TRACK and MAINTENANCE LOG

Ø Fall 04 Plenty to think about over the winter. Can I get this sled in the 9’s?

Ø Nov 04 Ran a best of 10.33 @132 with 6.56 107 1/8 mile time. On this pass I shifted a little higher than normal, had the timing up a few degrees and was looking for a 10.20 pass. At the top end of the track the Charge hose blew off. I don’t think it made much ET difference but the mph may have been higher since it felt like I dropped the parachute..that I don’t have.

Ø Summer 04 I’ve been looking for an excuse to put the 454 back into the car. I ran this engine for a decade in Naturally Aspirated form. Eventually running high 10’s. Back when I purchased the Procharger I picked up some low compression pistons for the 454 (8:1). The rest of the engine consists of the same parts used in the 396 with the following exceptions: The heads received stainless valves and new springs.

Ø May 04 Ran into a few problems with the 396. Some if not all of the piston pins are galled or bent. Looks like I need some new parts for the 396.

Ø 04-25-04 Looking forward to summer. I have most of the parts for the engine. With a little luck I’ll get it back together by the end of May. Looking to get the tune in line with the upgraded pulley (installed at the end of last season). I’m shooting for a sub 10.50 pass when I get out to the track.

Ø Winter 04 Not too many changes. I did take the engine apart to see how much shrapnel went through it. Some bearings looked brand new. Others took a hit. All in all not ruined but fresh bearings are on the way. I must say that the motor looks great even after 4yrs of abuse that included 1 bent valve, shrapnel through the carb(twice) as well as into the oiling system(once).

Ø Fall 03 The Blower came apart at the end of the MT tire day. Coming out of the burnout box I heard what sounded like marbles in a blender. Something internally came apart in the blower. Not sure which part failed first. ATI looked at it and determined that most parts were scrap. ATI repaired the blower and sent it back @ no charge.

Ø 08-26-03 Heading out to test some prototype tires for Mickey Thompson. Won’t be able to give details regarding the tires for a while.

Ø 08-09-03 The supercharger is back on the car. I’m still working out the tune using the EV hat. So far I have dropped several jet sizes and will continue to until I get optimal a/f ratio. As a bonus Driveability continues to improve.

Ø 07-17-03 ATI benched the supercharger yesterday. To be on the safe side they suggested new bearings and seal along with the tweaked parts. The replacement parts aren’t cheap but most parts take hours to produce on a CNC mill, lathe or both. Along with the rebuild I am going with an impeller upgrade.

Ø 07-01-03 DynoJet Day…GOOD, BAD, UGLY:

Good: car made 507rwhp 533rwtq with K&N style hat. Jetting was real close with air/fuel running @ 12's.
Swap EV hat in place. 539rwhp 510rwtq. Jetting was WAY rich..too the point where it pretty much deadlined 10..which is the minimum. Looks like there is plenty left. At the end of the run the Dyno magnetic pickup got thrown across the room. I figured it contacted the blower belt somehow.

Bad: added more timing for a quick pass before jet changes. the car didn't rip through the R's..kinda hung 45-5000 so I got out of it.
Put timing back and let 'er rip stayed in it longer but only produced 432rwhp 376rwtq???
Decided to call it a day and drive home. I blew a header gasket during the second run as well..so I limped home. Car felt fine, drove normal except the header noise.

UGLY: Looked into what was going on. Since the car seemed fine I took a better look at the blower. One fin on the impeller was facing the wrong way..UGHH The mag lead must have gotten sucked into the blower..yes we ran the blower without the air filter. Don’t make this mistake!

Ø 06-24-03 The EV Bonnet solved a few issues. Turbulence, fuel distribution, atomization and POWER. The car runs smoother and creates 2 more pounds of boost with just a hat change. Incredible to believe but true. The extra boost should immediately provide 44 more HP. With less turbulence(heat) and better air/fuel distribution and atomization I expect a 60+ HP gain after a little tuning. AWESOME!!! That should easily get me to my stock cylinder head goal of 10.XX in the ¼ mile…then on to some porting.

Ø 06-21-03 New EV EXTREME VELOCITY HAT arrived from Superior Airflow Technologies LLC . The hat is a well designed piece. Can’t wait to get it on the car and do some testing. The Design of the hat, similar to an intake port on a head, should eliminate the turbulence I feel is being created by the K&N style ATI hat. The center divider will help keep ½ the air on the short turn of the bonnet.

Ø 05-19-03 Took the car out to Summit day at Quaker City. Made a few passes and only change timing between passes. The car ran a best et of 11.27 and mph at 122.96. The car is up 3mph over it’s previous best. The TSI Converter works great. No overheating transmission and great stall speed. The car was lifting the front end to please the crowd. Once the car settled down it was spinning it’s way through 1^st as the chassis unloaded. All in all it was a very good day at the track and a smooth drive home.

Ø FASTER CAR: I feel I gained with the TSI converter, Victor intake, cold air intake.

Ø SLOWING DOWN: I feel switching from 4” to drive-able 2 ¾” full exhaust hurt the car.

Ø I believe the car will go 11.10 with a little chassis work. A little tuning will get me in to my goal..10’s with a dead stock head.

Ø 05-16-03 Installed new BOV and took the car for a quick road trip. Car feels strong and is ready to get to the track. Egt’s were in the 1350-1500 range when I could keep the car going straight enough to take a peak at the gauge.

Ø 05-01-03 New BOV on the way. The Bosch unit has been undersized since day one. A PloFlow surge valve from SDCE is on its way.

Ø 04-15-03 New bracket installed. Looks great and is a large improvement over the original. I wonder if I was getting a little belt slippage with the original setup. I guess we’ll find out soon.

Ø 03-27-03 Sending the Blower Bracket and hardware out today. I am pumped about the new bracket setup. The original was good but I think the new additions will make my bracket setup as good as it can get. No Thrown belts, and no slipping belts!!!

Ø 03-26-03 Finished working through the details with SDCE. I worked with Jamie, Scott and Wendy to come to a happy medium. For a few bucks they will fix the bracket problem by adding an idler and repositioning the tension pulley. They are also fabbing up a support bracket for the blower.

Ø 03-23-03 Ran into a problem with my SDCE tensioner setup. Took the car out to see what BOOST would be and how the car would run. The additional boost was –8 . As soon as the vacuum/boost gauge started to get on the boost side…Immediately NO BOOST. Look under the hood and the tensioner is off the belt. Put it back in place, blip the throttle and the Pulley swings through the belt when the belt stretches. This is not good. The theory of spring loading the tensioner is great but this tensioner doesn’t quite work for the BBC bracket and D1 combo. The Tensioner/bracket will only work on the 4.75 pulley!! AHHHH

Ø Winter-03 Adding more boost!!! Swapped pulley and belt. I didn’t go crazy with pulley choice. I went 2 pulley sizes smaller(head unit). I expect 2-3 lbs more boost. Drilled out the PVCR to 5/64 on the primary side and lowered the jet(82). I added a few jet sizes in the rear(95). I also installed a spacer between my K&N style ATI bonnet. There are many who added a 70 Chevelle Air cleaner spacer to their blow-thru project to help straighten out the air as it enters the carb but I am probably the only one that had one from the factory. I really want to get the car out and run that 10.** pass with the untouched factory heads. The street strip ported heads are ready to install but not till the 10.** pass.

Ø Haven’t updated the page in a while 2002 I drove the car more than the past few years but didn’t get out to the track. Car feels strong and is easy to drive.

Ø 11-20-01 I added some jet to the primary and secondary side of the carburetor as well as added higher flowing needle and seats.

Ø 11-12-01 The TSI www.transmission-specialties.com converter that I picked up over the summer is good up to 650HP. It would work for my current power level but I chose to move up to a stronger 9” 900XHD Xtra Heavy Duty with a Mechanical Diode Sprag and anti-balloon plates on both sides. The Mechanical Diode Sprag (ratcheting type) is capable of withstanding greater torque loads and is less susceptible to skidding. The folks at TSI swapped the converters out without any problems. I know that I will be pushing the Torque and Horsepower levels higher and with vehicle weight nearing 4,000lbs the TSI converter is money well spent. Now I just need to put the transmission back together and put it into the car.

Ø 08-29-01 I finally picked up the transmission pump, I had it machined to make sure its thickness is consistent all the way around. The converter may have come apart because the JW ULTRA-Bell Ultrahousing http://www.auto2000.com/jw/ may not have been on the transmission squarely.

Ø 07-14-01 I fabricated a temporary cold air inlet for the supercharger. I used some flexible dryer ductwork and some 4” exhaust pipe. I routed the inlet through a hole I made between the radiator and the headlights. We expect a 20-30HP increase by using a cold air system.

Ø 05-15-01 The CONVERTER seems to be the culprit. I’ll be sending the converter to ATI next week. We’ll also go through the tranny to wash out any debris. The Converter didn’t come completely apart so it didn’t send a bunch of metal through the transmission.

Ø 05-05-01 I dropped the pan and valve body out of the transmission. No apparent damage. Fluid is red and doesn’t appear burnt. I’ll have to take the transmission out to inspect further.

Ø 04-29-01 A full day to Test and Tune at Norwalk. Except for new plugs, I left the car the same as last week to get a baseline pass. The weather is great. Corrected altitude is around 500ft. I feel with more jet and timing we will reach our goal of a 10 second pass with stock oval port heads. The first pass backs that idea up the 60’ was a little off 1.69 but the car ran 11.21 at 120.26mph. Awesome, the car is still running lean on the top end. The second pass felt strange. The shift light came on at the starting line and never went off during the pass even when shifting. The tach was never below 5700 the whole pass. The car ran 11.58 at 115mph. Did the converter Blow Up? Back in the pits I stopped the car but it wouldn’t shift to Park, 2nd or 3^rd. I felt that the shifter was bound up. Unfortunately it was the transmission. Did a piece of dirt or debris get stuck in the valve body? Back on the trailer.

Ø 04-21-01 Ohio’s Fastest Street Car contest. Finished up the Less than Painless Wiring Harness at 2am. Off to Norwalk at 6am. I had no intention of winning. I just wanted to make clean passes and hopefully qualify. I warmed the motor to 160 to make sure the motor had good heat in it. The blower is temper mental when cold. The first pass was 11.96 at 112mph. Not as fast as expected but the Ignition feedback that I experienced last year was gone. The car was flat the entire run. We added jet and ran 11.84. A little more timing (27) produced 11.69. The car responded so we added more timing (31) and only warmed the motor to 150 degrees before hitting the burnout box, the car made the best pass of the day 11.31 at 118.69mph. The MPH is lower than expected but the car starts to lay down on the top end. I shifted at 5200 on that pass. The motor makes power above that but the lean condition that appears in the upper RPM range scares me a bit. The day started early, it rained for 5 hours, but I made clean passes and qualified 10^th and received a Summit Racing Ohio’s Fastest Street Car Qualifier Jacket. I’m not sure the day could have gone better.

Ø SPRING 2001 The Chevelle is ready to go. I expect weight to be between 3800-3900lbs with the added components. The initial Tune-up on the car is timing locked at 25, Jetting at 80/82. I am running AC Delco R45TS plugs gapped at .035. I plan on warming the car up completely before the first few passes (160).

Ø Winter 2001 Rewiring car using a Painless Wiring Harness. The Harness for 68-74 Muscle cars is little more than a universal kit with a few extra connectors. NOT ALL WIRING is INCLUDED. The taillight section is not included. The wires go to the trunk and you must extend them from there. To do it correctly I will need to purchase a GM taillight harness $100.00 and extend the Painless wires. Other problems were no alternator tickle wire. I switched the alternator to 1 wire to get past this problem. The dimmer switch connector wires are about ½ inch short. I needed to run extension wires so it could be hooked up.

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