Posted By: maximum entropy
ENGINE BUILDER'S LAMENTATION (LONG) - 05/14/10 12:00 AM
a guy at our track has had nothing but trouble over the years with various local engine/transmission builders, and i felt bad for the guy, so i offered my services. i didn't hear back from him until last year, when he asked if i'd build an engine for him. i agreed, and we put together a proposed combination and price tag. he had purchased a rolling chassis, a nice back halfed cuda, and it was pretty light, and he had no experience in anything faster than about a twelve second car, so i didn't want to go crazy. an acquaintance of his warned me that the guy was "different". i just wanted him to have a properly built engine. i built him a nice bracket motor, conservative, "almost" indestructible, and i told him that i would conduct the initial run in (i don't have a dyno). i went up to his house, and was immediately taken aback by all the loose ends in this car. he had described it as "completely ready to go". uh oh. the wiring was a rat's nest. what a mess. we tried to start it, and the braided fuel lines were rotten it had been sitting so long. i told him to replace ALL of the fuel lines. we tried again a couple weeks later. he had only replaced the leaking line. we tried to start it and it had no fire. i traced his wiring (getting annoyed now), and found a connector he installed that wasn't properly done. OK! we now have fire. the engine starts, but the tach doesn't work, and he has no fuel pressure gauge in the car. it sounds good, we break the cam in, and i tell him to change the oil, get the tach working, and get a fuel pressure gauge in the car. i'll run the valves at the track. a couple more weeks and it's race day. i run the valves, set the timing, and he STILL doesn't have a functioning tach in a nine second car! i tell him, "dude! get a [Edited by Moparts - Family Friendly Site - Keep it clean] tach in that thing before you run it!" i also gave him VERY specific break-in instructions. he's never driven the car. EVER. he doesn't know if the brakes work! steering? i hope so! i told him to just drive it down the track first run. short shift it (powerglide), and then roll into it in high, and back off, on, off, until he gets to the stripe. just to put load on it, and not get going too fast. the moron launches full throttle, runs it up on the chip in low, hits second, and the car falls on it's face. i talked to him in the pits. i asked him what the hell was that? "what?" and still no tach. he said "it layed over at the big end." fuel pressure? "ida know" so he does it again! i told him he gonna torch that thing if it's lean at the big end. he gave up at that point. next tnt in two weeks. plenty of time to get the tach working and check the fuel system, and replace all the fuel lines. of course, two weeks go by, and he shows up, still with no working tach! i told him he was on his own. he then proceeded to run it out of fuel again. hmm. he checked the fuel filter, and it was completely plugged with chunks of neoprene. from the lines he was supposed to change. he may have just left the element out, i couldn't watch. it flooded at the line next run. it hydro locked. they pushed it back to the pits, took the plugs out, and cranked it. with the ignition energized. it caught on fire. BIG fire, from what i hear (i was making a concerted effort to be nowhere near the circus). they got it extinguished. they made two full passes. first one he was approaching the stripe when he did what any card carrying imbecile would do- put it back in first! i was on the return road for that. i knew, this would be the day i have my first major engine failure. but no! it still runs! he pulls into the burnout box to hot lap it. he starts his burnout. they shut him down. water leak. he called me last night, irritated. he has a water leak, and he traced it to a giant crack in one of the heads. for the sake of my sanity, i told him why this happened. did he think i was kidding when i told him he's gonna torch the thing after the first run? i don't know how you guys do it for a living. thanks for letting me go off. 
i spent 6 months building him a REALLY nice engine, and he killed it. in one day.
i spent 6 months building him a REALLY nice engine, and he killed it. in one day.
