It's been a long winter. I bought some used heads back in December. Received them near the end of January. Sent them to a machine shop to get some work down to them the day I got them and got them back just over a week ago. Tonight I finished getting the engine back together and got it fired up. Timing was only a few degrees off and didn't take long to adjust.

Idles real nice once I get some heat in the engine. Burned off a couple of gallons of alcohol trying to get the coolant up to 160F. After I built up some heat I shut it down and readjusted the valves.

Starter is a little finicky. It acts like there's teeth missing from the ring gear but all the teeth are fine. It constantly kicks out while cranking over. I need to pull the tranny and put in a new flexplate and tranny shield this weekend anyway. SFI dates are expired. I hope I don't have to replace the starter. I use a tiny high torque starter because it's the only thing that will fit. Even then I need to drop the passenger header to get a starter bolt out to remove the starter.

Old heads, Canfield 310's, untouched with 2.25/1.88 valves. New heads Dart 360 race heads ported to the max with 2.30/1.88 valves. These will help the 540 breath at 7500 rpm.

I'm hoping for an 8 second timeslip this year. (No power adders)

 

how did the canfield heads hold up? i know ill get flamed but for the price i opted for the patriot 320cc heads and surprisingly put up good numbers on the engine dyno

 

good to hear stephen...its early so youll sort it out quickly. always love that first start!!

 

The Canfields were good for the 454. They were a little small for a high reving 540. They're still a good bang for the buck but there are many other brands available now. I bought them used many years ago and abused them over the years. They're not in the best condition now but could still be used with a bit of work. There's a bunch of heli-coils in them and one exhaust guide needs to be replaced.

The car is still sitting on 4 jack stands because I still need to pull the tranny. The slicks have no air in them. I was lucky this evening that there was a breeze. With all the doors open, the wind took the alcohol exhaust fumes out of the garage and my eyes didn't burn at all. I was surprised that no neighbors showed up to see the race car. They usually do.

I had to get the car running soon. Next week I need to take it in for a chassis certification. The only way I can get it in and out of my garage and on and off the trailer is with a running engine. If I had a winch on the trailer, I could roll the car out of the garage then winch it onto the trailer. It doesn't need to come off for the chassis certification but getting it back home, I would have no way to get it back into the garage. It's an uphill push to get into the garage and I would probably need at least 6 guys to push the car in.

Getting the engine running was the better option. After getting the heads back on late last week, I checked to see what length pushrods I needed. Amazingly I needed regular length tall deck pushrods. I was hoping to find some used ones locally but nobody was able to help. On Tuesday I decided to just buy new ones and they were available the next day. So last night I put in the pushrods, gave the valves a basic cold setting and called it a night. Tonight I filled the cooling system and fired it up.

I'd hate to leave it to the last minute to find out I needed something else and wouldn't be able to make it to the chassis cert.

Race season starts in early May providing there's no snow. Track conditions are still poor until June. I need to make some early May passes to get an NHRA competition license. So technically I have about 7 weeks to get ready.

 

I would not worry to much about the Patriot heads, I have used them, as well as some people I know, with good results.

 

I dont want to steal the thread but i thought them bare they have all the best parts Manley Severe Duty Valves, Titanium Retainers, Comp Cam Springs, etc and my motor made 815HP @ 6200RPM with 1 7/8" Headers I am running 2.0"

Stephen, good luck with the season i know I'm just as happy to get to the track!!

 

Bah, I'm close enough to a neighbor! I would have liked to check out your car Stephen. What area are you in again? I think I remember you saying Ogden before?
I'm looking to buy a house in that neck of the woods. Seems to be one of few neighborhoods that have double detached garages with a house under $325k...

 

I'm a stone's throw from the Safeway at the west end of Ogden. There's a few racers in this area. I know there's a green second gen with a stack injection system that lives just west on me or used to. I'm sure there's others.

I'm going to have a look at the starter system tonight and probably start pulling the tranny tonight in case I need to pick up parts tomorrow. Maybe the starter is toast. It's unavoidably very close to the headers. One header tube is dented to clear a starter mount bolt. I may have to get a protective blanket to cover the starter to keep the heat away from it.

I run a Powermaster XS torque starter. They're not cheap but it does a good job of cranking over this engine. There are even better and more expensive starters available but I doubt the local shops carry them.

 

Took the starter out last night and bench tested it. Everything seemed fine but when installed, it just refuses to crank over the engine. Motor just spins and it sounds like the bendix gets kicked out.

This morning I fabricated a remote start so I could get under the car and crank it over to see what happening.

Bendix engages perfectly and stays engaged, starter motor spins, engine doesn't crank. Something is worn out inside the starter. I don't have time to rip it down and order replacement parts so I ran out and picked up another XS torque starter. The new one has Infi-clock so you can clock the motor/solenoid in any position. my old one doesn't have that feature.

The car needs to be running for next weekend so even if I knew what parts I needed to fix the old starter, I wouldn't be about to get them for a couple of weeks. I'll probably rebuild this old starter and keep it as a spare in case the new one decides to screw up also. Can't have enough spare parts.

 

hopefully you can get it to run, haha, always something...

 

Installed the new starter and the engine fired up. I still need to replace the flexplate and tranny shields before next weekend. Work is currently in progress to get the tranny out.

 

...just to be a **** about the weather, I'll be running this coming Sunday.... here, I'll do it for you

made a whopping 401rwhp yesterday. I took 4 jet sizes away from it and it was still pegging the wideband the moment he tipped into it. - Was just a dyno day event at a friend's shop, so I didn't keep it up there to really dial it in at all. I was just glad to still have good oil pressure and not need any oil dry.......

Good luck with yours. Guessing you're just looking for an 8.90 sportsman cert?

 

8.50 certification. I need a bunch more bars to get a 7.50 cert and don't plan on going that route for a long time.

Weather. Ya it sucks. It started snowing Saturday night and by Sunday morning areas of the city got between 6-12" of snow. A lot of it has already melted and I hope most of it's gone by the weekend.

I thrashed on the car all Saturday while the weather was still nice. Got the flexplate replaced and the tranny shields. Sunday around mid day, I went and fired it up to check fluid levels, took it off the jack stands and moved it forward and backward under it's own power. Couldn't take it out of the garage because of all the snow.

 

ahh bolt some all weather tires on it and run it the snow!
seriously at least it runs! anything left before the weekend?

 

It runs, it moves. That's all I need before the weekend. Fingers are crossed that it will pass. Nothing to my knowledge should fail. They basically inspect the cage surrounding the driver. Make sure tubes are in the correct spots and are more than minimal thickness etc. The chassis cert is just to make sure the cage protects the driver. They don't look at the entire chassis.

I still have a bunch of little things to do before the race season starts. I got a good deal on a GZ Motorsports vacuum pump but don't think I can get installed before the beginning of the season. Because of how much I need to change around on the front of the engine, it will probably be next winter's project. Right now there just isn't any more room to install it.

 

yeah the cert for that speed is pretty easy going. Adding more things on the front is challenging, especially if you run an alternator...vac. pump a toothed belt drive?

 

Not a lot of room between the frame rails and the steering linkage prevents going very far below the engine. I already have the center link flipped over to drop the engine lower. I can just barely pull the oil pan off by dropping the center link down. Belt driven fuel pump is on the driver's side. Alternator is roughly low mounted on the other side and it's flipped around backwards to get it in.

Rank and pinion isn't an option. There just isn't enough room past the header tubes to run a steering shaft. I can't even go below the headers. 2-1/4" primary tubes leave no gaps.

To mount the vacuum pump, I need to refabricate the alternator mount to move it even lower and move the fuel pump to the other side or refabricate the fuel pump mount to move it lower and mount the vacuum pump above it.

If I took off the electric water pump and installed a remote water pump with a simple manifold across the ports, it would give me a lot more room.

 

yeah that would free alot of room! Racks kind of suck on third gen spindles anyway, so I wouldnt even think that option, especially with a bigblock! I dont know if it is possible, but can you mount the fuel pump in front of the engine, with a crank drive on it. I know some pumps that is possible, just not sure if it would even fit there, kinda tight that way too.

 

Gotta be excited, gonna be like a shot of nitrous with those new heads..
They should really wake that those big cubes up..

 

Pump needs to turn at 1/2 engine speed. To do a cam drive, a special timing chain cover is required. To mount the pump to the camshaft, the water pump is in the way so you need to use a remote water pump.

I'm hoping the heads can push me into the 8's but you never know. They may be too big.

 

well, when all else fails...change something lol
ok so save the vac. pump for another snowy season, see where the heads get ya.

 

The pump "may" get me another 30 hp. I've got some ideas floating around now on how to fit everything.

 

usually large gains arent seen unless the engine is built with a pump in mind, like low tension oil rings and seals reversed so that it will hold enough vac. to do what it is supposed to do, but then there is the possibility of oil pump cavitation caused by the negative pressure in the pump intake...
not that gains wouldnt be seen running a slight vac. on the crankcase, but pan-e-vacs will do that, which I thought you had on there so your gains may be lower. But none of that is definite until its working and can be tested back to back.

 

I have low tension rings. The rear crank seal does not have to be reversed when using a vaccum pump. Pan evacs don't work very well with mufflers and don't pull a huge amount of vaccum anyway. I already use an electric vaccum pump. It can't pull enough vaccum at WOT but it's greatest benefit is being able to pull condensation out of the crankcase when the engine is off.

I checked my oil before I fired the engine up last week. I did 44 passes down the track last year with an injected alcohol engine. The oil is still clean with no alcohol contamination. I have to drain the puke tank after ever run. I get about a 1/2 a cup full of liquid every time.

Crankcase vaccum needs to be regulated to keep it under 12 inches to prevent oil starvation to the bearings. I actually own 2 Moroso vaccum regulators now. I already had one and one came with the pump.

 

well, mount er up then lol

 

It was snowing this morning and the snow was covering ice from the freeze last night. I managed to get the car backed onto the trailer directly out of the garage. It wasn't on straight but it was on. Didn't have to unload it for the inspection and easily drove it back off and directly into the garage.

Didn't pass the chassis cert. A bunch of my welds were not good enough. I can grind them out and reweld but some, especially the main hoop to the floor, are very difficult to get at with the sill bar and the wheel tubs in the way. Everything else was fine. The sill bars are too thin but they're not required so that wasn't a failure. They're made from leftover 1-3/4" tubes from my original 6 point bar. I guess that means the 6 point bar would have failed for being too thin.

That just means I can't run in the 9's at an NHRA track but without an NHRA license, I'm still not allowed to run in the 9's at an NHRA track. I guess if I attend an NHRA race, I'll throttle stop the car to low 10's to make them happy. Low 10's in the high 140 or low 150 mph range Just need to figure out how much time to put in the throttle stop. I could always run Super Street and run on a 10.90 index.

Under IHRA rules, the car is still good to 9.0 but I'll get an IHRA license to make them happy. The IHRA license is easier to get but it's not accepted at NHRA tracks.

Maybe it's time to find an altered or a short front engine dragster. Even better, go with a complete tube chassis car. I still like the looks of a third gen for a drag car.

 

that kind sucks, but like you said, it isnt the worst thing. Getting to alot of those places before the car is all together is hard, no less after its all done. If you did fix the welds make sure there is no evidence of grinding, grinding a weld on a cage is automatic failure.

 

A couple of welds are not fully complete because of limited access. Incomplete full welds around the A-pillar tubes to the halo bar are acceptable with gussets because full welds are normally difficult there. Taking out the windshield and T-tops makes it easier in my car. One weld on the passenger side has some pin holes and a few welds in the cage are not uniform (they look bad). I painted my cage a few years ago so the penetration in the metal can't be seen. Although the welds may look bad, I know they're strong enough.

Yes, if just the welds are ground out and rewelded, it could pass. Just don't hit the tubes themselves with the grinder to make the material any thinner than what it already is.

Did some searching on racingjunk.com. Lots of tube chassis third gen race cars available for cheap but they're all on the east side of the country. The closest one to me is 3100 km.

We'll see how well this race season goes. If the car decides to dip into the 8's, a change of plans may be in order. Keeping it in the low 9's will be safe for IHRA racing.

It's snowing again

 

see what it wants to run, although 10.90 racing could be very interesting lol as you said!

 

Actually 10.90 racing here is even slower. All the tracks are at altitude. Locally the S/ST index is 11.28. I'm not sure what it is at the NHRA track but it will be slightly quicker. Maybe 11.24. Would have to knock 2 seconds off my time to get that slow . Car would launch then .1-.3 second later the throttle stop would go back to an idle for almost 2 seconds before going to WOT again. I'd be past the 60' mark before going back to WOT. It would kill any wheel stands and tire spin. Maybe that would be a good thing.

Slowing it down to the low 10's wouldn't be as bad. Set the throttle stop to get me into the low 10's then don't change it and just bracket race as normal changing the dial on the windows as the air changes. It wouldn't hurt to practice changing the throttle stop settings to see if I could run the same number on every pass.

Of course that's only at an NHRA track. For IHRA racing I just need to stay out of the 8's.

Damn snow. we got at least 6" more last night.

 

Mine is cert to 7.50. I have all the piping(and then some) for the 25.2 spec to allow 7.49 and faster, but the car is not moly. I don't believe in moly and will not run it. - The inspector told me "keep you mouth shut and most tracks' tech officials will leave you be being that the only thing keeping you from the cert is the material".

Oh well. It is what it is. They don't do a lot of tech for our 1/8mile stuff anyhow, and I'm not a big 1/4 mile person. I have no want or will to run 220+mph in a stock front suspension door car packing 3000+lbs of weight along for the ride.