Projects Austin Somerset Gasser Build (DragNasty)

What did they tie it down with LOGGING CHAINS???

 

Well yesterday morning the rain here in Southwest Missouri finally subsided and granted the Austin the first sun on its back since December. By the way this morning it is raining again.


We thrashed all day and night Monday to get it back together and ready for the looming dyno session. Which at this point is sort of what it felt like after the last few crazy days...


ShowMe Speed is in Ozark Missouri and we rolled in there right on time at about 8:30. Dad said a short prayer....LOL


So the owner Wes comes out to have a look and sees there is a vacuum port in the fuel regulator and says it would be awesome if we could use it. It would help in the fuel delivery regulation somehow. I don't know exactly how or why and I didn't care. But we shot up the street to O'Reilly Auto Parts to snag some pieces to quickly make it happen for him.

We get back and have to wait over an hour and half for Hilborn to email the base line set up to us. Finally with the car still on the trailer, Wes is ready to start pre-programming. But there is an issue. The Map sensor is not reading. After quite a lot of messing with the computer we confirm the pins in the plug are not correct and we re-pin it. This would be one of two plugs that came from the factory "miss pinned" if you will...

Suffice to say by Noon we were finally ready (still on the trailer) to turn it over and confirm some timing placements etc. I crawl in and hit the starter and it kicks out but will not engage. The crew decides it is a good time to take lunch and leaves Dad and I to figure out what the hell is wrong with the starter. NOTE: This is the same exact starter, flywheel, bell housing etc. etc. that has been on this car along!

So I take a look and it is engaging but it appears to be hitting the flywheel. So we shoved the car back half on the trailer where I can get my fat but under it. I pull it off and sure enough you can see a little circle a good half inch or more inboard on the flywheel were it is stopping and spinning. Dad installed the starter and used the wrong two bolt holes in the head shoving the starter closer to the block than it should be. So I get it all back on, tested and we are good to go but have to wait until lunch break is over.


So after lunch we push it on into the shop and onto the dyno rack. It takes them a good 30 minutes to get happy with the placement and straps etc. and now we are finally ready to do this thing...NOT.

Wes climbs in the car and they start just spinning it over to find their initial timing settings. What they find is from top dead center (were we placed everything) the crank trigger does not have enough movement to get the amount of advance that he wants. So what that means is the trigger wheel is going to have to be adjusted to get a magnet in range when he is 50 degrees advanced. But now that is a problem. You just can't spin that thing. Everything up front has to come off. So we drain and remove the radiator, loosen the alternator, remove all the belts, then we can removed the lower pulley and then rotate the wheel. When he is happy we put it all back together again. So now we are ready to do this thing...NOT.

From here we can not get the injectors to fire. They spend and hour or so running diagnostics and talking with Holley tech and finally get the answer and make the adjustment. Then about the same amount of time playing with the distributor (which is a pain because you do not have the room to phase it like on a normal car.) It is so tight back there that some tab on the distributor side is either hitting the pop off valves on the supercharger or the back of the intake or the manifold sensor etc. etc. So they finally decided they would have to get the timing where they wanted and then re-stab the stupid thing to phase it etc. So now we are ready to spin it for real....NOT.

The turn it over a few times and it gives a couple of backfire pops and I told Dad it is 180 out. They try again and same result. I said I think it is 180 out and they said no its here in the program and they keep trying. Finally I hop up on the passenger side lift ramp and said through the windshield I think it is 180 out. Wes said it can't be. Then he said to the tech standing across from me, "we are top dead center right". He said yes. Wes says how did you determine that and the guy says the rotor was pointing right at number one. I looked at Wes and he said pull the cap and show Randy it is right. So off comes the cap again (for like 10th time this afternoon which means pulling all the wires for the 10th time). I look at that the rotor and then at Wes through the windshield and said....it is pointing at you. He is not happy with his tech to say the least. But it happens. There were so many potential big ticket issues that it is easy to miss the small stuff especially with the day we had already had. But Wes and his team were awesome and even stayed after hours to get us finished etc. I can't thank them enough for the help.

At that point we decided with wires already off the cap and time running out, to just put them back on where they need to be and get going... We made that quick change, and she fired to life on the first hit.



So after a very long day she made 800 hp at the rear wheel and touch over 650 ft/lbs of torque. HOWEVER...with the pulleys we had it only made 8 pounds of boost at WOT (bummer). So it pretty much ran out of steam just before 7 grand. But we are shooting for 12 to 15 pounds which will help a ton on the big end (actually both ends). We will find another 125 to 175 more ponies depending on where it falls (maybe a bit more). I am talking with the folks at Good Vibrations today to pick the correct upper pulley etc.

However some other pretty cool numbers came out of the initial pulls. It ran 142 mph in the 4th gear pull and the one pull he tried in 5th gear it ran 173 mph! But we got all the baselines set and everything is working as it should. We have some work to do on the throttle cable it seems to be sticking a bit and is WAY too responsive! We are going to get the corrected pulley and go back for one final pull to get the final numbers etc. It was a crazy long day and an end to an extremely long weekend! Glad it is over and I can get back to work and rest...LOL

 

congrats. well done.

 

Good job! Well Done.

 

" We have some work to do on the throttle cable it seems to be sticking a bit and is WAY too responsive! "

Try moving the cable back to the second hole in the arm (closer to the pedal itself) provided that you are still able to get the butterflies all the way open. You may also want to look at the geometry of where the cable mates with the arm on the injector (and the same applies at the pedal end). If you are using a good Morse style cable (preferably the Control Cables unit sold by Good Vibrations) there should not be any "sticking" as you can put all sorts of tight bends in them with no change in the effort to move them.

Roo

 

Well as you read earlier, I might have a cheap knock off "Morris" cable...LOL. Nice typo on my part. But all kidding aside it is a good quality unit. I think it needs to be a foot longer in the pedal area so the actual moving parts are straight up and down. They are at a bit of an angle (actually top and bottom because the bushings that came with the kit to hold it out and away from the blower were not long enough to clear the fins on the rear cover. So I had to fabricate something FAST. I think that is causing part of the issue plus the return spring is at what I think is an inefficient angle and leverage...I will fix that as well.

 

Even being so far down on boost she really pulls hard. I didn't get all the pulls on video. I wished I had been recording on the second pull to demonstrate how violent it was. Wes is in the car and runs it to about seven grand in 4th gear and lets off. The recoil against the straps sent a shock wave through the dyno that literally wagged all four lift poles. It actually tossed him forward in the seat even though the car was totally strapped in place. It was pretty wild to watch.

I didn't get the 5th gear pull either but you could tell something was different. The tech guy was standing beside me and pointed to rear. The slicks had narrowed up like a top fuel car but because it was strapped in place they ran out of stretch room and started doing some wild reshaping back there...LOL. He let off and said that was 5th gear. He said look at the MPH. It was 173. I think I need to get me some Moon Caps...does Bonneville have a Gasser Class...LOL

 

This deserves a DAMN!!! Damn that's impressive

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WOW Great job.

 

How was the air/fuel on the E85 at 8lbs and how many lbs were you at with the old blower ?

 

Fuel ratio was good, the ECU for the EFI has an O2 sensor. We were only spinning the 6-71 hard enough to make 10 pounds or so but that was 19% over-driven. The guys at Good Vibrations said after analyzing what I was making with what I have...they suggested a 51 on top instead of a 54 and probably make about 12 pounds of boost. But before we make the jump I am going to make a couple of test passes...We may not need or want the extra boost...LOL!

 

you are a hot rodder. you want that boost. you need that boost. get the pulley. save your self a future ups charge and order a 48 also. you never know when you are going to need a tenth.

 

You know me...it is on the way. Lol

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now that its up and running making big power soon to be making even more power its time for a fire system and a upgraded fire suit. a helmet with a nomex liner is a good idea along with boots and gloves. all spec-20

 

Yep....Sparco X-20 SFI-20 Two-Piece Racing Suit.

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You will have to build a bigger car to fit all that stuff in it.

 

Ha ha...very funny. But true. Actually me trimming a bit off me wouldn't hurt anything. I am going to look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man crammed into that thing...LMAO

 

You know it looks a bit like a marshmallow....maybe this year's theme should be all white with a Sailor Hat Graphic on the roof!

 

I don't know if that all white scheme, with a string off the end "parachute" would send the right message.

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Friday night we tore into the Austin. We needed to double check and re-torque the aluminum heads if needed. Kind of a pain in the back side as all the Jessel stuff had to come out to get to the head bolts. Things looked really good





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Funny par for the course story. We are examining every inch of the valve train as it comes off. Everything looks perfect except each rocker has a mark on their top sides in nearly exactly the same spot.



We immediately flip the valve covers over and decide the rockers seem to line up with the "v" shaped mold pour points...assuming that is what they are? It is just a mark not a gouge so they must be just grazing them etc.



So Dad starts grinding them all smooth. He is about half way through the second cover when it dawned on me...the marks on the rockers are from the Sharpie we used to mark each rocker after the lash was set...lol. but inside of the covers look really nice.

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DAHHOO! No harm no foul LOL!

 

So we scrambled till about Midnight Friday trying to get her back together for the Clever Car Show the next morning but came up short. Still needed to change the oil, run the valves and get the front end back on...decided to go to bed instead.


It is one of our favorite shows of the years so Saturday we decided to haul it to the show as is...


Funny part is, three years ago, we did the same thing, brought the car just after the top was chopped and the engine was just sitting in place etc. People loved it. After a year of work, it was basically complete, just about ready to fire. The body work was done but still no paint so looked a bit rough....There are photos on here of it there somewhere. Anyway we drug it over to the show again.


Finally, this show, after nearly a year of being finished, going to car shows and trying to make a full pass, the car sits half put together again. No front end on, all the graphics off with only a stack of hero cards to show what it looked liked just a few months ago.



Anyway...a guy that hadn't seen the car since last years show walks by and has a good long look. Finally he turns to me and said, its looking better every year. LOL!


Even though it was half together it still won first place...I think it was the only car in the class LOL!

 

The little nubs in the covers were the rocker dripper's.

 

We're they ain't no more

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Intact drippers

 

Yeah those drippers might be important, with all the $ invested in that engine. I'd be replacing the valve covers and using the ground off ones as wall art. Just sayin

 

Well I'll be dog gone....so I guess two brain farts for the price of one. LOL. Well as you can see if you look back at my photo, something had beat the living daylights out of them before I got them. That is why I thought they were part of the casting process as they were pretty rough looking. Oh well...Learn something new everyday I suppose.

 

This thing is living up to it's NASTY name LOL. It is real reluctant to go FAST.

 

You should be fine.
It has been common practice to rune oil restrictors for the rockers and lifters when you go to roller rockers and roller lifters.