TireSmoke.org

Thought you guys might find the humor in this:

A couple races ago I had some issues with the digger - it was running "off" and I couldn't figure entirely why - of course the air was "bad" so everyone was running a little off so I convinced myself it was "normal". I was going 9.90's (was running 9.50's a couple days earlier) & my last pass was 10.30 or 10.40 - I thought nope this ain't the air - somethings wrong (duh!).

ANyways I took it home and when I got to looking it over I found the exhaust valve on #8 pretty unhappy - leaking down 30-35% - so I naturally though - viola - THERE'S MY PROBLEM! I yanked the head and put my old Black&Decker valve grinder to work. Lapped it in and bolted everything up - wow this is one place where the 2 piece injector REALLY paid off - I left EVERYTHING bolted to the head during this operation - injector & zoomies. Anyways after all was "well" I leaked it down again - 10% - ok life is good again - let's go racing...

Well race day went like this:
I had to coach a soccer game at 11:00 -
victory meeting at McD's at 12 -
home by 12:30 -
hooked up the trailer and on the road by 1:00!!! Oh yeah baby!!! As I pulled out of my street I was a little apprehensive as the trans in the '47 has been acting up lately - hopefully the fresh fluid & snake oil I put in the night before will get me to Thompson & back one more time this year!! ANyways all is going well until I pull out onto I90 all the sudden the ole 392 hemi is WAY WAY down on power and blubbering worse than my convertible motor - WTF is THIS all about!!! It seemed like it was losing fuel so I pull over and check the carb - all is well there. I pop the cap and check the points gap - seem OK by eye - hmnnn what to do - should I risk going to Thompson and try to fix it there or limp home - decisions decisions. Well I pull back out on the highway and am STRUGGLING to do 40 DOWNHILL on I90 - yep decision made - limp home ;-( I exit at 306 and am praying to god it doesn't die on the off ramp exit. Strangely enough once you got slower than 30 MPH all is well again. Matter of fact I could burn rubber off a deap stop. The second I get more than 30 it starts blubbering again... so as I run thru my list of causes I convince myself it is electrical and is either the coil or condensor. From there I narrow it down to the condensor because that's the MORE DIFFICULT part to swap in a hurry and of course I am in a hurry so when I got home I started there. With the cap off and semi's not blowing past me at 70mph I now notice 2 things - the points themselves look a little 'warm' I also notice that the ground wire from the point plate to distributor housing is MISSING - it's never been there so long as I've owned the truck. Yeah - the condensor is definitely not making my points happy - it's either taken a dump itself OR this lack of ground path has suddenly raised it's head. Either way I gotta fix this FAST. I dig up a distributor I had started to rebuild 10 years ago & never finished - now where is my BOX of caps, rotors, points and condensors - shit one too many floods has had me move it to safety - except I can't remember where safety IS!!!!! I scour the garage and find a different stash of points and a loose condensor so I slam it in the "new" dizzy and slam it in the truck - same cap, rotor, wires, plugs - it fires immediately up (must have been close on the eyeball timing) slam the hood and away I go - It's now 3 o'clock. I get to the track by 4 and time trials end at 4:45. I don't have enough time to reset the butterflys on the injector my "normal" way (hear gun and unisync) but instead set it by ear & away I go - first pass 10.40 something - WTF I convince myself it may be due to the lack of synchronization on the injector or simply not enough heat in teh motor at launch - so I get back to the pits and sync the injector - I get in line again to run another mid 10 second pass - something's STILL wrong & I don't know what it is. We double check the timing & pill - I'm convinced I'm not figuring this out, but decide one more pass is in order - identical - I'm done - pack it up and go home to see what I missed.

The tow home was sorta fun. It of course is raining pretty hard and I have a single vacuum wiper so I have to keep letting off the gas to be able to glimpse the road. Just as I am approaching the exit to 91 I sense that the guy next to me also wants to exit and he's flooring it to cut over infront of me at the exit - last second. I'm in no mood for this and it's hard enough to see without this guy cutting me off so I decide he needs to take a back seat - sorry pal but the last thing I need right now is you cutting infront of me and hitting your brakes hard (it's amazing how somepeople don't understand when you're towing you would prefer a little room infront of you) long story short he was going to 'earn' his spot in front of me - it didn't happen. The 392 was running - JUST FINE NOW

Well at least I fixed ONE of them 392's that day.


Still haven't found a smoking gun on the digger motor though although I did find some "lint like" substance on most of my nozzles - a month ago I would be convinced that THAT was my problem, but now am not so sure - so I ultra sonically cleaned every fuel line/nozzle, checked the cam timing - lifters - pushrods - rocker arms - leakdown - compression (yes both) - as of this second I find nothing wrong - if it wasn't those nozzles - I'm not sure what it was.

I still want to check the mag and in teh back of my mind am slightly regretting the hydraulic lifters (what if they're pumping up just a little - how would I know for sure). I was planning on swapping cams this fall, but am now putting that on hold until I can find the problem - I don't want to induce another variable. Also for the moment I am ruling out the fuel pump - I have a telltale pressure guage that has read consistently every pass.

At one point I wondered if I got some water in the fuel - a hydrometer test later has ruled that out....

To be Continued


Racin' Jacin

Any chance there's any binding in the drivetrain bogging you down and not anything wrong with the motor?

-BP

Basement Paul wrote:Any chance there's any binding in the drivetrain bogging you down and not anything wrong with the motor?

-BP

Well, I honestly haven't checked for that, but I certainly WILL before Sunday!!!!! Last night while pulling the tank (for ultrasonic cleaning) I found a loose fitting on the inlet to the fuel pump - was this loose last time I had it out? Did it loosen up while I checked the timing chain? I dunno!!! But it WILL be tight before Sunday!! As of now - I have ultrasonically cleaned EVERY part of the fuel system - less the pump itself. I think I may bring a spare mag & pump to the track on Sunday - I HATE workign on my car at the track ;-(

Well one good thing to come out of this was that it got me off my lazy butt and I finally made time to degree my harmonic balancer. I of course had to re-remember how to use my dividing head!!

Well finally got the car back out to test to see if we figured anything out. First pass off the trailer 9.47! Best run ever. Next Pass 9.36 ! NEW Best Run yet!!!!
New Plugs - cleaned the fuel system - checked and rechecked everything I could think of. Somewhere in the mix I found a loose fuel line - was it loose last time out - did that happen during the thrash - I dunno - maybe it was a combination of things. All I know is that I am happy again!!!!

What a good feeling to end the season with a best-ever ET!

-Dave

Nice! Will dense air make it faster? My race cars tend to go faster in the cold air. Maybe a trip to 42 in November is in order for you. Drop 10 degrees air temp and add another tenth maybe?

I just don't know if the colder ground will affect traction on your digger.

I see the root issue was fuel delivery. Good find.
But, I gota ask... how consistent is your fuel, meaning where do you get, how old is it, and after all, doesn't alcohol, absorb water - (moisture) ? Or, does it displace it.... I forget...
As I was reading the first post, the FIRST thing in my mind, was fuel quality. Perhaps, a 'bad' batch.

Here's a picture of Racin racing local TV news celebrity Mark Nolan in his small block powered digger.









It was too busy to get more than two passes in, and I had a birthday party to go to around six so I didn't get to race, but I did take time to take in the show. Here's some other pics.









Here's a couple for Dave:






and one for Tony:





-BP

And since I took more pictures, I might as well post them:










And a few more:








-BP

Paul, Those are some great shots - THANKS for posting them.

Mark, I buy the methanol by the drum - during all of this headache it's been the same drum - however I store smaller amounts in 5 gallon containers and store it in a cabinet (off the floor) - and since I had various jugs of fuel - it was a real possibility that maybe 1 or 2 had a bad seal and was "sucking" moisture. That was the reason I checked all the fuel with a hydrometer - just to rule out the water. The specific gravity was as close to theoretically correct as I could measure - which was I ruled that out. Several guys told me I was wasting my time to check the fuel - I say no way - not until I rule it out - I've chased my tail before - the only way I know to do these things is to rule EVERYTHING out - this had me pulling my hair because I'd find a problem (like that bad valve) and then run it at the track with no improvement - which suggests to me I had several problems "overlapping" - man I hate when that happens. So I still wonder if the fuel "quality" was an issue - meaning that loose fitting I found could have had me sucking in a wee bit of air - combine that with the lint - who knows. It gives me more things to add to my check list!!!

Yep - it LIKES dense air!!! SO far traction has not been an issue, but I don't usually run early in the day as I like to avoid really cold track surfaces - I'm still learning all the variables.

BTW - I had some of my numbers backwards - off the trailer it went 9.46 and later ran a 9.37 - I don't want anyone think I was exaggerating!!!!!!
I really appreciate the feedback guys - I was running out of things to look for!!!!!