Topics

16

Altereds / Wheelie bar length?

« on: November 03, 2019, 07:10:30 AM »

I will be replacing our wheelie bars over the winter. The ones we have currently are 52" (4' 4") and their main problem is that being quite short the tolerance on the setting is too small. I'm thinking of moving up to 72" (6'). Any longer & they will not fit in the current support vehicle & I'd have to fab some way of fixing them on our open trailer. I think it's sufficient length anyway, but what do you folks run on your cars?

17

Altereds / Ran our first seven!

« on: September 17, 2019, 01:58:21 PM »

Team Thundergod just had a crazy weekend. On Friday the car wouild not start at all (see previous threads re poor starting). Eventually we realised it could only be the fuel pump so we borrowed one & it fired up right away. Ran it but it was so fat because the pump was delivering way more fuel that we only did a couple of 9 second passes. I finally got the tune more or less back on track & we went 7.98 @ 169. Still way rich! We were hoping for a better final pass as I had leaned it a bit more but I made a mistake by filling the tank to the brim with the system still full of fuel, then leaving it in the hot sun for half an hour. Fuel must have pushed into the cylinders, it would barely turn over let alone fire & we missed our chance.

Video from Santa Pod Raceway:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2451364821773018&id=100006985711150

18

Spud Miller's Cave / Hat nozzle type and starting issue

« on: August 09, 2019, 01:32:33 PM »

Hiya
Our motor has been difficult to start, it always fires after priming but will often die either immediately or while you are feeding it on the bottle. Once on the pump it runs fine.
Inspecting it recently I noticed that the hat nozzles are the non-ported type. Would having the single hole ported type help with starting?

19

Altereds / First full pass on current combo at last!

« on: July 19, 2019, 11:54:39 AM »

Exactly a year on from our first meeting with our 'new' combo we finally, after a weekend of frustration, got her down the track under power all the way. The driver pedalled slightly off the line to a 1.33 60', 5.67 @ 137 at the 1/8th but it really charged after half track to 8.40 @ 184mph! We were hoping for 7.7 / 7.8 @ 170 ish but what the hey, looks like we could run 7.3s sometime soon! This was with only 30 degrees of timing! I think it leaned out at the big end, plug plating was burnt just up to 1st thread. Check out this video, we're on at 22 mins, LH lane, you can see me start the motor & on the line.

20

Dan Dishon's Transmission Den / Can you ID our converter?

« on: July 06, 2019, 08:39:05 AM »

We got our converter second hand with the motor & I'm trying to find some info on it. I don't know the manufacturer but it has this stamped on it:
829 B14XLS +1/4 A1014135. It's about 10.5" diameter. Obviously the +1/4 is the extra lug thickness for the motor plate but that's all I can say.
When the car launches, rpm goes to about 5k immediately. I've searched mainly with the B14XLS part but drawn a blank. Any idea on the manufacturer to start with?

21

Altereds / Helmet filters?

« on: May 20, 2019, 02:12:22 PM »

We have a blown methanol altered running FC headers (see pic). The driver has a helmet with built in filters which he bought when he thought he was going to get a FC drive. Is it necessary to have filters in a car like ours?

22

Matt Shaff's Engine Shop / Lost cam dowel - what to do?

« on: May 14, 2019, 12:42:13 PM »

We had our blown methanol BBC freshened up for the season by a fairly well known hot rodder/race car builder here in the UK. There was not much wrong with it from last season, basically he just replaced the bearing shells. We test ran it for the first time last week, it fired up and ran well. After draining the oil we found some small non-magnetic particles in the oil filter. Not enough to really worry about but a bit puzzling. Some of them seemed to be aluminum & some looked like phosphor-bronze. When we checked the lash before running again, it developed a tight spot that got worse the more we looked for it, until it was pretty much locked up. We took off the blower & inlet & I noticed I could move the crank about 5 degrees without moving the cam. We took off the fuel pump & front distributor drive & found that the cam dowel was missing & the bolts loose which hold the drive & cam hub to the cam. It seems the builder did not torque them up enough. He agreed on that & stated that there definitely was a dowel in the cam. We have not been able to find the dowel. it was not in the sump. A more experienced builder & racer told me they do sometimes come out & the gear drive is so hard it can actually munch them up. We tightened the bolts, replaced the rockers one at a time, turned it over by hand & it seemed ok. We didn't run it because I could not get a dowel & also we were worried about where the bits had gone. So after that long story, my question is should we have it completely stripped, inspected & cleaned or just replace the dowel?