New project

[hotrod 80]

Ordered 24 new ones already . Wife wants a 32 with bathroom . I want a break from racing .

[hotrod 80]

I just parked this thing til last weekend and took a break . Finally got it to the house and pressed the new studs in the passenger side hubs of the trailer , so that's fixed . Jacked the truck up and pulled the trans out . Thinking it is needle bearing for the planetary , we shall see . Took it to the guy that inspected it before I put it in . Hey , the way see it , I was winning until it broke . Also having headers built next week . Going forward and out the fenders in front of the tires . I'll get some pics of those after they are built . I also went to a swap meet north of me in Conroe , Texas and bought every luv part there , both of them a hood and a bumper . So swapping from a cowl to a forward facing scoop . Enough talking here are the pics .
Hood before :

In the paint shop:

Just some garage pics :

[hotrod 80]

Pretty good match from a cell phone picture . Looking forward to seeing how much , if any the truck picks up .

[hotrod 80]

Trans guy pulled the trans apart and said nothing was wrong and charged me $40 . Got me wondering what could have gone wrong . I reinstalled it with my BTE converter . Sent the ATI off back to ATI . Got the call today $340 . The local guy I used to fix the sprag only must have taken it upon himself to mess with the impeller cause they said it had been welded on and couldn't be saved it was messed up so badly . Should be getting it back middle of next week or so . I also pulled the Hooker conversion headers off this truck and stuck them on my blue truck . Im having fender exits built right now and then having them coated at polydyne inside and out . This will greatly help on transmission work . I moved all the wiring and swapped to a set of plug wires that go around the back of the heads and come up from the bottom . I pick it up tomorrow and will get better pics .

[hotrod 80]

Headers are done and about to go to polydyn for coating inside and out. It is freaking loud.

[JJLT1]

sounds goood.. keep it up Hotrod..

[hotrod 80]

Hood is mounted , air pan is being fabbed Monday , got the headers back from coating , Converter came back from ATI $340 later . Next is swap the converter and axle and rear gear inspection .

[hotrod 80]

Headers are coated and trim installed .

[regan wilson]

Looks great HotRod ! I bet the neighbors will love it. Better keep the ole rev tuning to a minimum.

[hotrod 80]

finally found the noise I have been looking for. It was in the gear . Did my annual axle inspection and the gear oil was really dark . Brake pads were also ready to be changed . Axle spline look good .But this leads me to ask at what power level and weight should I be making a move to 35 spline ? Gear had like .052 back lash in it . and I think it is done .






And I serviced my pit bike .

So im pricing new 35 splines and a pro gear also . When is a pro gear required ? Strange says they are only good for 300 passes , which has me worried . I am pulling the housing out to pressure wash it and have it put in a narrowing jig to make sure it is straight . Im also going to have a back brace installed .

[hotrod 80]

Current situation . Nobody has any suggestions on moving up spline count on rear axles ?



I also found these on closeout for black Friday . It is a 50CC China deal , but for $650 shipped to the door I figured Id give it a try .

[hotrod 80]

Got a few things done a bit farther. Axle is finished . I had a drain plug added. The pilot holes in the spring perches were not the correct size to keep the axle square and were not deep enough . They were 1/2 pilot bolts , so I added a pair of 1/2id x 9/16 od bushings between the housing and the spring to keep everything straight . My strange aluminum case turned out tio be 3.060 bearing and I had already ordered 35 spline axles ( they will be here tueday) . I had to break down and buy a new case . Really feel like I should have gone aluminum due to weight , but I ended up with the steel one . I am into this project for over $2000 . Also got free shipping and 30% off at Aerospace for the brake pads .
Axle back brace and straighten -$300
Gear , bearings & case -$1050
axles bearing and studs -$525
Brake pads and parts -$119
Anyway here is current pile of parts .

[team39763]

Who did your headers? Here in Texas? I need a set built for my truck but can't find a good header fabricator closer to San Antonio(Dallas is too far for me right now).

[team39763]

Cool. Thanks. I'll check him out when mine rolls out of the chassis shop next month.

[hotrod 80]

finally got a chance to update . Got this thing together and actually made a few passes . First race is Feb 18 & 19.

[hotrod 80]

Lost in the finals Satruday and alternator locked up @4 cars sunday . Pretty decent first outing . Moving to a low mount on the driverside to shorten the belt .

[hotrod 80]

Test session at Royal purple this Saturday. My new HP XP is not really working properly . The o2 sensor was not working properly and and was telling me it needed fuel . I added 3 jets to the front and made a few passes . Reading the plugs I pulled those three out and then took 5 out of the rear . It was still rich . Rich to the point it was starting to hurt the ring pack . I changed the plugs and stuck my old 750HP back on it and bam .


I also had the alternator lock up last sunday in the semi finals . I fabbed a new driver side low mount and replaced the alt under warranty . I also managed to get the belt size right the first try .

Here are the plugs . The strap looks like I have a bit to much timing in it to me and I'm was rich.

End result and this was without the alt charging which I fixed tonight . We run 2 day races the next 2 weekends and I think I have a truck that will compete if the driver shows up .

[regan wilson]

Looking good Hotrod. How much did you have to spray it for the 9.90s?

[hotrod 80]

New block was not clearenced enough at the bottom of the cylinders . And rod bolts were hitting . Bore and pistons are ok , but every bearing was bad . Mains I think will be ok but rods not so good . the 3/4 group was really bad and had a lot of heat . Not enough to turn the color on the big end of the rod but enough to show on the inside of the bearing face. They ordered the guide pins to resize the rods and the crank is at the grinders now . Block is being clearenced properly . Hoping for the best for sure.

[hotrod 80]

Just got off the phone with the machine shop . Apparently the oil passage to one of the mains was plugged and that burned up the main bearing . The metal from that is what killed all the other bearings . Once the bearing gained clearance the rods had room to move and hit . 3 rods need to be resized and the crank should clean up at .010 , .020 on the rod surface worst case. Looks like they are going to cover most if not all of the cost.

[a1953mdl]

Looks like you're making the best of a bad situation. Hope it all works right this time.
What's the resolution on the bore scope. I've thought about buying one and never thought the pics would come out that good.

[hotrod 80]

Crank is broken in 2 places. Last race was a double points race . I started the weekend 6 points in second and I am now 90 in second . I don't think there are but 4 races left and I wont be back in this truck until the last race . I will be running the blue truck this coming weekend foot braking again .

[hotrod 80]

More bad news . I pulled my old backup out of the corner of the garage . It is a dish top , hydraulic roller 383 , 6 inch rod deal . I figured take it down and have the flattops put on the crower rods and eagle light weight crank and send it to be rebalanced and im back in business .......WRONG. I pulled the flywheel and the rear main seal housing. The thrust was .058 . Cracked the rear main cap off and the thrust of the crank was burnt up .


Ended up buying a Lunati Voodoo series crank . Should be here Tuesday.

[Marv D]

This has not been a good year for you buddy.
I can relate,, one pure coincidence nightmare from the racing gods after another was the straw that broke this old camels back. (and prompted me to sell everything)

Hang in there.

[hotrod 80]

Well Marv , im trying . I just keep getting problem after problem. Got my Dart blocked short block back today . Went to reassemble it and the cam was questionable . This was a custom grind . I found one similar , but it says sprint car cam . Any opinions about if it will hurt or help power wise on this 383 ?
http://www.compcams.com/Company/CC/c...?csid=363&sb=2