Ok Boys and Girls it's Storytime

[regan wilson]

Well I got my head back Monday and finished the motor last night.(Thank You Brodix) I have a short day of work today and my buddy Ken arranged his day off for today. We're going to put it in and fire it up this afternoon. If all goes well the truck is off to the chassis shop. Tony Smith (who built the cage, four link & headers) will set up my new 5" collectors and replace 4.5" tubing with 5". That will give it full 5" exhaust instead of 4.5 into 5. Keith Fulp called me yesterday and he has my collector tethers on the way also. So anyhow looks like its coming together. I'm tired after all this work!

[regan wilson]

We got the motor in and running yesterday. It sounds good and nothing is running out of it. I think its ok (knock on wood). It looks like it wont get to go for exhaust work till monday but thats ok. The brunt of the work is over.

[aggie91]

Great to hear you got this motor to shape up and run right...

[djracer]

Good deal. I am fixing to order the stainless tubing to build me a new set of headers.

[regan wilson]

The truck will be coming home tomorrow. Then all I have left to do is scale it, plugs, plug wires, starter sprag, run the valves, put the hood and wheelie bars on it then load it up. Then go race in Houston!

[djracer]

Good Luck Brother

[hotrod 80]

Im not going to high jack the thread , but I was at DIV 4 race here in Baytown this weekend . I didn't get to spend a lot of time as I was pit crewing for my buddies top dragster and his daughters super street car .


I finally met Reagan Wilson .

Most of the time I was busy and not carring my phone . The pictures don't do justice to how lazer straight this truck is . It is super clean and it is a show piece that he should be very proud of . It is truly immaculent . This is the only crappy pic I got of it .

Looked like he was having a great day and was on top of it . I guess the computers were having trouble , cause they reran 5 sets of cars . They opened the box at the starting line and the right lane had a ton of red after that . Probably 15 numbers . Anyway it was good to meet you finally .

[regan wilson]

It was good to meet you too Hotrod. I still cant wrap my head around the redlight issue but it was a good outing. I was .007 in the right and .007 in the left on saturday. I was .002 in the right first round sunday. Then I rolled .003 in the box for second round and was .011 red. All in all Im comfortable and relaxed after the front end work on the truck. It has allowed me to stage shallow and consistent. I felt it yesterday but it just didnt happen. My buddy that I lost to in the second round went on to win. I saw it this morning and said damn that shoulda been me! lol

[hotrod 80]

We tested Monday and they only prepped the right lane we were red every pass just flickering the second bulb with like .105 in a long throw . Im going to try to have them set the beams with a wheel .

[regan wilson]

http://[www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbDvZXNKKUI]

]

[regan wilson]

That was second round where I redlit. The 55 is a 147 mph car. You can see if I was green that round would have been mine. But it wasnt lol

[hotrod 80]

Awesome truck . Thanks for sharing .

[regan wilson]

Well I got back from the Tx Motorplex yesterday. I had a Gremlin all weekend. I made a half ass pass Friday morning, it spit and sputtered to a 10.91 @ 148. My other two time runs it would get to 6000 rpm and just break up. All I did was work on it all weekend. I went into first round and gave it a try but it just wasnt going to work. I missed the tree bad and the truck just wouldnt run for me. The sad thing is I have never seen a more perfect weekend of weather at the Motorplex which can have some pretty bad cross headwinds. In other words it was Blue Truck friendly.lol

[hotrod 80]

My daughter is getting married this weekend , so I wont be in Baytown

[regan wilson]

Originally Posted by hotrod 80

My daughter is getting married this weekend , so I wont be in Baytown

We're not running there this year. It's our turn to run at the Fall Nationals at the Motorplex. Right now I have to figure out whats wrong with the truck first, then go test. My plan is to go to Bowling Green for the Sportsnationals at the end of May. I just have to fix this thing first, last weekend was frustrating.

Congrats on the marriage(hope it didn't coast you too much)

[hotrod 80]

Originally Posted by regan wilson

Congrats on the marriage(hope it didn't coast you too much)

Um , the price of a nice 64' BBC Vette drag car . Oh well , If I had more ( money) I'd just spend it right ?

[regan wilson]

I havent posted in awhile because there has been no good news. We had our divisional race in Tulsa in June. i had nothing but issues again. It wouldnt run right for anything. My regulator came apart amongst other problems so when I redlit first round I was glad it was over. I came home and decided to regroup.

I pulled the motor out to work on my intake and look everything over. I had my spacers for the intake cut for a better fit and port alignment. Finally fixed the cause of my missfire problems.(distibutor). Sent my carbs back to Gary Williams for some reworking.(picked them up to 1220cfm each) and converted to external linkage. i got it all back together and felt like some dyno time would be a good idea.

We drove 3.5 hrs yesterday(8-18) to my Machinist , Engine building mentor and Guidance Counselor in Stephenville Tx. Got the motor on the dyno and started making pulls. It was down on power the whole time. I was looking for at least 1220 to 1240 hp. It took us 5 pulls and some tuning to get it to 1140.
That was down 30 hp from 6 years ago. Needless to say but I wasnt impressed. We made some more changes and started another pull. It sounded like it was an improvement until it got to 7000 rpm. That was when it sneezed and shuddered. Donnel pulled it back down and it tried to idle. Then he killed it. We pulled valve covers and didnt see anything. Then the plugs , #8 gap was slammed shut (dont know why) # 7 wouldnt come out.(*%#%%%*). We pulled the headers and found the #7 ex valve resembling a friggin Pretzel ! Loaded it up handed my buddy his payment and came home.

I may start the next autopsy today. I swear I wanted to drop this thing off a bridge on the way home but I'm no quitter so I guess I'll just have to fix it.

You know I'm starting to feel like that guy MarvD..lol

[Marv D]

well that SUX Regan. It's always disheartening when the motor doesn't do well, but then to break $#!+ on they dyno is just injury on top of insult!

I've got a buyer for one of my piles of trouble. The truck will be gone before winter (re-configuring it with a little pump gas / street motor) He has cash in hand and eager for me to finish dropping in the little 383 and a new trans,, remove the electronics datalogger,, bla bla bla.

Then most EVERYTHING on the Nova is up for re-cert in Feb (including my license) ,, goal is to have that pile gone before the end of the year. Racing just doesn't hold the excitement it once did and its time for a change. But who knows,, that change may end up being knitting needles and rocking chairs or some $#!+ I guess. (LOL)

[regan wilson]

Well it appears to have drop a Intake seat. And it aint pretty.

[Marv D]

New heads? or the heads recently reworked,, or just loosened up and fell free??? Whatever the 'cause' hey remember it could have been worse. You know well how close it was to the valve snapping and.........

A piston, have the rod and crank checked,, have the head welded up and corrected.... it's ugly but not a disaster!

[regan wilson]

They are the same heads. They had all new seats and 14 new valve guides. There was no evidence of valve to piston issues. So after examination it had to have been the seat coming out. I have three pistons in a box. I just hope I can clean it all up and make it work. These heads have been hurt and cut on so many times I just dont know how much they have left in them.

[aggie91]

That really sucks Regan. I hope it all can get reworked and back together.

[hotrod 80]

Hope the repairs work out your way . Sometimes you fight it tooth and nail , sometimes it just falls into place . I race ALOT and im with Marv I could us a break with the season closer weekend coming up .

[68Gold/white]

I saw you at Tulsa, headed towards the staging lanes.
Didn't get to say howdy, one member of my traveling party has health issues. He didn't want to stay, finding out about the power outage. Myself and 2 others take him to races and such. He has Parkinson's disease, he steadily is getting worse. We try to bless him by taking him to these events. It ain't easy.
Look forward to seeing you at Tulsa, next year, maybe !

Brodix has worked on your heads in the past, so they know you, maybe they'd make you a deal on some new ones. I'd be gun shy on using them ANY more...enough (easy for me to spend your money...LOL)

[regan wilson]

Originally Posted by 68Gold/white

I saw you at Tulsa, headed towards the staging lanes.
Didn't get to say howdy, one member of my traveling party has health issues. He didn't want to stay, finding out about the power outage. Myself and 2 others take him to races and such. He has Parkinson's disease, he steadily is getting worse. We try to bless him by taking him to these events. It ain't easy.
Look forward to seeing you at Tulsa, next year, maybe !

Brodix has worked on your heads in the past, so they know you, maybe they'd make you a deal on some new ones. I'd be gun shy on using them ANY more...enough (easy for me to spend your money...LOL)

My problems arent Brodix fault. Im sorry I did not get to meet you. I was taking a nap when the power outage happened. I woke up and was going what the hell happened? Sorry I missed you. Hopefully I will be in Noble next year.