So Drag week 2022 summed up for me and my Dad. Some of this is redundant to an earlier post.

We ended up 5th in the Street Race Small Block Naturally Aspirated with an Average of 10.58. That is .01 slower than last year despite having one faster day. We just haven't figured the new cam out yet, It seems to run just as hard to the 1/8th mile as the last camshaft but it just doesn't like high gear, its down 1.5-1.8MPH in the 1/4. I even laid it over an older data log and its almost dead even until high gear. Oh well we will figure that out. I will do a leak down and compression test soon, this short block has done 4 drag weeks now but it uses zero oil and it leaked down 3-4% not that long ago.

The car did awesome though. The starter started to act up on Thursday morning at the hotel. The summit truck on sight actually had a starter so we bought it just in case. It worked fine at the track but we thought we might have to do the swap at a gas station later in the day haha. But if you press the starter button about 463 times it eventually would crank long enough to start up. We got stuck in some horrible traffic for awhile and the car randomly warmed up a couple of times, it would shoot to 206 then come back down and do it again. Once we got on the open road it stayed at 190 or so. When we took the last exit it started to warm up and 2 miles later it was 220 backing into my spot at the hotel because the fan ECU died. I had a spare and I talked with Delta Pag who answered me immediately on Facebook messenger about what could cause that, hopefully it won't happen again now. My Idle air motor also took a dump Friday morning at the track, but since I run two throttle bodies that are complete with redundant parts I just swapped the one from the front throttle body to the rear throttle body and it was fixed. This wasn't a needed fix but we had time. A turn on the idle screw renders them needless anyways but it is nice to have for cold start etc.

What's next? My car is too fat and heavy, at 3580lbs it is 380lbs over the minimum weight for the class. Had I been at class weight I would likely have been 2nd or 3rd. So my Dad and I discussed some options. I pretty much decided the stock seats are staying, and we need to lose the weight somewhere else. Comfort is not an issue in this car, its just as comfortable to drive as anything else if you don't consider interior temp into the equation. This is the heaviest small block you can build with an R1 block W2 heads and a tunnel ram(crazy how heavy that thing is loaded up). I have already been messaging with Tory Shellehammer about his front end setup, it saves 65lbs or so. We have already looked into Aluminum head options, indy 360-1 seems like the best option to retain most of my current setup. The swap to a W9 head(my dad has some) really tips the fab work and money scale over the edge. Tory's front end and aluminum heads would likely lose 125-150lbs(maybe more?). I can build a lighter exhaust system and need to anyways most of this one is from 1997. I can also have fiberglass bumpers per class rules.

Overall a total success for DW22, what little part failure we had was very well timed with the last hotel and it was all fixed within an hour of pulling in. But most of all an awesome time with my Dad and drag week friends. I don't know if we will be back in 23 or 24 but we will be back.