The new Viking shocks working well in n/a form. It was printing tickets running 11.38's this last weekend at Mo-Kan. We have a good setting for that, now to work on the nitrous setting.

12 Compression 6 Rebound

We cruised at a small town cruise where I lived for 11 years all Saturday night. Lots of fun, car never missed a beat. It rode really nice all evening with the new double adjustable Viking's on the back!

I've been wanting to get four corner weights but had to settle for front and rear.

With me in the car, helmet, fire jacket, full nitrous bottle and 55 lbs. of ballast in the trunk, it weighed 3,740 lbs. total. Basically in ready to race form. (Notice how it keeps gaining?! ) 3,450 lbs. for the car by itself.

1,940 lbs. on the front wheels, so 52% front and 48% rear weight distribution. Not horrible for all steel, complete interior and still having a stock radiator, battery up front, etc.

Adding a headrest for safety since my bucket seats are low back. I'm making it adjustable and removable. I hadn't realized I needed one until a tech inspector said something about it last year. Will be painted, upholstered and padded to match.

I still need to mask and paint but here is the finished product. Really happy with the end result!

That turned out nice!

Thanks!

We stole some of the idea from a kit Tim McAmis sells but Dave came up with the size and shape of the head rest to where it loosely replicates the dimensions of the main hoop.

Pic of the backside.

I really like that headrest and have been meaning to do a similar one for years...
but hadn't considered adjustability, so that really helps. Did manage to collect the oddball color vinyl (silver)
but that was it. Thanks for that post.

We had a great night on Friday. I raced my boss that has a '73 Corvette. Backhalfed ladderbar car with a 496, Canfield heads, tunnel ram, open headers, race gas, 4.86 gears and fiberglass doors. Car weighs 1,000 lbs. less than mine so I had my work cut out for me! I tree'd him, had him at the 1/8th mile but he slipped by me for the win. My grandma car gave him a run for his money and he admitted he was worried he wasn't going to catch me.

DA was over 2500 and water grains were at 100 so it wasn't the best air. Pretty humid and sticky 80*.

Getting ready for The Midway Drags this Saturday. Took a screenshot of a short video they had with my car in it. '72 and earlier period correct cars and you had to send photos and be approved. Should be lots of fun!

We had a great time at the inaugural Midway Drags! Lots of very nice cars and a surprising amount of spectators! The weather was perfect. They picked the fastest four for a "runoff" in each class. We were in the top 4 times in Superstock so we got to compete for a trophy. It was heads up and the 540" BBC El Camino we raced had been 11.25's all day where we had run 11.50's. Nitrous was technically not allowed but I turned it on to make it a race. Fender raced him and did an 11.27 to his 11.25. I wanted to put on a good show for the fans more than anything. The best part for me was stomping a mudhole in lots of Pontiacs all day long.

I recently had heard some metallic sounds off and on when the engine was running. It sounded similar to when the flexplate bolts back out and make noise. I checked them and the converter bolts seemed tight but the noise persisted. I decided to pull the trans and check the crank to flexplate bolts as I didn't recall if I had used loctite on them or not and figured they may be the cause. I got the trans out and turned the engine over to be greeted by it "grabbing" in on area of rotation (rotating it from the flexplate side under the car). Had a neighbor do that and noticed I was hearing the sound from up front. Crap! The balancer ring has slipped. This (stock) one was supposed to be a temporary fix when the last one broke but I got busy and neglected to order an SFI unit. Lesson learned. The lesson here, kids, is that big strokers don't like stock style balancers! I guess the torque is just twisting the outer ring off then inner? It never goes over 6400 rpm and I'm not even close to that going through the traps. I have a new Trickflow TraxMax to put on when this 100* heat subsides.

She is back together and running with the new, one piece balancer.

We have 3 nostalgia races this Fall including one (The Rumble) in two weeks so we'll see how it goes.

After thrashing to get it done and driving it to work last week to get it sorted, we raced The Rumble in Bethany, MO this weekend.

They put us in the Gas Coupe Sedan class (even though we technically meet stock class specs.) because they have seen us run before and know how fast the car is.

12 cars in the field and they took the fastest 4 for eiliminations. We got paired up with a Chevelle in the finals and had to run him down because we spun. Final round was against a blown, chopped '49 Ford. He broke and couldn't make the call so we had a solo.

Awesome day!

Found the pic.

All kinds of cars with from hard street tires to slicks going down the track, so getting off the line was tricky. Still ran consistent 105 mph 1/8th mile passes all day.

We had lots of fun at the KID nostalgia race even though I went out first round. I took myself out by going red by .06.

Earlier in the day I figured I would do a nitrous test hit but just couldn't get the 60 ft. where it belonged. A 20 mph headwind and a DA of over 3,000 didn't help anything.

Wrapping up the year, it's been great but the stars just haven't aligned to get me that 9.XX. We may go to Tulsa and try at Mopars at the Park if the weather is good.

I'm pulling apart the 505 this winter for a health check. No issues with it but after beating on it fairly regularly, I'm thinking I should give things a once-over.

While It's apart I'm putting in .027 Cometic head gaskets to replace the .060. It should bump compression up near 11:1. Hoping to gain around 30 HP or so from the change.

I will probably upgrade the main fuel line and pickup in the tank to 3/8" as well while the engine is out.

Goals are:

10.99 N/A
9.99 with the 250 shot
Drive it to the track and home.

All through the mufflers and on street tires. The pump gas thing may be out the window.

Have you considered E85?
changes sound good....Just be careful approaching that 300 threshold, it may like more retard than you expect. It all depends on how early the exhaust is opening. Just for comparison i would do a cranking compression test now, and after the changes. Then pump it every time you race. You will really be able to keep track of the engines "health" that way

I considered E85 when I first built the engine and talked myself out of it. Availability, hassle, larger fuel system, etc.

Very good idea on the compression check!

I would stay away from race fuel since you street drive. Race fuel is a hassle just keeping jugs filled and or dealing with buying in a drum.