Ok HotRod you shamed me into going racing.im in Tulsa right now. I'm by myself so does someone want to come take care of my tires? Lol I'm spoiled
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I've made two runs so far today. First one was 10.93 @ 151.82 second 10.82 @ 151.32. Seems to be working pretty well since I rescaled it.
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Re: Ok Boys and Girls it's Storytime
 

Well it looks like my water leak has reappeared . I went this morning for our first time trial. It got warm just as I got to the lanes and wouldn't cool down like it should. I finally got it down to 150 and made my run. I was .002 on the tree and went 10.855 right at 151 mph. It was really hot at the end of the track. I got it cooled down and pulled the radiator cap. The water level was at least 10" low. Pulled a valve cover and it had a half inch of milk in it. I literally raked it out with my hand. I'm done for now and probably for the season. This will require a total tear down.
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On the other hand ! If you do the math my last thee runs. If my delay was set the same my light would have been .000, .008 and .002. I was .020,.011 & .002. It sucks to go home when you know you could be really competitive. There's too much at stake to take the chance.
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Re: Ok Boys and Girls it's Storytime
 

Man sorry to hear the bad news .

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Man that really sucks...

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Regan,
You get that engine ordeal figured out?

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I haven't posted anything in awhile but I'm trying to get going on this. I got everthing worked out as far as the block and heads go. My left cylinder head had a crack that didnt show unless it was tourqed down(this head has been through hell and back). When I say through hell and back I mean it. Anyhow Brodix helped me find the problem and they fixed the problem. I have all new seats, 14 new valve guides, and a pretty (I mean beautiful) new surface to work with on the heads and block. My new rings were on the porch when I got home today. I also bought a cylinder hone (brush hone) so I can re-ring without a trip to the machine shop. I will get started on this in a day or two. I dont think I'm going to any more divisionals this year(but you never know). My plan right now is to get it together and go test and then run it wide open. I want to know what what the old Blue Truck can do!

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I want to see some wide open runs with the blue truck also, please have someone video if you can.

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Noble divisional is last weekend of this month.....a good test :)
No need for a recording (for me at least)!!! I'll be there!

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I would love to see what it runs WOT.

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Well guys the troubles continue. I had the shortblock together since probably October. Had too much work so it was on the backburner. Finally put it all together and started it new years eve. New Years Day I found water in #1. I've done everything I could think of to resolve the issue with no luck.

I pulled the motor on 1-16 after a leakdown test. #1 pushes compression straight into the water jacket. #4 is real oily and #8 has too much leakdown.

The sealing problem makes no sense at all. The surface of the heads and block are like new from Brodix. Upon examination the head gasket was leaking in between layers. They were all flat layers unlike the Cometic I tried last year that had a fire ring stamped into it.

So now I'm in the middle of a mechanical autopsy. I hope to figure out what I need today to put it all back together. I have six weeks to be ready for our first race in Houston.

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On the other hand, Is this motor cursed?
I guess the Devil is in the details!
It is real close to 666 cubic inches! LOL

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That suxs. Hope you figure it out.

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Well it looks like I dont have any real issue with the rings. My Total Seal top rings were lined up wrong on #8 causing the bad leakdown. The oil gap was in line with the wrist pin on #4(there is a gap where the pin is exposed) thus the oil in #4. Ill be able to fix all that easily.

Hopefully today I can solve the head gasket delima and get some parts on the way.

Now all I have to do between now and Feb 21st is,
Put the motor back together and get it running
New 5" collectors and exhaust tubing with collector tethers
Put on the rebuilt anti-roll and scale it

Sounds easy if you say it real fast!

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Well I have all my parts now. I'm going to try to finish the motor today.I have the shortblock back together and the pan on it already. I found no reason for the Cometic gasket to leak. But after the crappy customer service from them I wont buy anymore. I just hope it works with the Fel Pro because this is getting a little disheartening. I hope to have it running this weekend and get back on track.

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Well I was wrong! I bolted down the head with a FP gasket and aired up the cylinder. Air was coming out of the water jacket. Pulled it back off and found what looked like a crack where the fire ring seals to the head. I called Jeff Brotherton and begged like a little kid for help. The head will be at Brodix today and hopefully they can get it back to me before next weekend.

It looks like my heads are just getting old and soft. Thats a shame because they work so well. You wont see too many of these old castings that will flow over 530 cfm. My guess as to what happened is the Cometic gaskets I tried last year had a embossed inner layer so strong it weakened the head surface even more (it left impressions on the head surface). So all that being said its not Cometics fault ! (although I still didnt care for the customer service)

I found the problem but will be under pressure and a major time crunch to be ready for Houston at the end of Feb. If i get the head back next week I have two weekends to get ready. I love this stuff !!!!!!

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Well the good news is you found the problem!

Hope it all works out for you and you can make the Houston race!

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Well I put my other head on yesterday just trying to do everything I can with the situation. I have been looking for some shim stock to space my rocker stands because the machine work multiplies into the valve train setup. I dont have time to send off my Smith Bros ex pushrods and i dont want to replace my Manley int pushrods. Anyway I was disgustedly looking at $500 worth of useless Cometic gaskets sitting on the bench and thinking (I need to throw those away). Then a light bulb went off !! Those are multi layers off shim stock just waiting to be cut to shape. I pulled all four off them apart and now I have 10 thou and 15 thou shim stock. I felt pretty dang smart. I must admit though it felt good cutting them up! LOL

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I got my rebuilt anti-roll back on yesterday. Put on a new master cylinder and bled the brakes. I guess I left out the fact I almost ran off the end of the track in Tulsa. I might have been in trouble somewhere else. If it wasnt for the long uphill shutdown I would have been.

Anyway my head should be back home today. Hope to have it running by wednesday. Then its off to the chassis shop for the new collectors and convert all the exhaust to 5".

If all this works out I will be in good shape and ready for the first race.

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Well I got my head back Monday and finished the motor last night.(Thank You Brodix) I have a short day of work today and my buddy Ken arranged his day off for today. We're going to put it in and fire it up this afternoon. If all goes well the truck is off to the chassis shop. Tony Smith (who built the cage, four link & headers) will set up my new 5" collectors and replace 4.5" tubing with 5". That will give it full 5" exhaust instead of 4.5 into 5. Keith Fulp called me yesterday and he has my collector tethers on the way also. So anyhow looks like its coming together. I'm tired after all this work!

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We got the motor in and running yesterday. It sounds good and nothing is running out of it. I think its ok (knock on wood). It looks like it wont get to go for exhaust work till monday but thats ok. The brunt of the work is over.

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Great to hear you got this motor to shape up and run right...

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Good deal. I am fixing to order the stainless tubing to build me a new set of headers.

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The truck will be coming home tomorrow. Then all I have left to do is scale it, plugs, plug wires, starter sprag, run the valves, put the hood and wheelie bars on it then load it up. Then go race in Houston!

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Good Luck Brother

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Im not going to high jack the thread , but I was at DIV 4 race here in Baytown this weekend . I didn't get to spend a lot of time as I was pit crewing for my buddies top dragster and his daughters super street car .
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...psdwn46rbx.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...ps2tmbqn1w.jpg
I finally met Reagan Wilson .
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...pse3vnr5da.jpg
Most of the time I was busy and not carring my phone . The pictures don't do justice to how lazer straight this truck is . It is super clean and it is a show piece that he should be very proud of . It is truly immaculent . This is the only crappy pic I got of it .
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...psvism5k3v.jpg
Looked like he was having a great day and was on top of it . I guess the computers were having trouble , cause they reran 5 sets of cars . They opened the box at the starting line and the right lane had a ton of red after that . Probably 15 numbers . Anyway it was good to meet you finally .

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It was good to meet you too Hotrod. I still cant wrap my head around the redlight issue but it was a good outing. I was .007 in the right and .007 in the left on saturday. I was .002 in the right first round sunday. Then I rolled .003 in the box for second round and was .011 red. All in all Im comfortable and relaxed after the front end work on the truck. It has allowed me to stage shallow and consistent. I felt it yesterday but it just didnt happen. My buddy that I lost to in the second round went on to win. I saw it this morning and said damn that shoulda been me! lol

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We tested Monday and they only prepped the right lane we were red every pass just flickering the second bulb with like .105 in a long throw . Im going to try to have them set the beams with a wheel .

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]

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That was second round where I redlit. The 55 is a 147 mph car. You can see if I was green that round would have been mine. But it wasnt lol

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Awesome truck . Thanks for sharing .

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Well I got back from the Tx Motorplex yesterday. I had a Gremlin all weekend. I made a half ass pass Friday morning, it spit and sputtered to a 10.91 @ 148. My other two time runs it would get to 6000 rpm and just break up. All I did was work on it all weekend. I went into first round and gave it a try but it just wasnt going to work. I missed the tree bad and the truck just wouldnt run for me. The sad thing is I have never seen a more perfect weekend of weather at the Motorplex which can have some pretty bad cross headwinds. In other words it was Blue Truck friendly.lol

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My daughter is getting married this weekend , so I wont be in Baytown

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We're not running there this year. It's our turn to run at the Fall Nationals at the Motorplex. Right now I have to figure out whats wrong with the truck first, then go test. My plan is to go to Bowling Green for the Sportsnationals at the end of May. I just have to fix this thing first, last weekend was frustrating.

Congrats on the marriage(hope it didn't coast you too much)

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Um , the price of a nice 64' BBC Vette drag car . Oh well , If I had more ( money) I'd just spend it right ?

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I havent posted in awhile because there has been no good news. We had our divisional race in Tulsa in June. i had nothing but issues again. It wouldnt run right for anything. My regulator came apart amongst other problems so when I redlit first round I was glad it was over. I came home and decided to regroup.

I pulled the motor out to work on my intake and look everything over. I had my spacers for the intake cut for a better fit and port alignment. Finally fixed the cause of my missfire problems.(distibutor). Sent my carbs back to Gary Williams for some reworking.(picked them up to 1220cfm each) and converted to external linkage. i got it all back together and felt like some dyno time would be a good idea.

We drove 3.5 hrs yesterday(8-18) to my Machinist , Engine building mentor and Guidance Counselor in Stephenville Tx. Got the motor on the dyno and started making pulls. It was down on power the whole time. I was looking for at least 1220 to 1240 hp. It took us 5 pulls and some tuning to get it to 1140.
That was down 30 hp from 6 years ago. Needless to say but I wasnt impressed. We made some more changes and started another pull. It sounded like it was an improvement until it got to 7000 rpm. That was when it sneezed and shuddered. Donnel pulled it back down and it tried to idle. Then he killed it. We pulled valve covers and didnt see anything. Then the plugs , #8 gap was slammed shut (dont know why) # 7 wouldnt come out.(*%#%%%*). We pulled the headers and found the #7 ex valve resembling a friggin Pretzel ! Loaded it up handed my buddy his payment and came home.

I may start the next autopsy today. I swear I wanted to drop this thing off a bridge on the way home but I'm no quitter so I guess I'll just have to fix it.

You know I'm starting to feel like that guy MarvD..lol

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well that SUX Regan. It's always disheartening when the motor doesn't do well, but then to break $#!+ on they dyno is just injury on top of insult!

I've got a buyer for one of my piles of trouble. The truck will be gone before winter (re-configuring it with a little pump gas / street motor) He has cash in hand and eager for me to finish dropping in the little 383 and a new trans,, remove the electronics datalogger,, bla bla bla.

Then most EVERYTHING on the Nova is up for re-cert in Feb (including my license) ,, goal is to have that pile gone before the end of the year. Racing just doesn't hold the excitement it once did and its time for a change. But who knows,, that change may end up being knitting needles and rocking chairs or some $#!+ I guess. (LOL)

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Well it appears to have drop a Intake seat. And it aint pretty.

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New heads? or the heads recently reworked,, or just loosened up and fell free??? Whatever the 'cause' hey remember it could have been worse. You know well how close it was to the valve snapping and.........

A piston, have the rod and crank checked,, have the head welded up and corrected.... it's ugly but not a disaster!