Back to Work Again

Well, we are finally getting caught up a little from Hurricane Harvey. We had lots of damage (Again) but are  making progress pulling the pieces back together. I was very fortunate that neither car was damaged too bad. Having them up on jacks probably saved them. Water got up to the frames on both cars but did not get into the engines, transmissions, or rear ends.

The dragster got some water on the wiring and corroded some of the wiring  terminals. Other than that, the cars  are it fine.

My tools on the other hand did not fare so well. The flood got my MIG welder, TIG Welder,  all of my old Starrett and Mitutoyo micrometers, most of my Makita power tools, and a bunch of other stuff. I lost a couple of our motorcycles and ATVs as well. A lot of stuff will need to be overhauled. Flood water is the most corrosive things I have ever seen.

We are still waiting to see if and what our flood insurance is going to pay.  We are very fortunate compared to some people in Houston. We have our house and the house we own next door stripped and ready to start rebuilding when we have the time and money. We are just doing what we can for now.

I worked on the dragster for the first time since the flood a couple of weeks ago. When I downloded the data from the first two races, I noticed that the A/F Ratio monitors were recording crazy readings (extremely lean). I knew the car wasn't lean because I had intentionally jetted it rich for a safe tuneup. I figured out that they were being exposed to air that was leaking into the slip joints where the collector slips onto the primary tubes. The A/F Ratio monitors were mounted in the collector downstream to the slip connection and the collectors create a vacuum inside the collector after every exhaust pulse. That vacuum was pulling in raw air which skewed my readings.

I welded new fittings upstream of the collector in one primary tube and now the readings are correct. The car is a little rich as I expected . The negative side of this is I am only getting a reading from one cylinder on each side of the engine. I will have to jet the engine cautiously when I start leaning it out in case the two cylinders I am monitoring are more rich than the other cylinders. Big Block Chevies are known to have uneven fuel distribution so I will be cautious.

The plan is to start racing again in February or March. I can't wait to climb into it again!

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Yet another setback

Folks,

We just had another minor setback and its name was....... Yes, you guessed it "Harvey".

Hurricane Harvey that is.

We were hit hard in the Houston area by hurricane Harvey and our house/garage are under 2 feet of water for the second time in 14 months. We live in a 500 year flood plane and we have had two 500 year record floods at our house in a little over a year.

We are very lucky that no one was hurt! As we speak, we are upstairs waiting for the water to recede so we can see what the damage was.

The garage has a bunch of water in it but I cannot tell if it is high enough to affect the race cars. I had them up on their jacks so hopefully they are fine. The water is running so fast by our house that I cannot get to the garage.

Our daily driving vehicles were not so lucky. Traci's Jeep and my F450 are both under water as we speak.

I think Shaky Truck may be the only vehicle that survived!!!

Anyway, it is just stuff and it can be replaced. Traci and I are going to really rethink everything before rebuilding this house again.

Drag racing is on hold for an undetermined amount of time. It was fun while it lasted! All 2 weekends!!!

This picture is from our top floor looking towards the garage.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

DUUUUUHHHHHH

I just had to do two posts tonight because I want to share our DUH moment for the weekend.

I have been consistently red lighting in the elimination rounds but I was able to get some OK lights on Friday night racing. Each time I red lit, I felt like I had a decent light and certainly didn't think I red lighted.

After doing it again on Saturday, I told Traci that something was not right. I knew I was not leaving on the competitor's light, because there are blinders on the light where you cannot even see their lights. Traci and I decided to go watch some rounds of racing to see what was going on. We went to mid track so we could see the back side of the tree and see both lane's lights. Sure enough, no matter how much difference in the dial ins of the cars (slow cars vs fast cars), the top yellow light was coming on at the same time. I had never seen this before at the races I had been to. In the old days, the top light comes on later for the faster driver. And when the racers are running heads up with no handicap, it does not affect the lighting sequence. That is the reason I was not red lighting on Friday night (heads up racing). Something was going on here.

After going back to the trailer, I started to research this crazy light thing. What I learned is that these Super Pro classes that I was racing in uses what is called a Compulink Crosstalk timing system. This system has both lights come on at the same time and the faster car's light stays on longer until the slower cars lights give him the head start. I was just leaving on the top light and never saw the lagging light because I was already traveling down the track.

I then started reading how to use this system and found out the super smart delay box that I bought will compensate for this.  If I plug in the competitors time into my delay box. Sure enough, it works. DUH!!! By the way, the delay box instruction manual does not say anything about this type of staging system.

Traci and I laughed about it all evening and were ready this morning armed with our new knowledge. The delay box worked perfect!

This is information that competitors don't tell you when they see easy prey, ha! They just hope they get paired with me so they can get a freebie round, ha!!

Anyway, another lesson learned. Now they will have to beat me another way. That method is history.

We felt a little better this morning when we met another nice racer and his wife that told us they did the same thing when they started.

Life is full of challenges.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Making More Progress

Traci and I just finished the third day of racing and we mades tons of progress. We are both getting more comfortable with the race routine and getting more smooth with our process every run. Traci keeps me organized and comfortable and makes sure I get the car serviced every round.

We now have a process to get suited up and getting me strapped in and everything ready to go.

Our first round today felt better than any of our first runs. We finally got the Compulink Crosstalk Tree figured out and we ran real close to our dial in. The car ran four runs in a row ranging from 4.95 to 4.93. We are getting the car way more consistent. I made ignition timing, shift rpm, jetting, and launch rpm changes that the car responded well too. I think the car will do better and better as I figure out what it wants.

I am reviewing the data that we gathered all weekend to see what other changes I may want to make to the car.

If the driver could get his reaction times consistent, we could win a round of racing. It will come in time. My next investment will be a practice tree so I can practice in the car while it is in the garage. I need to really work on my lights!

Overall, a great weekend! The car is a good car. We accomplished nearly all of our weekend goals (except for winning a round of racing) and met some really nice people.

I am posting two more videos of the first round of eliminations today. The car ran well and ran right on its dial in time. The driver was late!

I nearly caught the guy at the finish line. His car had more than a 2 second head start. Notice the difference in speed when I go around him just after the finish line. It is amazing how much speed difference there is!!!!

Here are the videos:

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Second Race Weekend

Traci and are are two days into our second weekend of racing the dragster. We just got it into the 4 second zone in the 1/8th mile. That was our primary goal for the weekend!

We also figured out why I am red lighting in the elimination rounds. We found something we were doing wrong in the delay box setup. Hopefully, tomorrow we will get a good light in the elimination round.

We will see.

Here are a couple of videos from different angles of the 4.95 second, 1/8th mile run.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

New Ignition and Data Collection

I am installing a new ignition system on the car because I found some issues with the old MSD Digital 7 ignition.

I am pretty sure that I was losing a lot of horsepower (the car should have run faster than it did) due to a programmable ignition retard that was not working correctly. I am pretty sure that the ignition was retarded at least 8 degrees from optimal because the programming did not work with the new starting line controller. The retard is supposed to start as soon as I press the transbrake button (that works correctly) but is supposed to go away over a period of one second once I release the transbrake. That ramping down of the retard was not happening because the program logic requires that the engine be on the rev limiter when I release the transbrake button. The new starting line controller does not let the car hit the rev limiter because it is pneumatically controlling the throttle, therefore, the ignition stayed retarded through the runs.

I found this while checking everything over after the races a few days ago. I observed it while I was checking ignition timing with my timing light. I was verifying that the retard was working but I noticed that it never went away. Further investigation and a talk with the software guru, Joseph (our business partner) and some testing led me to believe this is what was happening. This, and the fact that the car is not running as quick as it should led me to modernize the ignition.

The new ignition (MSD Power Grid) gives me more control over the timing curves and rev limits. It also allows me to capture the timing data from the ignition controller in the Racepac data collection system.

I will be able to look at timing curves with other data from the runs to see what effect the timing is having on the engine.

The two pictures of the chart show a test run after installing the ignition. You can see the engine RPM on the top green line on the chart. You can see timing advance on the second blue line. You will notice that I have it set to ramp up the advance as engine RPM go up. The third red line is showing the transbrake button being activated (upward line is the switch turning on and the downward line is the switch being released. Notice that the ignition line shows the ignition retarding 10 degrees when I push the transbrake button. When I release the transbrake button, the ignition ramps back up to full advance over a 1 second time frame. This is what was not working with the old ignition. I can also adjust how long for the ramp up to happen. If the car spins the tires early, I can slow down the advance to kill some power. If the track will take the horsepower, I can advance it sooner.

Being able to look at these events with all of the other data that I am collecting will make it much easier to tune the car.

I am anxious to try it out. There is another race at Royal Purple Raceway this weekend and I am going to try to go and get some more seat time. Wish me luck!!!

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Video of Second Run in Comp Dragster

Here is a video of the second run at my first race weekend. This was a fun run with a 7.75 ET at 178 mph.

Pretty big thrill to go this fast on my second run.

I have a lot to learn but I am making progress.

The movie is uploaded in high resolution. It looks pretty cool if you watch is in high resolution.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

The dream comes true

Folks,

It is official. I am a drag racer! A really bad one, but one none the less. I ran my first time in the Comp Dragster on Friday night. It was amazing. The car performed well, but the driver was really bad.

I ran a best ET of 7.75 at nearly 180 mph!

Pretty quick for my first outing!

I have never experienced sensory overload like this before but I am getting more comfortable every run. My reaction times are horrendous but I am getting the burnout and staging sequence now.

I will be buying a practice tree so that I can practice at home in my car. It is a must to have a practice tree!

Overall, I am very happy with how the weekend is going. I was put out first round today but tomorrow is a new day!

Hopefully, I will have better reaction times tomorrow.

I will post video and pictures when we get home.

Thanks for all of your support.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Transbrake Test

Here is a video of a few low RPM transbrake tests.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Race Day Schedules

Folks,

Here are the schedules for the first race weekend.

Friday, Aug. 4th will be a night race for street and race cars (not a sanctioned race). Races start at 6:00 pm and last until midnight.

The Saturday and Sunday events are actual points series races. Here is a link to the schedule:

http://racerpr.com/event/bayshore-e-t-bracket-racing-series-6/

Getting close now!!!!

See you there.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Date is set!!!

Folks,

It is finally about to happen. Barring any catastrophic events, I will make my drag racing debut in the SuperComp car on the weekend of August 4-6 at Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Texas. 

Friday August 4th is a Friday night street racer night but I will be able to run the dragster to get some seat time and tune the car.

Saturday and Sunday will be actual bracket racing days that I will race in if I can qualify.

You are all welcome to come out and watch/support me if you would like to. I am sure I will be very nervous and preoccupied with the sensory overload that I will be experiencing so forgive me in advance if I am not my normal self. 

I would love to have your support, I know a lot of you have been following my journey and are excited for me. I am getting so excited the closer I get to going down the race track for the first time in 38 years.

Please pray for us to have a safe and productive weekend.

I still have a lot of things to do to get ready but I am getting closer every day. If I cannot make it for some reason, I will let all of you know before the event.

I have been doing a lot of upgrades to the car and I think it is going to run great!

I have also been working on rigging the trailer to have all of the things I need to race and work on the car. Here is a couple of pictures of the inside of the trailer.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

First Run

We just finished all of our family obligations and now I am working on the dragster again. I have gone over everything and I think it is ready. I drove it around a bit in our driveway to make sure all of the systems work on it. I also did a couple of dry hops in the driveway. The car is powerful and feels good.

I am tentatively going to Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Texas on August 4th, 5th, and 6th to run the car for the first time.

The 4th is just a street racing and testing night followed by a sportsman series race on Saturday and Sunday.

My plan is to get as many runs as I can on Friday night and try to qualify for the sportsman race on Saturday.

You are all welcome to come out to watch and support me. I am sure I will be nervous so your prayers will be welcome!

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

New Billet Oil Pump

I have been goin over everything to make sure the dragster is ready for my first test and tune in late July (that is the plan anyway). Lower end of the engine looks good. Oliver billet rods, good crank, etc as the original owner told me. It did have a cast steel oil pump (which the original owner also told me) so I decided to install a Moroso billet gerotor pump instead. It is machined out of a solid piece of aluminum and is less likely to crack and break like a cast pump. I had to upgrade the pan as well to fit over the billet pump.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

New Priming Fuel Pump

I am taking care of the last few items on the SuperComp car to get it ready to race. The car has a mechanical belt driven fuel pump on it that requires the engine to be running in order to pump gas to the carburetor. This makes it very difficult to start the car if the carburetor bowls evaporate all of the fuel out of them or you run the car completely out of fuel. You have to roll the car on the starter until the pump picks up fuel (Very hard on the starter) or squirt gasoline into the carburetor to get the engine started. This is a dangerous way to start an engine because it could backfire and burn your arm.

I re-plumbed the fuel system and added an electric pump to prime the carburetor so that the engine will start until the belt driven fuel pump starts pulling fuel from the gas tank. It is all plumbed now and only needs the electrical wires hooked up.

I also added a nice inline fuel filter (there was no fuel filter on the car) to make sure small jets in the carburetor don't get debris in them.

This is a much better arrangement!

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

New Billet Weld Delta Wheels

I finally got the wheels that belong on this car!

Once I put the black front wheels on, I knew I had to put black wheels on the back. The back wheels were the wrong backspace which caused the tires to run too close to the body. The new wheels have the correct backspace on them and correct all of the clearance problems.

These Weld Delta wheels are the best of the best. They are made from a solid piece of billet aluminum which is machined into a one piece wheel. These things are a work of art and make the car look awesome!!!!

Thanks to Shawn for finding these wheels for me. Shawn is the guy I got the car from. He has been so helpful!

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Chassis certified

This is the last step of getting the SuperComp car ready to race. The NHRA chassis certification guy came to the house and checked/certified the chassis to 6.00 seconds and slower classes. This will enable me to run SuperComp, Super Pro, and Top Dragster classes.

I have gone through everything on the car and only found one minor problem (faulty pushrod). A new set of pushrods is coming and the car will be ready.

My first runs should take place some time in August. I cannot wait!

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Good Progress!

I made some progress this weekend on the dragster and tow truck.

First the tow truck. I spent all day today changing all of the fluids and checking over the truck. It is in really good shape mechanically. 

New engine oil, new transmission oil, flushed the cooling system, changed the air filter and coolant filter.

I also added a programmer chip to add 30 percent more power for towing "The Long Long Trailer".

Now for the dragster. I finished building a new dash out of lightweight composite material. I rearranged all of the control boxes and switches to fit me better. I also reworked some circuits to work differently and make the staging process easier and safer.

I also rewired the whole car. The wiring was outdated and had a bunch of unused wires in the wire loom. That kind of stuff drives me crazy!

Every connector is now shrink wrapped to keep it from breaking from vibration. All of the terminals are now eyelet type to keep them from getting lose and vibrating out of the terminals.

Everything is zip tied together to prevent vibration failures and make everything look better. I also added miniature LED headlights (almost invisible) for coming back down return roads at night races.

I also added some sensor to the data aquisition system. I added transmission temperature, engine crankcase pressure/vacuum, and A/F ration on each header. My TIG welding is definitely getting better after building the headers for the ProMod car. I welded the collars on these stainless headers without a single blow through or "Dobber Nest", HA!!

The data system now records/displays:

• Engine RPM
• Oil Pressure 
• Water Temperature
• Oil Temperature
• Transmission Temperature
• Fuel Pressure
• Driveshaft RPM
• A/F Ratio Left Header
• A/F Ration Right Header

I also installed a new set of seat belts. The belts have to be recertified every two or three years and were out of certification. The throttle pedal and brake pedal got moved about 6 inches further forward to make room for my long legs.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

New Dragster Video

I found these videos of the new dragster running before I purchased it.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

The Long Long Drive

I have wanted a real heavy duty tow truck for a long time. The $150,000 to $200,000 price tag always kept me from being able to get one.

About a month ago I found this truck and even though it is older, it only has 36,000 miles on it. The only problem was that it was located in Bangor Maine, some 2,200 miles away!

Traci and I flew to Maine last Thursday and drove the truck home in four days. We drove 600 miles a day in an unloaded heavy duty truck. Needless to say it was a bouncy ride. We had many laughs as we ping-ponged between the seat and the roof!

The truck ran great and I think it is going to be an excellent tow truck for "The Long Long Trailer".
Over time, I will spruce up the truck and paint it black to match the trailer. The truck is not perfect  but it is great shape for what we paid for it.

It is a standard shift 10 speed, non-synchronized transmission so I had some on the job training driving it home. I can pretty much drive most things but I had never driven and non-synchronized road truck transmission before. There is definitely an art to driving these things. You may have heard a term called "double clutching" but probably do not know what that really means. Double clutching is a process that must be used to shift the gears of transmission like this. You first must push in the clutch to shift the transmission to neutral. Then, once it is neutral, you must let out the clutch to spin the gears inside the transmission so they will synchronize with the output shaft gear. Then push the clutch in again and push the shift lever into gear. If you do everything exactly right the gear shifts, if you mess up, the grinding begins until you do the process again. Panic and you will never get it into gear! Been there, done that!

Downshifting is even more fun because you have to add throttle to spin up the gears inside the transmission between shifts. After 2200 miles, I became pretty proficient at driving the truck. I am sure pulling "The Long Long Trailer" will add a layer of stress but I am sure I will get it.

If I had not had my trusty and very capable navigator, I would not have made it home. Traci is amazing putting up with my dream chasing and riding in this lumber wagon, ha!

The dream is really coming together! Some day, we are going to start going rounds in a "real" drag race!

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Cool Video

Most of you have figured out that I love all things mechanical. I came across this neat video that shows why I love the internal combustion engine so much.

Watch the video to the end and watch the gasoline burning engine and think about how it applies to the modern race engine where the events are happening over 9000 times per minute.

Cool stuff!

http://www.enginelabs.com/videos/tech-videos/engine/video-how-engines-work-in-see-through-slow-motion/

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Testing the Racepak dash

Ran the car with the Racepak hooked up tonight. All of the sensors are working and the display is configured.

Here is a video that my daughter took:

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Checking over the new car

I spend the day today going over the new car and getting it in good shape.

I ran it for a little while and made sure all of the systems functioned correctly (oil system, cooling system, dial in board, transbrake, delay box, brakes, etc. Everything functioned well and the car seemed to run good.

After that I decided to start looking at internals and do preventative maintenance. I set the valve clearance, changed the oil, retorqued bolts, etc.

About the only thing I found that I didn't like was some unused wiring in the wiring harness from th told gauge display. The previous owner was in the process of putting in a new Racepak IQ3 display and data acquisition panel in the car. Some of the sensors had been hooked up but the old wiring was left in the wiring harness. I hate stuff like that so I took the body panels off and started cutting zip ties, hundreds of them! I have all of the unused wired pulled out of the car and I am starting to route new wires and hook up sensors. It will look nice when I am done! Most of the wires have crimp on connections with no shrink wrap on them. That kind of connection is bound to fail so I am replacing everything with 3M shrink wrap terminal ends with shrink wrap one the top of them to prevent vibration failure.

The valve train looked fantastic and was all high quality components. I am very pleased! I also pulled all of the decals off of the car to get it ready to make it mine!

T&D rockers and 904 bronze bushed lifter bores. All good stuff. Valve lash is set and I tested spring pressures on all of the cylinders. I stated a spreadsheet with all of the spring pressures so I can watch for valve spring failures.

The car looks good without the decals all over it

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

The New Car

After the Super Comp licensing school Traci and I decided to take a step back and look at the safest (not the cheapest) way to accomplish my goals in drag racing.

We realized that "The Black Hole" was a lot of car for an old newbie to tackle. We both agreed that a better plan was to buy a nice Super Comp dragster that was in good shape and start going to races as soon as possible.

The new plan requires that I slow down production on "The Black Hole" and spend the money that we were about to put into it on a dragster instead. This will push out the debut date for the "The Black Hole" significantly but will increase the odds of me actually making it down the track without ping ponging it off of the walls. If I do that, game over!

We found the new car on Monday and we are going to take "The Long, Long Trailer" to pick it up this weekend (Friday, April 14).

We have a bunch of stuff that is on our schedule until the 4th of July (including the Second Annual Harvey 4th of July Celebration at our lake house), picking up the new (used) tow truck, finishing a bathroom at the lake house, having a new grand baby, etc., etc.

I will tell more about the car on the new car page when I get the car.

Here are a couple of pictures of it.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

NHRA Super Comp License

Just completed a Super Comp licensing course at the Texas Motorplex this weekend.

It was a blast! I accomplished all of the requirements for my license and ran two runs in the 8.60s at 150+ mph.

Fastest I have ever gone on the dragstrip and in a car. I have gone faster speeds on sport bikes but have never accelerated that quickly. It was a surprise that these Super Comp cars are that quick. My car is going to be insane!

Here is a video of one of the quick runs.

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page

Front end has arrived!!!

Just picked up the front end for the car. Check it out with it's clothes on!!!

Click on the Blog Archive hierarchy on the right hand side to see my posts in order. The ones at the bottom are the newest posts.

Or

Back to Home Page