My open track adventure at Pocono. Next event is Aug. 9th.

[klayfish]

I ran my car at the PDA driving school this past Saturday on Pocono's north course. What a day it was...

Morning started off nicely. Beautiful weather, nice turnout. Stan Brown stopped by to say hello. Finally, my run group came up about 10:30am. On my pace lap, I notice the car sputters under any lateral g load. Uh-oh. Now, I had just picked up the car from my mechanic yesterday evening. We (well, he) had just finished installing my 351W. It was a used motor, so it was already broken in. However, it was a much more difficult swap from the 302 than he had imagined, so it took much longer. Never got the chance to shake the motor down. I was so excited to run this motor. It's built up to be around 375hp, a far cry from my old 200hp 302. Anyway, the session starts and same thing. The car just won't go under any kind of lateral g. Mis-fires badly. I limp it around for the session and bring it in. Thankfully, a future FFR customer, Ben, had come out to take a look at my car. My mechanical skills are limited. I understand what everything is and how it works, just don't know how to apply it.

Ben raised the float level on the carbs primary and I go off for my second run. Much better. Car runs great. Played cat and mouse with an M3 and a 'Vette much of the session. Lots of fun. Those newer cars with modern suspensions can just handle much better than a Cobra, but it sure is fun trying to keep with them.

Third run out, the car is down under a half tank of fuel. Damn, I need a fuel cell. Must have pick up issues, because the miss came back.

Filled up with fuel and back out for run number 4. Car is running great for about 7 or 8 laps. Then suddenly, this mis-fire returns. It misses for a lap or two, then suddenly, sputter, cough, POP...silence. Crap. Thankfully, it happened right at pit road entrance, so I pull in. It's late in the day, last session. Ben had gone home for the day. I'm thinking I'm stuck. Gonna have to get a flatbed to take me the 90 miles home. Thankfully, one of the guys from a local racing group, called Entropy Racing, took the time to help me out. Took a look at the car and realized I had no spark. Dug into my distributor and found that it had sheared off the pin in the drive gear. Thankfully the drive gear was undamaged. I had just bought that distributor brand new 2 days before!! How does the pin shear off?!?! He rigged it back together using a small cotter pin, and I was able to drive the car home. Funny thing is that when he did this, he didn't have a timing light to perfectly reset the timing, he just put it back as best as we could. The mis-fire completely disappeared!!

All in all, it was quite an adventure. Not having had the time to shake down my new motor was a bad idea, but I figured this would be a test and tune session. I can't say enough for the atmosphere at these open track events. Guys will go so far out of their way to help one another, it is like nothing else.

The next run at Pocono is Saturday Aug. 9th. That is on the long course, which is probably about 2.5 miles in length. It runs about 2/3 of the Winston Cup track, then the rest on the infield road course. C'mon out and run with me. I know Roscoe is coming. You can sign up at www.pdadrivingschool.com Hope to see you there (I may need another mechanic )

Steve