here are good pics of 2" headers on the angled plug heads.
http://www.hughesengines.com/TechArticles/10hpmanifoldshookersupercompheadersonbigblockangle.php

are there 1-7/8" headers that use the same tubing layout as these headers?

Here is the last update for this week.

While we still had a pretty good list of things to be done before we could race, my buddy came over at lunch and by 3:00 we were ready to load the car and take it to the track!
We got all of the new brakes and brake lines bled and found only one leak. The leak was not on any of the fitting we made, but rather on the fitting going directly into the caliper from Wilwood. We made some adjustments and got the leak to stop, so now we have great new disc brakes on the front of the car.
When we went to crank the car we had two issues.
#1 the main ground wire that goes to the charger connections on the back of the car was coming apart. This caused the starter to drag and not start even though we had a brand new battery. We realized the full charge was not getting to the starter and traced it back to this connection. Greg and I were able to clean this up, get a new fitting on the line and establish a much better ground. Now the starter turned right over.
#2 the intial timing was way off. Once we were able to get the car started and put a light on it, we found the timing to be off and when adjusted the car ran very smooth and cranked immediately.
Problems solved! Off to the track.

We arrived at Paradise later than I had hoped, but they were a bit behind schedule as well and so it gave us plenty of time to test the brakes, and check things out. The brakes worked far better than ever and I felt super safe and thrilled to be back behind the seat.
They do things a little different at this track than I am used to. They let everyone take a few warm up laps down the track to get their cars warmed up. By the time we were ready to take ours, they had flipped over to actual time runs. Since this was my first time at the track running, I was not clear on what I was doing, and so I took it very easy on the first pass. Car felt good, I was ready to lay down a better time next round.

Round 2 - I went in and staged and ran like I normally would. The car jumped off the line and felt like it had a bit of a spin down most of the track, but the car felt strong. It only ran a 7.5 but that felt really good for the first time running in 11 years. I was beside a dart and beat them pretty good. When I got back to the pits, they were checking the track. They were thinking I might have laid down some oil due to my car smoking a bit.
We looked closely and found the new valve cover gaskets I put on were leaking horribly. In addition, we did find one of the fittings going to the trans cooler a bit loose, so we tightened them up. We also pulled the valve cover gasket, added some sealant, dogged the screws down again and headed back to the staging lanes. This time I left the hood off the car and as soon as I brought the RPM's up the smoke started flowing out of the passenger side at that same gasket. I made a hit, but immediately saw smoke and let up, moving to the side out of the main racing groove. This time the track crew saw nothing at all on the track, but I was done for the night. I did not want to put anyone else at risk since our car was not right. It was kind of embarrassing to have my car look like this, but I realized this was not really a bad outing for a car that has not run in 11 years.

All in all it was a decent night for test and tune. The good thing is everything we worked on this week worked well except the valve cover gasket, so of course that gets me to my question of the day.

"What the heck are you all doing to get a decent seal on a valve cover gasket for a Mopar performance valve cover?"

I was running a Fel-Pro VS 50145 R. This is a black rubber material, without the tabs. I will never buy these again, completely useless in my opinion.

Oh and one more comment, not being negative but I was not that impressed with the Jegs Harness I bought. I had a nice Simpson one from before, but now that they have the dumb rule about changing belts every two years dang if I want to pay that much for a new harness. The problem I had with the Jegs belts were they were extremely difficult for me to hook. I caught the end of my finger in it and I am still typing this without using my left index finger. Sorry Jegs, would love to have something good to say about the belts but I really have used much better in the past.

Let's end on a positive note.
Wilwood brakes, big thumbs up!
Right Stuff master cylinder, thumbs up!
MSD distributor, thumbs up!
Autozone loan a tool program for flaring kit, thumbs up!
Jegs pre-made AN-6 5 & 6 ft steel braided lines for transmission cooler, thumbs up!
Getting to bed after 1:30am three out of the last 5 nights, but getting a car that has not run in 11 years to the track, and making a decent pass at a track you have never run before, and being back in the saddle as a Mopar drag racer, Super awesome big Thumbs Up!


I do want to thank the great folks at Paradise Dragstrip. Everyone there was super nice and helpful. Several people came up to me and made kind comments about my car. Thanks to my loving wife who supports my love of racing. Thanks to my buddy Greg who has been there by my side all week. I miss my dad, but it sure helps to have them both to enjoy this with.
We will be back, but we have a few things to work out first. I also want to thank once again the folks on this board for providing a lot of good opinions and perspectives that have given me new ideas. You guys are great and I appreciate your support. We will not be racing at Caffine and Octane at the drags, but I might still go just as a spectator this year.

PS: Sasquatch I want that M1!

Yes it did feel good. Yes it was the passenger side!

I was surprised at how many Mopars were at the track last night. It was a small turn out in general, as they just started running Fridays this week and there is another track not too far away running Friday night TNT as well. Out of about 40 cars there, I am going to say there were 10 Mopars, 12 mustangs and a mix of other cars. good to see some other Mopar folks there. Most of them were Darts and Dusters. A few late model street cars as well.

So now that it is the morning after, here is my evaluation of the next steps.
1. I still have an issue with the back brakes even though it is minimized by the effectiveness of the new front Wilwoods. We are going to replace the flex line on the rears, and may still run all new line to them. Down the road I can see the next conversion kit to put similar disc on the back. I have learned we have to plan ahead these days if you want parts!
2. We have to find the solution to the valve cover gasket. I am not running any form of crankcase evacuation system such as SUM-1020-108 from Summit. Dad used to run one of these and I wonder if this would help?
3. The wiring of the car need to be fully gone through and cleaned up.
4. I am not 100% sold on the set up for the transmission cooler. Is this cooler enough? I am using SUM-331000. I have it mounted in the front right beside my radiator. I have a digital temp gauge I have not hooked up so we will get that hooked up. Not sure what temp I should expect to see.
5. Maybe consider putting a thermostat back in? Now that I have this new aluminum radiator it seemed like the car never got over about 160.

The engine paint is flaking off, and I am sure there are lots of bolts that got heated up last night good for the first time in a long time, so who knows what the bottom of my trailer is going to look like later today when I go to unload the car. No doubt later this year we will be pulling and going back through the engine. For now we will get all of the rest of the car up to the standard I want it to be so when we do upgrade the motor it is ready to run more HP.

Thanks for the feedback on Jetting the Carb. I have started watching airdensityonline.com and have purchased a weather station for the new trailer. I have always known the temp and humidity as well as altitude had an affect, but the 1000 ft guideline is a great standard to try to use on changing jets.
You mentioned the 30CC vs 50CC pumps. My dominator has the 50CC. Do you think this is contributing to the bog on the line? Should I switch to the 30's?
The only reason I went to this is when we started out, we knew nothing about tuning a carb. The car always bogged on the line until someone came up and told us one day to try larger jets. Once we did, it really took off the first time.
Even now, if the car is cold, (below 200 degrees) or if I do not rev the engine enough, when I punch the accelerator it wants to bog. I have tried different jets & different squirters but never really found the right combo.
It tends to do best when the car is warm, so this week we re-installed the thermostat, to help bring it up to temp quicker.


Question #2 - E-85, I am very interested in trying to switch my car from racing gas to E-85. My assumptions are to do this you need to change the following things:

1. Fuel pump & regulator. I am running the blue Holley now. -( $405 )
2. Fuel line. I am changing this anyway due to moving away from rubber line. I am thinking I need to go to 1/2 inch 8-AN for E-85.
3. Fuel cell - Currently I run only a 2 gallon tank. I only use about 1/2 of it on a typical 1/8 mile run, so I assume the fuel volume needed to run E-85 will not be more than 2x. (I m changing this anyway so no incremental costs)
4. Carb rebuild, (looks like this is about $491 from Summit)

Probably $1000 is a good estimate I am guessing to change over to E-85.
Can I simply pore it in and try it first with what I have and a little tweaking or would it ruin my current equipment. I am not thinking a long term repeated use, but would like to understand the gain I would get before I drop the money on this.

Thanks for the feedback on Jetting the Carb. I have started watching airdensityonline.com and have purchased a weather station for the new trailer. I have always known the temp and humidity as well as altitude had an affect, but the 1000 ft guideline is a great standard to try to use on changing jets.
You mentioned the 30CC vs 50CC pumps. My dominator has the 50CC. Do you think this is contributing to the bog on the line? Should I switch to the 30's?
The only reason I went to this is when we started out, we knew nothing about tuning a carb. The car always bogged on the line until someone came up and told us one day to try larger jets. Once we did, it really took off the first time.
Even now, if the car is cold, (below 200 degrees) or if I do not rev the engine enough, when I punch the accelerator it wants to bog. I have tried different jets & different squirters but never really found the right combo.
It tends to do best when the car is warm, so this week we re-installed the thermostat, to help bring it up to temp quicker.


Question #2 - E-85, I am very interested in trying to switch my car from racing gas to E-85. My assumptions are to do this you need to change the following things:

1. Fuel pump & regulator. I am running the blue Holley now. -( $405 )
2. Fuel line. I am changing this anyway due to moving away from rubber line. I am thinking I need to go to 1/2 inch 8-AN for E-85.
3. Fuel cell - Currently I run only a 2 gallon tank. I only use about 1/2 of it on a typical 1/8 mile run, so I assume the fuel volume needed to run E-85 will not be more than 2x. (I m changing this anyway so no incremental costs)
4. Carb rebuild, (looks like this is about $491 from Summit)

Probably $1000 is a good estimate I am guessing to change over to E-85.
Can I simply pore it in and try it first with what I have and a little tweaking or would it ruin my current equipment. I am not thinking a long term repeated use, but would like to understand the gain I would get before I drop the money on this.

Play with what you have try lower octane 1st, do some research on e85 I believe in another post about E85 someone mentioned it runs better with more compression, I could be wrong so maybe someone that running E85 can shed some light