Today the local track had their street legal races, Secret Street, on the Sunday afternoon. We were on track sometime just after noon. The track was very cold and slippery until around 2:30.

I wound up running my best pass ever here in Calgary with a 11.207 @ 118.23 mph. On the next and last pass of the day something decided to let go inside the engine just before mid track. There was a loud rattling noise and smoke coming out from behind the car. When I got turned off the track and shut the engine down the noise was even more noticable at an idle. I quickly jumped out to look under the car. By then the safety crew had arrived. No track oildown let everyone keep running. The tow truck driver was very busy today. I was the fourth car to go on the back of his truck plus he also had 3 cars that just needed to be pushed off the track.

No parts sticking out anywhere but there was a lot of oil pouring out the exhaust. Until I get a chance to do another tear down I suspect I broke a piston. Once I do a tear down I'll know if the heads, block, con rods, crankshaft have survived or not. There's still oil in the engine and coolent in the rad so the damage can't be as bad as it was last year but I suspect a complete rebuild with a bunch of new parts will be done.

6 Months until the start of the 2003 racing season leave lots of time for a rebuild.

 

Damn, hope it is'nt too serious. It's kinda funny though that at the end of the season seems like every other car is breaking or blowing things. I had a fresh motor for the second half of the season, and if your like me and see the PILE of timeslips, that's alot of abuse we're puttin these motors under, surprising they last as long as they do and run as consistent. You've read my other post and my buddy went through 3 motors the last 3 races of the year, 355 mystery motor, 454 stock short block with mods to cam/intake-1 pass, then the stock 400 straight out of a 75 Caprice Classic to finish the year-he won the points for street class.
Sorry to hear about the unfortunate loss, but that just means bigger and better-you've been playing the game long enough to know

 

P.S. ain't it neat how they run their best right before they blow!!!
Ahhhh, the joys of racing or should I say spending money?!!

 

My old 383 ran it's best of 11.24 just before blowing up as I crossed the finish line. Those 7000 rpm shifts didn't agree with a stock bottom end. I was only shifting the BBC at 6700

I've now broke a 383 SBC and I just broke my third BBC. 4 engines in 2 years. That's not counting how many times I've had my TH400 apart this year.

I'm already looking at some +.060 JE pistons to make it a 468 just in case 13:1 compression will mean no more 92 pump gas. Alcohol may become an option. www.ronsfuel.com

Depending on how bad the bottom end is I may also need to track down some con rods with 7/16 rod bolts.

Racing is very hard on parts. There's no such thing as a budget buildup if you want to go fast. Extreme abuse requires extreme parts. Anyone could run a 14-16 second car forever with no major failures but if you want to go faster, expect parts to fail.

I get very close to 200 passes each season.

I'm going to guess at around a maximum of a $4000 Canadian bill before the engine is started up again. It's all going to depend on how bad the internals are. I might be able to get away with a simple $1500 rebuild also.

I suppose a good thing is that I can have the engine out and sitting on the engine stand in about 1 1/2 hours. I didn't really feel like pulling the engine out after coming back from the track. Maybe next weekend.

 

It hits you in the gut when **** like that happens and after a full season of headaches it's kinda nice to "chill out" for awhile and let the car sit. We just pulled the stock 400 out of the malibu this week and now the cars under the cover until after christmas, that's when he's gonna start the 454 rebuild. I already have the new hood and cowl sent out to the body mans shop, cars interior is getting pulled next week for cage install after that, then mines off till *** knows when to get the outside under control and looking sweet. Once I get her back, the heads are coming off and being sent out for some serious port work, then I'll install the Fel-pro thinner head gasket in hopes of upping compression from 9:3.1 to 9:8.1 and better flow w/ head work. The Ford 9" might be on hold unless winter construction season is profitable cause I'll have enough wrapped up in everything else. I'd like to see consistent low 13's but until I change cam's-highly unlikely with this car-I might just have to be happy with where it's at. It's already a proven winner, but now I got the speed bug. We'll save all that dough for the real race car.

 

Sad to hear bad news once again from north of the border! Maybe you need to shift just a bit more rpm below the redline of the motors to prolong their lives...................

Actually, sounds like a piston simply failed.

Keep the faith and stay the course. You're destined for victory lane next season, I can feel it!!

Phil
Tucson, AZ

 

I ended the season with my 14-sec car on exactly the opposite note - wasn't running its best times, but the last time slip had the "win" arrow pointing my way.

The last weekend of racing here started off with cool weather and elevation-like altitude densities. A fellow racer commented, "There'll be lots of breaking today." Unfortunately, he was right - about 5 oil-downs each Saturday & Sunday. The bright side is that none of them ended up in the wall.

I've got head work planned for the winter (and disk front brake conversion). Thought I'd have the radiator drained the day after the last race, looks like it will be a little longer than that before I get into it.

Hope yours is on the cheaper and quicker side of getting it running again.

 

Hey Stephen, not to get off subject, but what do they charge ya up there for alcohol, besides the expensive carb swap, if we buy it in 55 gallon drums down here it's only $2.50/gal. And you probably already know all the benefits of running alcohol. Waaay cheaper than what the track gets for high octane level race fuel which usually starts at about $4-5/gallon.

 

I've never asked about the price. I think it only costs a little more than the 92 pump gas. The price of pump gas just went up. I just picked some up for last weekend and paid $0.81 Canadian per liter for the 92 octane.

3.785 liters in a US gallon = $3.06 Canadian per US gallon. That works out to $1.95 US for a gallon of 92 pump gas at the current exchange rate. From that I would guess, alcohol should be about $2-$2.50/gallon or somewhere close to that. That means I might be paying about $1- $1.50/liter for the stuff here if it's even that high.

When I was buying C12 it was $63.50 Canadian for 5 US gallons. That's $40.60 US for 5 gallons or $8.12/gallon. Defenitly a big price difference. Even when I mixed it 50/50 with the 92 pump gas it's still expensive.

Once you get over the sticker shock of converting to alcohol, the price of the fuel is great. Even though you'll burn close to twice as much alcohol as race fuel. I'd go through about 5 gallons of gas on a weekend. I would expect to go through 10 gallons of alcohol. You just need to be aware of the extra maintanence required when running alcohol. Draining and flushing the fuel system after every race. Oil changes every couple of races. Adding a pump gas injection to get the engine started when it's cold.

Some tracks give away alcohol for free but not our local VP fuel distributor. They have a storage truck set up at the track for our race fuel needs. The most common fuel they sell is M1 alcohol, C12 and C14. They even carry nitro for the few top fuel Harleys in town. You can buy a drum to get the discount but don't have to take possession of the drum. When you go to the truck to pick up fuel they just keep a register of how much fuel you take each time until you've taken your 55 gallons.

Back to the car. I won't know what kind of damage I've done until this weekend when I yank the engine out. I'm already pricing out "new" parts that I think I might need. As much as I'd like a 540 engine, it's just too far out of my budget since that requires just about new everything including a block.

 

Wow! I've been crunching some numbers on creating a new engine. If I convert to alcohol and go with some 13:1 pistons, everything says I should stay with an engine no bigger than 468 (454 +.060). Something bigger like a 472, 489 or 496 just won't fit my combination of parts. At least not with alcohol.

The current number crunching for a 468 says I should get rid of the 4.56 gears and go with 3.73's with the tires I use unless I can tub out the rear to fit BIG tires undernieth, 32" tall etc. It also looks like my shift point will have to come down from 6700 to 6000 and my 5700 stall converter needs to be closer to 4000. At least a 6000 rpm shift isn't going to hurt the engine for a long time.

Now assuming all this is done and I can get traction, my current combination of parts running 11.2 would now run 10.5's here at altitude. NO POWER ADDERS! yet

I'm going to be revamping my web site in the next few months. I need to add a section of destruction. Picks of all the broken parts I have lying around starting with the 383 destruction.

Speed is a sickness and the only cure is spending more money.

 

I got the desk top drag strip and let "it" do the combinations for me, and like you it said I needed a higher stall, 3500 to a 4500 and then lower my shift points to 5 grand instead of 6, and chane to a 3.62-though I've never heard of a 3.62 instead od 4.1's like I planned, supposedly I'll be mid 12's. Sounds too good to be true.

If you could geyt your "new combo" to work like that with the lower shifts it all stay together that much longer for sure, I don't mind winding small blocks up to 8K, but BBC's that alot of weight spinnin round at 7K, even with the right bottome end. I've always been told that the BBC like to be "short shifted" to stay in there torque curve.