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This weekend went well. It did not go perfectly, but it went well. The third leg of the 2018 Optima Search For the Ultimate Street Car visited NCM Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, and for the third year in a row, I was there. For the first time, I had my daughter with me as …
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Well, I made it back. The 2018 Midwest Muscle Car Challenge, provided by Bowler Performance with a slew of sponsors including Detroit Speed, Prestone, Forgeline, BF Goodrich, and a slew of smaller sponsors was every bit as fun as last year, plus some. The big relief for everybody was the rain, rather the lack of …
So, with the season upon us, it’s time again for a weekend recap. I spent the weekend of April 14 driving to and from New Orleans, Louisiana for the second round of the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street car. After my shakedown cruise to Charlotte for the SCCA Match Tour last month shook what …
The Battle wagon! This is my tow rig. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Period correct, even! I was prepared for another season of loading the race tires in the back seat, filling the trunk with tools and spares, and driving myself to all my events in the car. Alas, my …
This is a tub of oil. Note, there is no metal floating in it. This is fantastic news. I had prepared myself for the disappointment of seeing a sheen on the surface of this. The lack of visible metal in this oil is invigorating. Confidence building. Exuberation ensued. This is drain of the 500 mile …
After reassembling the engine with the new front cover, I ran it in for 20 minutes, changed the oil, and started it back up. This is with the water up 185. Oil probably a tad cooler since this was just running it in the garage, but 20psi warm idle? I’ll take it. After a 20 …
There wasn’t supposed to be a part four to this series. But there is. Sadly. After getting about fifty miles on the car and changing the oil three times, even stepping up to 15w40 truck oil, I still had an oil pan full of metal, a tick I didn’t like, and really low oil pressure …
In the last installment, I brought everybody up until the engine was in the car. Now for the home stretch. New battery cables finally arrived and were quickly installed. I filled the crankcase with five quarts of Comp 5w30 engine break in oil and primed the engine with a drill. With the electrical system finally …
When we left off back in December, I was waiting on a small base-circle camshaft to clear my stroker rotating assembly. It came. It cleared. Hooray. With that done, it was time to assemble in earnest. The first step was to bolt the heads on and measure for pushrod length. I won’t go into detail …
If you follow my blog, you’ll remember my posts back in August (here and here) detailing the failure of my engine at the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car event in New Jersey. I started my rebuild story in another post back in October. Many may be wondering what happened? It’s been over a …