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 …
Read More “On the subject of tow rigs”
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 …
Read More “More success!”
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 …
Read More “Success!”
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 …
Read More “Tale of an Engine Build, Part 4”
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 …
Read More “The Tale of an Engine Build, Part 3”
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 …
Read More “The Tale of an Engine Build, Part 2”
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 …
Read More “The tale of an engine rebuild”
Most that have dealt with C-clip rear ends from GM and Ford know all about the good things. C-clips are easy to work on. It only takes a few minutes to get an axle out of the car. The bearings on the axle ends can be serviced with a slide hammer and rubber mallet, no …
Read More “C-clip eliminators”
So, this entry marks the beginning of my documentation of my engine rebuild. Any big project needs some goals. Without goals, you have no idea if you’ve been successful, or even if you’re complete. With that in mind, let’s back up and talk about my goals for next year: Multiple Optima USCA events, possibly as …
Read More “The Rebuild”
So, after my disappointing engine failure at the Optima NJMP event, I was left with the big question: What happened? Well, after pulling the engine and tearing it down and reviewing the data logs from the event, even having an oil sample analyzed, the answer is clear: Several things. Dealing with things like this requires …
Read More “Anatomy of a failure”