quote:

Originally posted by Alaskaracer:
Well, it was some success and some not. Started off the year with the new combo on chassis cert day. Got the cert then fired the car for the first time. Took a bit, because I had to find the sweet spot for the cam sensor, then it fired right up. Sounded great for about 30 seconds then a loud knocking started. Killed it and pulled valve covers. Found two exhaust pushrods tips killed and two adjuster screws. Discovered I wasn't getting any oil to the top end, and then found out why. Switched to BAM lifters from Crower, and learned that they didn't have grooves cut in the lifter body to the oil feed hole for the pushrods... Was an easy fix though, and two new pushrods later all was better. I scored a deal on a Chance bolt together converter, and called Marty on it. He felt it would be way too tight and after getting my specs, we took a guess on a different stator. First time out to the track, found it was way too loose, and I managed to not only break the diode, but smoke the high clutch in the trans....ugh....When I fixed the trans, I put the original stator back in the converter. Decided I'd rather make passes with a converter that was too tight than too loose. Well, after a few testing sessions, I was able to manage a personal best with a 7.05 @ 190.8mph. Was having issues with getting data recording though, so didn't have a clue on what the converter was actually doing. This last weekend was the final weekend for our season, and I actually raced for a change! Put my replay XD camera on the car to record the tach, and then my ignition decided to play along. What I found was the converter was basically grabbing the engine right after the launch, with a flash stall of about 5100ish rpm, and I'm dropping over 1600 rpm on the shift....and still ran that personal best with that....even though the tune up told me it wanted less fuel and more advance....

So now that I have something I can talk to Marty about, I can get the converter dialed in much better and we'll see how much faster it will go before I turn on the bottle! All in all, it was fun this season, just frustrating because everything was a guess. New combo with no dyno to tune with, a guess on the converter, guess on the tune, etc......can't wait for next season!!!

quote:

Originally posted by B KING:
Road trip!

I've seen the pictures & some videos; absolutely beautiful place to have a dragstrip! Just out of curiosity, I checked out the road trip. 3,400+ miles & 2 days 8hrs for the one-way trip from southern NV. It quickly took the wind out of my sails.

2BKING

quote:

Originally posted by BP758:
All worth it Mark! Great job.