Good progress today. The car is back at jims. My neighbor that goes by barbarra on the hamb brought over his new enclosed trailer to help get the chassis back to illinois. Im trailerless for two more weeks. While there i got to see the new fuel tank mounts for the larger tank. They are finished fabbing and welding that. Now that the car is back there the strut bars can be made. The old ones had to be cut off due to the new tank having a larger capacity. I was also able to pick up the second set of zoomies. I took a pic to show how they are brazed together. They are also welded from the inside. The flanges are special hedman huslers. They accept a 2.5 inch round pipe. No need to swedge the tubing. It realy makes life easier. The pipes go inside the flange. Before they were assembled the flange needed to go in the mill. The pipes needed to go in at a 26 degree angle. A boring bar provided the modification This is a much stronger and durable way to complete this job. The first set is already at the powder coaters. I will exchange sets next week. 350 pounds of aluminum frame showed up last week for the awning. I went with a 32 foot dmp thats 13 feet 9 inches off the trailer. Nhra allows 14 feet. The three center horzontal poles have power for fans and led lights. Getting the trailer and awning companies together insured the trailer was wired with outlets at the awning attatching points so there are no cords to trip on. Its all made to work together. Now its off to iowa for a few days. We will be up and running very soon.
Going with power in the a- frame automatically upgrades them to heavier wall tubing to support the extra weight of fans and lights. The last time i was out last year my collapsable tents were blown away and destroyed. This awning can substain 60 mph winds. The lights are from menards. 3800 lumens each and light weight. Due to being leds i dont have to worry about breaking bulbs during transport. 34.00 each on sale.it will be enough light to guide airplanes in for a landing.
Thanks for following the thread. Whats not seen under the cover is a set of strange caps. Thats the key item on a dana-60. These caps prevent deflection as the carrier tries to push itself out the back. The stock caps while adaquate in most applications wont cut it here. Those covers you speak of have screws that but up to the rear caps giving them some support from behind. The covers are basically a band-aid approach that does nothing to solve the original problem. Installing the strange caps corrects the problem and saves the cost of a expensive cover. That was a good question.
Half way to rogers i received a call from jims son. Jims wife of 40 plus years passed away last night. It looks like there will be a understandable delay getting the car back.
Thanks johnboy. Taking a needed break for dinner. There has been alot of progress so far. Roger is done porting the heads. I brought the short block along so we could fit the new hot heads magnesium blower intake. this is the ultimate intake for a early hemi. While similar to the aluminium one it replaces there are several differences. Its 7lbs lighter thats before we lighter it up even more. Its designed for a burst panel. The deck for the blower is not drilled so the blower can go were we want it. It bolts on with six bolts compared to sixteen making maintainance easier. it also has strengthening ribs cast in for a stronger deck. To make it bolt on the head needs to be modified. We first did a mock up to determine were the new studs will go. the heads were then placed in the mill with the end mill set at 45 degrees. A 354 head has a water hole slightly above were the stud goes. a simple spot face followed but the usual drilling and tapping made short work of that job. The 392 head does not have this hole to deal with. I will have to modify my gaskets to match. While roger was busy with that i had the intake in the mill to remove over a inch of material for the distributor clearence. a nitro race car does not normally have a distributor in the stock location so this is not something that usually needs to be dealt with. This is a race intake so there is alot of machining to do so you get the perfect fit for your particular set up. I then put in the nozzle holes for the nitro. they go into the bosses cast into the intake. I put them in 10 degrees up to create more clearance with the valve cover. It should be mentioned great care was taken to not get anything hot. After each pass the chips were swept away to reduce the risk of fire. I will put some lightening holes in the deck along with a o-ring groove after dinner.
The new intake holes are all in. There was some uncertanty going into this step if it would work. As mentioned before the 354 heads have a water hole about where the intake stud should go. No one that i talked to has ever tried to put a 6 bolt intake on 354 heads. We were not sure if the heads needed the hole welded shut. Just under the the water hole the head is solid. And lucky for us thats exactly were the hole goes. So the question has been answered yes it will work. It takes alot of time to set it all up in the mill but it will all be worth it. I poked some holes in the deck to remove some more weight. Im going to sweep up a box full of magnesium chips for the camp fire. Thats fun. Lawn mower decks work good also.
Hope he has some PURPLE K hanging around the shop if he works magnesium. It's the only thing that puts out mag fires. Tell you guests not to look at the burning mag in the campfires is like looking at welding LOL. and condolences for your friend.
We started the day doing a final fit with the intake after the previous nights work. The fit was done with gaskets in place and the heads tightened down. The intake fit perfect. Taking it apart i noticed some thing was funny about the dowel pins. The hole in the block was smaller than the head. I made some stepped dowels and moved on. The intake was squared up deck down in the mill to cut a flat edge so when its flipped back over for other machine processes its square to the table. Its a casting so we need to create flat surfaces. I layed out the blower location one inch back from were it was before on my aluminum intake. Having a retro-roots hi helix blower screws alot of air to the front cylinders. Moving it back even a inch makes a huge improvement on air distribution. The rear cylinders are able to get more air. the opening at the rear of the manifold gets opened up the same inch. This hot heads intake is designed just for this purpose. Before this modification became the norm roger had been doing this for a few years. I would move it back more but the distributor is in the way. Having a blue print in hand helps lay out the blower studs. With the blower location determined the opening under the blower on the manifold deck was machined. With the new position its impressive how much more the rear ports are exposed. I will need to change the stagger on the nozzles to make up for this improved air flow. the rears will get richer the fronts leaner. Next up was removing material at a 45 degree angle below this opening. It makes for a smoother transition to the port. the hump on the roof will be blended in later by hand. I then cut the o-ring groove. The intake was flipped over again after the ports were layed out. After removing a few pounds of material from the ports they are ready to be blended in. The amount of time and machining required to pull this off is alot. It will be worth it when its done. Day two is in the books. Time for bed.
You guys are just lazy Nooooooooooooooooot! It's amazing how you do not cut any corners, even if some tiny little improvement is a full days job it will be done if there's any possible benefit gained. And so many times it's not even granted it'll work you still just do it. "Good enough" is not present, perfection is.
Roger is just that way. Its all about results. There is no b.s. involved. It has to be perfect. The work on the heads and intake not too long ago was top secret stuff. It took a long time for anyone to catch on to the set back blower. One of john forces crew spotted it at a race. He stood there staring at the engine for a hour trying to figure out what looked funny. Shortly there after force was running a set back blower and cleaning house. Roger was the driver of the orange crate front engine nitro dragster. I was a crew member on that team. The car was a true heavy hitter and a national record holder. The hot heads intake and heads prepared in this fashion helped the car to a 5.85 et. To run those kind of numbers took alot of r and d. When allen johnson came out with his billet products it was a copy of what roger had done with the hot heads. Billet is stronger but there are no water jackets for street driving. This engine is almost a exact copy of what was run in the crate. We just run less nitro. The stock iron block wont last long on 99 percent.
It was time to put in the brass tubes. You can see how the porting broke into the pushrod passage way. This epoxy is the best out there. Dart and jegs carry it. The passage needs to be brake cleaned first. The rest of the day was filled with finishing the manifold ports on the mill and hand blending them in. What a difference the way the rear cylinders will get air. I thought about all the time i was spending on a pair of heads but its nothing compared to the hand made pulling tractor head that was in the other mill. The valve job was completed. The heads were decked .003 then the o-ring receiver grooves were cut. The wire was tapped in sitting .013 off the dineck. Its a very tedious job to do it correctly. Theres a thousand ways to screw that job up. when that was done the exhaust guides were finish honed. They are now ready to run. So between the two trips to iowa everything was shown what it takes make the most possible power out of parts available from hot heads. Its alot of fun working at rogers shop. I learn so much every time i go visit. Im very fortunate that he passes a life time of knowledge down to me. Im learning at the masters knee. Thanks also go out to bob and debra walker at hot heads research and racing.
Very cool stuff Brian! It's so great that you are willing to share this with us and taking the time to do so. With the improvements you are making, is there a revised e.t. goal?
Im trying to get it to the first 20 event at union grove first weekend in june. By the meltdown if all goes well i want go turn it loose. We are upping the nitro percentage to make up for the loss of compression with the new heads. They have .062 more on the deck. You can hear and feel every few percent above 40. We will be in the 60-70 percent range. It ran 50 all last year. It should sound like a big show fuel car. Its a little crazy and alot of fun.
While the o-ring operation looks simple its not. Even though the heads are new they were still decked .003 the seats edge needed to be cut along with cleaning up any damage to the deck surface that happened during all of the machining operations. We run a 4.0 inch bore. The wire groove measured on the outside edge is 4.200 so it wont get into any watèr passages. This figure has to match the groove in the block. Special stainless wire is used. The wire has no be gentley tapped into place trapping it in the groove. Block sanding with solvent to break any sharp edges prior to wire installation helps to get a good fit. Anything other than a light tap can damage the wire putting flat spots in it. Great care is needed to fit the wire ends so the wire looks seamless. Once the wire is in the deck surface will always require extra care. If there is machining that needs to be done spacers need to be used to avoid having the wire in direct contact with the table. The heads should always be set down deck side up. This operation is a must on boosted applications.
Due to the need for a larger fuel tank the front frame section needed to be reconfigured. New tank mounts were made and new strut bars were made to clear the now longer tank. The bars were made out of slightly smaller diameter tubing for a less bulky look. Over the weekend i treated the tubing to match the rest of the frame. I put it all back together this morning. While at the shop i finished my new blower manifold sanding plate. After the manifold is torqued into place its packed with rags. We put lay out dye on the deck surface and sand it flat. The plate is 18x18x3/4 thick. This is a very important step. Im always surprised how distorted a new manifold becomes once its torqued into place. My wife finished sewing the seat cover after it was cut down. I think it turned out real good. With the new trailer coming this week its nice to live so close to pit pal products. A guy has to be able to accessorise to his liking. Its like walking into a candy store. More on that later.
Moving the blower back has a ripple effect on everything else. The blower guard and idler pulley needed new spacers made. Thats no big deal. The blower snout and drive needed to be replaced also. Thats not cheap. If anyone needs a blower snout i just happen to know a guy selling one.
Its sure been a circus around here. I drove to elkhart indiana thursday to pick up my new trailer at vintage. Its a 40 foot gooseneck. The open trailer was out grown. Some of the features are. A/c 15000 btu slim line so i can get the trailer in my shop. Under floor remote control winch Two under floor spare tire compartments with two spares Queen size bed and head board Shower and toilet with vanity with larger tanks and tank monitoring panel. Outlets so the girls can do their hair. 32 foot dmp pro awning with power in the horizontal poles for lights and fans All lights are led 120 inch storage cabinet 6 speaker stereo 4 outside two inside Hydraulic landing gear Air compressor with built in air lines Roof vents 60 inch double side door with freezer curtain Pull out step Onan 5000 watt generator Tapered nose with two windows one is e gress One foot extra tall height .040 outside walls Spread triple axle 48 inch flat screen with antenna Upgraded 50 amp fuse box Mid ship directionals Coin rubber floor Elite cabinets Snap on tool cart to park outside by the car. Its a dream to pull with the spread axles. The inside is a little messy with all of the work being done. Bob wop and stroked stang turned me on to vintage trailers. It was the right choice. The dealer was west side motor coach.
What an impressive rig! How many Messerschmitt's will fit inside the trailer??? I'll have to swing by and see it. Jim
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