No Clark I am still at 11.5. I bought the hoop and ordered in the tubing I needed to put it in . I even stripped out the car . I just couldn't bring myself to actually start cutting and welding on that car. I guess my personal goal will be to see how close I can come to an 11.5 average again this year.

Cutting? don't take no cutting to put in a roll bar...This is cutting!

I wasnt even done cutting at this point..
the part where some tools are at is gone also

That's not cutting. That's just a superficial wound...........LOL!!!

Last Sunday I got about 50 miles on mine over about 3 hours while running errands and driving in as many conditions as I could. The motor runs a little warmer than I want but it was 95* outside and it never got over *205 but I did not make a real long highway run. I had also forgot to stuff the foam piece under my radiator that helps keep air from going around it so that is going in now.

The biggest problem I have is one I knew was possible. Getting the fuel hot, circulating 600hp of fuel all the time gets the whole load of fuel hot after a fairly short time when most of it is returning to the tank from the 200* fuel rails. I couldn't find my IR temp gun to see how hot the tank was but it was hot, the fuel pump was screaming and failed to keep the pressure up the only time I leaned on it when everything was warm. I got some thermal sleeve to insulate the fuel lines and I am going to try to isolate the rails from the intake heat soak via some nylon washers. If that doesn't do much to help it I will plumb in a small transmission cooler with a fan on the return line, that seems to be the fix for a lot of people but the last thing I need to do is add more weight.

What size pump? Even with my 255, I noticed my tank was hot as well, especially when fuel level got lower. Can you drive the pump with a PWN via the ECU? I can only dial the 255 back to ~70% before I start to drop pressure at idle. I have dual parallel pumps in tank, I was almost contemplating running a smaller 190 on the street.

I've been fighting the fuel heating problem for awhile and I think I finally have it beat.

Originally I had an A1000 pump mounted externally on the rear tank with the Aeromotive PWM fuel pump controller connected. This worked well until I went on a longer trip (2 hours) on a very hot day and then I had problems. I talked with Aermotive support and he explained that once the fuel gets to around 140 degrees it can vaporize right at the pump inlet due to the vacuum created by the pump to draw up the fuel. This will cause the pump to cavitate and get very noisy which is exactly what I experienced.

I rerouted my feed and return lines farther away from the headers at the firewall and built a small surge tank with an A1000 internal pump in the surge tank. This tank is mounted up front just behind the grill. The rear pump feeds this tank while the front pump is regulated and supplies the injectors. The return from the fuel rails goes through a fuel cooler (from Summit Racing) back to the surge tank and the surge tank uses the original return line back to the tank.

Ya it's overkill on the pumps but I already had the A1000 on a fabricated mount on the rear tank and I didn't want to change that. A smaller pump at the rear would have worked fine as well. So far it's worked well on longer rides on hot days and after a ride I can touch my fuel tank and it is only lukewarm.

I have dual external Walboro 255s mounted right behind the tank. My ECU does have the ability to PWM the pumps I just need to change to a solid state relay and figure out how to program it. I overbuilt the fuel system to give me room to grow from a power standpoint and to build in a spare for the road. I can either type in a change to fire the other pump or just move a wire on the relays in the back.

I have been working on it some this morning. I changed my mind on how I want to isolate the fuel rails with nylon washers and now I don't have enough and I have to go to the store haha welcome to hot rodding.

PC-Charger, the fuel vaporizing at the pump inlet makes sense. My bump sounded horrible. Like I said at the time I couldn't find my temp gun but I have it now and will see what kind of temps I get. I know the tank was still warmer than anything else on the car 5 hours after I got home and shut it off.

I put the sleeve on my fuel lines under the hood, its black just like the lines and it looks better than I thought it would. I hope it helps some.

The fuel cooler is your biggest help.. dont let
the hot fuel into the tank.. cool it before it
gets there... if you allow the hot fuel into the
tank its just a matter of time before the whole
tank gets heat saturated ... do you have a sealed
hood... if you can let the heat out of the engine
bay it helps... I have seen 320* at the injector
tips in Death Valley area after the long climb coming
out then doing a heat soak at the top... that climb is
18 miles long(one of our normal test runs in the fuel lab)

I do have a stock hood, that doesn't help anything I know. Ran it some more today, it's not as hot outside but the pump did get a little loud. Shooting fittings with an temp gun nothing near the pumps was over 120* the fuel rails are running 150-170ish when the motor is 190. I am going to move some plumbing around back by the pumps.

Good news is I have put close to 100 miles on the engine and everything looks good to go to the track this weekend.

Got the Valiant back home tonight.

Had to return to the old scoop, much to my chagrin.

The plan was ram air and a reverse tear drop, or an old style scoop like a pontiac super duty. The problem was the carb air horn is level with the front of the hood as it plunges down towards the grille. The hood also rolls quickly down towards the fenders, so to make a 16" ram air box or even a 14" air cleaner fit would require a Galaxy sized RTD, about 6 inches tall! That certainly wouldn't have looked proportionally right on a small Valiant hood.

So we salvaged the old scoop, but he moved it back about an inch, and then lowered the back of it 3/4 of an inch with a wedge cut to make the scoop more level on the hood.

The hood sags a little in relation to the fenders. An easy fix if I had went with standard hood pins, but with the recessed quick latch set-up being a little more finicky, it will take a little more time to get it perfect.

Went from the 6" diameter 4" tall breather to an 11x5" K&N, so hopefully that will cure my top end breathing problem.

Don't know if this angle will show the changes between the fiberglass hood and the steel one or not, it's pretty subtle.

PS. Told him to pop me a second hood from this mold, if you like what you see Aaron (Turbo Toad) it's yours...if not I'll keep it as a spare.

Holley has a new "brushless" Dominator fuel pump that is PWM. Works great, but the pump and controller combo is pretty pricy

I have the ability to use pwm control if I change over to a solid state relay.

Spy photos from Dale's shop. Neither engine has ever been fired, both are supposed to go on Drag Week. SNAFU is the appropriate acronym, I believe.

Could be worse Billy. We are currently 1300 miles away from home, and Joel's GTX isn't near ready.

Hey, I can't miss speed week! There will be plenty of time to work on the GTX when I get back.

Drove the Valiant yesterday morning to the barber shop for my Drag Week haircut, then tried to get a couple of tire store alignment rack guys to do an alignment on it. They wouldn't touch it, and told me I needed to find a specialty shop.
Despite the fact that the front end it pretty far out, I decided to make the 33 mile trek across town to Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park yesterday afternoon. Four stops along the way to cool it down, so I've got some work to do there. Pulling the fiberglass hood off that many times make me miss the factory hinges already!

Even before I finished unloading all the stuff out of the car, the wind kicked up significantly and a pretty good lightning storm started up. It was pretty ugly by the time I cleared tech, so I didn't bother dropping the exhaust. It finally cleared up, and I went to the lanes as is.

There were kids in imports and trucks everywhere, and a 3/4 ton diesel Ford shook all the dirt and rocks out of his wheel wells when he launched in front of me, just as I finished my burnout. I shut the engine off, opened my door, and waited for them to sweep the junk off the starting line. I didn't want to be the second guy to tag the wall on the night and I wasn't going to do another burnout, so I decided to foot brake at 2000 rpm, and be ready to lift if it did anything funny. Then I remembered that I had dropped the tires from 20 to 15 in the pits, with the anticipation of dropping them further in the lanes, but had skipped that process. Fifteen passes a year is not enough to keep you sharp and in your routine! Predictably, it spun, and basket balled the tires a little off the line, and by the time I hit second it had a noticeable vibration somewhere. Just as I hit the stripe, the back passengers side quick latch let go, and the hood raised up noticeably on that side, so I jammed the brakes pretty hard to scrub speed. It went 10.98-122, and I decided that was good for the night.

I pulled over in the tech area, and grabbed NHRA tech guru Ed Brady, so we could get down to the real reason I made the drive, getting the cage certified so I can run in the nines legally when the bottle is turned on. It passed and was stickered, so I was happy when I drove out of the track. Not so happy when that same quick latch came loose twice on the drive home though. I'm not losing another hood, so this thing might have four quick latches and fourteen Dzuz fasteners very soon!

Billy I am glad to see you are already driving it around before drag week.

My dad and I got mine out today for a good 50ish mile jaunt in and around town today. It feels good, sounds good, and I am starting to get the hang of the EFI stuff so its manners are getting better and better.

I am still having a problem with the fuel getting hot. I am quite certain I heard the fuel boiling in the tank when I shut the car off today. I can't make any other sense of what the sound would be that lasted 30-45 seconds after I shut the car off. It looks like I will be working on a fuel cooler before drag week.

progress, great!

(did you see the funky hinges I put on mine? with normal hood pins up front?)