Made it back to the hotel after day 4, one more run tomorrow to close it up. 10.48 today at Cordova. I am in 5th place, the guy I was close too yesterday made a huge jump today. No scales yesterday or today so I am curious how he runs tomorrow LOL. My car would still be overweight even if I got my 245lb rear out of it.

The starter acted up this morning at the hotel so we bought one from the Summit truck at Cordova today. I changed it when we got back to the hotel, I had to merge it with the old starter because I forgot I had to grind the gearcase for clearance.

My brushless fan ECU also crapped the bed on the last exit ramp near the hotel. Luckily I bought a spare because they said that was on the only part that could fail on these fans. I also learned from them that I need to shut the fan off on the highway, it overworks itself if its being pushed under power?

So I didn't have to work on the car at all for the whole the whole week until I pull into the last night at the hotel LOL.

Congrats Clark, you are almost finished. All you have to do is drive from the hotel to the track and at least break the beams. That's a good feeling!

watching dragweek and seeing the new hemi blocks from jason line got me wondering how fast can a NA hemi from Westcott run , legal A/H cars can get into the 8.40`s

People have tried....I have a Callies block, and I was about to find out what mine will run tonight, and the track cancelled....But either way, I always worry about the valvetrain. I wish I knew what else I need to change on mine to go faster....But them be Hemi secrets nobody will tell you....If I could do it all over again, I would go with a moved centerline engine and more cubes....Not sure what the limit is...

Charlie has been 8.19 in legal form.

Some of the Pro Stock guys back in the 80's were in the 7's...Reid Whisnant went 7.80's consistently with 500" and 80's tech before switching to Chevrolet. 80's tech being 70's heads, and Landy Rockers. Bill Dempsey's IHRA motor went a little quicker around the same time.

Building an engine to be competitive in SS/AH is worlds apart from building an engine to survive Drag Week.

A shame day 5 was decided a rainout because not all cars got a chance to run. Some great runs yesterday would have changed the results.

for sure but some of the tricks can be applied to the combo

Agreed, but since not everyone ran none of the runs from Friday counted and the results were called off of the day 4 results.

So Drag week 2022 summed up for me and my Dad. Some of this is redundant to an earlier post.

We ended up 5th in the Street Race Small Block Naturally Aspirated with an Average of 10.58. That is .01 slower than last year despite having one faster day. We just haven't figured the new cam out yet, It seems to run just as hard to the 1/8th mile as the last camshaft but it just doesn't like high gear, its down 1.5-1.8MPH in the 1/4. I even laid it over an older data log and its almost dead even until high gear. Oh well we will figure that out. I will do a leak down and compression test soon, this short block has done 4 drag weeks now but it uses zero oil and it leaked down 3-4% not that long ago.

The car did awesome though. The starter started to act up on Thursday morning at the hotel. The summit truck on sight actually had a starter so we bought it just in case. It worked fine at the track but we thought we might have to do the swap at a gas station later in the day haha. But if you press the starter button about 463 times it eventually would crank long enough to start up. We got stuck in some horrible traffic for awhile and the car randomly warmed up a couple of times, it would shoot to 206 then come back down and do it again. Once we got on the open road it stayed at 190 or so. When we took the last exit it started to warm up and 2 miles later it was 220 backing into my spot at the hotel because the fan ECU died. I had a spare and I talked with Delta Pag who answered me immediately on Facebook messenger about what could cause that, hopefully it won't happen again now. My Idle air motor also took a dump Friday morning at the track, but since I run two throttle bodies that are complete with redundant parts I just swapped the one from the front throttle body to the rear throttle body and it was fixed. This wasn't a needed fix but we had time. A turn on the idle screw renders them needless anyways but it is nice to have for cold start etc.

What's next? My car is too fat and heavy, at 3580lbs it is 380lbs over the minimum weight for the class. Had I been at class weight I would likely have been 2nd or 3rd. So my Dad and I discussed some options. I pretty much decided the stock seats are staying, and we need to lose the weight somewhere else. Comfort is not an issue in this car, its just as comfortable to drive as anything else if you don't consider interior temp into the equation. This is the heaviest small block you can build with an R1 block W2 heads and a tunnel ram(crazy how heavy that thing is loaded up). I have already been messaging with Tory Shellehammer about his front end setup, it saves 65lbs or so. We have already looked into Aluminum head options, indy 360-1 seems like the best option to retain most of my current setup. The swap to a W9 head(my dad has some) really tips the fab work and money scale over the edge. Tory's front end and aluminum heads would likely lose 125-150lbs(maybe more?). I can build a lighter exhaust system and need to anyways most of this one is from 1997. I can also have fiberglass bumpers per class rules.

Overall a total success for DW22, what little part failure we had was very well timed with the last hotel and it was all fixed within an hour of pulling in. But most of all an awesome time with my Dad and drag week friends. I don't know if we will be back in 23 or 24 but we will be back.

It turns out my friends bar Motorheads was 1 of the photo stops. Ron is a car guy and has built many show cars. He started the bar in an old Stuckey's in retirement as a car guys bar & restaurant and has added route 66 sign museum and music. They never told him and he said he had no idea what was going on but said he enjoyed ever minute of it.

Yep it was the last one of the trip, we didn't stop and eat but I know lots of people did. I always assumed Hot Rod told the checkpoints about what was going on, I guess not. But I suppose he was OK with a few hundred hot rods and people coming through.

The town of Elizabeth became a burnout checkpoint, the Local bar came out and poured water down, then the police got cranky lol.

Tom Bailey's youtube channel has some good videos from the road and track.

I read somewhere that the owner had known we were coming he would have had a party along with a band!

Here's my cuda hanging out @ 1 of his weekend get together's.

I watched more coverage on my tv than I ever have. I’ll have to research the classes a little bit so I can understand it better. Of course the slower cars bore me but that’s part of it I guess.

Clark, it was great to meet you at Byron. Glad you were able to finish and place well.

I hope to see you somewhere next year..

John

Glad I got to meet you this year and wasn't busy thrashing from a late arrival again. That is an awesome home track you have, they really ran it well and the stands were packed!

Here is a link to the rules:

https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/2022/01/2022-2024-DRAG-WEEK-CLASS-RULES-DF-V3-FINAL.pdf

Thank you.

Wecott went 8.19 BEFORE the rules were revised in terms of valve cover rails....He and other actually woudl eliminate the valve cover rail and have the covers bolting to the manifold to shorten the cylinders runner yet maintain the legal runner CC. Why all the cars slowed way down a few years ago..No one has come close to that since the rules were revised...