Herbold Racing!

Yesterday was a very good day with a bitter ending. So I am going to break up yesterday into two posts - and starting with the bad (this one). We loaded the car up after me getting eliminated in the second round of the ADRA memorial race. Then as I was driving home with the car and trailer, some idiot chick in a truck pulled out of a shopping center parking lot and blocked the leftmost lane of the eastbound traffic (the lane I was in) trying to get into the westbound traffic side of the road. Now, this is illegal - I know because my wife got a traffic ticket for doing that once. I wasn’t moving that fast but did have to brake a bit hard to avoid ramming into that truck. I came to a complete stop and waited for the truck to move out of the way.

Now comes the bad part. After that truck moved out of the way I pressed the gas pedal to move forward again. I hear two loud bangs, and the truck felt like it was dragging something. I quickly stop the truck and l look up in my rear view mirror and see a very weird sight. There was nothing on my trailer… and the Duster was behind it.

OMFG!

I turn on the hazard lights and run out. A bunch of young men from other cars get out also - I think they were spectators at the Speedworld track. They rush over to ask if I needed help. Hell, yeah I do! Some guy starts directing traffic (this is a busy 3 lane eastbound road). I pop the Duster into neutral and try to move the car back away from the trailer. It won’t move - the front bumper is caught on the lip of the trailer. So I and another guy jump on the trailer to use our weight to get the car off. The car comes off and we roll it back away from the trailer a bit. Then I hop into the truck and wait for a break in traffic to move it into an empty area of the shopping mall parking lot. I ran back to the Duster and again wait for a break in traffic. We pushed the Duster into the parking lot behind the trailer.

I thanked the guys (there were maybe 4 or 5 of them) for their help and they went on their way. I take a moment to observe what happened. All the straps were still intact. The tie downs were still there. But each tie down was hanging on to only one end of the axle strap… so what happened was that when I hit the brakes on the truck both tie downs on the front of the Duster slackened enough to drop the axle straps. Poof, just like that the car wasn’t secured any more.

I will never use these tie downs again. They are of the open hook end kind - nothing to guarantee it will hold on to anything if the straps slacken for any reason. I am going to order a better tie down kit from Summit - the type with snap hooks.

Now as far as damage is concerned - I can see damage to the trailer and to the front bumper of the Duster (see pictures below). I don’t see any other obvious damage to the underside of the Duster. I have not popped the hood open yet to see if there is any damage to the headers. I will be loading the car back into my garage later this morning and that’s when I will do a careful look over of the car for other damage. If the front bumper was the only thing that was damaged, I’ll consider myself extremely lucky.

I have been very busy with the car lately.  Last Sunday I took the car out to the track for a little bit of test and tune.  That was a success, although there were some noteworthy moments that I will talk about a little bit later.  Then all week I’ve been working on the car after my day job to get it ready for tomorrow’s race.  Sometimes next week I promise to bring you all up to date with details of the test and tune and tomorrow’s race.  There are going to be lots of pictures and videos, and the best part is tomorrow’s videos will be in full high definition glory.  Stay tuned!

Remember that in my last post I mentioned I nearly set the car on fire.  Here are the pictures of the melted wire.  In another picture you can see the burn mark on the gauge where it short circuited.  The voltmeter gauge was badly designed - it had a cardboard insulator on the positive side with the hole cut out to be exactly the same size as the housing hole.  This meant if your cardboard insulation slipped even a hair while you were tightening the bolt on the positive side, the washer would make contact with the gauge housing, creating a short circuit.  In fact it is very difficult not to make a short circuit when installing this gauge.  Fortunately I solved this problem by using a strategically placed rubber grommet - now it is impossible for the washer to come into contact with the gauge housing.  I also added a fuse to avoid meltdowns in the future. 

I also replaced the lower radiator hose.  I took some pictures of the installation.  I shortened the radiator hose by using an angle grinder with a cutting disc.  It all fits very well now and there’s just no chance of that hose popping off when tugged on.

Just a brief update - some things have been happening with the car.  First off, while I was hooking up the voltmeter gauge I nearly set the car on fire.  Lots of smoke and I had to replace 3 melted wires.  Turns out the Summit gauge is very badly designed and quite dangerous - but nothing a rubber grommet in a strategic place can’t fix.  More details and pictures on that later.

Some more parts from Summit has arrived.  They are a pair of gauges and mounting cups, one for fuel pressure and one for manifold vacuum.  I am not going to worry about hooking them up and mounting them until after my first race.

I’ve also gone to Checker and bought a new radiator hose - the nice stainless steel and chrome kind.  The reason for that is I don’t trust the lower radiator hose - it’s really hanging on by only around half an inch so a good tug from the engine would send water pouring down all over the track.  I am going to be replacing that tomorrow morning.

Then on Sunday I will be taking the car to Speedworld for its second time out!  We are just going to be doing some test and tune and watching the girls race if that isn’t cancelled.  Just basically, we are going to be getting the car ready and setting it up for my very first race next Saturday.  Cross your fingers and hope it all goes well on Sunday!

Pictures coming soon, I promise!

Oh BTW I finally got around to ordering the new Canon Vixia HF11 high definition camcorder.  With luck it will arrive tomorrow.  If it all works out, all my videos will be in full high definition splendor from here on out.

Last Sunday, I wired up the radiator fan and got that working. Then on Monday, I installed a belt for the alternator and mounted the radiator. I also filled up the radiator with straight water and tested out the water pump. The pump didn’t seem to be really working but that may have just been because of air in the hoses. Then today after work, I reconnected all the transmission fluid cooler lines. At this point all the hoses and lines have been reconnected and it should be safe to try starting the engine.

Here goes!

It all works! No visible leaks, and the alternator is definitely working because the voltage goes up on my multimeter. Even the water pump works - I can see a pretty good water flow when looking into the radiator.

I couldn’t be happier! There are only a few very minor details to work out before I take the car to the track on Sunday for test and tune. I just need to hook up wires to the voltmeter inside the car (it is currently disconnected). I also need to tune the carburetor - basically set the float levels, adjust the idle mixture screws, and adjust the curb idle screw. I have a vacuum gauge port that I installed that I will use to set up the carburetor. I might do that after work tomorrow if I don’t get home from work too late into the afternoon.

It looks like if the test and tune this Sunday is successful, then I will be entering into my very first race next Saturday the 22nd! That race is the ADRA memorial race which they have at the end of every season, and the prize money in the class I will be racing in is $1000. I fully expect that I will not win any money, but the learning experience that is sure to come is going to be very rewarding in itself.

Today was a major day for me.  Jerad was coming over to help me out with my car!  We were going to try and do as much as humanly possible in one day.  The first thing we did when Jerad showed up was to try and start my car.  Remember that I have not run the car since I took the carburetor off to rebuild it.  In the past week I’ve put the carburetor back together on the car along with a new heat shield, but I had no clue as to whether or not it would even work.  In fact, I was pretty nervous about it and there was a lingering fear in the back of my mind.  I was afraid that as soon as I turn the key there would suddenly be a giant smoking crater where my garage used to be.

We double checked all the connections and all the settings - the fuel pressure gauge was acting crazy - and by crazy I mean the needle was off the chart!  Jerad said it would settle to a sane value as soon as the engine was running.  Ok, so… it was the moment of truth.  Would the car run?  Or would I be faced with having to buy a whole new carburetor because I ruined it?  I turn the key and pump the gas lightly a couple of times.

ROAR!

The engine starts and goes nuts.  It immediately shoots to 2500 RPM and holds steady about there… and I’m not even touching the gas pedal.  After a few seconds of this, I start to freak out and kill the ignition.  Jerad and I looked at the carburetor and scratched our heads.  We decide to try again… I turn the key and the engine goes to 2500 RPM just like before.  Jerad backs out the idle screw until it’s not even touching the throttle shaft and the engine still won’t calm down.

I start getting upset - I was looking at an expensive carburetor replacement.  I shouldn’t have tried something as daring as rebuilding it!  It was ruined!  Tears start to well up in my eyes (well, ok not really).  Then Jerad notices how the primary throttle shaft seems to be stuck on slightly open even when the gas pedal is not pressed and the idle screw is not even touching the shaft.  Ok, I unhook the throttle cable and the throttle shaft snaps to the fully closed position.  Allright, that was weird… for some reason the throttle cable is pulling on the carburetor even when the pedal is not pressed.  So then we adjust the throttle cable to a new position where it doesn’t do that any more.

I start the engine for the third time.  Horray!  It no longer goes to 2500 RPM.  Jerad is able to use the idle screw to adjust the idle RPM in a normal fashion.  The engine is happily puttering along at 900 RPM - so I shut it off and call it mission accomplished… the carburetor still works.  Now, while I am writing this post…  looking back I realize what actually happened.  Remember I said that I added a heat shield under the carburetor?  This raised the carburetor up good one quarter of an inch.  So, of course the throttle cable is going to be too short now!

Jerad told me that the fuel pressure gauge needle settled back to normal after the engine started running - it’s currently set to about 8 PSI.  That is great!  Before, when we took the car out to Speedworld, we could barely get it up to 7 PSI.  So this means my fuel starvation issues are probably solved now.

I had three major things left to do with the car.  First, we needed to put on the new CSR high flow electric water pump that I had bought a while back.  At the same time, we needed to put on the new electric fan and shroud that I just got from Summit Racing.  And then thirdly, we needed to put on the new 75 amp Powermaster alternator that I also just got from Summit Racing.

The first thing we did was drain the water from the engine.  The water that came out looked a bit like mud - very brown in color.  Then, we took off the old water pump - and more muddy water came out.  I wanted to get rid of all that goop, so I took my garden hose and stuck it in all the water pump holes and flushed the system out.  I also stuck it down into the radiator and flushed some more mud out from there.  I kept flushing everything until the water that came back out was clear.

We also unhooked the radiator hoses and tranny cooler lines and completely took out the radiator.  At this point we figured out that there was just no way we could put on the fan and shroud along with the CSR water pump - there wasn’t room for it!  We put on the new water pump, and then tried to figure out where we would be mounting the alternator.  We started by putting on the Moroso crankshaft pulley.  I had ordered some Mopar small block alternator mounting brackets from Summit Racing, but we found out they were designed to be used with the stock water pump.  The CSR water pump didn’t have the correct bolts for it - so we ended up taking the those brackets and modifying them to make it work for us.  We successfully put the alternator on the driver’s side of the engine, and are feeling pretty confident about it.  We’re done with mounting and wiring up the alternator - the only thing left to do with that is to measure out and get a belt for it.

Since there wasn’t room for both the fan and water pump behind the radiator, we decided to turn around the fan and make it into a pusher by mounting it in front of the radiator.  We moved the tranny cooler off as far to the driver’s side as possible, and put the fan on next to it.  This is pretty much where we are at now in our progress - the radiator is back in the car and it looks like everything will work.  We just need to finish up the plumbing of the radiator and get all the wiring done for the radiator fan and water pump.  That’s something I will be doing for the rest of this week, before and after work every day.   Hopefully, by the end of the week, I’ll have the car completely back together and running again.  Then, of course, it’s off to Speedworld for some extreme horizontal acceleration fun!

Here are some random pictures I took of today’s progress.