well I've had some inquiries as to how the car ran last week. Hauled down to Phoenix to partake in a chassis cert session and entered the test and tune. At this point I'll say the engine ran great.... however... Between going full retard with a new combo, and a shifter that decided it would make the 1-2 shift on the hit, we didn't get one real good pass out of the five. I'll condense the five passes into one time slip between flubbed shifts and tire spin:
1.28 60 best out of the 5 and best for the car. this shows hope. minimal wheel stand.
6.100 to the 1/8 on that hit... new best. 113.45 @ the 1/8.... another new best.
9.644 1/4 @ 141.12.
Guess that will be my baseline for things to come.

We dynoed the engine with a Quick Fuel 1050.... spacer and my dominator wouldn't clear the hood, so I grabbed the 4150 BG carb off the 360. Now we knew absolutely nothing about this carb other than a friend bought it at a swap meet ions ago (IIRC it was presented as a 930cfm) and we'd used time to time on different engines. It always worked well, as it did on this engine. But I finally did a little "learning" and came up with BG4779-3 with 1.68 throttle plates is basically a really good 750 cfm carb. Perfect for a small block....but probably not this one.

The shifter.... the love/hate of the T/A Cheetah SCS seems to run very deep on both sides. I've been told the "SCS" means Sometimes Continues Shifting.... I learned the difference between a "gate" shifter, and a "ratchet" shifter. I was ready to give PPP my hard earns, but after calling them and talking options my head was ready to explode so I sat back and weighed my options. I called TA and talked to Paul.... of course I'm the only one in the universe that has had this issue, but in talking with him I came to the realization that I might be able to work this out. I dropped my Griner valve body out friday night and to work we went. I removed the "rooster comb" and shimmed the detent spring. I also took a die grinder to the 1st gear detent and after about 3 hits of increasing it's depth and steepening the ramp I could hardly shift it on the bench by hand. Installed it in the car and BANG! I can now feel 1st and it won't drift back into 2nd, but yet shifts firm. Might have saved myself a little coin with a die grinder/beer session. I probably should have done the same to the 2nd detent, but the gate on the shifter seems to work fine for 2-3.

Only other "big" issue of note was that when I had to really lean on the brakes toward the end of the shutdown on the 1/4 passes was that the oil psi dropped. We added a quart for the last hit and it didn't seem to make alot of difference. That might take some thinking.... Easy button might be a clean N valve body

I've got alot to learn, changes to be made, but realistically I think we'll get 147mph out of it. Maybe not in Vegas, but I think it's there.

and HUGE THANKS to: Brett Miller (top end), Brian Hafliger (IMM Engines), Brian Smith (Smith Innovations), Comp Chassis in Phoenix, and Al Alguire who's always a text away!