Not much else to say. I'm ready to go for the weekend. Only downside is that I found I don't have as much fuel as I thought. I'll have enough for Saturday. If the car survives, I'll need to buy more for Sunday. If the car survives the weekend, I'll need to buy a lot more to finish off the season. Typically it's around 10-15 gallons a day and will depend on how many runs we'll get. There's a big show this weekend so it may take as long an an hour or 2 between passes. I expect a big car count.

I fired the car up tonight to recheck timing and stuff. Engine fired right up and idled nicely at 1200 rpm. I didn't even have to blip the throttle to keep it running the whole time it ran. I did rev it up a few times just to make noise and left a couple of black marks on the garage floor trying to do a short burnout but it was pushing the car forward too much. Tires were too dry to do a good burnout. Cleaned the tires off nicely though.

Weather conditions for the weekend are fantastic. The Friday night air is the best it's been all year. The weekend will be just as good however the temperature will be considerably hotter. Forecast high for Sat and Sun is 25-26C. When you're sitting in a black car, on hot pavement and wearing a 2 layer fire suit, that's hot.

I hope to set a new personal best this weekend.

 

good luck stephen and I hope to see reports that EVERYTHING held together.

 

Good luck! Hope all goes well for you and you'll be able to drive the car all weekend

 

Nothing has changed. Made one great pass then something happened.

Just as I crossed the finish line, I popped it into neutral and idled down the engine. Watching the replay tach I can see the rpms come down to an idle then the engine dies. I never turned anything off so shortly after that when the oil accumulator empties, the oil light comes on. Didn't think much of it, I've seen engine die like that before as you slow down. Coasted down onto the return road and tryed to start the engine. The starter would engage but the engine wouldn't turn over.

Got towed back onto my trailer and brought the car home. Pulled the oil filter. A few flecks of metal but nothing big. Using a battery charger on 200 amp boost, the engine barely turns over.

Didn't set a best 60', 1/8 mile or 1/4 mile time but got close. The DA was 5500 feet when I made my pass which didn't help. I did set new 1/8 and 1/4 mph records so the engine is making a lot more HP. I was also asleep at the tree.

RT - .711
60' - 1.446
330 - 4.112
1/8 - 6.328
MPH - 111.51
1000 - 8.239
1/4 - 9.876
mph - 136.01

 

well atleast you notice some kind of difference.

 

Damn

 

****ty deal. Keep us posted with updates.

 

Finally got the pan off to check the bottom end. No rods or mains look like they got hot. There is a little bit of bearing material in the bottom of the pan. Pulled a couple of rod caps for inspection. The bearings are not in great condition but the crank throws are fine. At least the ones I checked. All the other rods still have side to side clearance. Tried to check crank endplay to find there was none. Pulled the thrust bearing cap, the rear one, and found the thrust bearing had spun and welded itself on the crank. I managed to get one half off. The crank will have to come out to be polished which means the engine needs to come out of the car again. Because of when the engine died, I'm suspecting a bad converter is taking out the thrust bearing when I'm slowing down.

Looks like a rebuild this time will be new bearings, some gaskets/seals, polish the crank, buy a new converter. At least that's what I'm predicting. With 3 weeks before the next 2 races, I doubt it could be done but you never know. In 3 weeks we could also have snow although there's no chance this week with temps in the very high 20C range. It was extremely hot during the weekend. Almost nice that I didn't have to sweat it out.

Another added expense for next year will be some SFI stuff in the spring. I know my belts will expire. I need to check the dates on some other stuff like the tranny and flexplate shield. Other things like balancer and window net don't expire and the flexplate is new so it has a few more years.

I'd also like to back half the car this winter.
So many projects, so little time.

 

Man, you seem to have stuff go wrong that I've never heard of before.

What kind of converter are you running? Is it the same one you've been running?

I've heard it's best to leave the tranny in gear and get off of the throttle slowly. To what performance level that applies, I have no clue.

 

The converter is a rebuilt JW. I've had it for years. I seriously considering getting one built to specs by a local converter builder. He can build me one that's just as good or better than any major brand name for less money. I'm pondering a spragless version. I've priced out a new converter from TCI. For what I need it's in the $800-$1000 USD price range.

I finally got the thrust bearings off the crank so that I can rotate the crank to unbolt the converter. The only thing holding the engine in now is the bellhousing bolts. The crank actually doesn't look that bad. Only a section around the main journal on the back part of the main (behind the oil hole). It's bad enough that I can't polish it myself but still not bad. It may have to be turned .010" under. None of the rod or main caps including the thrust bearing cap got hot. ie black discoloration around the bearing side. To me, this indicates it wasn't a lack of oil or under load when it failed. That's why I'm suspecting a bad converter causing the problems.

 

Co-worker just got a Coan for his F-brand - 351 that runs low-11's on street tires at our altitude. Said it launches like a shot and trap RPMs are much lower than the namebrand he was using, this one keeps him in the powerband down the whole track. Heard of others that like them as well. But, you're looking at a grand for one. If the local can build you one just as good, that's the way to go. You're putting out a heap of power, operating under a whole different set of rules than us "little guys".

 

I'm looking at a converter that stalls between 5000 and 6000 rpm, is good for about 1000 hp and has anti-ballooning plates. I'd like to go spragless. There's no performance difference between a sprag and spragless converter except for less parts to fail. My camshaft's operating range is 5000 - 7500 and I currently go through the traps at 7200 according to my playback tach.

Under those requirements, it will be hard to find a converter for less than $1000 USD. The last time I talked to the local converter builder, he said he can build me one for about $900 CAD.

Just plugged the numbers from my last run into my converter slip formula. My tires are 29.5" tall. Estimating tire growth to 30" gives me converter slippage of 3.5%. Estimating growth to 31", slippage increases to 6.63%. Still pretty good. At 136 mph, the tires do grow. I can only guess by how far I had by trimming my fenders back to keep the tires from rubbing.

 

Guess the first and obvious question if the thrust is out and your suspecting the convertor:

Is the convertor installed correctly with the proper gap between flywheel and convertor with convertor fully seated in the trans? Did you shim it accordingly since I think I remember your running a mid plate?

Have you looked at your pump yet-does that shows signs of the convertor binding and causing this issue?

Hopefully the answer is yes to all of the above, then another $2-3K out of pocket once again and you'll be back on your feet and hopefully you can get 2 days out of it If/when the problem returns next go round, are you ever going to let the professionals build something and try that road out??? I'm tellin ya, you'll be money ahead and no stress....show up and race, win some money, get home unload, then take the family to DQ.

Good luck again.

 

hehe I like the new sig pic Stephen, fits the car.

 

The old picture was actually a better pic of the car but with the name change, this was the best new picture out of the bunch. Is the font readable? The w's are a little wierd. The name on the car was easy to do. I picked up some chrome decal material from Walmart. It's designed to be put along the rockers. I used photoshop to create the letters. Made them an outlined letter to save ink and printed each letter seperately. I then cut the letters out of the paper and transfered the outline to the decal material. I then simply cut the letters out of the decal material. Downside is that each letter is seperate compared to the backing style you get from a decal shop. I then did some measuring on the doors and used masking take to create a base line. Put each letter along the base line with spacing that looked good. I had to step the names because there wasn't enough room on the doors for a single line. Once all the chrome letters were on the doors, they looked plain and needed some outlines. I have a bunch of craft paint for my air brush. I didn't want to use the red I used on the last name and on the car numbers and found a nice blue. Using a typical model brush, I outlined all the letters. It took 2-3 hours to put on and outline all the lettering on both sides of the car. The lettering isn't show car quality but like the car, it looks good in pictures and going down the track. Just like the old 70's van murals. Up close they looked terrible. The coloring on the letters in the pic looks good because of the angle. The chrome letters are reflecting the cloudless sky.

Note: It's hard to take a good picture of a black car when the sun is low. This was about 9am and the sun was still low in the east behind me. An overcast day is better.

I don't have any of the new pics up on my web site yet but here's a larger version of the sig picture. The original is more than twice this size.

 

Here's another picture from a different angle. Actual the originals are about 4 times this size.

 

Sadly, everything came to a head and all past problems here and all my suspesions are now confirmed with the mentality and program problems. spending dollars to save pennies in ever facet. Seen this type of persona and have a brother like best freind who's family is the same way, one thing about this is no matter what, they're constantly wasting money thinking initally they're saving money and are stuck with lack luster performance/product but will never ever admit their personal descion making plays any part into why things dont pan out or play out like they hope....just so long as it was on the cheap.

I have a saying I tell customers when they ask for a "good deal" The only people that can afford to be cheap are rich people, because they can afford to do it twice. So your either extremely loaded with no regard for money or just stubborn to admit somtimes it's better to pay someone to do a job for you so it turns out like professionally.

 

Not everyone wants or can afford a show car and many also like the DIY attitude even if it costs more to DIY. Why do you thing people still look for camel hump heads? They're not worth fixing up but people still do it.

If I had to pay someone to do all the work I've done to the car (not just the engine), it would have been cheaper to just buy a turn key car but then I couldn't consider it the car that I built.

 

Let's think about this for a second, off the top of my head this is the 4th attempt in recent times that have gone bad, I'm not going to go back and look for every post you've put up about breaking stuff-even though I know it's actually 4+times, but everybody on here knows it's excessive to say the least by any standard. Now if you honestly break down EVERY penny that goes into fixing these mistakes from the machine shop, travel time/fuel costs taking parts back and forth, ordering new parts when it's decided from paying machine shop old part is hashed, shop supplies in you own garage, electricity in your own garage, heat in your own garage, etc...when you break it down HONESTLY and then add how many times you've been in this situtation...how are you saving any money???

Nobody said buy a turn key car, I'm saying let the professionals do what they do to make your life easier...that extra $500-1000 you spend for assembly just saved you $3-4K in the big picture....why do people bring their diesel trucks into your place of work to get fixed?-sure they could probably fiddle with it themselves, but they want it right once so it is'nt costing them money over and over and over.

This "I cant afford to pay somebody to do it right" is rubish, all your doing is creating your own viscious vortex and look where you've been and where your going....definately not moving forward and still tearing stuff apart....funny how that works. since your season is over save your beer cans for a month and pay to have this engine/trannies built by guys in the know...you'll be amazed at how much your saving in the BIG PICTURE...then you can come back here and tell us how your RACING SEASON is going, not your break and repair saga, I'm tired of hearing about it so I'm sure your even more tired of living it!!