The saga continues....
Feb '04: The van was still in poor health from last year. It had been parked for months while I focused on other areas of my life (such as buying a house). But now it's a new year, the house shopping is behind me, and Mopars at the Strip is looming on the horizon, waiting for me to defend my title. Time to figure out what's wrong with the van!
The engine was still running horribly, but now there was also another problem: it knocked. Loudly. At idle it was usually quiet, but hold a steady 2000 RPM with the hood up and machine shops three states away began calling to ask for my business. Draining the oil found some metal flake suspended in it, so I really began to suspect the worst. Off came the head assembly, which was sent to the machine shop for cleaning and inspection. Then out came the shortblock and trans. Turns out the knocking was due to my flexplate, now in two pieces. Some of the rod and main bearings got a bit roughed up from the metal in the oil, so I decided to take it to the machine shop as well. When I got there, they showed me an interesting item from my cylinder head: one of the exhaust valve springs was snapped in two. "I bet the engine ran like crap, didn't it?" asked the machinist. Uhh, yeah. So now everything is being rebuilt.
Mar 14 '04: After wrenching past midnight for three nights in a row, tonight it finally came alive. With 144,539 miles on the clock, the Bluesmobile has been reborn! I have a really strange oil leak at the left rear corner of the block--I have no idea where it could be coming from--but other than that everything looks pretty good. I have three and a half days to rack up as many miles as possible (when I'm not at work or asleep, of course), then it's off to Vegas.
April '04: The good news is the van made it to Vegas. The bad news is it didn't do it under its own power. As I began putting a few easy miles on it, it started making a very ominous noise from the head. The day I was to leave for Vegas, I pulled the valve cover and found out one exhaust valve keeper was stripped and ready to drop the valve. Since everything else looked okay, it seemed like a case of a bad keeper... so we replaced that one without removing the head. After the operation was done, the engine was much quieter, so I packed up and hit the road. About 60 miles into the trip, that exhaust valve keeper failed again and dropped the valve. Luckily, I was following a friend who was trailering his car to the event; we pulled over, drove his car off the trailer, limped mine onto it, and the van spent the rest of the weekend on the trailer. (sigh)
Upon returning home, I removed the head and took it back to the machinist. Turns out he never actually measured for coil bind so, well, it bound. He stood by his work, buying me a new valve and redoing everything at no charge. I put the head back on again and now at least it ran properly. Now there was a mysterious ticking noise that I can't figure out, but I'm driving it anyway. I'll figure out what it is when it blows up.
Apr 23 '04: Today was the first points event of the 2004 season. Since I'm still getting used to the new setup, I am detuned to only 13 psi boost (compared to last year's setting of 19 psi). I was hoping to hit the 15's if I'm lucky. Things turned out better than I expected, though: my first time trial was a 15.334 @ 90.91 MPH... and this on a dismal 60-ft time of 2.425 seconds. For the second time trial I launched a bit harder (but still pretty soft at 2.229) and clicked off a 14.862 @ 90.98 MPH. This is less than one MPH off of my van's all-time 19 psi best (91.82) and, don't forget, I'm only at 13 psi now. Sweeeet! As far as the bracket event is concerned, I made it to the fourth round before I lost (by breaking out)... so I left the event with 46 points and tied for fifth place.
May 7 '04: Today was the second points event. I made a couple small tweaks since my last outing: I advanced the camshaft two degrees, I retarded the static ignition timing two degrees (from 12 to 10) and I lowered the fuel pressure nearly half a turn. Boost was still at the same 13 psi as last time. The first time trial was a soft launch (2.377) and resulted in a lackluster 15.247 ET... but at 91.47 MPH! My launches got progessively better all night: 2.308, 2.260, 2.176 and finally 2.142 seconds, resulting in an estimated 14.72 ET. (I had to estimate the ET as I was hard on the brakes after the 1000' mark... and I still broke out.) I made it three rounds, earning another 36 points and ending up in a tie for sixth place overall.
May 21 '04: Today was the third event. Since my last outing, I bumped the boost from 13 to 16 psi; no other changes were made. I was hoping the extra power would let me set a new record ET. Miraculously, traction was pretty consistent--my 60-ft times fell within the range of 2.090 to 2.077 seconds--and this did help me set a new record of 14.423 @ 92.64 MPH on my second time trial. For the first elimination round I dialled pretty aggressively due to a tough opponent, but he managed to edge me out by a few hundredths and got the win. Interestingly enough, nearly everybody else in the top ten also went out in the first round, allowing some other people to move up and really making it a close points race.
June 4 '04: Tonight was event #4. I had made no changes since last time out, but traction just wasn't as good; I could only get short times of 2.112 to 2.160 seconds. But even though my ETs were in the 14.5 second range, I did set a new trap speed record of 92.79 MPH (on a 14.515 pass). I made it to the third round and things were looking good... until I broke out by one thousandth of a second, running 14.589 on a 14.59 dial. Crap! This is the third time in my life I've broken out by one thousandth, and it never stings any less. Oh, well, those 36 points bring my season total up to 134, leaving me in a tie for 8th place.
June 25 '04: Here we are at the halfway point: event #5. I was hoping to hit a 13-second ET; with that goal in mind I was running 18 psi, bumped my ignition timing two degrees (back to 12) and I borrowed Mark's 23" M&H slicks. Naturally, I assumed these slicks would give me substantially more grip... but I was totally wrong. The night's best 60-ft time was 2.072 seconds, which was no better than my runs back on May 21st. Still, the extra power let me run 14.155 @ 94.99 MPH and set a new record. I made it to round number two, where I staged too deep and drew a red light on launch. :( Chalk me up for another 26 points, bringing my total to 160 for the season so far.
Aug 28 '04: Sorry for the delay in updating, but I think you'll understand. Event #6 saw me go out in the first round with a red light, and then I did it again in event #7. At event #8 I swore to myself I wouldn't redlight, and I didn't... but I still lost in the first round anyway. I might not have minded so much if I was running faster, but no such luck. I again borrowed the M&H slicks for event #6 and again saw no better traction than before, so I figured they were useless and switched back to my tall M&H DOTs for the rest of the season.
Last night at event #9, however, was different. The air quality was decent (for my track anyway--the DA was still 6000+ feet) and traction was okay, if not record setting. I had wanted more boost but the turbo won't give it to me; even shimming the wastegate and unplugging the actuator resulted in 20 psi, that's it. This was upsetting to me... until I made my first time trial: a 13.926 @ 97.37 MPH with a 2.070 60-ft time! My next trial backed this up with a 13.940 on a 2.067 short time.
Now that I finally hit the 13s, I didn't even care how the brackets went. Naturally, this means I won my first round (14.046 on the brakes) and my second round (14.091 on the brake again). In the third round traction slipped a bit and I ran a 14.117, just barely losing by .0294 second to a 10-second track car. A number of people above me in points went out in the first and second round, but it's so late in the season I doubt it'll be a significant difference. That's fine with me; now I just want to go faster.
Sep 4 '04: Today was a special non-points bracket event. In the week since my last trip to the strip I did manage to figure out why I couldn't boost any higher: my Talon BOV was leaking. So I modified it so it wouldn't leak any more. Now I was able to run 24 pounds of boost.
So off to the track I went. All seven passes I made today were faster than my 13.9s of last week. My best run was 13.506 @ 101.22 MPH with a 2.010 short time. I had three other passes in the 13.5x range, so this was no fluke. I hope to shave a couple more tenths next week... if I can squeeze out a little more boost.
Sep 10 '04: This was the tenth and final points event of the year. Because I went into this event in about 14th place, even a miracle wouldn't let me walk away with the championship... so, naturally, I pulled a miracle out of my hat and won the event! This earned me a big trophy, a small check, and a pair of coveted "event winner" decals for the van. Once the dust had settled, I finished the season in 9th place.
How did I run? Despite trying to dial in a little more boost, I was only on the same 24 pounds as last time. As a result, I managed a few more 13.5 second passes but did not set a new record. Interestingly, my first run of the day let me squeak out a new 60-ft record of 1.997 seconds; every other pass of the night was in the 2.0x range. I've already decided my first purchase for next season will be a new pair of soft compound slicks--I'm through with this DOT tire crap.
I am very happy that the van made it to every event this year. Even more surprising, the engine didn't blow up despite the ominous ticking noise from the head. I intend to remove this head over the winter and replace it with one that isn't milled so much and also flows better (if I can budget a decent port job). Knowing that I've been driving this thing on borrowed time for quite a while, I've essentially parked the van for the year until I can open the engine and make it happy.
Modified: 2-19-08.