Here is the time slip. I'm pretty happy with it.

Hemi Joel, I saw a couple of your passes. Car runs hard for a 392...

As far as coverage, man they are figuring out how to get all the stories & drivers interviews on the youtube...Just top notch...

i just won't run a car without a floor covering the transmission for just this reason.
if a floor pan/transmission tunnel had been there, the fire would have been kept out of the interior.
just my opinion being old. and i hope to get older by avoiding a fire inside the car.

Unfortunately, sick week 2024 ended a day early for me today. We made it all the way up to South Georgia Motorsports Park in Valdosta. I made some changes on the car that I was very confident were going to improve it, maybe even break into the nines. I was two cars from the burnout box and signaled to move forward. When I started the car, I noticed that there was zero oil pressure. We had to push it back and I pulled the distributor and verified that the oil pump drive shaft had broken off. I'm sure a piece of debris got into the oil pump and jammed it. So I got a ride with some nice people back to Orlando and tomorrow We are going to go back to Georgia and load up the car.
All in all I have no regret. I did everything I could do to get there, and then to stay in. When something beyond my control happens like this, well there's always next time!

I feel for you Joel, I had a small piece of the rear main seal holder on my old M.W. stocker do the same thing when I used oil pan bolts that were a tad bit to (long (.050+) to work with the stock rear main seal holder The longer bolts broke the bottoms off the seal holder bosses off which got sucked up into the oil pick up into the oil pump locking it up and breaking the tip of the oil pump drive gear off

Joel, sorry about the early end to your trip. Your hotrod certainly has 9 second potential.where do you race when home?

Man, I hate to hear you broke and had to be done early! You sure made a helluvan effort!

All of these guys and cars that do Drag week, Sick Week and all these Drag & Drives are so impressive. As they say all it takes is money. Most of these guys have alot of it. However, for the little guys still doing on a budget, that is even more impressive. Everyone that does it says they are all a blast to do.

For gearheads, it quite possibly is the coolest thing you can take part in. One week of racing, hanging out with like minded people, and making new friends that will last a lifetime.

x2. If you're thinking about it at all, just sign up for one and do it, you won't regret it at all. Money helps but there are a lot of low budget operations, and you can certainly do them frugally by camping and bringing your own food too.

Joel, super bummed to see you out but you had a great showing this week, and it'll be awesome when you get it into the 9's. Are you going to do Sick Summer, Drag Week or Sick 66 this year with it?

For someone who wants to follow along, and be involved at the same time, I like the idea of using a car that should be trouble free.
Like the guy with the Hellcat Charger running 10.60’s in the DYO class.

Watch the action, make a few passes, enjoy a stress free drive to the next stop, have a nice meal.

Like a “racecation”.

I have had several buddies do Drag Week and they all had a blast, even after spinning out on the freeway in the pouring rain (spool) and hitting a guard rail and taking out the front clip. They still had fun.

I have done 9 of them since 2012, it is really hard to beat. There is not much better than doing race car things with race car people for 6 days. Bonus is you can do it with your Dad like I have been able to. Extra bonus you get to meet people like Hemi Joel and JerichoGTX.

If you car is running and reliable it is pretty easy to predict your costs for hotel etc. Showing up in something totally untested is nightmare fuel for me lol. My Dad and I have been lucky to only face minor issues on the road and none on the track. Nice dinners and sleep make for a really good week and lots of guys don't get that luxury.

I'll start filling in some detail that I didn't have time for before. The cam end play was way off, so I ordered some shims from McMaster car and got that dialed in, then torqued the cam gear bolt with orange locktite. After I got the heads back on, Cam came and helped out. He got the intake cleaned up and ready to install and got the linkage for the 8 carbs all re-adjusted, and we lifted that on and bolted it down. When we started the car, water was pouring out under the drivers side header flange, staining from the copper seal head gasket sealer was visible on the outside of the block under the leak area.

One thing I forgot about is that the header studs go into the water jacket, so I didn't put sealant on them. So we fixed that. Then restarted it, and water was still leaking from the same area, but not as much. It was the head gasket apparently, that is why the copper coat stain down the side of the block. Then I discovered milkshake oil from water in it. Cam went home. It was monday, and I was still in MInnesota. I was planning to leave 2 days ago. Cams flight to Punta Gorda Florida is scheduled for Thursday, and I need to pick him up at the airport. Sick week starts Sunday. I thought long and hard about staying in or dropping out.

I decided to do my best to stay in until it became impossible. If I quit because of causes beyond my control, I have no regrets. But If I quit because I'm tired and discouraged, or the odds are slim and everything is going wrong, I'll always regret it later.

So I retorqued the heads, then pressurised the cooling system. It was slowly loosing pressure. How could the water be getting in the oil? Last time it was a leak in the intake port. So I pulled the headers and the intake and the spark plugs. with 20 PSI in the cooling system, I visually inspected and listened with a tube on my ear in each port and each spark plug hole. No leak sounds. I used the leakdown tester and pressurized each cylinder. No leak sounds except in the crankcase which is normal due to the old rings.

Then I got an idea! I removed and pressure checked the Mopar oil to water oil cooler. Sure enuff, it was cracked inside, allowing the oil and water to mix! So that came out permanently, and I flushed out the oil pan and refilled it. I started the engine and added a bottle of Moroso ceramic seal. That stopped the leak from the head gasket. As per the instructions, I drained and flushed the cooling system to get rid of the excess ceramic seal. But I could see in the top tank of the radiator that it had plugged up a bunch of the tubes. I wanted to back flush the radiator with a garden hose to try and clear it out. But I don't have water in my shop. And the hill up to the house was snowy and icy. So we towed it up the hill, and I devised a way to plumb in the garden hose. DUMB idea, the water just bypassed thru the block, thru the upper hoses, and shot ceramic seal out the top of the radiator all over everything. So, back down to the shop to pull the radiator and bring it up to the house to flush it. It helped, but I could still see plenty of plugged tubes. It would have to be good enough.

I put the radiator back in and started cleaning up the mess. That's when I noticed that the timing cover was now bulged out and cracked...

By This point, I was really tired and really in a hurry. Time was running out. I called Cam and asked if we could change his flight from Thursday at Punta Gorda to Friday night at Orlando. We would skip the test and tune at Immokalee, and go right to Orlando untested. That would give me more time to fix the car, get everything ready, and drive to Florida. He said OK.

I pulled the damper and the front cover and found that the cam bolt had backed out. I KNOW I torqued it, and i KNOW I put orange locktite on it. I fixed the cover with epoxy, chased the threads in the cam and on the bolt, and cleaned them both with carb cleaner and compressed air. I used red locktite, and torqued 10 lbs over spec. Then put everything back together and let it sit overnight for the locktite to cure.

Tuesday Morning, I started the car and let it warm up to 210 degrees before I turned on the fan. It was holding in all its fluids and the oil was clean and clear. So I drained out a gallon of water and dumped in a gallon of antifreeze, then opened the overhead door and drove it out into the winter air. I drove it about a mile, up and own our long driveway with no apparent issues, then back into the shop, did a few last minute things, and started packing tools and supplies. Cam came over after work and helped.
Wednesday morning, I threw my luggage and some food and stuff into the camper, hooked the trailer behind the old dodge with the camper in the bed, loaded the car and finished loading all the stuff, then about mid afternoon, I hit the road for florida. Luckily, I was just about an hour ahead of a nasty ice storm, but I had dry roads. Friday night, I made it to the airport, just 1/2 hour after Cam was ready to be picked up. We drove to a Cracker Barrel and had dinner, and spent the night in their parking lot. I was so tired, I was in a fog. Saturday morning, we drove to a Walmart parking lot close to Orlando Speedworld. The Sick Week instructions said that there was no admission to the track prior to Sunday at 7:00 AM, so we were going to unload the car here and go for a test drive, and start organizing stuff to bring with on the Sick Week drive, plus buy anything we need at Wally world.
The rear view morror had fallen of the car and the glass broke, so I went into walmart for a mirror. The best I could find was a pink rimmed cosmetic clamshell mirror. So I bought it and some JB weld. I felt like I had to explain to the cashier that this was not for my make-up. Back at the trailer Cam found the pink mirror to be quite hilarious. So I made him install it.

Then we ran into some other sick weekers who said they were letting folks in early is they bought a spectator admission for the Saturday event. So we packed up and drove to the track and got in. We unloaded the car and took it for a 10 mile drive. After not having driven the car since Drag Week 2021, it seemed kind of sketchy, but I figured we'd be OK. I was still in fog from over fatigue. It's a good thing Cam had a clear head, he really took over on the brain work and organization side of things.

Thanks for the link.

Is there a reason not to have the ignition killed with a loss of oil pressure?