What he said..




When you finish a run pull the gas cap does it suck in air when you unscrew it? If so, good job on having good seals, not so great of a job
having a lack of venting and causing a vacuum that can prevent positive flow...

Done that before.

-D.Idiot

Sunday was our latest run, the previous race was rained out and quite frankly I was worried about Sunday. It was coming down pretty good in south Everett, but, by the time we reached Monroe it was dry. You gotta luv the convergent zone...

Race prep on the Duster consisted of new spark plug wires and gaping the plugs. It is still running a little rich, so I should drop down to 47 or 46 size jets.

Race prep on the Dart consisted of changing out the Offenhauser for the Clifford, going thru the fuel system and gaping the plugs down to .40 from .45. When going thru the fuel system, I removed the sock from the fuel pickup. Not sure how you are suppose to replace the sock, as the Bakelite fitting appears to be bonded to the pickup. Also swapped the fuel filter out for a Wix one. This didn't improve the fuel pressure reading and I wasn't too confident it would improve anything.

The Duster was about the same as previous times. It was running better, but that didn't translate into improved times.

The first run on the Dart was promising and I regaped the plugs down to .35. The next run it fell on its face, so I regaped back up to .40. The next three runs were between 9.2 and 9.3. I was able to run the engine up to 5200 rpms without to many problems. The stock pump is now marginally able to keep the carburetors bowls full.

At the end of the day we both finished in 3rd. Deb dropped down to 3rd in her standings and I am in 2nd by a point. And the Dart can quite handily outrun a badly driven BMW 325i.

Now the question is which change on the Dart made the improvement. The Clifford is noticeably better then the Offenhauser on the street. At around 2000 rpms you can feel it starting to come on. So did this make the improvement, or was it going thru the fuel system, which I believe didn't really fix anything. Changing the gap on the plugs differently made a difference, but how much...

Arghhh... that is the problem with make multiple changes, there is no way to measure there effects.

Oh well, until the next race.

Spent the day at the track, no major changes with the cars. Deb has the Duster running fairly consistent 10.5s. The Dart was all over the place again, fuel delivery problems again. Even when the car is running bad, it is faster then with the Offy.

Anyway, Deb came in first in her bracket. Which is a major upset to the front runners. Her first run, the other person broke out with a 9.7 on a 10.0 index. Which put her in contention for First/Second. Which is not a bad position to be in. In the second round the other person red lighted. So Deb got the win. Which pushes her into the second place spot, just 4 points off of first.

In my round the car fell flat at the top of first and I missed second. It still ran a 9.6, which put me out. I am now solidly in the third spot.

Raced again last Sunday. There is something to be said for consistency. Deb can pull a 10.5 with Duster all day long now. This was enough to get a second place. The other cars are faster, but Deb is more consistent.

This should get interesting, three more race days for the season and there is only a couple points separating first from third n Bracket 1.

Bracket 2 was interesting. Six cars showed up. Two Nissan Altimas, one street stock (current first place holder), the other one fully dressed. A gen 4 RX7 with a 350 Chev, set up for drifting. A Subaru Outback with factory turbo, a S10 with a 4.3 (current second place holder) and me (current third place holder).

I had the slowest car. I went out the first round against the first place car. The second place car went out against the Subaru and the other Nissan knocked off the RX7.

Second round the Subaru went our against the first place car with the closest run of 8.95 to 9.06. The other Nissan got the bye.

Final round was against the two Nissan's. The first place car lost, by half a fender.

First place is locked down with a 20 something point lead. Second and third only have a couple of points separating them. It may get interesting in the next few races.

Hope to see you at Woodburn. Would be nice to meet face to face after all these years.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

We won't be able to make it to Woodburn. You could always stop by. It's sorta on the way to Woodburn. Which way are you coming across the Cascades?

I 94, then SW on some roads I can't recall right now. Probably not enough time for a stop by. Sorry you can't make Woodburn...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

So are we, sounds like everybody had fun.

Well Friday was another night at the races. Nothing specials with the cars, and Friday was sorta a place holder for us. Deb came in second and was able to outrun a 3/4 Ram with a 12 valve Cummings. She is now firmly in second place in her bracket.

I was out the first round, I really need to stop running against Richard in the first round. Richard is the current points leader. Richard also came in third. Another Subaru showed up and didn't break out. It came in first, a Dakota came in second. So only one person in the top three scored any points. Which narrows up the second/third point spread.

Until next time...

Ran again on Monday. We had the biggest crowd of the session. I guess having that State Fair running helps. Sure makes for a traffic mess getting into and out of Monroe thou.

Since I had some vacation time, and the planned vacation didn't happen, I put some time into the cars.

The Duster now has the Offy manifold with the Clifford 2v adapter along with an adapter for the Autolite 2100. I think the Clifford adapter was for a Weber. You need to modify the manifold by cutting out the 4 hole divider. Which leaves the boss for rear exhaust manifold bolt protruding into the opening. So I modified the Clifford adapter to cover the boss with a nicely shaped nub. Then I made a new, larger adapter for the 2100, which sorta works as a heat shield. This whole contraption raises the carburetor up about an inch. Which causes the air cleaner to kiss the hood.

After all that, the Offy was worth a tenth and 1 mph in the 1/8th over the cast iron SuperSix. It felt stronger on the street. But hey, the Duster now has "speed" equipment...

Finally went out and bought a HP big block fuel pump for the Dart. Making this work, requires removing the BB pump arm and replacing it with the \6 pump arm. The hardest part is breaking the swedging that holds the roll bin in place. Once that is done you can then swap the arms, and then reswedge the roll bin back into place. In my case, I also applied a generous amount of JB Weld for "insurance". When mounted, the pump is "upside down" as compared to the BB, which makes the inlets/outlets on opposite sides. Which then requires rerouting fuel lines. Oh well, I got everything hooked up and fired up the engine. The pump puts out 5 psi at idle and 3.5 psi at 3000 rpms. Which is an improvement over the \6 pump.

On the track the engine was extremely rich and slow. In fact this was the first time that the plugs didn't indicate a lean condition. So I dropped the secondaries down to .098s from .104s and the problem persisted. I change the metering rods to 6552's from the 5749's. This solved the problem and I could bounce the engine off the rev limiter. Which resulted in a best run of 9.1.

We both finished third in our brackets.

The next day I changed the metering rods back to the 5749's as the engine surges with the other rods on the street. On the trip home for lunch, I noticed the parking brake was on. I never use the parking brake, the oldest son used it when he drove it to work the previous day...

Glad to hear your fuel starvation is solved. 9.1 is moving for a NA street car on pump gas.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

I hope to reach high 8's before the season ends. I believe the engine can do it, the rev limit is at 5400 rpms and the carburetor needs to be jetted correctly. But the next race is on a Sunday which means a nice long practice session.

Sounds like a plan. I had my 64 Dart in the 8.90s a few times in 1998 and have never hit that again (went to road race trim).

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

Sept 30, was the our last race day. We only took the Dart as the Duster had electrical problems and wouldn't start.

The Dart ran a best of 9.3. The fuel delivery problems are all solved.

I finished the season in 4th and Deb finished in 3rd. The best part of the season was to knocking a second of the Dusters time with simple tuning. The most frustrating was the fuel delivery problems with the Dart.

Until next year.

Spring is here, and a new racing season is upon us. Saturday is test and tune and I have been preping the cars. I installed a Trans-Go TF-2 in the Duster. What a pain. Next time I think I will drop the tranny. The older I get, the closer the car is getting to the ground. I used the "Hot rod" setting for the kit, with 11/64 hole for the 2-3 shift. This gives a nice firm shift in all the gears. Using the "shift command feature" is interesting, as it seems to want to hold onto the gears when upshifting after downshifting into first.

The Dart didn't need much work done. Just a cleanup, the aluminum wheels are going to need some deep cleaning as they are pitted.

Future changes are some new six leaf springs for the Duster and a line lock for the Dart. This years schedule is located here: http://www.evergreendrags.com.

The test and tune last weekend went well. The Duster picked up 3 tenths with the shift kit and properly adusted linkage. It ran consistent times between 10.18 and 10.3 all day. Not bad, we have managed to pick up 1 second since Vegas last year.

The Dart was running between 9.1 and 9.3 fairly consistently. It appears that the Mr. Gasket fuel regulator has given up the ghost. Fuel pressure is 6.5psi which is 1psi to much. Time for a better one.

Tomorrow is opening day, it has been snow/hail mixed rain tonight. Should be an interestng day.

Videos of the runs from last weekend are up on youtube. Check under "evergreendrags".