Herbold Racing!

I got a bunch more parts for my 418 stroker build here today. I took pictures of them…

Ok… here goes!

We woke up. I told Shelley I’d like to go to the track with the Dart today and that I’d like her to come with me. She said ok. I called my mom and dad to see if they could watch the kids for a few hours. They said ok. I loaded up the truck with tools and gas and so on. Piled the kids up into the truck and off we went to mom and dad’s place about 8 minutes away, me following in the Dart. We get there, unload the kids. Then we head towards the freeway but stopping by for gas first. I fill the Dart up. Then we head towards our bank’s ATM at Desert Ridge. I wait for her to drive through the ATM drive through. While waiting I notice the car sounds rough and pop it into neutral and didn’t think any more of it. Shelley came out of the drive through and we headed to the main Desert Ridge exit. Then, while waiting for the light to turn green, the Dart just dies. My biggest fear came true… the Dart died! Crap! I hop out of the Dart and run to the truck to let Shelley know, so she doesn’t leave when the light turns green. I pop the hood and jiggle a few things and try to get the Dart started again. Nothing. Sometimes it sounds like it’s trying to catch but won’t start. Great. So I tell Shelley to drive to my uncle’s house where the trailer is and grab the tie downs bag from the tool box on the trailer so we can tow the Dart home.

Shelley comes back with the tow straps and Keven and my uncle Dave. We put the tow straps on the Dart, hooked the other end up to the truck, and towed the car across the street where there wasn’t any traffic for us to block. Then Keven and I looked at the car. Keven said he thought it might be the ballast or the coil. I gave Keven 40 bucks and he went to a nearby Checker and came back with a new ballast and coil. We tried the ballast first. New one went in. We tried starting the car… no go. It would catch and go for like 1 second then die. Battery was getting tired at this point from all that cranking. We took the connections off the old coil and put them on the new coil (without actually taking the old coil out of the bracket). Got in the car, and gave it a try. After a couple of coughs and sputters it caught and the engine ran. Keven adjusted the idle mixture screw a bit and the car now runs better than it ever did. No stumble on acceleration any more.

Anyway, Keven suggested that if I was still going to the track to take the trailer with us. Good idea. So we drive to my uncle’s house, and while Dave and Shelley get the trailer hooked up to the truck, I work on the Dart and swap out the coils. Hot motor. Lots of ouchies. I get that done and we are ready to go. I follow Shelley all the way to the track without a problem.

We get to the track. We drive around the pits trying to find a space. Man – its like everyone and his cousin and brother and dog came out racing today. The pits were completely full, and spilled over into the guest parking area. We managed to find a spot way out in the corner near the motorcross area. Tech was a breeze – the tech guy is a huge slant six fan. He couldn’t stop talking about it. LOL. The car passed with flying colors, and I observed him checking out the battery hold down and the coolant recovery. Whoo hoo!

I drive into the staging lanes, and wait. And wait. And wait. They let the trophy class go. Then the non-electronics class go. Then the electronics class. Then the jr dragsters. Then finally it was our turn. I drive around the water box, and in the other lane there is a pretty bad ass altered gets ready to do his burn out. Then the track shuts down because the guys in front of us puked some fluid in the right lane. So after 5 minutes of cleaning, they start up again.

I don’t do any burnout – just drive up to prestage. I wait for the other guy to prestage. Then I stage, and the other guy stages. I push down on the brakes really hard and floor the accelerator slowly. The third amber bulb comes on and I let go of the brake… and this was my train of thought:

“Wow. This is slow…”

“The car must be bogging big time…”

“It’s still bogging? That’s a really long bog…”

“The motor doesn’t sound like it’s going… maybe the accelerator isn’t all the way to the floor…”

(I let off and then press the accelerator back down)

“This is a slow ass car…”

“Maybe I broke something…”

“Oh look here is the finish line… I wonder what my ET will be…”

“Finally across the finish line… here comes the turn off…”

“Damn that was slow…”

Now watch the video… and see what REALLY happened. I had NO idea the tire was spinning like that. The roar of the altered in the next lane totally blocked out any tire spin squeal.

I’m going to have to figure out how to race with this car. Obviously there is no traction, so I have to make the launch as soft as possible… meaning no power brake launches… launch from idle. I should think about getting different tires. Keven’s run flat tires are extremely stiff. The contact patch is probably tiny. Then there is the open differential. I wonder if Henry can put something in the 7 1/4?

Well… that is the story of today. I paid $35 to do one 25.9 second test and tune pass. LOL! Sheez….

I’ve got my mind set around going to the drag track this day. I think I’ve also convinced Shelley to go, so we’ll have some video footage of the Dart going down the drag strip. It’s going to be huge and crowded today – the Hang Over Nationals. I am going to leave the car as it is now, take it there, make one run, and then start fooling with the timing if I can. That way I have a baseline to work from. I just hope the car doesn’t break on me! I’ll try to get Shelley to film the car on the street driving also.

Listen to this video… you’ll see what I am talking about.

I took off the drums, ground down the edges of the weights on the drum so they won’t touch the Cragars any more. Put the drum back on. Ran the car – crap – still squeaks. I took the drum off and ground down the edges of the metal part of the brake shoes a few thousandths. Put the drum on. Still squeaks. Must be the brake shoes themselves. Then I put the wheel back on and turned the tire… yeah there’s a section where it gets harder to turn and a section where it practically free wheels. Hmm. I did notice that if I applied the brakes just a tad the squeaking goes away. Ok… so… raised the back of the car way up, got under it, adjusted the brake shoe on that wheel so its a bit tighter. Jammed a spare tire under the passenger side wheel, started the car up, put it in D. Passenger tire turns while idling… and no squeak! Woo hoo!

So this means the shoe or drum got warped when we put the Cragars on that drum and tightened it down without realizing that drum had weights on it. We trimmed some height off those weights on Keven’s metal lathe but I think the damage was already done. I’m going to run it as it is now since eventually I’m going to get a whole new rear end and driveline anyway. At least there is no embarrasing squeak now.

I also added some battery hold downs and put on a coolant overflow recovery kit.  They are required to run the car at the track.

Some pictures…

Over the past several weeks I have been ordering parts to build my 340 / 418 stroker motor for the Dart. Some of the parts have started to arrive. I also downloaded and installed the CamQuest6 camshaft selection software from Comp Cams. It is pretty neat. I entered all the information on my engine combination and selected a camshaft, and then the software gave me an estimate of the motor’s performance.

Bottom line – 447.7 HP @ 5500 RPM and 503.1 ft*lb at 3500 RPM.  That is more power than a 2nd generation Dodge Viper puts out!  I just hope the fuel mileage is decent. 

Here are pictures of some of the parts that have arrived so far…

My first race is in a couple of weeks. I’ve taken the Dart out yesterday to go to the store and did a couple of WOT sprints on the back roads and she seems to handle it ok. The carpet interferes with the pedal operation a little bit at WOT (its bumpy in the area) and I’ll need to do something about that. I am also missing an overflow catch can – they’ll definitely spot that at tech. I’ll get one and a little hose and bolt that on the Dart. Then the drivers side rear drum is squeaking a little bit. There are weights on top of that drum and when we put the Cragar on it
pushed on the weight and distorted the drum and made the brake pad rub on the side where the weights are. We used a metal lathe to cut some of the height off the weights and got the wheel to spin freely. But now I can hear a tiny bit of a squeak squeak squeak squeak from that wheel when I drive so I am going to get out my grinder and grind the weights down some more. Then its ready for the track, faulty accelerator pump and all… LOL!