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"Spare Parts"
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My Office
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Staged
Driver's Seat
The Mystery Continues
- Details
So last month, we had an issue with the lifter valley pan splitting down the middle for no real reason. To fix that, we went with a 16 gauge aftermarket pan with a relief for the exhaust crossover welded into it. We figured that a heavier duty, racing specific part should deal with our mystery, but that didn't seem to be the case. The pan cracked at one of the welds for the relief and again spewed oil all over the engine compartment. So, we put a bandage on it and lined up to qualify, figuring we are going to be cleaning up oil from each pass and we were ready for it.
While in staging, and next to go, someone oiled down the track ahead of us so we shut the motor down and put the car in park. Once we got the all clear to continue i fired up the car and shifted into low and the car wouldn't move. Running the shifter back and forth didn't seem to do anything. I immediately hopped out and looked under the car and while someone shifted the car, looked to see if the shifter arm was moving and it wasn't. Shifter cable was broken and that ended our night. It was a sign from above that I was just not meant to race that night. Who knows what would have happened throughout the night, oil under the tires, engine fire, who knows but someone was telling me not to race and we packed it up.
Since then, we have been working to install a one-piece valley pan with not welds, reliefs, nothing to see if that fixes it. We have posted on multiple forums and the responses have ranged from over-pressure of the crankcase to parts flying around, sophomore slump, and more. We are also going to make some more tuning changes on the car as we will be switching to pump gas with octane boost and dialing in the jetting more. Our hope is to get down to 11.0 - 11.1 range in July. Then it will be some fine tuning to start knocking on the 10 second door.
We don't plan on pushing the car much further than high 10's as that would mean a significant jump in cubic dollars we will need to spend and more humbug. A low 11 second street car is very respectable and is not something to sneeze at around here. The car looks good, runs awesome, and soon will be deadly consistent. All of that means that we will have a good chance at wins. It would be nice to be in the hunt and do it without any of the electronics and such that others use on their cars. Old school is fun and puts the racing back into the driver's seat and not in the boxes.