Previous updates for the 2008 season

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6-19-08

Make sure you check out this event above. Race 3 of the PRA schedule.

Sorry for the slow updates. Been a little busy with all kinds of little things other then race related stuff. Except I did get to take my car out to the classic and hang out with my PRA buddies all day. Very cool stuff. We got to park our cars right up in front of the stage and was sort of center of attention.

Not much else to say today. Just staying busy keeping my house sort of up to speed, working on my daily driver and will need to work on my tow vehicle as well. (rear end noise)

6-3-08

Sacramento Bug-O-Rama.

Some of you may know what I am saying when you have a weekend that no matter what happens, you can't do no wrong. I have had many of those. But this time around, Nothing seem to go right. For now, the update goes like this. I had multiple mechanical problems, data logger stopped working properly and I came down with some sort of stomach flu with a fever where the only time any one saw me was when I got out of bed or off the toilet and tried to climb into the car on Saturday. What an absolute miserable way to spend an afternoon. I did poke my head out more than that just because I had to, but that's the way I felt.

It was a quick first round loss, but believe it or not, at the start of the weekend after things started going down hill fast, my only goal was just to stage the car in first round to get points and I accomplished that and a touch more, so I did have a smile on my face briefly. But I was in no mood to stick around, packed up and got ready to pull out. Stayed just long enough to watch the final round and give my congrats to the winners and got out of town and started driving home instead of staying the night like I normally do. The good news was I got a decent amount of sleep the night before and the closer I got to home, the better I felt and was able to pull in about a quarter to midnight.

On a brighter note, it was very cool to see Marcus Palmquest get his first win in Super Gas. He has been getting better and better each time out and finally was able to take out the heavy hitters in the class with a commanding performance. One of the other car owners and I grabbed and beer and snuck up behind him and gave him a victory dousing. Way to go Marcus!!!

Already started working on the car and will actually make the VW Classic in Irvine this weekend.

Don't think I will make any more events until the July Fontana event on the 20th. Too many things to do and get accomplished before then.

4-18-08

Hopes were high over the weekend but came crashing down fast.

Phoenix Bug O Rama was still a blast.

There was no testing on Saturday so I headed out to Phx on Saturday morning and took my sweet time getting there. John Meade had a little BBQ/B-day celebration in the parking lot of the hotel that was just very cool. Had a great time just hanging out.

Sunday arrived and do my usual set up and for first round of qualifying, I click off a 10.93. At that point, I am the number 1 qualifier. Well with a decent qualifying spot, It was time to experiment just a touch. With a head wind building, I figure I'll go a little farther with it. Car really stuck on the second qualifying pass and runs a 10.80. Way too fast for the 10.90 index. So I detune a little for my third qualifying pass and my 333ft mark is identical to my 93 pass but suddenly all the numbers slow including mph and only goes a 10.99. I think we just hit a big head wind gust. At least that is what I will blame it on.

Round 1 of eliminations. Somehow I held on to the number 1 spot for the day and we only had 15 cars in the class. Normally I would have to run the number 16 person. Well this means I have a freebee and I decide to make sure I am still close to the number and want to run it out. I get out there and feel things are good and suddenly POP, trans comes out of third gear. OH OH!!!

Round 2 of eliminations and I am paired up with Ken Jevec. He ended up taking a little shot at the tree and turns on the red light, so that gave me another freebee. I think let's get it out there and see if I can hold it in third. WOW, third gear buck and kicked 3 times before I let off and pulled it out. Well it might actually work if I lean a little harder on the shifter next time.

Round 3 and now I have Joel Carter. #1 man last year. Can't give him anything. I take just a little on the tree, I think it was around .004-.005 so there is just a slight advantage there and I did my job as a driver. I am out on him a little, get to third gear and somehow get my arm in the strait position to try and ensure it stays in. It actually does stay in and then my shift light comes on. That was an eternity for that thing to get there. I pull it into fourth thinking I'm out of the woods. I turn my head to figure out where Joel is and suddenly POP. It comes out of fourth and my day is done.

In the end, Allen Weiss takes the win in S/C over Joel Carter. Congrats!!! That was a cool race to watch.

Then came that long drive home where I end up reflecting on what happened and how to make it better. I have come to the conclusion that my transmission must be moving back and forth. My mid mount is nice and flimsy and only meant to hold rotation since I use to run a regular nose cone. At the last minute before Bug In, I did make up a bump stop to keep the trans from moving forward but nothing kept it from moving backwards. I think that was the mistake. Having the positive stops in the shifter doesn't allow it to float around and as the trans moved away, it probably been pulling back on third gear ever time until it finally got to the edge and rounded the slick shift rings. Once that happens, it's all no good. And I think once the slider was affected as well, putting it into fourth may have not engaged completely because the slider had some boogers on the third gear side. That's my guess. So the fix will be to go back and use a standard weld in mid mount that is nice and thick and keep that trans from moving back and forth. Might put a brace on that or even go as far as making some sort of bracing off the side cover studs.

The next plan was to go to Fontana again for the NHRA divisional event, but that may  not happen now. Will have to see how fast things fall back in place.

4-9-08

BUG-IN 33

Well its been a lot of hours thrashing that has paid off. The previous few weekends were spent from early morning to late night working on every thing to get it all together and done right. I even took last Friday off to make sure I had all my ducks in a row and even made some last minute mods. Even Friday was started at 7am and ended at 9:30pm.

The new JCL shifter really works as good as it looks. This thing felt great in the garage during set up and final completion, but there was still that issue with what will it really feel like in competition. All I can say is WOW!!! This thing is awesome. Actually my very first shift with it, I didn't even realize it. But once I was out of the hole, car was still going strait (I didn't run the wheelie bars on the first 2 passes) and was in second gear, my mind then though, "Hay, how does this shifter really feel." So I got to pay attention to it going into third and fourth. YEA!!!! This thing is sooo cool. Then when it came to eliminations, I didn't really think much of it except there was a different sound in the car. It was the shifter hitting the positive stops. Now I will never over travel a shift fork again.

It shifts like a hot knife through butter. I let a few people sit in the car saturday night and just go through the gears and they were just in awe. One had one of the Long gate shifters and couldn't believe the difference.

Well on to how the weekend went. The racers were allowed to arrive on Saturday and get tech inspected and set up the pits the way they like and spend the night. This takes all the pressure off of us for the morning prep. Thanks to Kimble and Berg for getting that one pulled off.

I went in with the metality that this was more a test session for the following week and set up for show boating. Took a lot of rpm off the launch chip and left the wheelie bars off. First pass netted a decent wheelie and a 10.77 pass. I figured that's not bad at all. Second pass on the other hand got a little out of shape and took me out of the groove so while in third gear, the rear end just wanted to come around me a few times and at that point decided, nothing good will come of this, wont get a real run number either, so I dumped the clutch and coasted off the track. Since time ran short because of the number of cars and oil downs, we were then going to run eliminations.

With only one pass under my belt since last October, I say screw this show boating stuff, I need to get at least my entry fee back. So on go the sissy sticks (wheelie bars) and a dial in of 10.77

With the quick 32 format, they were going to do a fixed ladder, so there was no random pairing.

My first draw just happens to be Bruce Fordyce. Bruce is a long time racer and knows how the game is played. He also works at EMS so he has a lot to do with how fast I can get stuff turned over when it comes to my motor. Last time I raced him at Drag Day, I remember giving him my best with a .015 light and he whipped my butt with a .003 light. This is not uncommon for Bruce to do either. He is by the way the 2007 PRA PE champ. Fortunatly this time was different. He was unusually slow on the lights and I managed a .008 reaction on him. Needless to say, I took the win light for this match up. (im sure it will be different the next time around) I got to lift didnt get that 100% of how the car to dial in was going to work.

Round 2 and I get paired up with Daniel Kurtzman. One of the PRA super gas guys. Fortunat for me, Daniel turns on the big red eye, as I launched, I saw my win light come on immidiately. I figure this is the time to make sure the car is running consistant so I run it all the way out and put up a 10.765 on what would have been a 10.77 dial in. I think to my self, "Perfect, don't change a thing"

Round 3 and now I am paired up with John (10,000 rpm) Schuerger. Dang another one of those tough super gas guys and this one has mulitple championships under his belt. He knows how to drive. Forunatly I get the better reaction time and get to drive around him at the top end.

Round 4. It's the finals. The final pairing is with Ole Jorgensen. More often then not, the ones who reach the finals are typically the ones that are good. So I get my game face on and we get pulled out. Ole went in and turned on both pre and stage bulb. Not sure if he just wanted to be prepaired or just went in too fast. I didn't give it much of a though and figured I would do my own thing no matter what. As I get into pre stage, Ole launches and my red light come on. I think what just happened. Apperantly there was some sort of malfuction or error. Like the single pass was activated. So Ole had to come back around so we can try this again. This time we both go in pre staged together and stage together. The run seem to be fairly un-eventful except I realize, I don't think I am going to catch him. Whats going on, was I sleeping, was the car falling off, ?????? What ended up happening was he broke out by a tenth and I was 2 hudreths off my dial. He cut a .030 to my .020 light so the lights were pretty close and I crossed the line .110 behind him. But that's ok, my win light comes on and I take the Quick win. Now that's a nice way to start out a season.

I recently found out that this was Ole's 4 time behind the wheel of a race car. Seems to be a natural at it. So keep your eyes out for this guy.

But wait, there is still more racing. Now its time for Top Eliminator.

By this time, motor is nice and HOT. Fortunatly, my first round pairing said im out. I was suppose to race the winner of the Super street category. So I get the bye first round, bump the beam and get to back out.

Round 2 and its against the Jack Pot class winner, Jim Kurlinski. Mid 13 second car and if I am not mistaken, he turns on the red light, so I go ahead and run it out. 10.86. damn, motor is smokin hot, so for the finals, I readjust my dial to a 10.91 thinking it will be that much slower since we are now hot lapping.

Round 3 finals of Top E. I am up against the winner of T3 category, Adam Greven. For some reason I was thinking he was also a mid 13 second car, (I didn't look up at the score boards to verify) so when we went up to stage, he launches and think to my self give it a few and get ready. I got ready, and got ready, and got ready. I think I was on and off the limiter 3 maybe 4 times. I now know why. His dial in was a 16.10 So I was there for more then 5 seconds waiting. But this is where I got to dodge a bullet. With me getting on and off the limiter too many times, I think I loaded the motor up a bit. When I did drop the clutch, the car starts to move and motor falls on its face for a bit and hesetates. OH NO!!!!!!! The only thing I can do now is maybe chase him down and hope he makes a mistake as well. Adam probably knows how the game is played and knew I would be comingn around him a good 40+ mph faster. I have been in this situation before my self and know its very hard to judge if one can lift or not. I think Adam knew his best chance was if I ran good, he could only run it out all the way and hope he dialed in right. Lucky for me, I think he did just that and ended up braking out before I reached him. I watch him cross the line but his win light didn't come on. I think to my self did he brake out? And then look over at my light and see it come on………OH MY!!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say, better lucky then good any day.

Now its time to unload, check every thing out, reload and back out to Phoenix this weekend.

3-27-08

Getting the transmission set up for the shifter.

When I picked up the trans, Kevin showed me the old axles. Low and behold after 9 years of service one of them had a real small crack developing on both sides of the fulcrum area in the direction of the twist. They were extreamly small cracks, but none the less, the beginning of the end of those. So a new set went in. The old axles lasted through 12 or so different ring and pinions. I would say they did their job well.

3-24-08

As I finish up the oil control set up, I took the simple way out with using an adjustable pressure control plug. I put in one piston normally, but instead of a spring, I stuck in another piston upside down. Then install the adjustable plug to push against both pistons. Now the upper piston is locked in place

Then it was off to the local Earls supply house. Dang that stuff is expensive. There was $80 in fittings and hose to do it in my un-orthdox way.

To accomplish what I wanted, I replaced a 90 deg fitting with a tee on the outlet of my filter and fed that line over to the new oil control pill. Getting kind of busy looking now. You can get an idea of how long I have ran the old hose fittings by the color of the red anodized part. Old ones are faded to almost a pink compared to the new stuff.

The oil control pill screws into the plate I recently made. The tee’d hose just loops over to this side of the case.

One of the reasons for a need for long cylinders in certine applications.

Here is a good shot of how low the wrist pin is pulled down compared to the mounting surface of the cylinder. So when I had my cylinders cut, I still have .700” of the skirt inside the case. Imagine if I used a standard length cylinder and had a .400"+ shim under it. id have very little support for the bottom of the pistons.

Almost there. A little sheet metal and a quick adjustment of the header to fit the wider motor configuration and I should be firing up this week.

3-10-08

As I set up the motor for this year, I will be trying one of the external pressure control units like the one JayCee sells. I just have the pill and not the whole filter mount.  In preperation for it, I went ahead and plugged the relief port on the oil cooler control piston area and will not run that piston since I have stopped using an oil cooler.

I also made a mounting plate that will bolt onto the type 3  (I think that is what its for) dip stick cover at the lower right side of the case. The oil pressure control will screw into this plate.

Also got me one of those nice bling bling pump covers from CB Performance.

But here is the big part. Plans have changed in the last few weeks. I got a hold of a flanged crank. Scat 88mm. A little bigger then I wanted but the boys at EMS found this in their archives. We did a little work on it and its now good to go. And for me it was the right price. And believe it or not, I can actually drop it in the CB case and it still clears everything.  The cam on the other hand needed a little work.

One of the things we had planned was playing with a large base circle cam and that cleared the original planned 82 crank, but with the 88, things got tight and I ended up doing some minor clearancing on the crank it self.

And since the motor was changing widths, it was time for new AA long cylinders.

So out came the proper measuring tools. the way I did it was measure the skirt of the piston with the  micrometer and then set the dial bore gauge up to zero  using the mic as a refrence and take a measurement of the cylinder for the clearance between the two.

Then the dial bore goes in the cylinder and checked. This came out to be about .004" witch is almost perfect, but since I am running turbo I will add in another half to one thou. And at this point I go and check for roundness and taper. These came out real good.

Also as I start to set up for deck height and looking at every thing, I dont even have to grind on these to clear the 10mm head studs.

All my motor stuff has now gone off to EMS first thing saturday morning to get in que to get the cylinders cut down to length, a light hone and get the crank and flywheel balanced.

Then I finally got to shift my attention back to getting my JCL shifter installed. I am setting up the shifter to be a lot higher and farther back then my old hurst in the stock location. And in this location it feels soo comfortable. I am not streached out to reach the shifter any more. It feels like I have a lot more leaverage as well.

I am also setting it up where my stock E-brake will still work.

This is where I am as of Saturday night. Mockign up some of the shift rods using an empty case and intermediate housing and getting aproximate placement of shifter. I should have the primery box with new selector rods back this week and cylinders and crank back as well. BUT even on a good day, i dont think I can get it all back together before this weekends Drag Day. Once the gear box is back, it will take me a few evenings to finish up the shifter configuration and a new release for my anti shocker. Then there is the motor. Once the cylinders are back, I can mock up the heads and get a push rod lenth and get those cut. once all that is done and re-fitted to make sure its all good, then put the real springs back on the heads, take every thing apart one more time, clean every piece, assemble motor, re-adjust header width (cut and weld), get the new cam broke in, pull motor, reinstall inner valve springs, change oil, get trailer ready again, keep my job, keep my marrage, bla bla bla. LOL.

In other words there is just not enough time in the day to do it all. So it has become very unlikely that I will make it to DD this weekend. It really is a bummer. I am iching to get back in the seat too. So the new goal will be Bug In with all of it done and adjusted properly instead of some thrashing where I might miss something. If it was just the motor, I would probably push the issue and my wife would be all for it. She has already asked can I get it all done if I were not bothered. In other words, all extra time spent in the garage for a week. Damn I love her.

2-20-08

Hope every one had a nice Valenties Day.

The quest to get my self ready for the new season goes on. The big brown truck dropped off some packages to me and I was like a kid in a candy store. One of the packages I got was a crack and flywheel in one box. CB just so happen to have an already wedgemated crank and flywheel on the shelf. That makes it so convienent. I dont have to go find some one to get it done and wait another week or two.

These cranks are actually a really nice piece.

A very nice feture I found is that the oiling ports already come tapped and pluged so the end user can pull it all apart and do a good final cleaning of every thing instead of guessing if you got it clean. I will pull these plugs and get my pipe cleaner down these holes for a good final scrubbing before final assembly.

And because I am a guy and can't leave it alone, we are going to exparament with a different custom ground CB cam.

In my quest to be self reliant on a sunday afternoon when every one else is closed or I just dont want to leave the house for something small. I have accurired this lathe. An old Enco 13"x40" engine lathe is how its listed. It has actually been sitting on my trailer for a few weeks under a cover doused in wd-40. But I found a window on Sunday while watching Datona 500 out in the garage and inched this thing off the trailer and into the side of the garage. This wont be the final resting point for it, but for now its out of the weather. I will probably work on this thing after the car is running and race season has started.

2-7-08

Imagine that. Two updates in the same week.

I accuired this 7"x12"band saw a few months back and had to put some TLC into it. It was pretty beat. But with a little elbow grease, this thing is working excelent. Although I got it working great, I have yet to give it a good scrubbing. So when time permits, that will happen. (yea right) So far I have used this to cut the trans mounts down to size for the shelds and cut miscellaneous brackets, etc.

I actually got a chance to use the mill for the first time too. Simple slotting of brackets, but what was a pain in the butt before is now easy work with the right tools. Having the right tools does open the door to be more creative.

One of the items I worked on last weekend. While down at JCL Race cars, I got to do some of the assembly on my own shifter. HOLY COW!!! there are a LOT of parts in this thing. If you disassembled this thing and laid every nut, bolt, shim, etc, there is probably well over 70 pieces in this thing alone. But I also see why this is the smoothest and best shifter out there. I cant wait to put it in my car. Need a 5 speed shifter? No problem.

2-4-08

Its a little bit on the late side but Happy New Year.

Ever been busy enough in life where you find your self asking your co worker or spouse "what day is it" Monday through Fridays and even the weekens become one especially if you work the weekends. Feels like I have been there since last October.

Recently on the VW racing related stuff I got my self into making a small run of shields that have alreay sold. Fortunatly CB Performance got some new mounts in stock and now I can continue to use theirs.

I am also digging through my motor for the annual freshen up and went  to EMS to mag the crank. (Magnetic particle inspection) Low and behold, 2 cracks. That is a big bummer. And currently there are not too many flanged cranks availible. So plan B is in affect with a wedgemated standard configuration CB crank until I can collect enough funds to get my self back into another flanged crank. Getting Scat to make one is like pulling teeth. Bugpack, i'm about 99% sure they dont have any more 84 stroke and are no longer making them. So the third real option is to get one custom made or order a billet from Geers or Pauter. And that is not cheap.

On a good note, I do have my mill fired up and working. Now i just need some tooling so I can do more then just use it as a drill press.

Other fun and exciting news. After installing a few and loving the way they feel, this year I will be installing a JCL v-gate shifter  in my own car, and I have accuired a lathe that should take up way tooo much room in the garage. Got to love toys.