Mopars, Drag Racing, Engine Building, etc…
Archive for February, 2009
Diagnosing the Problem
Feb 22nd
I have a new friend from way up north in Canada. His name is Andy Closkey. We “met” through the www.MoparStyle.com forums and for the past couple of months have been emailing each other quite often. He is a serious drag racer and also builds his own engines. He is also an NHRA technical inspector and really knows his stuff. Anyway, he has been looking and listening to the two videos from the most recent test and tune trying to diagnose what the problem with the car might be. He suggested that I do a few things:
1) Do a compression test.
2) Try new plugs – specifically, try the NGK GR4′s which is a good baseline plug.
3) Check the cap, rotor, and wires, for corrosion buildup or anything else weird.
4) Verify that there are gaskets under the carb.
5) Verify the float levels.
6) Clean the carb.
7) Try some fresh fuel.
Over the next week or so I am going to try and hit on as many of these as possible.
Test & Tune
Feb 21st
Yesterday I went to watch the big guys (John & Ashley Force, Schumacher, Capps, etc…) race in top fuel and funny cars. I also saw all the stockers race. I had a lot of fun that day but decided to go home a little bit early because I was getting sunburnt pretty bad (forgot my hat) and needed to rest up for today’s test and tune! I was excited to see what kind of times I would get with that 4.86 rear end.
Test and tune today went badly. The car did not run right at all. When I made my first pass, I noticed a lot of popping (ignition breakup, causing backfiring) at the top of first gear and all throughout second and third gears. I figured maybe a jetting change would fix it – so I jetted up 3 sizes all around.
Second pass – the popping seemed worse! Maybe it wasn’t worse but it was definitely at least as bad as the first pass. So I figure maybe I should go the other way and jetted down 6 sizes (3 down from where I started with for the day).
Third pass – The popping didn’t seem as intense so I kept the gas floored all through this run. The car didn’t even break 13 seconds. It was at the end of the day and the staging lanes were closing up so I just did one last thing which was to check the timing of the ignition.
The timing turned out to be 34 at 1000 RPM and increased to 38 at higher RPMs.
Here are a couple of videos from the day. The first one is of pass #2:
And the second one is of pass #3:
Lucas Slick Mist NHRA Nationals this Friday
Feb 19th
This Friday (tomorrow!) I will be going to the Lucas Slick Mist NHRA Nationals to watch the big guys play. The event is at Firebird International Raceway . I’ll be there just on Friday but they are racing all weekend. I am also thinking about going to Speedworld this Saturday for a little test and tune – I am anxious to try out the 4.86 gear!
Back to 4.86!
Feb 16th
I got up real early this morning and took the car in to Arizona Differential Specialists. Henry swapped out the gear and it was ready by noon as promised. Excellent service, as usual! Now we will see how fast this car goes now that it’ll be able to run through its full power band in 3rd gear.
Wayne Smothers Classes
Feb 14th
I am trying to drum up interest in an Engine Tuning class that Wayne Smothers may be giving in the Phoenix area on March 21st. He will only do it if we can get at least 10 people interested in it (he has to haul his stuff all the way from Oklahoma).
If you are interested, please contact him at 918-274-HEMI .
Click on the image below for a bigger view of it!
Details on the Engine Tuning class can be found here:
http://www.smotherssupercars.com/engineclass.html
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