Hope many people come! There isn't much in English in the facebook, but still some


https://www.facebook.com/VIPFlyingFinns/

I'm still very much looking forward to seeing the car!

Last weekend was our last possibility to do some testing before the car must go in to the ship. Not much to tell..., problems. The valvelocks are trying to pull through the retainers. Have never run in to this kind of problem before.

Anyway, we managed to run two 8.5's which at this point is satisfying. I think I'll still change the cam now in there to a custom one designed for turbo use and longevity, it just may be so that the smallish comp cams street roller costs us power.

Never the less, the container comes on friday, leaves on monday and then it's too late to be sorry...

Here is one video of a little less than 1/8 mile test run.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNXD7wLb8YI

Good luck!

Is it possible that the valve train issue could be caused by coil bind?

It's not a coil bind, There is more room with the current cam than with the old one when the problem arose, just left the inner spring out for about 260 lbs seat pressure. The cam card says 140 lbs, so there should have been plenty for it. Unless you have to take the boost in to account somehow..., but previously for the last ten years or so we have not had such problems.

10degree retainers with 7degree locks? Seen that one before.

A tiny bit to little spring pressure will cause more problems than a bunch to much on any solid race roller cam motor

The locks are/were correct for the retainers.

Isn't there a problem sometimes with spring surge if you are too far away from coil bind? I think a spring designed to run as a dual configuration might also do weird things at speed if you removed the inner. If it's doing that it might explain why it's eating retainers.

Kevin

Thats true, while your spring pressure might be right for your camshaft it could still be the wrong spring for the job. I have done Drag week 5 times, valve train is one of the number one reasons for failures on the road, I would make a call to one of the spring companies and have some new springs waiting for you to install when you get to the U.S.

Small, short update. The car is now in SC, and the custom duties should be done today. We will leave on thursday, fly to Atlanta and drive to SC. We have a trailer there that we can use, it needs some fixing first... We don't have a puller for the trailer, and have no idea of where to rent one. Once we get that fixed we'll drive to Illinois where we can use a shop and make some changes to the car. We have a new converter from PTC that we are going to try, and Scott Brown has made us a new cam and the valvetrain parts to support it. Then, on wednesday if the car is ready, we should have a chance to test at Gateway with the Rocket brand fuel. If all goes well we should be ready for the Drag Week in time!

You've come a long ways and overcome a lot of hardships. Good luck to you on completing drag week. I'll see you there!

...and to continue the list we don't have yet, but would like to; a small compressor, aggregate and a small welder. Don't know if they can be rented or do we have to buy them.

Harbor Freight has small welders cheap, but flux core.

Good luck and see you at dragweek

You're likely better off to buy them and sell them when you're done. Rental fees add up quickly.

where in IL will you be working on the car, down by gateway I imagine?

I'm looking forward to watching you guys run on the live feeds!!

I hope your adventure on Drag Week goes well!!

A small update, we flew over last thursday, then after fixing the trailer pulled the car from south carolina to Jerseyville Illinois. While running down the highway on sunday, we saw that there was a drag racing going on and stopped at I 57 dragstrip to eat and meet people, it was a pleasure!

Then we arrived to family Teppens farm and started to work on the car in their gorgeous garage. Worked until 3.30 AM and then started the trip to Indianapolis where we spent the mo day watching US nationals.

Now on our way back to continue working on the car. The cam, valvetrain and converter has been changed but there is still acessories etc to put together. Then change the fluids and it should be ready to start. We have a minor problem with the driving tires..., seems that I ordered 16" tire and 15" wheels. We have to try figure that out, maybe it would be easier to find tall 15" tires than to find 16" wheels with 2" backspacing.

Still don't have the aggregate, and have to still buy some basic tools for the trip, but otherwise about everything is there, except the hitch and the u-haul trailer. If all goes well we'll should be testing at Gateway drag strip on wednesday.

Finlands biggest tabloid is following our trip and we try to make them about 3 minute broadcast everyday (if we have time to edit one), here is the latest. http://www.is.fi/autot/art-2000005352845.html

Awesome, looking forward to checking out the car next week!

See you there Sunday!