enloe we will be in bg this june. I have to get over to that breakfast place you talk about. im not sure if we will be racing the car there. it dependes on the crew. I might take it easy and just enjoy the show. we might cruise the hotel parking lots on 80 percent. flames flyin nitro stink hangin in humid air crazy noise and just riding around like its no big deal.
Dang I was hoping to get a chance to pair up with you. And if anyone thinks nitro is stink they ain't right.
Ya, me 3. Brian, if I could afford it, I'd pay for the 80% to cruise the Backtothe50's. They need some of that. Uhm, no, they need a whole lot of it. Nitro fumes hovering over the whole fairgrounds, trees obscured, etc. The new Purple Haze... <chuckle>... . Hope that thing ROCKS! Marcus...
Everything was going great until we tried to put the trans mount on. It was off by a half inch. I put a level across the deck of the engine and it showed it was high in the back. The mag support up front was also not fitting due to the mag pointing slightly downward. The fix is trimming the mid plate. The question is how much needs to be removed. Using a little math solved that question. The pivot point is the front mount. I just had to take a few measurements then plug them into the correct equation. 24 inches from the front mount to the mid plate. 35 inches from the mid plate to the rear mount. 1/2 inch drop needed. The math says .200 needs to be removed. The math was right. It's much better than guessing. Had I known when I was in school I could use math to build cars I would have paid more attention in class.
How did you know that formula? I leaned that stuff in school, but now 40 years later I don't remember more than the basics. I'm going to call you next time I'm stumped.
I didn't completely remember it. It's been a while for me to. I called my son and his best friend they are both automotive engineers. Happy hemi day Joel.
Not to get off topic but I had a similar problem a while back (building related). I went down to the local church op shop and bought an old geometry book. Problem solved. Back to regular programming. Still fascinated by this thread. Every day's a day at school!
Now thats a great idea. I would rather use a book any day compared to a computer. Barnes and noble would probable have them also. Next time I'm there I'm getting one.
Geometry was the only math class i did worth a damn in high school(circa 1990). Now, forget it, I can hardly go beyond basic math. You guys are rulers!
I tend to cheat and just figure that stuff out using AutoCAD. Otherwise, I'd have to Google the formula.
This was posted today on the Hot Rod Magazine blog: http://www.hotrod.com/articles/drag...F057A4F206671ABA32727DA6C69B98B94847B3AE186C1 Maybe this was a “shot over the head” for the other Drag Week racers to let them know Brian has pulled out all the stops for this season.
The valves that were ordered back in December finally showed up. Last week Roger sent me a pair of valves he modified to my specs just so I could mock up a set of pushrods. I should have pushrods from manton next week. Those will be 7/16 thickwall with tool steel cups. Wasting no time the heads were put together tonight. It was easy to assemble because we had already figured out valve the height and spring pressure over the winter.
Brian could you enlighten us on the topic of your new heads dual plug potential? This would require a dual mag setup correct? Or could a secondary plug set be for the street ignition if so engineered? Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
You are correct x2. The heads are machined for a second set of tubes and o rings. On a nitro engine with big boost and very high nitro loads a second mag can be helpful. It's hard to fire the cylinder under those conditions. I'm not at that level yet. The long term plan is to set up the car so I can switch from gas to nitro on the fly. We are looking into using a air conditioner clutch to engage the dual drive. A hall effect ignition with a duty cycle would be used to set the timing. The heads would have the second spark plug hole finished. Then both mag and efi wires would always be connected along with the dual drive. It would be a big challenge to get it working with the fast efi box. We think it can be done. At pri the guys from fast looked at me kind of strange. That's ok I'm used to guys saying you want to do what?
i don't think plug fouling will be a issue. the plugs don't foul out now gas or nitro. my combustion chambers are always soot free. for racing I would put fresh plugs in. I think its worth trying it. to make it work would be fun. granted its not practical but nothing else on this car is so it would fit right in. I also think there is the challenge side of things because no one has done this before.
the mag and blower suck a lot of power. they say in a big show nitro car the blower uses up 500hp plus. the mag who knows I never heard a figure for that. I cant turn it with my hand very easy so its using something. regardless of how much they use they make more than they use so its all good. I cant make power without them.
Yes the 426 based engine have a total of 8 extra studs. They go through the deck into the valley. The intake has to come off to get to them. In a applications were the heads need to come off on a regular basis the o- rings for the blower and manifold are real time savers.
Any updates? I need my nitro hot rod fix! Seriously I could get back in drag racing if I had the room for it. Reading your posts helps me live my drag racing needs.
Tonight's nitro tech is all about keeping myself out of a burn unit. When a super charged car burns a piston or pinches a ring or any other condition happens that over pressurised the crank case bad things happen. The pressure can cause gaskets to push out resulting in a loss of oil. If this oil hits the red hot headers a big fire can result. I use double wall headers to reduce the fire risk. The rise in pressure can be very violent. To prevent gaskets from pushing out I use cometic gaskets with a steel core for the oil pan and valve covers. For the ends of the intake manifold the rules require a containment device. It's a simple piece of aluminum bent like a z. The forward edge traps the foam gasket. The other end is inside the engines valley. It's a very simple device. The valve covers have breathers that vent into a tank. The tank has to have a one gallon minimum capacity. Some chassis are designed to be vented into. They have a very specific design. Venting into the wrong kind of chassis is illegal. All the chassis tubes become fill with oil. Not just the main tube. This creates a very dangerous situation because the cars chassis becomes a bomb in a fire. The oil burns in the tubes and cant vent. On the other end of the car I got the parachute cables mounted. I found some real cool cable clamps at a aircraft supply place. They positively hold the cable as it passes through the body. A parachute cable needs to be positively secured at both ends to work right. All of this safety stuff has come about over the years unfortunately after someone else got injured.
The Jalopy Journal
