Good and not so good at the Norwalk Mopar race

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B3422w5

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Huge turnout of cars, nice weather, kinda humid and sticky, but after the cool period we had in the Midwest..not complaining about a return to summer.
Got two hits Friday, first with timing set at 30, believing the balancer being 5 degrees off. It wasn’t.
Set timing to 35, made second time hit, car ran perfectly, picked up significantly at every incremental, even though the air on that pass was 1200 foot worse.
Decided not to pay the extra to enter the gamblers race because car was smoking going down the track..aarrgg!
First time in my life I have ever passed entering any race I possibly could when out of town at an event.
Saturday, 1 hit then racing. I douched the engine with brake clean, snugged up the valve cover bolts, mopped up oil coming out of front and back China walls, made my hit, still smoking, but again ran perfectly.
I should point out a 1/4 mile hit isnt standing on it a second or 3 on the street to see if a miss is resolved. I thought I had it fixed. Wrong!
Mope around, hang out with some buddies I don’t get to see all the time, don’t show up for first round because of the leaks.
I pretty much decide to pull the plug on the weekend at that point. I call the wife back home, tell her what’s going on. She says..don’t bring it home leaking oil, I am out in the garage scooping up oil dry you put down. Now that your car isn’t in here, I am cleaning it up :lol:
So..it’s hot.but I go to my pits and take the covers and intake off it to friggin fix it. I am shot leaning over the hood.
My two close buddies show up( they knew I was working on it)
and took over. I searched around the whole show to finally find a set of intake gaskets while they were cleaning up the China rails, intake gasket area etc to get it ready for new gaskets.
They threw it back together nicely using a whole tube of right stuff I had
So then we are deciding what to do with these cheapy valve covers I had to have because they were red. Problem is the intake runners interfere, and these stamped cheesy covers have been so bent up, trimmed up, etc that there just isn’t enough meat there between the head surface and the intake runners, the way they currently are. But they leak everywhere else too.
So sitting on my trailer we decided the best route was to goop up both sides of the valve cover gasket, piling it up in the runner areas, letting it set up, then
hopefully good.
Well the intake is now fine, but the valve covers continue to spit out oil onto the back of both heads,down the bellhousing, onto the headers, and smoke. I noticed( after first round this morning) there was right stuff laying in the “ valley” of the intake along with oil. Got pushed out.
I even got warned picking up my time slip at the ET shack, the smoke the car was putting out after the 1/8 mile. So… my event is done.
Need to buy a better set of covers that are stiff( something like the pricy Mopar performance type) that I can trim around the runners and still have integrity left.
So… here is the slip from first round before I pulled the plug, definately not on my game, but it worked out on this one.
So I had three hits on the car with the timing corrected, 10.459, 10.450, and this pass I am putting on the post with the slip.
Only thing that varied was the 60 foot, it kept getting worse, car kept running the same. I bent my tired old bones down to see how much tire was on this thing,and after looking about drove it on the trailer Friday. All this street testing with a spool wacked out what was left of them. 2 grooves were gone, and I remembered I had replaced them mid season two years ago. So I had an extra 1/2 season on them than I normally get out of them. You can see the soft 60 foot on the slip, track prep was fine, was 4 or 5 numbers from where I would normally expect it to be in the conditions I raced in. First “ good” pass of the three was 1.450, progressively worse. Car was coming around, but tires sure aren’t. I was expecting 10.37-10.39 based on it history in this kinda air, the 60’ accounts for the softer ET
Got to meet and talk to poster 540 Demon on here. Great guy and ultra cool( and fast ) Demon. His dad’s car is a real show stopper. He has talked about it on here before. It’s bad arse!
Sensational fireworks show Saturday night put on by the track,couldn’t believe how long it lasted and the intensity. Those that haven’t been to Norwalk, they do absolutely everything top shelf. Fun weekend, motor is healthy, just a nagging issue to put to bed.
All and all, fun weekend, car is healthy, good seeing friends I don’t get to see enough.

IMG_0240.jpeg
 
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Huge turnout of cars, nice weather, kinda humid and sticky, but after the cool period we had in the Midwest..not complaining about a return to summer.
Got two hits Friday, first with timing set at 30, believing the balancer being 5 degrees off. It wasn’t.
Set timing to 35, made second time hit, car ran perfectly, picked up significantly at every incremental, even though the air on that pass was 1200 foot worse.
Decided not to pay the extra to enter the gamblers race because car was smoking going down the track..aarrgg!
First time in my life I have ever passed entering any race I possibly could when out of town at an event.
Saturday, 1 hit then racing. I douched the engine with brake clean, snugged up the valve cover bolts, mopped up oil coming out of front and back China walls, made my hit, still smoking, but again ran perfectly.
I should point out a 1/4 mile hit isnt standing on it a second or 3 on the street to see if a miss is resolved. I thought I had it fixed. Wrong!
Mope around, hang out with some buddies I don’t get to see all the time, don’t show up for first round because of the leaks.
I pretty much decide to pull the plug on the weekend at that point. I call the wife back home, tell her what’s going on. She says..don’t bring it home leaking oil, I am out in the garage scooping up oil dry you put down. Now that your car isn’t in here, I am cleaning it up :lol:
So..it’s hot.but I go to my pits and take the covers and intake off it to friggin fix it. I am shot leaning over the hood.
My two close buddies show up( they knew I was working on it)
and took over. I searched around the whole show to finally find a set of intake gaskets while they were cleaning up the China rails, intake gasket area etc to get it ready for new gaskets.
They threw it back together nicely using a whole tube of right stuff I had
So then we are deciding what to do with these cheapy valve covers I had to have because they were red. Problem is the intake runners interfere, and these stamped cheesy covers have been so bent up, trimmed up, etc that there just isn’t enough meat there between the head surface and the intake runners, the way they currently are. But they leak everywhere else too.
So sitting on my trailer we decided the best route was to goop up both sides of the valve cover gasket, piling it up in the runner areas, letting it set up, then
hopefully good.
Well the intake is now fine, but the valve covers continue to spit out oil onto the back of both heads,down the bellhousing, onto the headers, and smoke. I noticed( after first round this morning) there was right stuff laying in the “ valley” of the intake along with oil. Got pushed out.
I even got warned picking up my time slip at the ET shack, the smoke the car was putting out after the 1/8 mile. So… my event is done.
Need to buy a better set of covers that are stiff( something like the pricy Mopar performance type) that I can trim around the runners and still have integrity left.
So… here is the slip from first round before I pulled the plug, definately not on my game, but it worked out on this one.
So I had three hits on the car with the timing corrected, 10.459, 10.450, and this pass I am putting on the post with the slip.
Only thing that varied was the 60 foot, it kept getting worse, car kept running the same. I bent my tired old bones down to see how much tire was on this thing,and after looking about drove it on the trailer Friday. All this street testing with a spool wacked out what was left of them. 2 grooves were gone, and I remembered I had replaced them mid season two years ago. So I had an extra 1/2 season on them than I normally get out of them. You can see the soft 60 foot on the slip, track prep was fine, was 4 or 5 numbers from where I would normally expect it to be in the conditions I raced in. First “ good” pass of the three was 1.450, progressively worse. Car was coming around, but tires sure aren’t. I was expecting 10.37-10.39 based on it history in this kinda air, the 60’ accounts for the softer ET
Got to meet and talk to poster 540 Demon on here. Great guy and ultra cool( and fast ) Demon. His dad’s car is a real show stopper. He has talked about it on here before. It’s bad arse!
Sensational fireworks show Saturday night put on by the track,couldn’t believe how long it lasted and the intensity. Those that haven’t been to Norwalk, they do absolutely everything top shelf. Fun weekend, motor is healthy, just a nagging issue to put to bed.
All and all, fun weekend, car is healthy, good seeing friends I don’t get to see enough.

View attachment 1716458257
That last pass must have been fun. Identical R/T. Could you tell who had the stripe?
 

That last pass must have been fun. Identical R/T. Could you tell who had the stripe?
He took it. It’s a very good friends NSS 10.75 index car his son is driving nowdays. You can see the MOV on the slip. He only had to run dead on to get me, but he didn’t, cause I was flat out.
They were in Pro and doubled up with it in Nostalgia super stock too.
Something fun about chasing down 500 inch big blocks!
 
That looks VERY close on paper. I hope to be pissing off BB and hemi guys with my no hood scoop, small block Duster. First test hits on the 28th.
 
That looks VERY close on paper. I hope to be pissing off BB and hemi guys with my no hood scoop, small block Duster. First test hits on the 28th.
Close race !!! I had a problem a few years ago with the cheap " fabricated " valve covers , they might look good but the rail where the gasket goes is flat with no way to hold the gasket in. I sold them and went back to my Mopar Performance ones they have a lip to hold the gasket in and haven't had a problem since with gaskets blowing out and leaking oil .
 
It was good to meet you my friend. I’m happy you kept on it to get it down the track. Luckily the valve covers will fix your problem and a new set of tires. I sure look forward to next season cause I’m sure you’ll have it back out and running good.
 
Uhhhg! That would have only added an additional 26 hrs of driving time on our racecation. Looked like a great event as usual. Give Matt a call at Glendora Dodge (CA). He’s had the Mopar wide covers for a decent price. Still had a bunch of sets this spring at MaTS. (But they are heavy! )
 
Uhhhg! That would have only added an additional 26 hrs of driving time on our racecation. Looked like a great event as usual. Give Matt a call at Glendora Dodge (CA). He’s had the Mopar wide covers for a decent price. Still had a bunch of sets this spring at MaTS. (But they are heavy! )
Thinking about why it’s having issues with the valve covers now, and never did before the motor was apart, gets me to thinking what has/ might have changed.
I am confident the intake issue was just a matter of being too lazy to run to the parts store to get more goop when what was used was probably not enough.
Have a couple ideas that circle back to couple possible mistakes I made, sometimes it hard to admit you screw up, but it will be easy to find out.
 
I think the motor has too much oil in it. First time oil has ever been changed when not on a lift.
I did it in the driveway with a jack under the front of it and two jackstands. So motor was tipped back, pan has two trap doors in it, etc.
Drained it, corked it back up and filled it.
Don’t have a dipstick, but I am thinking there was still a somewhat significant amount of oil in it before I filled it.
Fast forward, get to the track, have issues. “ FIX” it then add another quart of oil because of the leaking. With it fixed by two smarter guys than me who gooped the hell out of the valve covers with Right stuff and we allowed it to cure until that evening before starting it( Saturday night), everyone was positive it was all good.
On the Sunday morning pass it seems it really started smoking about 1/2 track onward. No better than before, maybe worse, because this time I got flagged at the ET shack.
I suspect those guys did such a good job on those valve covers that they held till half track dealing with even another quart of oil added to the mix.
Thinking fresh oil change and some time ungooping the covers and new gaskets will solve all this newfound BS
I already know by compression tests there isn’t any blowby of note, and accounting for shot tires, conditions, etc, I figured the car was about 1/2 a tenth off. Extra oil being in it would certainly slow it down perhaps that much, especially noticable on the mph, which I expected to be over 130, not 128.xx
Not racing anymore this season, so sooner or later I will find out if I am on the right track, but I am pretty sure I am. Stupid, stupid, stupid
 
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