Didn’t make it to Woodburn this weekend as we had hoped. The wife has been dealing with some complications from recent surgery, and she wasn’t up to the trip.
I did however make it out to Bremerton for some 1/8-mile passes yesterday, and was pleased with the outing.
First off - the bullet stayed in-tact with all the parts remaining in their intended locations. Win!
Second, we went rounds! There was no TNT available, so I entered Pro figuring I’d take my one time hit, and see what I could manage from there. Turned out I made it to the 4th round with a fresh combo; not a bad shake down trip…. Win #2.
1st pass I may have short shifted it a bit and it went 6.78 @ 100. Not very fast, but it felt good and came back together, so I took it. It really started to pull hard at the top of each gear, with me hitting the lever at 6500. It may want to be shifted later than this…. Lots to learn here.
Rd 1 I rolled up on former world champ Troy Johnston in his small-block Duster. I dialed 6.79 to his 7.02 and found the need for 2 big rips on the tall pedal at the top. Somehow I ended up dead-7 and .035 overall to put Troy away early…. That’s another Win! 60 & 330 times indicated it was faster than pass #1 by a good .04+.
Next round, similar result. A few rips and this time even a stab at the brakes for the winlight. Timeslip showed .002 at the tree, and even though I hadn’t made a single change, again the incrementals showed we were going in the right direction. I extrapolated about a 6.70 from this pass.
Rd. 3 I was handed a red-light win, so I ran it out and it went 6.703 at 101. I felt like I had a handle on it at this point….
As often happens when you start to feel you’re in control: I went .010 red in rd 4. This time the car fell off to a .74, but I think I short shifted it as I was disgusted with the hue of the bottom lamp looking back at me, and don’t think my head was in the right spot.
A few items of to still address:
- I have no idea where my A/F is. Since I’m addicted to winlights, I didn’t want to make mid-race changes and didn’t even look at a plug.
- the 440-source valley pan leaked at the passenger bank pretty badly. I’ll be forced to remove the intake and look at it to assess a remedy here, hopefully I don’t have to remove the head.
- Timing jumped around a bit when the light was on it. Not sure if it’s my cheap timing light or if my 12-year old second hand Mallory dizzy is finally showing its age. I may be in the market for a new distributor (??).
Next weekend is our season opener. Based on what I saw this weekend, I anticipate being somewhere in the 10.55 - 10.65 range as it sits. I also anticipate finding that it’s dead rich, so If I’m able to make some improvements there, it very well might get faster before I even begin whittling away at it.
I’ll need to figure out the hood and scoop direction. If I can carve some weight, and feed it fresh air with this step, that may be worth a tenth. A carb spacer may also pay dividend.
Eventually, it needs better headers and bigger exhaust. Currently using Hooker Comp 1-7/8” w/ 3” collectors and exhaust. 2” tuned primaries and 3-1/2” collectors are probably worth a bit. I’m sure more weight loss and the typical tinkering will yield results. Eventually, we may be near the bottom tens range that a few have said I should expect.
Ill keep everyone posted with one more post after this coming weekend. Outside of that, this beast is out of its cage and this thread is near dead. Thanks for following along!
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