-Feb 12th 2008. Engine rotation parts have all arrived and prepared for balancing job. Cylinder head is also almost ready yet still required valve job. As soon we get cylinder block honed and cleaned, we begin final assembly.
-Mar 17th 2008. Final engine assembly has begun last weekend. Crankshaft, cam and timing belt assembly are installed in its place. Camshaft timing and some clearance cheking is scheduled next. Cylinder head is still not arrived from welder. It might get tight, since we have not more than two months to season opening.
Assembling engine main bearings.
-Apr 5th 2008. Pistons are in place, camshaft is timed and some modifications are made to oilpan and windage tray. Still waiting for a cylinder head to get done by an aluminum welder. Meanwhile some parts are ordered. Head gasgets appeared to have too large bore openings and we have slightly short pushrods. Those parts should arrive anytime soon.
A billet steel bearing cap for rearend center section is a next job. It will need some milling to fit.
We're also waiting for a new rear tires to come. They will probably need some tin work to get them fit. Lets see.
Crankshaft, timing gear and pistons assembled.
-April 14th 2008. Cylinder head work is almost finished.
Rear end has put together this weekend. We also found a cut off upper uniball from right rear shock. Badly welded though. As soon as we have heads assembled to the motor we are planning some dyno time. Hope they have days available, since spring time, there are quite a few other teams got their engines running and need for tuning.
-April 27th 2008. Cylinder head works are now done and engine assembling continues. But the bad news is that we found transmission case cracked. Lets see what alu-welder says about it. Is it repairable and will it stand for torque. Otherwise we have to get a new case or a whole transmission.
We still waiting for new rear tires to come. Since there is less than three weeks to season opening race, we have plan 'B' for tires.
-May 10th 2008. Motor has now assembled and we spend a day in a dyno. Results... not much to mention. We expect more power but it seems that camshaft limits engines power production at the upper rpm range.
Motor ready for dyno
-Little worried about rear tires. There is only a one week to season opening and we have heard nothing about tire shipment. I,m pretty sure that we have to start with a used, rock hard pair from a friend. Well... lets see.
There is some other stuff need to be done also. Transmission case is now welded and waiting for put together this weekend. Also we have to make some trans tunnel mods to gain room for explosion shields, specially for flexplate shield.
As said, there is a one week left and lots to do, but ultimate mission is get things together and haul asses to Motopark next friday.
-May 14th 2008. Another backfire for the project. Engine and transmission is finally in its place but we have a major transmission fluid leak. It seems that cooling line fitting boss is cracked. No other to do but yank the package out again and swap the trans. Only few days left to first race so we have to kinda hurry.
-May 16th 2008. Car is finally ready for race. We took out an engine, swapped transmission and put it all together again. It seems to be okay. Tonight we heading for Motopark. Next week we know how things went.
-May 17th - 18th 2008. Sonax Spring Nationals, Motopark, Virtasalmi.
Now the race weekend is over and results are on a table. Saturday was sunny but pretty cold. Temperatures were just touching 10 deg Celsius. Five qualificaton runs overall and new best et was set right off-the-trailer. At the end of the day numbers were 10.330 ET / 209,42 km/h (130.16 mph).
-Sunday washed out by wet snow and drizzle, and race cancelled around 1 pm. Points standings based on qualification results from saturday. Third place is a good start to season.
-June 1st 2008. Getting ready for a second event of a season. Kamasa Tools Nationals At Alastaro circuit. Car is checked out and it is ready for race. Unforunately we did not have time for camshaft swap, therefore not much to do to improve cars performance. Hope to keep things together next weekend and go for a cam swap after that.
-June 6th 2008. New tires ar finally arrived and stuffed under. Lets see how they affect to 60 foot times and et:s. Everything is ready for sunny weekend at Alastaro circuit. By the way... there is a new video clip from Motopark season openings, at the 'videoita' -page.
-June 10th 2008 Weekend went by at Alastaro circuit. Satuday qualification was kinda struggle. Car did not perform well at all. Engine seemed to run rich and misses bad midway down the track, and it didnt pick up top speed nowhere near it should.
We tried leaner jetting to compensate relative warm weather but et.s fell down to 10.7. For sure tuning went wrong way.
For sunday eliminations we went up for jetting couple of steps but we could not gain back where we started. First round was solo, and for second round, what we think of, front band of transmission slipped at the starting line resulted car to move backwards about 10 inches. Stage light went out and tree wasn't started for Juha. That calls a weekend (here is a video of that pass, check it out). It is possible that the transmission slippage held back 60 foot times through weekend, but for sure, there is something in engine department also.
Best overall pass was first qualification run, resulted 10.577. Not good.
-June 26th 2008. Well. Engine and trans are checked and race ready again. We change the cam for slighly more duration and lift. Hope that gives us some extra oomph for specially the upper rpm range. Transmissions front band was cooked slightly just as we expected. It is now replaced with new 'red' -band.
We also found that there was some small particles loose inside torque converter. We did not dare to put it in place. We took it for fix but for pretty weird and complex chain of events forced Juha to have a visit to the speedshop and get a new unit, even it hit pretty damn hard on budget this time a season.
-July 3th 2008. Nitronationals at the next weekend, is next on shedule. For some strange reason Finnish Hot Rod Assosiation is decided that the Street classes have their qualifications and eliminator at thursday and friday. Bummer. Would it been nice to race a front of full grandstands saturday and sunday. But nothing can do.
-July 7th 2008. Another weekend at the races went by. Again, perfomance was'nt there like we expected. Actually there was'nt any diffrence from previous.
With 10,44 et/ 128 mph, We were able to get 6th place at the qualification and it was a weekends best.
Eliminations first round we were placed agains top qualifier turbo Fury. Juha saw Elvis somewhere and leave the lights well before tree was activated. That was not all. Once Furys driver saw red light at the tree he let the off brake button also. Both cars were disqualified from the race. Rather unusual situation , but hey, this is racing.
-Fuel distribution between cylinders seems to be an issue. Car did'nt respond to camshaft change at all. carburator is jetted a way big. Leaner jetting slows the car down, still leaves front and rear cylinders sooty black. We are now pretty sure that the intake manifold does not work at all for this combination. It seems that runner dividers are placed so that air/fuel mixture have to go around corner to enter center cylinders. Also most of the idle fuel seems to flow straight to the end cylinders (photo) . Next we have to try diffrent spacers to direct mixture stream to center of plenum, hoping that might help the problem.
-Eliminations was scheduled to friday, but FHRA decided to get rid of street classes and first round were driven on thurstay night. So much for the weekend. Friday and saturday we participate as tourists. It would have been nice to race a front of full grandstands.
-Anyway, now we looking ahead for Kalajoki Summer Nationals July 19.-20. Again we hope to get some oomph out of engine. Let see then.
July 18th 2008. Next stop Kalajoki airport Summer Nationals.
-Some update has been done once again. We fabricated a carb spacer out of plywood to correct severe fuel distribution problem between each cylinder. Pretty confident that it will work but you newer know.
Spacer fabrication
A fellow racer will bring a Dart intake and Demon carb with him and we might try it out if our own gimmicks won't work.
-Again, it does'nt went like we wanted. While doing warm up after carb and spacer installation, we hear loud snap. We tought some stuff drop off the table due loud sound vibration and we didn't pay attention to what it was. While doing valve lash adjustment we found out that there was snapped rocker stud. Quick call to a fellow racer and he happend to have spare set of studs in his daily commuters trunk. Wierd, but luck for us. There was no further damage and we get things back together.
-In couple of days we know if we are able to get any improvements.
-July 26th 2008. Kalajoki airport race is considered done. Weather was overall great and many teams could improve their performances and brake records. We also got our best top speed this far (131,45 mph, improved by around 1,5 mph). Best Et was three hundreds from a record.
-Home made carb spacer worked pretty much how we expected. No more sooty plugs anymore. Despite that, we decided to test friends Dart intake and carburation setup and nearly missed saturdays last qualification round in a process. How ever it did'nt work at all. Black spark plugs again and one completely fouled. AFR with that carb was heavily rich (# 91 jets). Instead of excercising with jets and unknown carburator, we swapped our own combo back in place.
-For sunday we jetted our carburator richer two times. It seems that it was a right way to go, even the jet sizes are already huge. And I mean huge, .157 in. diameter (4mm)!!!
- Second round at the eliminations we did all we could but defeated Perakasaris Nova 9.818 against 10,36.
Here are qualification results and elimination ladder from Kalajoki.
Right now we are in fifth place at the cup points and there is one race left at the series.
-New annular boosters are now ordered for the carb. Hope it will correct jet sizes to a normal level. I still wonder why jet sizing have to be that large. There was #94 jets out-of box and they were just like Demon,s specs are at the Barry Grants web page. Is that carburator way too large or what. I refuse to admit that.
-Well, we have to think what other improvements we can do before finals at the end of august. Stay tuned.
-August 14th 2008. Last minute decision. We are going to participate the West Coast Street Cup at the Pori airport 16th of this month. Yes its day after tomorrow. Should we go to watch the race, but after all, we got the car ready and it will be perfect opportunity to test before finals. WSCS events are mainly for registered street legal cars but there is an Et-bracket class for cars witch does not meet this criteria.
-King Demon now has new boosters and we also fabricated a sealed scoop. Lets see if them work or not. And thumbs up for things to stay together. Last year we ended up scrap the motor at the Kiikala airport just before FHRA:s finals.
-August 21st 2008 So much for the Pori airport race. Efforts made for carburator boosters and sealed plexi class scoop really paid off. Carb jets measures now # 97. Huge diffrence from previous. Can you imagine. Spark plug colurs were right there. It still may need some adjusting though but it is well in a zone.
-Only two qualfication runs and one eliminator round sealed a day for us but we were able to net a new et and top speed records, even though the rear tires could not get traction for a first 30-40 m (100-130ft).
-Qualifications were driven against 0,5 second bracket tree (Not for a best et), something Juha has never tried. Despite that, he took a 0,512 lamp in a first qf round and that puts him straigt to the #1 spot for the eliminations. Is'nt that something, huh. Run did'nt went wery good, altough et was 10,394, traction was lost after mid track and Juha was forced to ease a bit resulting only 192,85 kmh top speed.
Second round was a completely mess. Car stumbles at the line due experimental launch method, 60 foot was 3,6 sec and et fel down to 12,2. Trap speed though was improved up to an impressive 221 kmh. That was something we didnt belive and we thought that there was something wrong with the clocks. And when it comes the time to make a index choise for a first elimination round we, for some reason, ignored completely that previous run and we put down a conservative 10,30 for an index. Huge mistake. Car left pretty strong at the line, went sideways past 60ft mark and eventually stop the clocks for a cars new et and top speed record, well under set index. Its a happy way to lose first round and go packing.
-New numbers writes like 10,237 et and 221,21km/h (137,48 mph).
-I've been thinking if there is serious issue with a rear shoks bottoming up and as a result, loose traction. That's a thing we have to check before finals (29th-31st of August). Also i'm not really sure how ladder bar adjustments should made. Car hooks pretty good, lift the whole body and after that, lost it completely. Maybe too stiff front springs and previously mentioned shock bottoming at he rear. Or both.
August 28th 2008. Things are ready for a seasons finals at Alastaro circuit now following weekend. There is definately problems with a chassis. There is a long wintertime ahead. Suspension update is on a wishlist. Well, lets' see. After a weekend we know final results for a season. There is still a little chanse to gain positions up from a fifth place. Thumbs up everyone.
August 31st 2008. Season 2008 is considered done. New et record was set again and it now stands 9.730. Quite an improvement within last two races in two weeks.
-On friday morning we had again some extra work with rear suspension. There really was shock bottoming. They hit to the upper ladderbar mounting bolts so hard that they were dented andthe other one was bent at the shaft. Few phone calls later we headed to the nearby speed shop, got new full size chevy rear shocks and had upper mountings changed to uniballs. With all the hazzle we missed the first round but were more than a ready for second qualification round. It nettet us new best et 9,936. After hoisting up launch rpm , et was improwed further to 9,903.
-For saturday Qualifications we fine tuned rea a little. Et dropped down to 9,884. That scores us a 7th spot for sunday eliminations.
- For first elimination round we had solo run. Juha beats the crap out of Chevy and new record was set. 9,750 et with 1,371 60 foot. Second round was against Suojanens wind fast Mustang. Juha staged deep, somehow recovers that but leaved without trans brake. Off went Suojanen and that calls a day and a season. No further improvements on that pass but the team can be more than satisfied for the weekend.
- We got fourh place at the series considering this last race was the first we got in a zone. There is a long 'to do' list waiting for a winter. Front and rear suspension needs to be upgraded and it's not hurting to dig out some horsepower out the mill. Not sure how but since I'm tend to stay awake to the morning hours, I might see the light.
- I will update te page once we do something, and we ha ve something to shear with you.
Tech:
Body and chassis – 67’Chevrolet Nova STW, converted to 2 door sedan delivery.
8 pt rollgage, stock front suspension, ladder bar rear suspension. Lakewood / Competition Engineering shock absorbers.
Engine - Chevrolet bb four bolt 4.00 stroke/4.280 bore, 461 cid. Keith Black billet crankshaft. Ross pistons.
King Demon carburator, Brodix single plane intake manifold, Aluminum Brodix race heads.
Crane roller cam, roller rockers and triple valve springs.
Comp beltdrive timing gear, Msd Ignition system w/crank trigger.
