Repairs so far

[colin mullaney]

Hi Cobrashoch, the motor changes this year will be minor but I still hope to see some improvements. It ran 9.48 at 142 on the motor under poor conditions. Restrictive 2 1/8 headers, missing torrington bearing between timing gear and cam, tired rings, poor valve sealing (leakdown was 30-65 % on four cylinders), and gears chosen for nitrous. I was going through the top end at only about 6,000 rpm. I won't change rear end gears but the rest is being corrected.

I ran a 8.40 at 160 on nitrous then found one nitrous line was plugged. Must have been horribly rich and giving up lots of power. That has been corrected too.

Since I can't go any faster than 7.50 I'm going to take my time with power improvements over the next few years. I want to spend this year getting the most out of the motor as is, then next winter port the heads. There is a fair amount of improvement available there, especially on the exhaust side. The year after that will be a bigger cam with wider lobe seperation. They tell me there's room for improvement there too. By then I hope to also be using more nitrous. The cheater is set at the full 250 horsepower but the fogger is only at 250 out of 500. I also have another fogger kit I may add. Who knows where it will end, but I'm having fun.

I agree about using a TIG welder, don't like the mess of a MIG for this application. I'm sure I'll curse and bang and temporarily regret doing the headers myself but it the end it will probably work out and I'll feel good about having done it myself.

How's your's coming? What happened since we last talked? What's happening this year?

Colin