.6 with a faster 137 mph and another run Saturday morning resulted in a throttle problem so no time or speed recorded but! I bet Dave had a grin so big it could be seen from outer space.
For the rest of Saturday it was back to Steve in the hot seat again the track and air was good and the car was for the most part behaving itself. Without changing too many of the settings from the previous day the team towed own to the start this time with the lovely Diana doing driving and back up duties. Steve was paired off with a massive pick up truck and the lights ran down and ....well!!
MY PB well and truly beaten with an incredible 8.58 second run wow even I was shouting at the top of my voice here in Spain.I knew it is in the car and I also knew there was still so much to come from that little red and black machine. Steve's next run was a bit of an anti climax as he only ran 8.7 but I found out later that he had a puncture on the front wheel at around half track which slowed him up a bit...! The team missed the last run as they tried to find a replacement inner tube for the car even a trip to Halfords didn't solve the problem but at the last minute they used a BMX bicycle inner tube but it was too late for the run. Sunday morning the team were up ready for another days racing again the track and the car were more than ready they towed down for the first run of the day Steve was paired off with Callum Swinchat who has been consistent in the 8 second zone the lights came down and off went Steve but he left behind a big red cherry as he had forgotten it was a handicap start with staggered lights and he broke out of the 8.4 second dial in he had set...yes you did hear that right he had broke out of the 8.4 second dial in........
Video Courtesy of Santa Pod Live TV to watch the full video click here
I spilt my coffee knocked over the chair and lost my voice Steve had jut run 8.38 at 157.43 mph so both ends of the PB for that car now belong to Steve...for the time being? Wow what a run. The next run something went wrong Steve stepped after the burnout cut the engine and was pushed back, After the tow of shame it was found that part of the throttle linkage had come away under the car which thankfully was easy to fix. Next run resulted in a 8.4 second run which was good for the dial in but maybe not as fast as Steve wanted to go but it was found that this time both front wheels had punctured so this slowed him up a bit and with no way of fixing the problem on site it was time to pack up and miss the last run but the team were not too disappointed they have had a record setting weekend Uncle Dave had been int he hot seat and they came away with is trophy.....
All in all not bad team. this however might be the last time the car hits the track this year as some work now needs to be done on her, we will see.
Just getting to Santa Pod for this years version of Dragstalgia was going to be an adventure in itself 3 days of hard riding an incredible numb bum and a total distance of 4111.1 km or 2554 miles completed at an average 55 mpg the Super Ten did well. Arriving was in itself an achievement but on top of this the wonderful Wild Bunch are inducted into the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame this was worth the journey on it's own.
Me leaving on the morning of the 9th
I arrived around 21:30 on Thursday 11th to find the car was not as ready as I had expected, as I stated in Dragstalgia part 1 Steve had changed the cam shaft and checked everything out that goes with it, valve lift and clearance etc, changed the firing order by doing the 4-7 swap new head gaskets and new inlet manifold gasket and of course change the fuel system to match. But! there was another unforeseen problem bought to Steve#s attention by the very helpful Leo Knight and that was the valve springs which we have had in the car since we purchased the new engine 4 years ago, with Leos help Steve found the springs were seriously lacking in tension and it could have ended up with us having no engine to play with. Not being able to find any springs suitable for the job Steve and I made our way over to Hauser Race cars where with Geoffs help we purchase a whole load of shims this was Friday morning bearing mind that we had our first practice run scheduled for around 5:30 that afternoon and we still haven't even run the engine yet. Steve set about spending the next 5 hours shimming both the inlet and exhaust valves up.
With literally minutes to spare we ran the motor up, Steve wasn't happy at the way it sounded and on top of that he noticed a rather nasty oil leak coming form the inlet manifold which would have had us shut down at the start line. To top it all we had just been called into the pairing lanes.
I have never seen anyone work so fast in all my life the inlet manifold came off in seconds and was re-sealed Steve found two blocked injectors and one loose one all sorted put back together again and run but just two minutes too late for our call to run, We were all rather disappointing but we were ready for the next day.
Saturday would also bring it's ups and downs, we wee called for what would be our first run in the morning we were confident of big things we were paired off with Luca from Italy and......ring rust? I forgot to let go of the trans brake switch, I did eventually and the car went well..ish the time for us was 9.16 at 153 mph not where we wanted to be, we took a look at the plugs and they were cleans very very clean we wee advised that we were running way to fat and the plugs had been washed, OK so we leaned her out a bit more. Next run was against new boy Bob Wright in his "T" altered we ran 9.13 at 152 a bit better but not enough so we took more out of it next run I managed the burnout form hell against Jim Tanner bu the revs wouldn't come down after the burnout they stayed at around 3500 rpm I couldn't do anything but get off the end of the track no time recorded.
The reason for the high revs was found to be a loose idle adjust lack nut which let the scew undo itself enough so as not to be able to hold the car on the brakes or change gear.
Again a very disappointing and frustrating day the problem with the idle adjust was quickly seen to by Steve, the frustration of what was happening with the car was starting to get to us all, Steve was doing everything that he was advised to I was doing my best with the driving and Dave was also scratching his head we set 8.7 as our dial in and we had got no-where near it again even after all the hard work and money spent...not a nice feeling. But we did have an excellent back up girl, Diana looked gorgeous at Dragstalgia and should have won BUG of the meeting in my humble opinion.
Diana doing her thing Photo by Callum Pudge click on the name for more
Sunday rolls around and we find ourselves up against Leo Knight in his awesome altered we didn't touch the settings form the last run and we did run a fraction quicker 9.01 the speed again at the 153 mph mark, So Steve and I scratched our heads and had a think, the new camshaft has a far longer duration and opens further so that would let more air in so we effectively leaned the car out just by changing the cam which means we have been going the wrong way with the fuelling so we started with an 85 pill in so we fattened her up from that setting ad went for our last run against Gonzo the Great and Alan Lloyd, but it all went wrong for some reason the car rolled the beams as if the trans brake wasn't working , then it did and it lifted the front wheels up so that was the end of that...well maybe not once we had towed back to the pits Steve had an idea and said run down and see if we can tag on at the end of the session and have an out of competition run, So I ran down the pairing lanes, haven't run that far in about 30 years, and asked the race officials if we could run again the answer was yes if we could get the car down in 2 minutes,,,bloody hell I had to try and run all the way back again, thanks god the boys decided to run the car down at around 50 mph once they had re-fuelled her, So having been told no long burnouts I just cleaned the slicks out of the box and nailed it and low and behold she actually went like she was supposed to, that was the first run of the meeting where my back was slammed to the rear of the seat, the wheels came up and away we went.
However the run didn't feel that good she was still a little flat at the top end and probably the high speed lean out needs a lt more work but when Steve came up to collect me he had a grin on his face the first thing he said was you didn't use the chute and you just PB'd on speed 156.38 mph and I was just 2 hundredths off my ET PB at 8.7...phew!
About bloody time we were on the right track again, If we had managed to get the three runs in on Fridays RWYB ......"Thats Drag Racing" as we keep getting told.
Thanks to Blackett Photography for the great photo
So another Dragstalgia is over another excellent event for the now Hall of Famers the Wild Bunch, I got quiet emotional at the little gathering we had when we heard that news and so many PB's by the Bunch I didn't get to see much racing that weekend as we were so busy most of the time it was really sad to see what happened to Bob and Sam so glad they are both OK, the safety equipment does work folks, I'm sure both cars will be rebuilt, So what about us Slimline Racing? well there is a small chance of the car coming out at the Hot Rod Drags with Steve back int he seat who should now smash my PB's into touch I may make it back for next years Dragstalgia not sure yet we will see?????
Oh yes the 1300 mile ride home was by far a lot more pleasant thanks to the last out of competition run that we were allowed to do thank you Santa Pod Raceway.
I semi retired form racing last year and Steve took ever running the car and has done very well, but I did tell him that I wanted to run at this years Dragstalgia. Now this leads to two problems the first is how do I get there from Spain and second getting the car ready in time, and as far as the car goes it looks like we will be putting the engine together on the Thursday and Friday morning of the meeting just like we seem to have to do every year at Dragstalgia, more on that in a minute.
Lets have a look at how I'm getting there, at this moment in time I live just south of Valencia in Spain I could get a train to Valencia airport and fly to the UK but that mean organising lifts taxis and places to stay etc and that could get complicated and to be honest even though I was in the Air Force for 12 years I am not that keen on flying, There is a train service now that could get me where I wanted with a couple of changes but that is very expensive. I could drive there but Lorni will need the car while I'm away, you can see where I'm going with this can't you?...this leaves the motorbike..aha! So that's what I'm going to do and that will be an adventure in itself. not bad for a Granddad eh? I didn't take any of my bikes from the UK with me and seeing that all vehicles are around 20-25% more expensive over here in Spain that ruled out another Harley. so I am the owner of a Yamaha XT1200 Super Tenere.
Smug Russ with new bike
Actually I bought this in January for the prime purpose of touring, seeing that I am now on the right side of that 21 miles of expensive water way they call the English Channel, just right then for the trip to Dragstalgia. Route is worked out I am taking it easy this time and will take three days to get there going from home over the Pyrenees and stopping in Pau and then on to my friends biker stop-over just north of Limoges Called "Belonga Mick" yes it is really called that and it can be found on Google maps if you ever find your way out to that part of France. Then on to the crossing and the Pod hopefully arriving on the Thursday evening. A trip of nearly 1300 miles, well that's the plan hmm so if you don't see me by Friday morning then something has gone drastically wrong and Steve will end up driving the race car. The bike has had a few additions made since acquiring it. in the vain hope it will make the journey safer and more comfortable for me.
Ready to eat miles.
Over night stops and crossings sorted and booked so that's the driver arranged how about the car? well! as usual Steve has been busy and after the Nostalgia Nationals was not too happy about the cars performance, so after consulting Spud Millers web site FIE and using the fuel calculator it looks like we have been running the car way way too fat we have been running with main pill of around the mid 80's but the calculator tell us we should be running a pill of around 120 that's a massive difference and worth a couple of tenths but that is still not enough now that everyone seems to have stepped up on the performance front, and as I mentioned in the last post our cam shaft is really crap for drag racing, so after consulting Comp Cams a new camshaft was ordered, one that is matched to our engine and our goals and it duly arrived a few days back.
Oooh shiny new thing
Of course we have also had a problem with the crankshaft seal leaking so a shim kit along with new seals were ordered so now the hard work begins. Steve has stripped the engine down, the timing cover is off ready to fit the seal kit and shim and to double check cam timing for the new camshaft, the heads are off also to help with fitting of the aforementioned camshaft and also to have a look inside the motor and check out a few bits and bobs. In the past we have had a lot of problems with torched heads and we have had the right hand head welded up a couple of times Steve found there was a little "dink" in the usual place so to be on the safe side the head is going to an engineering workshop to have the dink filled and the head blocked, so now we also need a new set of head gaskets, the ones we have been using since the last rebuild are a bit thicker than we needed but they were all we could get hold of at short notice, so at the moment our car looks like this......
So with just over two and half weeks before I leave for the UK we have an engine in bits waiting for some machining to be done and trying to source some gaskets which when done still has to be assembled and the new cam shaft has to be run in and then a new fuel map worked out, so no pressure then Steve??. And of course having seen the current weather conditions in the UK it might be a good idea if I buy a boat! so a few prayers to the weather Gods on the way over are called for as well. So situation normal for the Tight Fit team then, see you all at Dragstalgia...I hope!!.........to be continued...
