manyponies
08-14-2006, 06:23 PM
Wow another two races past. John still showed the class how to get it done again, great job from him and team.
Joliet was another adventure as we battled some demons to get to the final to race John. Qualifing seemed to be impossible for us there due to a few factors. Qualifing run 1 the car made NO power and looked like a dud. This is the crew chiefs and tuners nightmare as we had changed some of the parameters of the ECU between races. I never want to loose what I had gained. After to pass some of the data looked very strange and the interior of the car looked like a convertible through the car wash with the top down. after investigating we found the core in the intercooler was leaking bad and spraying water through the piping joints. We made some adjustments to the piping and went to rd 2
Qualifier number two found us cutting the car off early. While on the line staged I and setting the Data recorder switches I noticed the low oil pressure light flickering. The engine seemed fine but as the car left the line the oil warning light went on solid. As the car was leaving I was telling Billy to cut the car off. I repeated two more times and by the 60' clock he had cut it off. He yelled back "Why did you make me cut it off". I yelled back that he should have seen the light on and that I had just spent over 150 hour to build a new engine to get there and I didn't want to kill it for a oil pump belt or something stupid. He replied that the guages read plenty of oil pressure and that everything was fine. Back in the pits we discovered that the intercooler bath had shorted a portion of the wiring harness that feeds from the race pac to the warning light. Data from the aborted run showed oil pressure to be fine. It was one of those monents on the line when he and I cannot talk as I have both hands on two data switches and he has both hands busy two. We both saw the light flicker but counld not communicate that it was OK. He did the correct thing to check both sources of data and I did the correct thing to save the car and protect my driver. The only thing we lost was a run.
Qualifier number three saw us running well until the crank key sheared and spun the balancer causing the engine to loose exact timing.
First round we had a bye due to our competitor breaking an engine so I decided to just break the beams with the car still broke and fix the key after the round on Sat night in case we ran into any complications during the fix.
Round two was our first good llok at the track in several runs so I de tuned the car to make sure we were going to go A to B.
we ran a 7.77 for the win.
The next round I stepped up the top end of the track tune slightlty and took that win with a 7.71
The final we were up against John agien so I put the tune in it to run with him. Our inital data from the line looked really good but thats all that was good. the camshaft broke in the engine right behind the fourth journal.
it dinged up #4 and #8 rods and bent one intake valve. Other than that we look pretty good. We were still happy to make two finals in a row.
Atco
For Atco I pulled out the baby engine and decided to run her as I had spent 6.5 days straight the week before Joliet getting ready for that race and could not afford the time rught then so I had to dip into the reserve.
I chose not to run on Friday for two reasons. #1 Billy and I were whooped from the 14-16 hour work days. # 2 with the power we have found it puts alot of stress on parts. Fuel cars get there engine torn down after each pass because of the stress on the parts. We are to the point where we are overpowering some of our pieces which makes the number of runs on them limited. I wanted to qualify the car an race it. The first two shots at the track found us smoking the tires about 40' out forcing Billy to pedal the car. We have found that pedaling the car breaks parts just the same as a fuel car. My time there seems to be relived lately. While Billy and the crew got the car ready I worked on a totally different approach at the first 100' of the track. I told Billy that if it didn't work and it started to haze the tires to abort to run completely to save parts. We knew we had to run a 60 anything to take top spot as many were having trouble getting down the track. John ran before us and went 7.58. That was stout! I swallowed hard a couple time and pulled Billy into the water, burned out and lined him up. The car left as I had planned and ran well Billy short shifted alittle and got it in high gear and it took off. The felt it miss alittle on to to end and radioed that he clicked it pretty early and saving the engine. The clock showed 177 mph and what looked to be a 7.57 It was a 7.57 and the data recorder showed that the cut the engine off 7.13 seconds into the run. That really should have been a sub 7.46 run accord to the data. The 1/8 was 4.932. The next morning we went another 7.57 in the first round with a 4.98 in the 1/8 mile. The bad news is that the crewchief/tuner had not put enough fuel in the engine to cool the cylinders at the top end of the track. The air was even better than the night before. The engine pushed a head gasket. That put a sudden end to our day and forced us to watch. I did not do a good enough job on tuning which pushed the gasket. The air was 1900 feet better than I have good data from on tuning this car. She is very picky about what she eats and definatelty lets me know in a hurry when she is not happy. We have found alot of power but sometimes it can be a curse until you re-develope parts to handle the added stress. We have come a long way what we have we now are working on the fine details. I think its about time for my self imposed break to end and get back to work. We are rolling this info into a new drag radial combination as well for testing in the fall.
Joliet was another adventure as we battled some demons to get to the final to race John. Qualifing seemed to be impossible for us there due to a few factors. Qualifing run 1 the car made NO power and looked like a dud. This is the crew chiefs and tuners nightmare as we had changed some of the parameters of the ECU between races. I never want to loose what I had gained. After to pass some of the data looked very strange and the interior of the car looked like a convertible through the car wash with the top down. after investigating we found the core in the intercooler was leaking bad and spraying water through the piping joints. We made some adjustments to the piping and went to rd 2
Qualifier number two found us cutting the car off early. While on the line staged I and setting the Data recorder switches I noticed the low oil pressure light flickering. The engine seemed fine but as the car left the line the oil warning light went on solid. As the car was leaving I was telling Billy to cut the car off. I repeated two more times and by the 60' clock he had cut it off. He yelled back "Why did you make me cut it off". I yelled back that he should have seen the light on and that I had just spent over 150 hour to build a new engine to get there and I didn't want to kill it for a oil pump belt or something stupid. He replied that the guages read plenty of oil pressure and that everything was fine. Back in the pits we discovered that the intercooler bath had shorted a portion of the wiring harness that feeds from the race pac to the warning light. Data from the aborted run showed oil pressure to be fine. It was one of those monents on the line when he and I cannot talk as I have both hands on two data switches and he has both hands busy two. We both saw the light flicker but counld not communicate that it was OK. He did the correct thing to check both sources of data and I did the correct thing to save the car and protect my driver. The only thing we lost was a run.
Qualifier number three saw us running well until the crank key sheared and spun the balancer causing the engine to loose exact timing.
First round we had a bye due to our competitor breaking an engine so I decided to just break the beams with the car still broke and fix the key after the round on Sat night in case we ran into any complications during the fix.
Round two was our first good llok at the track in several runs so I de tuned the car to make sure we were going to go A to B.
we ran a 7.77 for the win.
The next round I stepped up the top end of the track tune slightlty and took that win with a 7.71
The final we were up against John agien so I put the tune in it to run with him. Our inital data from the line looked really good but thats all that was good. the camshaft broke in the engine right behind the fourth journal.
it dinged up #4 and #8 rods and bent one intake valve. Other than that we look pretty good. We were still happy to make two finals in a row.
Atco
For Atco I pulled out the baby engine and decided to run her as I had spent 6.5 days straight the week before Joliet getting ready for that race and could not afford the time rught then so I had to dip into the reserve.
I chose not to run on Friday for two reasons. #1 Billy and I were whooped from the 14-16 hour work days. # 2 with the power we have found it puts alot of stress on parts. Fuel cars get there engine torn down after each pass because of the stress on the parts. We are to the point where we are overpowering some of our pieces which makes the number of runs on them limited. I wanted to qualify the car an race it. The first two shots at the track found us smoking the tires about 40' out forcing Billy to pedal the car. We have found that pedaling the car breaks parts just the same as a fuel car. My time there seems to be relived lately. While Billy and the crew got the car ready I worked on a totally different approach at the first 100' of the track. I told Billy that if it didn't work and it started to haze the tires to abort to run completely to save parts. We knew we had to run a 60 anything to take top spot as many were having trouble getting down the track. John ran before us and went 7.58. That was stout! I swallowed hard a couple time and pulled Billy into the water, burned out and lined him up. The car left as I had planned and ran well Billy short shifted alittle and got it in high gear and it took off. The felt it miss alittle on to to end and radioed that he clicked it pretty early and saving the engine. The clock showed 177 mph and what looked to be a 7.57 It was a 7.57 and the data recorder showed that the cut the engine off 7.13 seconds into the run. That really should have been a sub 7.46 run accord to the data. The 1/8 was 4.932. The next morning we went another 7.57 in the first round with a 4.98 in the 1/8 mile. The bad news is that the crewchief/tuner had not put enough fuel in the engine to cool the cylinders at the top end of the track. The air was even better than the night before. The engine pushed a head gasket. That put a sudden end to our day and forced us to watch. I did not do a good enough job on tuning which pushed the gasket. The air was 1900 feet better than I have good data from on tuning this car. She is very picky about what she eats and definatelty lets me know in a hurry when she is not happy. We have found alot of power but sometimes it can be a curse until you re-develope parts to handle the added stress. We have come a long way what we have we now are working on the fine details. I think its about time for my self imposed break to end and get back to work. We are rolling this info into a new drag radial combination as well for testing in the fall.