2018 Drag Week story, Hemi Joel version

First off, I have to warn you, this is more of a personal story than it is a report of all thing Drags Week 2018. Other folks such as Mopar Billy are working on more complete coverage of the whole event. And also, I’m stealing pictures off the web, I only took about ½ of them myself. So credit goes to whomever it is due.
My trunk monkey Jeff and I recently finished Drag Week in my Hemi powered 1931 Plymouth coupe. For me, that was a major goal achieved after years of dreaming, then planning, then building and doing.
Here is the last day of Drag Week, a hoorah in celebration!



This whole thing started many, many years ago with a dream to build an old school hot rod coupe. Back when I was still just a high school kid in the 70's, day dreaming in class. Later, in about 1993, I ran a across a 392 hemi engine out of a 1958 Chrysler Imperial, and ended up dragging it home. Now I had a start! Then I started seeking a 30-31 Model A body. But in 2003, I found this 1931 Plymouth coupe in Indiana, and I hauled it home, and that was a major milestone.

This is what I bought. A body shell, frame, grill shell, front axle and springs, and a dash:


I didn’t do much with it at first, just played around mocking it up with the hemi and a few stray parts that I was collecting:



BUT THEN ALONG CAME DRAG WEEK!

In 2007, my friend Jay brown asked if I would be his co-pilot/pit crew on drag week, and I accepted, having no clue what I was getting into. At drag week, you run time trials at a different ¼ mile drag strip each day of the week. You turn in your best time slip each day. The racer in each class with the lowest average ET for the week, wins that class. Reaction time doesn’t matter. But you have to drive the race car from track to track with no outside support, and no chase vehicle. Jay entered a 69 Mustang Mach 1 with a Vortech blown big inch FE motor. And we drove it from Minneapolis to Cordova IL, raced at Cordova, Great Lakes Dragaway, Wisconsin International, Cedar Falls, and back to Cordova. Best ET was a 9:32, and we came in 2nd place in class. Along the way, we fragged a blower impeller, swapped in a spare, broke the powerglide, pulled it, rebuilt it, (stayed up all night), blew a trans cooler, (hunted one down), broke a shock mount and lowering block, (Had it fabbed/welded at a local shop) dealt with leaky slicks, and jammed an oil pump and twisted off the oil pump drive shaft (pulled the pan and fixed it in a borrowed shop) Then drove it home.


Jays detailed and interesting blog of drag week is a must read! http://fepower.net/Drag%20Week/dw07.html
After going thru all that, I was hooked. It was then I started thinking about building my coupe for Drag Week.
I rode along as Jays trunk monkey again in 2008 and 2009 in his SOHC cammer powered 64 Galaxie, DNFing in ’08 http://fepower.net/Drag%20Week/dw08.html and winning class in ’09, http://fepower.net/Drag%20Week/dw09.html then in his SOHC powered 69 Shelby in 2011 where we DNFed, then again in 2013 where we DNFed.
Some video I shot of our 2008 adventure: part 1: https://youtu.be/6F15sxPM1UA Part 2: https://youtu.be/GZMcqQUN9nw Part 3: https://youtu.be/rwzxdlae2J0

With all the work on failed and broken parts, great ideas that didn’t quite pan out, as well as the taste of victory and a close, hard fought second place, I was stockpiling ideas of how I would and would not build my own car. By 2013, I started working on the coupe in earnest, with a 426 hemi that I put together out of mostly leftover parts from my old F.A.S.T. racing projects.


To be continued

The car has sure come a long way. Thanks Joel for letting me be a part of the experience.

Without your help Jeff, it still wouldn't be done.

Pretty cool Joel! But what happened to Jeffs hair???

The reason I chose to start with a 426 Hemi, instead of the 392 is that I could build it faster, cheaper and make more power with less effort. I had a 426 block, heads and crank that were already machined, and just needed cleanup. 392 gen 1 hemi parts are harder to get, and it’s harder to find someone with torque plates and stuff like that. Start from scratch 392 builds take lots of time. And time was of the essence if I was going to have the car ready for Drag Week 2013!
So I got the block honed and cleaned up and primered, and cleaned up the heads and had the seats touched up, and loaded in some new springs and got a new cam with much bigger bumps on it than I used for F.A.S.T, and got it all mounted in the chassis.




But even with the progress I made, it became apparent that having this thing done for drag week 2013 was unrealistic. Thus I backslid from drag week driver to drag week trunk monkey to Jay again for 2013.
Then, in early 2014, I was talking to Keith Turk on the phone. He is the gentleman who runs tech at Drag Week. He said he didn’t think a 426 Hemi would be allowed in the Hot Rod class at Drag Week. What? How could that be? The rules say engine families that were available in 1962 or before are allowed. A 426 Hemi is a member of big block Mopar B/RB family that came out in 1958. Or so I thought. So Turk called Freiberger, Freiberger said NO.
That was kick in the gut.

It was great to see the Mopar crowd represented this year....Your car was cool as $hit...

I was amazed you ran the carburetors you did....And that thing really runs good for a 392. If you ever need OEM G1 Hemi parts, just PM me...We use them to hold things down in the shop....

Thanks Drag!

After getting over my disgust, and weighing my options, I decided to switch over to the early hemi. Always the optimist, I thought I could get it switched over and done in time for Drag Week 2014, and I went ahead and registered for the event in the spring. Haha. As it turned out, it took me well over a year to plan the new motor, source all the parts, get all the block and crank machining, head porting, and assembly done.
I located a super rare, one of 15 built, 8 carb edelbrock crossram intake, and decided that unless it was a total dud, I was going to run it on the car because I loved the nostalgia of it, and the over the top ridiculousness of it!
Early Hemi good guy, Engine =Masters guru Nick Smithberg ported the heads for me, and also checked the flow on the intake and the Holly 94 carbs to make sure it was enough.

Stupid question Joel, but how long have you known Jay and Jeff?

That's a great question, Billy. Jay and I went to the same high school, but he was a couple grades ahead of me. So I may have met him then, but didn't know him yet. About a year after I graduated, I went over to his place and saw his stuff because of a mutual friend. I got to know him a bit then, that was about '79 to 82, but then I never saw him again until Drag Week 06. Hot Rod had set up a "F.A.S.T on Slicks" shootout between a Buick, Dave Dudeks Road Runner and Wayne Nelson's Vette, and the place they chose to do it was at Cordova during Drag Week. I went there to video the shootout, and Jay was there racing. https://youtu.be/TMuzPHxIpAA
I heard his name over the p.a., and wondered if that was the Jay Brown I had known. I found him in the pits, we talked about old times, he explained Drag Week to me, I told him what I had been up to in FAST racing. We exchanged numbers and hung out together a bit. He lives about 20 miles away from me. Then the drag week trunk monkey thing started in 07.
Jeff and I met thru Moparts. I never new him before, but we figured out we lived about 5 miles from each other. We arainged a meeting at Rock Falls raceway when I was there with my green 67 gtx. That was about 2002, and we've been friends ever since.

Great story Joel .
Finally some good drama on moparts
Will enjoy reading this post ... keep typing!
100% better than reading world news or
someones good or bad luck at the dyno .
Youre doin stuff with cars that a lot of our lifestyles
might not allow.- and all that with only 3 months of good car weather.
Is it snowing there yet ? Lol.
Look forward to seein more pics.
Damn it looked like fun.

What?

Oh, the Bueller spike? He always does that for Drag Week!

Thanks, I'm glad you like the story! It's fun to do, but it takes a lot of time because I'm a horrible typist.

Since I was registered, but not ready with the coupe, I ended up taking my 67 Olds 442 convert on DW ’14. The car has a mild 455 and a doug nash 5 speed, and ran mid – high 13’s. I knew there was no hope of being competitive, so my friend Kevin and I just went for the fun of it. Even when one is not competitive, Drag Week is an awesome event to be in. You spend a solid week immersed in car culture and racing, and get to hang with some of the most hardcore street car racers on the planet. Plus make passes on different drag strips, and do a great, back country road trip. It’s impossible not to have a great time!
We raced at Oklahoma City, Topeka, Tulsa, and Great Bend KS, then back to Oklahoma City



My old friend Dave Dudek was at his 1st Drag Week in 2014 as trunk monkey for Rick Callahan.

Staging lanes at Topeka

Kevin with the Olds




I first got to know Brian Kohlman in this trip and his Hemi powered 30 Chrysler. This is the same car that is now green and nitro powered in the first picture of this story!

Great stuff Joel.

Sidenote: gf5r 5 speed from orange 30 Chrysler lives in my 66 Charger.

It’s great to get a chance to Trunk Monkey before setting off on your own Drag Week adventure, thanks to Joel for inviting me along that year. Joel drove the 442 to and from Drag Week in 2014 too. Here we are at our first gas stop heading out of town.



And we didn’t make it out of our home state before Joel had to do the first on the fly repair. Note to Jeff - Joel can work on the car lol.

Kevin, I don't even remember what I was fixing there. I do remember that right before we left, I ditched the stock driveshaft and ujoints, and put in a heavy dooty shaft, yokes, and 1350 ujoints. When we loaded the trunk and hit the road, the new drive shaft was hitting the driveshaft tunnel on bumps. We had to turn around and go home, take the drive shaft out, then put a jack under the tunnel and push it up for clearance in the offending area. I started to feel rushed to get there in time.

On the last day of drag week, during the awards ceremony, I won a door prize of a $500 gift certificate for great vendors!

I will admit, Joel did a LOT of work on DW18, and on the road to just getting there. During DW18, we each had our things to do, and we worked like a well oiled machine actually. Now how Joel wants to tell the story of DW15-16, we shall see. LOL.

So, we got thru Drag week 2014 in the Olds with only minor problems, and I came home all pumped up to resume work on the coupe, and make sure that it was ready for DW 2015 no matter what! In my mind, I was way past my disappointment of not being able to use a gen 2 hemi.
Wanting to keep the car as old school as possible, (which was required by the class rules anyway) I set up a dropped tube axle with finned aluminum Buick brakes, and retained the original front parallel leaf configuration:



Along with the 392, I also decided that instead of a 4 speed, I would use the T-56 Magnum 6 speed transmission. The 700 Lb/ft. rating and the double overdrive sounded like the hot ticket for a drag week car. True, it was modern, but it doesn’t show. I ordered the trans, bellhousing, hydraulic throw out bearing and driveshaft as a package deal from American Powertrain. They were way late in shipping it, like 5 weeks late and was in a panic calling them all the time. But finally, it showed up.


Thinking about it, what 1962 or older engine could top a well built 392 Hemi? Nothing! I had all the best 392 parts I could find, Nick did an awesome job on the heads, and I had a really cool and rare intake. It wasn’t done yet, I still was waiting on a few things, and had to blueprint and assemble it and dyno it, but things were looking good for dominating the Hot Rod class in 2015!

My friend Jeff had agreed to be trunk monkey for 2015, and was helping out on the build as well.

Then in December 2014, Hot Rod announced the new rules. The hot rod class lost the requirement for an old school build, and more shockingly to me, engine family’s up to 1968 were now allowed!

You know rules makers SUCK. Without warning anytime your combo can be done. Seen it time and time again. Unless you pocket book is deep and time is plentiful it can be bad news. I like yours better this way anyway.
Doug

Agree button

Doug,
The Drag Week founders tried to avoid this by locking in the new rules for three years each time. Still some of the changes still catch people off guard. The new package is good for '18, '19 and '20.

I have to give them credit for locking them in for 3 years, 15, 16, and 17, then again for the next 3 like Billy says with minor changes.

Still, it's nasty when you get stung twice in less than a year, especially after all the effort and $ I went thru to comply, and then they do a 180.

But I got over it.

I've never had the problem of having an extra hemi laying around, I suppose you do get used to it tho.... :P

Furious, it's a good problem to have! I love Hemis, you can never have too many!

Must have seen a squirrel, and forgot about this story...

Short on time as of late. I'll get back to it once the fall rush is over.

So I decided to stick with the 392, but progress seemed so slow, I never had much time available. So I took 5 weeks off of work in January - February to try to finish the 31 coupe for drag week 2016, and to beat Jeff out of a dinner. (We bet dinner on whether the car would be ready for dragweek) I was going to spend a week or so assembling and dynoing the 392 hemi, then 3 - 4 weeks making major progress on the chassis and body.
As usual, lost parts, (launched a circlip, never to be found, had to order a new one from diamond) stuff that didn't fit right,
cutting the main stud girdle for stroker clearance, remodeling the oiling system, setting up my ridiculous 8 carb intake, etc slowed down the assembly, and, burned up a lot of time. It took way more than a week but I got it done.


machining the rods for side clearance



Broaching the hub of a Mopar 340 super damper to fit the 392 Hemi.



Shortening the damper hub to align the pulleys



Cut and re-thread oil pickup for fit oil pan




Drill and tap oil drain back hole in head for external lines to pan



New drainbacks are slightly larger than the adjacent original holes.






I put it in Jays dyno hoping for big power numbers. (BTW, Jays 427 SOHC Ford headers fit with just re-drilling some holes)










Made some check out pulls, then some full throttle pulls, increasing the rpm a little more each time. The oil got milky, changed the oil. After the 1st 6000 rpm pull, I cooled if off and lashed the valves. Went to restart it, and it hydrolocked. Found water had leaked into #8 cylinder, causing the hydro lock. Pulled the head and found #8 cylinder wall was cracked due to the hydro lock. Figured it was a head gasket leak issue. Pulled it off the dyno, tore it apart, found shot rod bearings from the wet oil, had the #8 bore sleeved, pressure tested the block, took great care with the copper head gaskets when re-assembling, put it back on the dyno, made several pulls, but again milked out the oil. Pulled the heads, brought them to a head shop and had them pressure tested and milled .003 for flatness, put heads back on with thread orings around each water hole in the heads and block, put it together, filled it with water and pressure tested it, leaked. I pulled it apart, installed new custom head gaskets with all the un-needed holes gone, extra-extra carefull assembly with permatex red coppercoat. Mounted a radiator sytem on the dyno to use a closed cooling sytem so I could put moroso ceramic seal in it. Pressure tested with no leaks, made some pulls, testing 3 intakes and dialing the carbs on the 8 carb intake. It filled the oil pan with water again.




Now my 5 weeks was gone, no work done on the car, and a broke motor.

A few months later, I finally started working on the motor again, and found a crack in the #8 intake port in the head that leads to water. I poked it with a probe, and it went right thru. Apparently these is some porosity or a thin spot in the casting. Why didn't the head shop that did the pressure test find this and save me 3 weeks of chasing a head gasket problem????



[img]https://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d137/HemiJoel/hemi%20coupe/hole%20in%20head_zpsqggalkzx.jpg[/img]



Sent the head off to Nick smithberg to get repaired. He did a great job, and it hasn't leaked since.

So 2017 was spent trying to finish the car for DW 17, and after a massive thrash, I finally drove the car for the 1st time the night before we had to leave for drag week. Too many problems came up, so I threw in the towel on the coupe and brought the red 67 GTX F.A.S.T. car.

Another year of working on the car sporadiaclly at first, then really ramped it up in the summer.

10 days before we had to leave for Drag Week 2018, I finally got the car to the drag strip for initial testing.

Then,of course there was a huge last minute thrash to get ready, that is now just a blur. Since the coupe was no where near being adequately sorted out, I said that DW 2018 would just be a test and tune, and develop a to-list. But in my heart, being competitive, I really wanted to win and have everybody carry me around on their shoulder and sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" while the confetti falls.  But I had to settle for 4th place in the Hot Rod class because 3 awesome cars and drivers were consistently faster than me. But I'm still happy the way it turned out. The whole time, we had the hurricane looming, threatening to strand us and blow us away and drown us. But we dodged that bullet, barely. 

We got to Atlanta Dragwway friday before drag week, and did some test and tune friday night and sat. But right away friday when we got there we had to change rear end gears. The car had 3.70 in it, and I wanted 4.57. 





Brain Kohlman, with the Nitro Coupe pitted by us on friday night- sunday. 



Hemi Squirrel showed up too with his "Almost Funny":



Sunday we got checked in early, we were 12th in line out of 375. Made some test passes,

Moday morning we left the trailer behind and went to the pits and got ready, and to the drivers meeting. 



 Then made 2 passes at atlanta. 
Here is the better of the 2:

second pass in car video

  2nd pass exterior video

Then we packed up to leave;





It started raining just as we left the track, and rained on and off during the drive:

Great story so far.

I guess the dyno numbers are top secret 😎

I agree that the shop who did the pressure test should have caught that leak.

I'll tell you a secret. There are shops out there who don't actually pressure test stuff. I've seen this several times. I've also seen shops that don't do it correctly, even though it isn't hard.

That should have NEVER been missed.

Because of the water leak, I never got a good pull. I was triyng to test a dual quad vs a single dominator vs the 8 carb X3. It took A LOT of messing around just to get it to run on the 8 carbs. I started out so lean, it wouldn't do anything more than idle. There really is no info out there on where to start with this old obsolete stuff. After it was running good and broke in and checked out, and we started trying get some good pulls, the leaking happened. So as of now, it still isn't properly dyno tuned.

Cool story. Some day I would like to at least spectate Drag Week. Maybe even enter.

The milky oil deal would have taken alot of people down. I'm sure it's forever etched in your mind as a sore spot but way to stick with it. That's awesome. -Trent

My plan was to make one pass each day, as early as possible, then hit the road. If the car broke on the road, i'd rather deal with it in the day light. Plus I wanted to avoid the mid day heat at the track. But on my 1st attempt Monday, I had to shut the car off right before the burnout, because the car next to me broke. When I restarted, I must have bumped the fuel pump switch, and I launched with it off. So I had to go back in line. It took a long time to get thru the line for a second pass.

You are right, I was so disgusted. Not just for the wasted time and money, and lack of progress, but because I just didn't know what to do next. I had tried everything. I actually put the 426 Hemi on the cherry picker and hung it in the engine bay. The only thing that stopped me from proceeding was that the oil pump hit the steering box, and I didn't want to redo the whole steering setup.

Backing up a little, I did a moparts write up on the DW 2015 adventure in the parade car, so I'm not going to write about it now, I'll just link to it: https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbt...p-pictures.html


But 2018 was a whole different thing for me than any previous. Even though it was my 10th drag week, it was the first one where I was actually in a competitive car of my own. All the times as trunk monkey for Jay, I had nothing at stake. Same with the 3 trips in my 2 convertibles, I was limited to 13.50 ET by lack of roll bar. I couldn't have been in the mix no matter what, and there was no use to try and go faster. So for the first time in 2018, I took drag week seriously. It's a whole different attitude and experience when you are trying hard.

Joel, what head castings are you using on the hemi in your coupe. Reason I ask, a friend claims the 55 and 56 heads were preferred back when he had a 392 in his dragster due to earlier heads having a straighter line to the valves than 392 heads. Just wondering if you had any thoughts on the subject.

Good question, JB. Yes, the 55-56 heads are supposed to have a lot better intake port.
These are aftermarket heads from Hot Heads Research and Racing. This is what they say about them on their website:
"The best heads ever made for the early Chrysler Hemi, period. We started with a clean slate when we CAD-designed these water-jacketed aluminum heads for '51 - '59 Chrysler 331, 354, and 392 blocks. Using the latest in casting technology, our heads are cast from 356-T6 aluminum, with an extra thick 5/8 inch deck and combustion chamber, all with machining operations done on a CNC machine. We started with the favorable 1955 factory raised intake port design, improved it, and added a better-flowing rectangular exhaust port to increase flow. Hardened seats are installed for use with unleaded fuel, with intakes at 2.0625 (2 1/16) and exhausts at 1.80 inch, with bronze guides installed for 11/32 inch valve stems. We enlarged the pushrod holes to allow for larger diameter pushrods, and machined the spark plug tube seals into the head, and eliminated the heat riser to the intake manifold. Heads are 100 percent leak tested for quality control."

So far, I'm very happy with them except for the leak. But that is always a risk when you port.

Good deal. Better ports and less weight.

Jeff made a fun, time lapse video of the gear swap. The whole job in 38 seconds:

https://youtu.be/OgPHw3CgeTg

The 1955 Chrysler 331 C.I."300" heads where the hot set up back in the day do to them having harden seats in them that you could knock out and put bigger valves in then the easiest
Both the 1955 and 1956 Chrysler Hemi heads had better port angles than the 392 motors had due to Chrysler changing the 392 port angles to reduce the total height of the motors with the new lower sleeker looking 1957 and up body styles called the "Forward" look, tail fins and all

The 392 had a taller deck also. On the 392 heads, they extended the length of the intake ports and angled them down, so the low deck 331-354 intakes would still fit. And like Cabs says, keep it from getting too tall.
To run 331 - 354 heads on a 392 block, you need spacers between the intake and the heads. The Hot Heads do not need a spacer, it is designed in to fit a 392.

Now that it’s a tested piece, and you know it won’t fill the pan with a coffee milkshake...... any plans to put it back on the dyno?

Hopefully this winter I'll get it into the Dyno with 8 02 sensors and really get it optimized. Probably try the dual quad again too. Just to see what I'm giving up with the X3. Maybe test major changes in lash to see if it might like a bigger or smaller can. Any suggestions on what to experiment with?

Interesting that you mention the 8 O2 sensors.mon yellow bullet there is a thread in the Uratchco section taking about using O2's on every cylinder. It may be in the Pro Stock Tech thread.

Anyway, I've never done any testing with 8 O2's but some say it makes the tune up hard to get, because you never get it right (I'm not saying it well but I'm trying to say it induces errors in tuning...that doesn't even sound correct) and it makes it difficult to tune from that data.


Hope I said that so it doesn't sound like a 3rd grader typed it.

Joel, since the basic configuration of the motor is already established........ I would think the biggest influence on power output will be in the induction system.

I don’t know if Hot Heads offers a race-ish oriented 2 x 4 manifold, but if they do, that might be something to explore if the set up you have seems lacking.

Of course, a properly set up Hilborn stack injection on alcohol would work pretty well on that combo too 😎

I have had one motor dyno tested with 8 O2 sensors, the dyno operator insisted on installing the bung in my race car headers.
It was a 544 C.I.B1 motor with the cast B1 single plane intake that ended up making a little over 900 HP on race gas.
The O2 sensors showed that the intake had uneven distribution but what can you do with that information to fix that problem
I will use those headers when I dyno tune my own B1 motor with a tunnel ram intake and dual Dominator carbs.

That's kind of what the thread on yellow bullet was going with 8 O2's. It showed how bad distribution can be (and most likely is for most endings that are sorted out to the max) and IIRC the real issue was trying to clean up that distribution.

Some EFI systems can do per cylinder air fuel corrections when running 8 02 sensors.

This is an interesting video, watch the Trims as the RPM comes up, they are all over the place until the RPMs get up. In those trims 100% is no correction.

Now after going through all that how much power is it worth?

https://youtu.be/6kQGp-fHuFc

If you are running EFI with sequential port injection and coil on plug or near plug ignition, OEM and I'm sure a lot of aftermarket ECMs can give you that data already with one sensor in each bank.

The computers are fast enough now that it can tell which exhaust gas pulse belongs to which cylinder.

Kevin

With the 8 carb X3, it is a cross ram with a separate left and right plenum. Each 2 bbl carb sits right over the top of a port. I'm not sure, but it would seem that the a/f ratio of each cylinder would be most affected by the carb that is above that cylinders port. The carbs have aftermarket adjustable main jets, with a needle valve extending partly into each jet. So the point of the 8 O2 sensor test would be to equalize the a/f ratio of each cylinder, then dial in the most powerful overall ratio. THen when tuning for weather changes, turn each needle exactly the same. In this pic you can see the needle valves.

Your correct on your assumptions
Jet and tune each carb for that cylinder

Great pictures and writeup so far! Absolutely love your coupe.

Don't have much to add but if you don't want 8 O2's you can install EGT's in all 8 cylinders and get an idea of distribution that way.

My friend Jay who has a Dyno in his barn is planning to set up for 8 02 sensors anyway. So I might as well take advantage of it.

Wow, so you have some external main circuit adjustments you can do, that is pretty cool!

I was trying to remember which of the really early three bolt two barrel carbs like your using flowed the most air, Holley, Bendix, Stromberg Carlson, model 97 or model 84, the later 4 bolt GM Rochesters or which one?

Bad340, I figured with 16 mainjets, I needed an easy way to make adjustments!

Cab, these are the largest holley 94's that they made with a 1-1/16" venturi. They are not nearly as common as the smaller ones. Finding 8 good cores was a challenge.
We flowed them as well as the 4 bolt Rochester 2 bbls. Testing wwas done at 20.4" (1.5" Mercury - 4 barrel standard) and 28". Here are some pics of the Rochester:

Here is the holley

So if each carb flows 238 at 28" and my intake ports plow 390 cfm at 28" and the maximum CFM requirement of the engine is under 1400, what does that tell me?

It should tell you it makes power with that set up with either type carbs
Real tire spinning power
I cut my hot rodding teeth on a 1934 Ford Pickup that had a stock 1955 Chrylser 331 hemi New Yorker motor in it when I bought it with a little bitty tiny pipes real restrictive dual exhaust system with stock exhaust manifolds, I changed all of those pieces later and had a really good time learning with that hot rod It ended up with 2.0 inch primary with 3.5 inch collectors headers with a home made insert mufflers and a dual AFB carb set up I was able to whup on most of the local factory hot rods including 360 HP Sting Rays and the 1966 375 HP Chevelles
BTW, I'm jealous of your Plymouth
Have fun, sorry for hijacking this thread

2bbl carbs are traditionally rated at 3” Hg, preferably wet.
3” Hg is 40.79” H2O.

238@28 converts to 289@40.79.

289x.92 for an approximate wet flow rating is 266.

266 x 8 carbs = 2128cfm @3” Hg

4bbl carbs are rated at 1.5”Hg, which is 20.4” H2O.

238@28 is 203cfm@20.4, x 92 = 187cfm

187 x 8 = 1496cfm, calculated wet flow @ 1.5”Hg.

So, about the same as a pair of 750’s.

468” @ 7000rpm, @110% VE is 1043cfm.

Good stuff, thanks!

On the roght of the cockpit are a pair of Innovate MTX-L air/fuel ratio gauges. With 8 carbs and 16 main jets to keep track of and get dialed in, I consider them essential. I still did some plug reading to verify results. The plan was to use the in car Gopro camera to record the gauges, and use it like a data logger. But there must be some incompatibility between the shutter speed of the camera and the cycle speed of the gauge display, be cause even though they are reasonably steady and readable with the naked eye, on the video playback is is bad.
When I first started driving the car down the track, everything seemed to move so fast it was kind of a blur, and all of my focus was on getting the car to end of the track. I didn't yet feel comfortable enuff to look down at the gauges at WOT on the big end of the track. So with the camera failure, I din't know the A/F ratio. But then after I got comfortable with the car during drag week, and I was becoming more aware of how the car felt and drove, I started taking a quick glance down just before the stripe. I could see the A/F ratio was in the mid 9's. Way to rich! I think about 12.7 - 13 is best for making power. So I started leaning out the mains a little at a time, and as I did, the MPH was going up. But at the same time, my E.T. was falling off.
Eventually I realized that as I leaned out the mains, an off-the-line bog was developing, killing the 60' time.

It’s too bad the camera didn’t work.

It would be interesting to know if the carbs were just too lean at the beginning of the run after you leaned it out.

That’s a lot of Venturi area to try and activate at a low rpm.

Fast68, I have now solved that problem. I turned the carbs 180 degrees. THey way they were mounted on the X3 intake, they were backwards. It must have been on a boat in its past life. THe fuel was sloshing away from the main jets. After drag week, I made the change, then got out to the track 1 time for testing. It was about 47 degrees, and there was no hook in the track, but there was no bog either. On the 1st test pass I went a new best 60', I think it was a 1.36 or something like that. But it ran out of gas at half track. I should have check it, oops. Then on the next passes, I had tire spin, and my mph was way off. I think my newly remodeled throttle linkage slipped, and I wasn't getting full throttle. I didn't have a helper, so I didn't check that, I didn't think of it till the end anyway.

Makes perfect sense.

Looking forward to what you find on the dyno.

I hate Murphy messing with us hot rodders and drag racers Some times we are our own worst enemy
Welcome to our world
I'm glad you are getting positive results
You might want to compare the new best time slip before it ran out of gas with a old time slip up to the 660 clocks,1/8 mile, to see how much better it was running and go from there
Mopar Hemis rule, no matter what version

Fast68, There is not any race oriented dual quad available for the early hemi. Hot Heads makes what they call a "tunnel ram" but it's not a tunnel ram. I have one, and plan to test it.

Getting back to the story, on Sunday tech day, and Monday the first day of competition there was a lot going on.

These fellas had destroyed their Camaros turbo’ed LS motor, and were changing it out for a hastily sourced junkyard motor in the pits: Even if you hate LS motors, you have to give them credit for resourcefulness and persistence!



Drag Week draws a good crowd. The spectators are free to roam everywhere, that make it fun.


Mike Finnegan was there with his gen 2 Hemi powered, stick shifted 55 chevy gasser, and the raodkill ramp truck with a 700 horse compound turbo Cummings swapped in. How can you not love a guy who puts mopars best motivators into chevies? 9.39 at 147 was his opening shot on Monday.






In the A Gas class, Finnegans rival for the #1 position was also a Hemi powered brand x, Jarrad Scotts 62 Ranchero. He laid down a 9.07 at 155 on Monday. Where else but Drag Week?



Nick Plewniac brought his extra awesome “Dirty Thirty” 1930 Plymouth. I had to get a picture with his 30 and my 31 together. Even though they are 2 different years, Plymouth made midyear changes to the models, so they are the same model. Nicks Plymouth runs leaf springs and caltracks, running in the Super Street Big Block power adder class. He ran a best of 8.35 at 166 before he DNF'ed




[img]https://i.imgur.com/1W5AAF2.jpg[/img]

Jim Forbes, AKA "Squirrel" Made it to Drag Week after an epic 10 month thrash to build his Altered wheelbase AFX barracuda (Or is it a Valient?)
Squirrels build thread







Squirrels car wasn't done when he arrived at Atlanta after the long tow from Arizona, so he was thrashing away finishing last minute tasks. Since the car was completely untested, Drag Week 2018 would be a test & tune for him.



After my 1st pass on Monday got aborted due to launching with the fuel pump off, I rolled right back into the staging lanes without stopping. My dutiful trunk monkey met me in the lanes and topped off the gas. The Hemi Coupe has a little 3 gallon tank for the race fuel, and a 17 gallon for pump gas. I like to race with the street tank almost empty, and the race tank almost full.

Lined up in front of me was Matt Donovans 41 Pontiac. When I pulled up behind it, I noticed the car had a name painted on the deck lid: "Garbage that Barfed".
I thought that was a strange name for a car. Later, I found out that Lohnes and Frieberger, while announcing the race last year, had ridiculed the looks of the rat rod by saying it looked like garbage that barfed. Hence the name on the deck lid for 2018.





The chevy 2 behind me is who I lined up with going down the track. Lonnie Grimm, the Drag Week Warden, had closed the lanes for the morning class car session just a handful of cars behind us. We were among the last pairs before Street Machine Eliminator started. I was so glad that I didn't stop in the pits!
I was extra careful on the 2nd pass not to screw anything up. No way did I want to wait till the afternoon session to make a pass. Reaction dosen't matter at Drag Week, so I took my time staging and launching, making sure everything was right.


Video monday 2nd pass



.

And...............................................

The pass was good, no mistakes, no issues. The time slip said 10.22 @134.7. That was about .08 off my best pass from the day before, but certainly good enuff to turn in and hit the road. I parked in our pit area, and walked to the tower to turn in the slip and get the route info to the next track. The esteemed trunk monkey Jeff got busy on converting the car back to street trim.

When I got back from the tower, I started adjusting the rear coils-overs to handle the extra weight of all the gear in the trunk. Then it started raining. Not too hard at first. We kicked our work into high gear, and headed out as soon as we were ready.

With no wipers or defroster, but a layer of Rain-x on the windshield, I could kind of see where I was going. I was really concerned about getting to the very closest gas station, as I knew there wasn't much gas in the tank. We made it to a station just a couple miles from the track, and by then the rain had stopped. We filled the tank with 93 octane, and 2 cups of Klotz octane booster. That Klotz seemed like some wicked stuff, so I stuffed a paper towel in the plastic measuring cup to prevent any vestige of it from spilling onto our stuff in the trunk.


That is when Brian Kohlman pulled into the station, and parked nose to nose with my car. I was so preoccupied with the weather situation, I didn't even realize the Kodak moment that this scene created. But Kevin from Speed Obsessed saw it and jumped on the opportunity. Thankfully, he put his pictures on the web, where I could steal them!



I moved the coupe out from under the canopy to make room for more cars to come in, then went inside and got a snack. Then it started pouring again. I looked out at the hoodless coupe, and was concerned that too much water could get in the engine. So I went out and covered it with a tarp. Better for me to get too wet than the engine!

I was watching the radar on my phone while I ate my snack, and it looked like we would be clear of the rain in 25 minutes, so I decided to wait right there for it to quit. Brian Kohlman and Squirrel said they were going across the street to Perkins and eat a meal while they were waiting, and invited me and Jeff to join them. They also asked if we wanted to convoy with them to the track. Knowing that neither of them had overdrive, and my coupe has 2 overdrive gears, I declined on the convoy. I figured that we would be stopped by rain alot, so when the roads were dry, I was putting the hammer down! I also declined on lunch at Perkins because I figured it would take much longer than 25 minutes, and I wanted to leave as soon as the rain stopped.

Speaking of Mr. Kohlman, I heard him make his pass while I was in the staging lanes. When this nitro burning monster fires up, there is no mistaking it for any other car on Drag Week!



But this car is still in the testing/sorting phase, and when he got to about half track, I could hear the nitro roar go flat, like it was way too retarded or running out of fuel or something. The announcer told us he had ran 8.61 at 142, way off of what the car is capable of. I was hoping he hadn't hurt the Hemi, so I was glad to see him show up at the gas station.

Who is Brian Kohlman? He's the only insane, Mopar loving, nitro junkie in Drag Week. How many of you remember this famous shot? Same guy!

When the rain stopped, I checked the radar and the route map, and I could see that we would be following the rain for about 20 miles, then make some turns that would get us out of the rainy area. So I allowed 10 or 15 more minutes to pass, and the roads to drain before we hit the trail. Remember, the coupe is running the DOT slicks, I DON'T want to find out how they perform in the rain, because I knew it would be bad.

Most of the racers change tires for the street, and some forged ahead thru the downpour.



Our first leg of the route was on a 4 lane divided highway. Each lane had 2 ruts worn in it from heavy truck traffic, and the ruts were holding a bit of water. Driving with the car properly centered in the lane resulted in the rear end of the car skating around from hydroplaning. So I drove offset in the lane, with the right tires hugging the white line, staying out of the grooves, and was able to confidently maintain 55 mph.

But after 5 or 10 miles, I could tell we were catching up to the rain. The whole highway was getting wetter and wetter. The car was getting very squirrely, and I had to slow down. Slower and slower, until we were only going about 35 mph. I was getting passed by everything on the road, and lots of semi trucks. A couple of them honked their airhorns at me. Then I realized, with all the spray from the tires on this fenderless hot rod, and the 2 tiny 39 Ford taillights, they probably could not see how slow we were going until they were right upon us! Now I was getting really scared. I tried to speed up, but it was impossible to control the car when I did. Fears of getting rear ended by a semi truck had me wanting to get off that road asap. Jeff was scared too, as we both knew our lives were in danger. Pulling off on the shoulder was considered, but that seemed dangerous as well. How far can it be till the next exit, it seems like forever.

After the second honk from a semi, I decided to drive on the shoulder, reducing the chance of getting rear ended. But there was a lot of debris on the shoulder, the kind of stuff that could puncture a tire. Since I din't have a spare, a flat could potentially put me out of the race. I dodged the tire shreds and rocks for about 6 more miles where we finally came to an exit, There we sat for about 45 minutes waiting for the road to dry off. There was another Drag week car there waiting it out as well.

Real tires with slicks for the track next year plus defrost and wipers?

Kevin

Drag Week Rain Video

After I was sure that the highway was dry enuff, we got rolling again to the the prescribed exit, hwy 77 south, a 2 lane road. About the time we made the turn, it started pouring again. I wheeled the coupe onto a semi-rural side street to wait it out. I checked my radar, and it showed that skys were clear just 2 miles away. Should we go for it? What if the radar is wrong, and we got into a situation were we couldn't stop? It was pouring so hard that I could hardly believe that it would be dry just 2 miles away, so we sat and waited.


With Hurricane Florence on it's way, we could be facing a LOT of rain all week. The talking heads on TV said that the towns we were heading for (Darlington, Charlotte) were being evacuated, all the food and water had been cleared from the grocery stores by panicked evacuees, and the highways were clogged with evacuees for a hundred miles, plus the filling stations were out of gas.

But still, after 5 years of effort to get this car to Drag Week, dropping out never crossed my mind. If we got caught in the hurricane, we could take shelter somewhere, I figured. If there was no food, a human can live for weeks with no food right?

And I came up with a plan to deal with the rain. I searched the web for a tire store or a junkyard, where maybe I could get some street tires and wheels, and strap the slicks to the roof. Nothing was nearby, but if we could make it to Darlington, there was hope.

After about an hour, it had quit raining, and we hit the road again, Wouldn't you know, we got about 3 miles, and everything was bone dry! I hadn't even rained there, the radar was right.

The rest of the drive to checkpoint #1 was uneventful, with dry roads and not too much traffic. We got onto a 4 lane divided highway, and I was driving about 75-80 mph to make up time. The Hemi did not like to cruise at less than 2200 RPM, which meant I couldn't shift into 6th until 70 mph.
At 4:00 pm, we pulled into the checkpoint, an idyllic lakeside park, complete with campers, fishing, and people having picnics. I couldn't help but wonder how they all felt about having their tranquility shattered by a constant stream of thundering, ground pounding, race gas exhausting, drag cars!

HJ .... if you play your cards right maybe you’ll have a nice NATURALLY WARM place to work on your junk !

Probably not, unless there is a really wet forecast. I just don't have a good way to haul an extra pair of tires. Pulling a trailer with a hot rod just doesn't seem very appealing.

Doc, that natural heat in atlanta and darlington almost killed this yankee!

But I know what you're talking about. Maybe it will come to something.

It’s a looooong way to the beach from HOTlanta and Darlington vs here ! And YEAH the heat was a bit brutal here but that’s what AC is for !

Kevin at Speed Obsessed caught this shot just as we were pulling into the checkpoint.




After we left the checkpoint, the route instructions took us onto a bunch of little side streets, residential areas, small towns, and country roads, most of them with 30 to 50 mph speed limits. It also started raining a little bit, but we were following a rain system, and mostly staying just behind it. With the lower speed limits, the Coupe drove OK on the wet roads, I just had to dodge puddles. As we were cruising this lakeside road at about 45, suddenly I saw a rainbow, right on the edge of the road. No way will I drive past a rainbow without a picture! And right there was a little gravel pullout, so I hit the brakes hard and got the car off to the side of the road.



A few Drag Week cars passed us by, then we got back on the road. Only about 50 feet down the road was a low area, with about of 6" water flowing over the road. I carefully drove thru it at about 5 mph.




After a while, it dawned on me that if I hadn't stopped for the rainbow, I probably would have hit that deep water at about 35 mph, and ended up hydroplaning into the guardrail. Personally, I think someone put that rainbow there for a reason!

The gas gauge in the Hemi Coupe was not working for some reason, and I had no idea what fuel mileage I would be getting, so we stopped for gas 90 miles after the last fill. It only took 7.2 gallons in the 17 gallon tank, that made me happy.



Remember that measuring cup that we used for the Klotz octane booster? Well the inside of it melted, and the paper towel remains were all disoved into the plastic! Jeff tried to clean it out, but ended up throwing it away. That Klotz is some potent stuff.

After we left the gas station, we had no more rain, and good roads, so we were making great progress. We passed up Kohlman and Hemi Squirrel, it was an unbelievably cool sight to see 2 blown hemi, retro style race cars cruising down the road. Jeff grabbed his phone and filmed them as we drove by. But something went wrong, and the video failed.



With the big aluminum radiator and the 55 gpm Mezziere water pump, the Hemi was running at about 140 degrees. I would have preferred to see it at 180 in the highway. My car doesn't have a thermostat, but instead I had wired in a Davies Craig water pump/fan controller, that senses the coolant temp and modulates the voltage to the pump and turns the fan on and off to maintain 180 degrees. I wired in a selector switch that would completely bypass the controller and run the pump full speed for racing. Thus far I had only used the race mode, but it seemed that now would be a good time to flip the switch and get the motor running a little hotter. So I did.

After about a mile or so, the temp gauge had barely moved off of 140, but some water began to spray onto the windshield! I quickly flipped the switch to race, and the temp gauge shot up to about 225, then slowly started dropping. Obviously, the water pump had not been running, and it was getting hot in the heads, but not where the sensors for the Davies Craig and the temp gauge are located. So now I had to wonder, where did the water come out from? Did I do any damage? I hope its not a head gasket leak!

Well, thankfully the temp came down quickly, it never leaked another drop, and I never engaged the controller again. I am still not sure where the water came from, but it must have come out of the vent hole on the overflow tank.
Doing 80 or so on the freeway, we were passing a lot of drag week cars. Some of them have deep gears, no overdrive, and cruise along at 55 or so.




Then my wife Sheila phoned, and she was worried about the hurricane. The day that Jeff and I had left Minnesota for Drag Week, she caught a plane to Greensboro, NC, to visit her friend Penny. They were planning to drive to Charlotte Tuesday, have dinner with us when we got there, and watch the racing at Z-Max on Wednesday, Then she was going to fly home on Friday. This was going to be really cool, because she has never been to a drag race before.
But now, with hurricane Florence approaching, she heard that they might close the airport, and then she would be stranded in NC, in the path of the storm. I told her to call the airline, and change her flight to the soonest she could get. If it meant missing the race, so be it.

My trunk monkey Jeff had a great attitude up till about now. He is an invaluable helper. He knows racing, he knows how to wrench, has a good sense of humor, and he's a hard worker.




But today, after we left the track, I could tell something was bugging him. I didn't know if he was sick of me already, or if it was the prospect sitting in the car waiting out rainstorms all week (all because I was to stubborn to pull a trailer), or if it was the whole hurricane scare, not knowing what we were getting into. Probably the latter. He had told me that some of the racers were dropping out because of the hurricane warning, and his folks had phoned him because of all the dire predictions on the news. And we were right in its predicted path, driving towards it.





I didn’t want to force him to continue if he was concerned for his safety. So I said to him as we drove along “I spent 5 years working on this car to get to Drag Week, and I have no intention of dropping out. As long as the race is still on, I’m going to do everything in my power to stay in. We don’t know what this hurricane is going to do, so if you want out, I understand. I’ll drive you to the airport and buy you a ticket out of here, and there’ll be no hard feelings.”
He thought for a moment, and said, “Nope, I’m in.” I could see his outlook improve immediately.

I was thinking about the gas situation. I wanted to race tomorrow with as little gas as possible in the tank, but of course we couldn’t let it go empty. At about 7:45 pm, somewhere in South Carolina, we pulled into a gas station. They were open, they had gas, and there was no line. And the shelves inside were full of food and snacks and stuff. Hmm…
We dipped the tank with a wooden dowel that we were using as a gas gauge, and I calculated that we should add 4 gallons. That would be just enuff to get us to the track. Then we were off in search of the 2nd and last checkpoint for today.
At 8:45 we found it. As usual, there was a couple Drag Weekers coming and going. We were getting tired, so we didn’t linger.



We drove all the way to the track entrance, so we officially completed the day 1 drive!



Then we had to continue on another 10 miles or so to the hotel. By now, I had all of my test and tunes, day one of drag week, and this days drive on the same oil, and I decided to change it tonight before we checked in to the hotel. I also needed a metal measuring cup for the Klotz, and a couple other supplys, so we found a nearby Walmart, and pulled into the outdoor garden department for the oil change. I had brought a bunch of oil and some filters, but I had nothing to drain into, so I went inside and bought a drain pan with a cover that seals. Jeff worked on the oil change, while I went back in the store for a couple more items I forgot. Here we were in Darlington, a mere 70 miles from the coast with Hurricane Florence charging in, and it was business as usual at Walmart. Hmm...



Jeff didn’t spill a drop, and I sealed up the drain pan, and hauled it and the garbage to a trash can, and left the pan next to the trash for Walmart guy to recycle.
We packed up, and got ready to depart. It was well after 10 pm, and we had been up since 4. The thought of a hotel bed sure sounded good right now. I started the car, watched the oil pressure come up, and drove about 100 feet before I looked at the oil pressure gauge again. It was at ZERO, so I killed the ignition.

And that's pretty much how the next 10 minutes went...

LOL

The first thought that popped into my head was that the pressure relief valve on the oil pump had stuck. For the valvetrain to survive Drag Week, I modified the oil system on the Hemi to pump a lot of oil, full time, unrestricted, to the heads and rocker gear. In addition to the 4 drainback hoses from the heads, I had installed a Titan oil pump, which is very high volume. Only after the pump was in the motor did I start hearing rumors of stuck relief valves on titan pumps, leaving guys stranded with no oil pressure. . The only solution would be to pull the pan and the oil pump and get it unstuck.

Billet Titan oil pump:

I was actually very relieved when I looked out the back window and saw a trail of oil, thinking Jeff probably didn’t tighten the plug. And that would be an easy fix. We looked under the car, and the drain plug was still tight in the pan. There was no oil showing on the sight glass on the side of the oil pan, it was empty.
A little further investigating revealed that it was leaking at the oil filter base. I went back to the trash and found the old oil filter. Sure enuff, there was no gasket on it. The old gasket must have stuck to the hemi, and a 2 gasket stack will definitely leak! We pushed the car back to our work area and removed the filter, removed the extra gasket, and put the filter back on, then dumped the last 7 quarts of my Valvoline VR-1 oil in. About this time Jeff pointed out the security camera on the building that was aimed right at us, meaning that this whole escapade would be viewed by Walmart security. I wondered if I should go in and buy some kitty litter and clean up the mess. No it was too late, and we were too tired. So what if they send me a bill for a cleanup, at least I don't have to deal with it now. I fired up the ol’ Hemi, Jeff checked for leaks, then finally headed for the hotel at 11:30.

I had decided earlier that I was going to check the valve lash after the long drive, and put in fresh plugs for the race track. It is well known that one of the biggest reasons for racers to drop out of Drag Week is valvetrain wear.
After checking in to the hotel, it sure was tempting to say “let’s do it in the morning.” But I didn’t want to waste time with it tomorrow, we needed to get our pass in and hit the road. There was no telling how many hours we would spend tomorrow waiting out rain storms. The earlier we could make a pass, leave the track, and head for Charlotte, the better. So I headed down to the parking lot and checked the lash and put in fresh spark plugs. I was very pleased to see no change in the valve lash. The Niagara Falls oiling system was doing its job!
Then I got the HemiCoupe all ready for its first night in a hotel parking lot with a tarp over the motor and a boot on the wheel. At 2:00 I was finally able to get to bed. Day 1 was finally complete, and as far as I was concerned, it was a success!

Joel hard at work in the parking lot.

It brings back good memories to sift through the pictures and write the story.

Unfortunately, I didn't take one single photo at Darlington...

Usually the good memories stay a little more vivid, and the pictures bring them back. The bad ones fade...until the next Drag Week, when your back, shoulders and hips remind you how they felt the last time you were in the car for four hours straight...




For me, I'm always shocked at how few pictures we actually take, even with reminding each other, and trying to make it a priority. I get home, download everything to the PC, and just shake my head at the huge blocks of time when we have no photos!

My pictures start of heavy on day 1, and go quickly downhill from there. I usually start a drag week album on facebook and stop contributing to it about Wednesday. Even when I tell myself I will take more pictures that year haha, just so much going on.

Kind of like our first child got about 500 pictures took, then the second one about 50, then the third one about 5.

Not sure if my buddy Bob the Photo Guy is going this year.He usually takes 1,000 plus pics.

Tuesday morning we were ready to check out of the hotel and head to the track at about 7:30. The Trunk Monkey was all chipper and ready for another pleasant day of relaxing.


A quick check of the internet Tuesday morning told me the day 1 results for the Hot Rod class. I was in 4th place out of 9 cars with my 10.22 @134.7 .
Leading the field after day one was Mark Fisher with his 1932 Ford Truck, who ran a best of 10.024 at 131.99. The old Ford runs a big block chev.


In 2nd place, by .004 seconds at 10.028 @ 130.49 was Timothy Hall with a 1947 International KB-1 pickup. The corn binder six has been replaced with a dual quad, tunnel rammed SBC.


Capturing 3rd place was the 10.14 @ 129 mph of Richard Abbot in his 1930 Dodge coupe. Richard runs a W2 mopar small block.


I was hoping that today I could advance to top 3 by attaining my goal of 9.99. I had been leaning out the main jets a little at a time, and as I did, the mph was picking up, but a bog had developed right after the launch, hurting the ET. I had a much better MPH than my competitors, but I had to get the first half of the track dialed in a lot better.

The pits at Darlington Dragway were pretty crowded, but we found a spot.



Switching over to race mode includes unloading all the luggage, tools, and gear from the car; removing the 8 air filters from the scoops; adjusting the springs on the rear coil overs; adjusting the shocks; adjusting the clutch pressure; dropping the pressure in the slicks; and removing the exhaust system. Adjusting the clutch was the hardest, most time consuming task. While we were working on that, Frieberger told us all over the p,a, that at 10:00, he would make an announcement regarding the status of the event in consideration of Hurricane Florence.

The staging lanes were packed, but I got into the tail end of the last row. By 9:30, I was really beginning to feel the heat, and the black roof of the coupe with no headliner didn’t help the situation. But I had a gallon jug of water that helped keep me hydrated, and I waited as long as possible before putting my driving suit on. (which I began referring to as my snowmobile suit. Might as well at least get a chuckle out of sitting in a 120 degree car in it.)



At 9:45, I pulled into the burnout box. My burnout was kind of short, because the rear of the car started going sideways. Right after the launch, the engine bogged bad and the car fell on its face, then picked up again and ran strong for the rest of the ¼ mile. 10.43 at 136 mph was the result.

In car video

Outside video

I wasn’t happy with the idea of turning in that ET, and decided to stick around for another pass, even though it meant we would get a late start on the journey to Charlotte. If you watch the in car video to the end, you will see the long line of cars on my right that I drove past on my way to the pit. Those are all cars just waiting to get into the staging lane queue. So it was going to be a very long wait. (Sheila had phoned earlier to tell me that she got her flight home changed to 6:30 am tomorrow morning, so she wasn’t going to be able to come to Charlotte and see the race. So getting to the hotel early tonight wasn’t essential.)
I messed with the carbs, hoping to get rid of the bog, and I turned up the fuel pressure a little bit, then got in line.

At 10:00, Frieberger made the announcement that we would still race at Charlotte tomorrow, and Bristol on thurseday. But the official route they had planned would take us too far east, into the hurricane, so we were to drive the shortest path to Z-Max, or any way we wanted, and there would be no checkpoints. He urged everyone to get to Z-Max early and get a pass in, because heavy rain was predicted for the afternoon. Well that was good news!
My biggest job after working on the car, was trying not to die from heat stroke. I found a utility sink in the garage under the tower, and used it to replenish my gallon jug about 3 times. I also stuck my head under a faucet a few times, just to cool off. And I put a big piece of cardboard on top of the car, that hung over the back window and blocked the sun.
There was plenty of action on the track while I was waiting, and I watched as much as I could while staying reasonably close to the car when the line moved.

The Dirty 30 pulled a big wheelie:
Dirty 30 wheelie

So did Frank Ramano



Tom Baily. the leader in unlimited made it!




Finally, 4 hours and 15 minutes after my first pass, I pulled into the burnout box for my 2nd pass of the day.

Jeff did get the video of Hemi Squirrel:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dZcxpUJv00A

Cool car. Old style adapted to the present. It is very interesting to watch designers who show their vision and personality in their creations. If you are interested in creating quality content or conducting quality research for this, there is a good resource https://grademiners.com/ that can help with this.

I never did get around to finishing the story. Kinda late now...

Slacker... get to typing. Not too late...

Yeah, what's up with that Joel? : D

Nothing to see here, just a stick shift hemi coupe running drag week with two die hard manual trans racers as the heros.

Yup, better get typing you all probably have about 3 months of cold weather to use up.

My 4 hour wait in the 100 degree heat and relentless sun in the staging lanes at darlington was rewarded with: disappointment. Based on my analysis of the last pass, I had leaned out the carbs another step, and tightened the clutch a turn. But the changes were not enuff to overcome the higher temps that had filtered in between mid morning and mid afternoon. 10.54 @ 135.3. second pass video

Jeff and I got got busy changing the car over to street trim. My hind end was dragging from the heat, and Jeff was beat too. But the motivation to get to the air conditioned hotel room that was waiting for us at Charlotte drove me forward. My Shumacker cordless air compressor/jumper pack was not happy in the heat either. It kept cutting out as we tried to air up the MIckey Thompsons DOT tires. I said screw it, lets go. Hopefully there will be an air compressor at the gas station across the street.

I dumped a quart of water over my head and shirt, got behind the wheel, and we headed across the street for gas and air. The air compressor required a credit card, I had to pay a few bucks just to air up the tires. Since we didn't have to follow a route, or stop at checkpoints, I looked at the map to find the shortest route. It was only 100 miles, so I didn't completely fill the tank. I wanted to pull into Charlotte with the main gas tank as low as possible to save weight going down the dragstrip. Since there was no checkpoints, and no stops for gas, I didn't take any pictures on the way to Charlotte.
We checked into our hotel there, got cooled off in the room for a little while, then I went down and started working on the car. Jeff found that his new friends Paul and Joe Castiglione were staying at the same hotel. Jeff got to know them because they had purchased a road runner from the estate of a friend of Jeff's who had passed away recently. I checked the lash, and changed the plugs. Castiglione's had brought some kind of moonshine or something like that that they offered to Jeff and I. I passed on that stuff, but Jeff partook. And partook some more. At first I thought what kind of a trunk monkey goes out and gets drunk when there's work to do. But then I thought oh well, it's been a hard day, he needs to have a little fun and blow off some steam.

Some jobs require extra lubricants to be competed.

Nothing like the high 5s,beers'Shine when you get to that last Hotel on Thursday night.

I'm only on day 2 of racing so far, this was Tuesday. Wednesday was Charlotte, Thursday was Bristol, then Friday back to Atlanta.

Trying to refresh my memory, I looked up Billy's 2018 drag week story. He got started on it, but sadly, he didn't even make it to the first day of racing before he left us.

Wednesday morning, I got up early because I wanted to get in on the hotel’s hot breakfast before we hit the road for the track. Jeff was just barely dragging himself out of bed when I headed down to the lobby, he didn’t feel like having breakfast. But a quick check outside revealed foggy and misty conditions, so my rush was over. Our hotel was literally minutes from the track, and this heavy weather was going to take time to burn off.
These wonderful southern ladies were serving the breakfast, I just love their accents! There was a pot of this curious looking white mush that I asked them about. “That’s gree-its. Haven’t y'all ever had gree-its?” “Well, no I’m from Minnesota and I’ve never had grits but I did see them in the movie My Cousin Vinny.” I’m not usually particularly adventurous when it comes to strange new foods, but I figured on drag week, with a hurricane bearing down on us, and the talking heads telling us that we were going to be swept out to sea, or blown into the air like Dorothy’s house, or stranded on a small island of land with no food, no water, and no fuel, if I was ever going to try grits, now is the time. And you know what? They were really good! Especially with a lot of butter slathered over them.
20 minutes later we were on our way to the world-famous Z-Max Dragway, arriving at 7:30 sharp. We quickly switched the car over from street mode to track mode.

Hemi Joel do you live in California now? Birdtracker

nope, still in Minnesota.

By the time we were ready to get the car into the staging lanes, the lines were already very long, although they had not yet got the track dried out enough to even start running cars.
ZMax has four lanes, but for drag week we were only running one pair. It would’ve been cool to open up the other two and get all four lanes going, plus it would’ve sped up the action once we started. I don’t know why they didn’t, I heard it was something to do with the NHRA.

After the first pair of cars went down the ZMax 1320, the action was immediately halted.
Apparently the track was still too wet. We waited another 1/2 hour or more for them to dry it more.

When they finally started running cars, the line I was in never moved. It seems like the other lanes were moving. I was still a good six or 700 feet from the starting line when somebody announced that they closed off the class cars and were running street machine eliminator. That would take at least 2 or 3 hours. The way the schedule is supposed to work they run all of the class cars (like mine), then the street machine eliminator cars. I admit I was a little bit irritated, but there was nothing I could do about it.
The linkage between my clutch pedal and clutch master cylinder needed a bit of adjustment so I went walking back to the pit area to get a half inch wrench. Normally, I would have sent the trunk monkey, but I figured there was plenty of time. Along the way I stopped and talked to Mike Finnigan, who had his blasphemy 55 Chevy gasser right behind mine, and Mopar Billy a couple more cars back, and a few other people.


When I was on my way back to the car, all of a sudden things looked different? Oh-oh, I discovered when I got closer to my hot rod that they had started running our lane and all the cars from behind me had gone around my car. There was about a 200 foot gap in front of my car. The trunk monkey said where you been? I tried calling you to let you know the lane had moved. It was then I realized I had left my cell phone in the car. Now I was in a panic to get into my fire suit to and Hans device and helmet and shoes and all of that stuff, get belted into the car and get up there. By the time I got to the spot where the guy in charge of the lanes was, they were sending cars from another lane to line up behind the cars from my lane. He came to my window and said I was too late I'd have to wait until the other line was completely done. That was disappointing news to say the least, but I just said OK. I was kicking myself for wondering so far from the car, and for leaving my cell phone behind. Okay, I said to myself, you gotta shake that off and start thinking about what you’re doing.
So what I thought about was the starting line bog and how to drive around it. When I first started testing the car about three weeks earlier, it was running pig rich. I did not want to risk damaging the engine by taking a huge step in leaning it out. I was leaning it out a little bit at a time, and each time the mile-per-hour picked up. But so did a nasty bog right off of the starting line. Here’s where I realized that the eight Holly 94 carburetors did not like being backwards on the intake manifold. This Edelbrock X3, eight carb intake was built by Vic Edelbrock senior for SK boat racing. In that venue, the engines are mounted backwards with a V drive down to the prop shaft. But I didn’t know that when I got the linkage and everything set up, but figured it out when I went to install it on the car. I had decided that I should test and see how it worked out before I contemplated turning the carbs around and redoing all of the linkage and everything. But I ran short of time for testing, and did not identify the problem before leaving for the event. Well that mistake had come back to bite me. At launch, the fuel in the float bowls was sloshing away from the main jets causing the bog.


So I devised a plan. What I had been doing was matting the gas pedal against the two-step rev limiter, then dumping the clutch. The new plan would be take my time at the starting line (reaction time doesn’t matter on drag week) bring the RPM up to 5000 with as little throttle opening as possible, then dump the clutch and roll into the throttle.. My thinking was that the fuel from the eight accelerator pumps would be timed to counteract the lean blog when the fuel sloshed away from the main jets.

it was obvious that Mike Finnigan was enjoying all of the attention he got by having his car parked right behind mine.

I'm a little out of sequence here: some shots from the hotel parking lot tuesday night.

another out of sequence shot. Getting the Hemicoupe ready to race. We tarped our stuff because it was drizzling a bit.

OK, back to the story in the staging lanes. The lane directer guy must have had a change of heart, maybe because I was calm and respectful in the face of his bad news for me. But for whatever reason, he came back to my coupe after several cars from the other lane had been sent up towards the front, and he directed me to pull ahead past the other cars, and I got in line right behind Joe Castiglione and Mopar Billy! Yippie, I wasn't going to have to wait for the whole other line of cars!

So when I got staged, and the tree flashed its green, I sat there getting the RPM just right, then dumped the clutch and rolled into the gas. the car launched a bit soft, but the bog was almost gone, and I was rewarded with a 10.17 at 137. Best mph ever, and the best ET since Atlanta testing before I started leaning it out. After I picked up the time slip, I was anxious to hit the road. Heavy rains were predicted for this afternoon. Remembering the terror of driving in the rain on these slicks back on monday, I wanted to get ahead of it.

Video of the pass and Mopar Billy too

as the saying goes : "better late than never !"
thanks for the update joel ! i really enjoyed seeing billy again, and your coupe is an inspiration for me to get back on my [unending] humpback project.

It takes more time than a guy would think to write this stuff and get the pictures all edited to make a post. But starting up on the story again last night helped rejuvenate my enthusiasm for drag week 2021. It was time well spent, as I need that motivation to prioritize what I'm working on, get busy on the Hemi coupe and put it back together. I'm in the process of freshening up the hemi, and face plating the transmission. I already got the carburetors turned around and the fuel system remodeled. I'm putting in a set of conical valve springs, and I'm going to test an eight carb intake that has short runners instead of this long cross ram, and I'm also going to test the hot heads dual quad intake.

I miss Drag Week. Sure hope we can go in 2021...

Thanks for all the pictures and re-cap....I wish I could attend one of these years. Its been a goal of mine for a long time. I have a car capable of running it, just needs the cage finished and a hitch and it could enter it. Never drove my Hemi that far though, so I have no idea if it would hold up, I doubt it and really want to switch to Hellcat power. So I very much enjoy the stories and commentary...Thanks again. And it looks like you picked the wrong car for that year with all that rain...Man , between that and the heat, that looked grueling.

You have to have a Push forward, and Can do attitude at Drag Week. You need the ability to overcome simple things, and react and address the tough stuff. I will also say, if you plan on bringing a Trunk Monkey, the two of you better get along for a long time. It's not just the Week itself, but days leading up to the event, and then add in travel time together. Luckily Joel and I get along great. We laugh at the same stupid stuff, and have taken many road trips together. It's gotten pretty simple when you know the others next move.

Jeff...You get along good with everyone you meet!

That seemed like a sure thing until here recently, no telling what will be going on.

You might think that, but I assure you, no I don't. LOL.

Glad you said it, I wasn't touching that one!

Conspicuously absent from Zmax Dragway was our nitro-junkie hero, Brian Kohlmann. His pass at Darlington Tuesday did not go so well. He ended up blowing a head gasket. Not knowing about the gasket issue at first, he did drive the car to the hotel in Charlotte. After noticing water on the windshield, he pulled over and diagnosed the problem. He made it the rest of the way to the hotel by adding water as needed. A whole gang of helpers converged on the car to fix the ailing hemi. Unfortunately when they got the car apart they found that he had torched the head. There was no way to fix it in time, so Brian bummed a ride with a local back to Atlanta to get his truck and trailer. After spending the night in the trailer waiting for the staff at Atlanta dragway to unlock the gate, he drove back to Charlotte, loaded up the nitro coupe and headed for home. You would think he would be bummed, but Brian doesn’t show it. He just bounces back with fresh determination and optimism about the next shot. It's kinda like this: with our gasoline burning race cars, we know we're going to be changing plugs and changing oil with frequency, may be tearing down the motor to freshen it up every year or 2, or three. So when it's time to do that we don't sweat it. Well, running nitromethane, Brian knows that he's going to be changing out rings, bearings, pistons, rods, welding on the block and heads, etc. on a regular basis. It's just an expected part of the process. So he just jumps in and gets it done without drama, and continues to work on the tune to get the car quicker and more reliable.
Brian figured out that the reason the car laid down at the big end of the track at Atlanta, and the reason that it blew the head gasket at Darlington, was because of his new big fuel pump in the mechanical injection system. He had upped the pump size because of a prior lack of fuel. But when the hemi got to singing its high rpm song, that big pump was pushing more fuel than the bypass could handle, and that made for too much nitro for the amount of air available. Later, to solve the issue, Brian added a second bypass, and increased the blower speed by 25%. That seems to be what the hemi wanted and it has been running very strong.

LOL

Dale Gephardt had showed up with the new car this year, a tube chassis duster that landed him in the unlimited class. His opening shot at Atlanta had been an 8.76 at 165! He dropped into the low nines at Darlington, but redeemed himself today with an 8.95 at 160.
Mopar Billy was back with his small block powered, Kelvinator white 62 valiant. Unfortunately on Monday he had to take a 20 second default time slip because he didn’t make it up to the starting line before it started raining. He was none too happy about that! But he came back swinging, spraying his way to a 9.83 and a 9.66 at Darlington and Charlotte, respectively.

Tom Bailey with his "Sick Seconds" Camaro was leading unlimited with an astounding string of sixes. 6.73, 6.67, and at Charlotte is 6.65 at 219 mph!

And meanwhile, the fake news talking heads continued to proclaim that we were in dire circumstances, admonishing us to get out while we still had a thread of hope for survival.

On the road trip between Darlington and Charlotte, Jeff and I had noticed some exhaust noise coming from the left side of the hemi. Before we hit the road for Bristol, we decided we should change out the header gasket on that side. Despite my limited cargo space, I did bring some spare parts, including header gaskets. My hard-working trunk monkey got busy on that task pronto.
Freiburger had announced that we would be free to choose our route to Bristol, but that there would be a mandatory checkpoint at Pat Musi's race shop, about 30 miles from the track. He also informed us that some sponsors had kicked in for food and refreshments and strongly urged us to go in and eat to show support for the sponsors. Well, that all sounded like a lot of fun, but I still felt very uneasy about wasting any time. The forecasted rain blowing in was weighing heavy on me. I just wanted to hightail it out of here and get to Bristol as quick as I could.
Jim Forbes a.k.a. “Hemi Squirrel” and I had a little powwow to contemplate the best route. Hemi Squirrel likes to do everything the old-school way. It’s obvious just by looking at his early funny car re-creation, which he named “Almost Funny”. Everything on it is era correct. He’s running points in the thing, old-fashioned homemade wheelie bars and everything else vintage that he can possibly do. So it wasn’t surprising to me that he shuns GPS, and unfolded a printed map on the slender fender top of Almost Funny. And what an extraordinarily fortunate occurrence that turned out to be!

Ahh and the subtle art of the cliff hanger......

Doing great man, keep it up

The good fortune predicted in this cliff hanger did not reveal itself to us for another 8 hours, so sorry, you'll have to hang for a while!

I am really enjoying this Joel, please keep it going.

Google maps insisted that it knew the best and shortest way to get from our location to Bristol Tennessee, and it made sense to me. Everybody else I checked with was planning to go that way, the least number of miles. But Hemi Squirrels printed map told a different story. When you look at Google maps, all the roads look about the same, and many of the roads that it is not routing you on disappear altogether. On the printed map, the Google recommended route looked like a little cow path, and parts of it looked like a malaria germ. Squirrel pointed out another way on the map that looked like it was all interstate and four-lane divided highway.

Yesterday, driving from Darlington to Charlotte, we had a lot of stop and go and city/suburb type traffic light stuff. I was tired of that for a couple of reasons. One of them was the heat. The hemi coop has a single layer sheet aluminum floor and firewall, with no padding, insulation, carpet, or anything like that. As long as we were moving down the road with the windows open, it was reasonably comfortable inside. But when we had to sit there lined up in traffic, separated from the hot pavement and the hot exhaust system by just a layer of .032 aluminum, my feet were baking. The other thing is the McLeod soft lock clutch. It has an unsprung hub, and a solid sintered iron disc. When you dump the clutch at high rpm on the race track, it slips a little bit at first to cushion the drive train. But at low rpm leaving a stoplight on the street, it’s kind of like an on/off switch. And something in my throttle linkage slipped on the road trip as well, ramping the idle RPM up to about 1700. I didn’t feel like getting out and fixing it in the middle of the heat, humidity, and busy traffic. I figured I’d do it at the hotel after I’d had a chance to cool off. So anyway, the 1700 RPM idle and the on/off switch clutch made driving in traffic a pain.

All of that considered, Hemi Squirrels suggestion of taking the longer, interstate route rather than the windy little two-lane cow path sounded like the perfect plan!
But first we had to go visit the mandatory checkpoint, Pat Musi racing. I was actually looking forward to that, some free food and refreshments would taste good right about now. Plus I needed to pick up some Valvoline VR-1 racing oil and I figured they would probably have some. After finishing the exhaust gasket swap and getting everything packed up we made the 30 mile trip to the checkpoint.

Greeted by a full parking lot at Musi's, I found a spot along the edge of the property, next to the neighbors retaining wall and parked there hoping that nobody would object. Soon afterward, Billy's Plymouth found a spot right behind me. I decided to make a beeline for the chow line 1st, then decide if we wanted to take any time to tour the shop. Probably not. Eat and run, beat the rain! I went inside and started searching for the food, but unfortunately it didn't exist. It was hard to find any staff to question about it, but finally I found a guy who said the food was long gone, we were too late. And they didn't have any Valvoline VR-1 racing oil that I needed either. Moseying outside, there were tons of other DW cars there, jamming the parking lot. There was a guy using a concrete pad out behind to swap a transmission, there was a couple cars in the shop, and various wrench fests scattered throughout the premises. Including Hemi Squirrel with the valve covers off. Apparently, the Hemi was getting noisy, and he found that the lash had opened up significantly. uh-oh...

I heard his name over the p.a., and wondered if that was the Jay Brown I had known. I found him in the pits, we talked about old times, he explained Drag Week to me, I told him what I had been up to in FAST racing. We exchanged numbers and hung out together a bit. He lives about 20 miles away from me. Then the drag week trunk monkey thing started in 07.

"Almost Funny" was Squirrels first Hemi, he was much more familiar with Chevys, so he asked my advice on why the lash would be opening up. I told him, it’s basically the same as any other engine. Could be a lifter or a lobe going away, or pushrod cups, rockers, adjusters, valve tips, etc. I suggested that we pull the oil filter and go into the shop and borrow an oil filter cutter to dissect it, looking for debris. I took the filter in and started asking staff for an oil filter cutter, and after about 20 minutes of searching, they determined that they didn’t have one. Now that surprised me, in a big fancy shop like that. But we did find a guy who cut it open with a band saw. While he was cutting, I was checking out the mountain motors. 9 hundredsomething cubic inches!
Nothing funny was found in the filter media of Almost Funny. The pushrod tips and the rockers were normal color, no sign of bluing from heat. He had a lot of dough in the Hemi, and didn’t want to destroy it, just to try and finish. But the thought of dropping out and the logistics of getting the car back to Atlanta was not appealing, either. Squirrel didn’t know what he should do.
Comradery and helping other racers in need is woven into the fabric of Drag Week. You don’t bail on your friends when they need help. I wanted to stick around and help him dig into it further, so he could make the right decision. BUT, Hurricane Florence was charging in from the east. Heavy rains would be here soon, and I only had the DOT slicks. And I still needed to find oil and drive to Bristol. We had to outrun the rain. If we stuck around for 2 more hours, or even ½ hour, we might not make it to Bristol. So Squirrel was not the only one with a heavy decision to make…

Most of the racers were hitting the road for Bristol by now. I told Hemi Squirrel that if I could do anything to help him stay in the race, I would stay and help. But I explained my situation with no rain tires, and that if he was going to drop out, I needed to hit the road pronto. He said he wanted to think it over for a while. "There is a whole shop full of help and tools right here. I can tap them for help if I need any. You guys just go, I’ll be OK.” I felt like I was abandoning him, but reluctantly we fired up the coupe and hit the road for an O’Reilly’s that I had phoned and found some Valvoline VR1 racing oil.
After that we got on I-77 north, and traffic was heavy and slow. Then turned west on I-81 towards Bristol, were we got jammed up for miles of stop and go traffic. Could this be the hurricane evacuation traffic jam? Would we have 200 miles of this? Would we run out of gas? Since we were expecting to be fed at the checkpoint, we hadn’t eaten lunch and we were both starving. Thankfully, after about 10 miles, the traffic jam ended, the shifter on the T56 Mag-a-num (that’s how they pronounce it in the Carolinas, 3 syllables) found its way into 6th gear, and me, the Trunk Monkey and the HemiCoupe were putting the miles behind us in rapid fashion! The sky was overcast, the air was hot and muggy, but no rain yet. I was thinking about Hemi Squirrel. Did he throw in the towel, or was he going to drive it and see what happened? Should I have stayed to help him longer? I’d find out sooner or later.
Conspicuously absent were all the other Drag Weekers. We hadn't seen anyone at all since Musi's shop. We should have caught up to some of the 55 mph guys by now.
With our starving bellys, we decided to stop at a gas station, top off the tank and grab some snacks to hold us till dinner. I exited the interstate and wheeled the coupe into the nearest gas station. Oh-oh, yellow bags on all the pump handles! They must be out of gas because of the hurricane! We go inside to at least find some snacks and I asked the Mideastern attendant where can I get some gas? “Oh, ve haf gas.” Well how come all the pumps are bagged? “vell, tose are bthoken. Tea vun on ze end still verks” So I drove the coupe over to the one working dispenser and prayed that a station owner who was to cheep to fix his 19 broken handles wasn’t selling something other than good, clean, fresh gasoline.
It was clear sailing the rest of the way to the hotel in Bristol. This was a decent hotel, and in fairly close proximity to the track, so with us being late to leave Charlette, I figured the parking lot would be full of Drag Week cars. But no, we were one of only 2 or 3. I was out in the parking lot, making a trip out to the car for my luggage after checking in, when Jeff comes out and says I need to get into the lobby to see someone. I head in, and Brian Lohnes and David Freiberger are there. So we chatted with them for a bit, and I’m sure the Trunk Monkey cracked a few bathroom jokes at my expense as usual, then we all got back to what we were doing.
There was a bar on the premises with bar food, but I decided to get my work done first. I checked the lash, and changed the oil. Another Drag Weeker, Clark Rosenstangle had arrived with a well equipped trailer, and he kindly lent me a drain pan. Thankfully, the lash was again rock solid, not a change since the beginning. I had a cloth tool bag full of new spark plugs, and my gapping tools and a side cutter, so I decided to bring that into the bar and work on it while I was eating to save time. I went up to the room and cleaned up, and then went downstairs for a beer and some chow. Jeff was at the bar sitting next to a couple guys, and I knew he was on at least his 3rd beer. I can always tell when he gets to number 3, because that’s when his pointer finger comes out, and he points at whoever he is talking to, as his finger bounces up and down in rhythm with what he is saying. It was a conversation I didn’t want to get sucked into at the time, so I walked past them and ordered a beer and some wings. “Sorry, the kitchen closed at ten. Have some peanuts.” Lohnes and Freiberger were at a table by the other end of the bar. I walked past them and said hello, but didn’t want to chance being an interloper so I sat down a few tables away and went to work on my spark plugs. They started asking me questions about the 8 carbs on the HemiCoupe, as they had been speculating about it all week in the tower. Pretty soon they were over at my table, and I gave them the straight scoop about the intake being one of 15 built by Vic Edelbrock SR, and the carbs are Holly 94’s not Stromberg 97’s, etc. And I spilled the beans about the 4.525” stroker crank and fessed up the 468 cubes. They showed some genuine enthusiasm for the car, which means a lot to me considering all the stuff they see.
After a while, I went back to the parking lot to change the plugs and secure the coupe for the night. Drag week cars had been filtering in with horror stories about the strenuous drive on a narrow, twisting goat trail of a road through the mountains in the dark and pouring rain. Most had left Charlotte before us, but here they were, filtering in hours later. It was the route. Not everybody made it, there had been a crash…

It was Dale Gebhart in the Pro Street duster. His heavy trailer had pushed him off the road in a hairpin turn at the bottom of a steep downgrade in the mountains, and he crashed into a wall of rock. Out here in the parking lot, nobody knew for sure if they had been injured, but they said the car was pretty bad. Dale had been running high 8’s at 160 mph in unlimited. I felt bad for him and the whole Gebhart family, and hoped they were all OK.

Hilborn EFI tech Andrew Starr had found a spot in the hotel parking lot and was working on the failing valvetrain his mid 9 second Pro Street N/A 1956 Bel Air that was, of course, fueled by a Hilborn individual runner EFI system. The 565 in.³ pump gas Chevy was backed by a Hays Dragon Claw dual disc clutch, a G-Force 5 speed, and a narrowed Dana 60 rear end. He was running the "Hillbilly soft lock" a.k.a. clutch tamer and explained to me how it worked and that it was very effective at dialing in a little bit of clutch slippage at launch and preventing parts breakage. It was as good as the soft lock I was running he said, but adjustments were made the easy way with a knob under the dash.

Andrew was frustrated, as well as disgusted because these were all new valvetrain parts that he had put in as a preventative to improve reliability through drag week, and now the new parts were failing. He was solidly in 2nd place in Pro Street N/A, but the leader of the class, James McIntyre with his big inch hemi-powered 69 Camaro had fallen 2 seconds off his usual pace today at Charlotte, turning in a 10 second time slip. Would McIntyre get back his ET tomorrow? Would he drop out, or continue to slow down putting Andrew in first place? A close race for first in class makes it very difficult to drop out. Andrew didn’t know if he could get the big Chevy fixed or not. I offered to help, but he said he didn’t need any help. What he needed was parts. At roughly midnight, I decided it was time to call it a day.

It felt like my head had just hit the pillow when Jeff’s alarm went off at 4:30 Thursday morning. We hurried to get ready and out the door because we had a plan: it was going to be a long, hot drive back to Atlanta this afternoon. We had been instructed that today we would be following a prescribed route and stopping at 2 checkpoints. Although they weren’t supposed to open the gates at thunder Valley Raceway until 7:30 AM today, our plan was to be among the first in line at the gate. Then we could start switching the car over to race mode while we were waiting outside and be one of the first cars in the staging lanes. Hopefully a very early “one and done” pass, then hit the road for Atlanta.
There wasn’t much traffic between the hotel and the track and we got there before 6 AM. It was dark out and there were no signs instructing drag weekers where to enter. I found an entrance that was open and we went in. But it didn’t seem to go towards the pits or the staging lanes and we were kind of wandering around in the coupe when a pair of headlights approached us. The guy behind the wheel said follow me I’ll get you to the gate. https://youtu.be/95StFFj5aR0
There was already about 10 or 20 cars in line at the gate. We had over an hour until they open so, as per plans, we started switching the car over. Remove air cleaners, air down the tires, remove the exhaust, readjust the coil springs and shocks, remove the passenger seat, unload the trunk, take 6 turns out of the base pressure on the clutch. It was getting to be routine by now. The 2 most difficult tasks were cranking the adjusters on the rear coil overs and adjusting the clutch. Removing the exhaust and seat would have to wait to we were in the pit.
But within ½ an hour somebody came and unlocked the gate. I was under the car adjusting the coil overs when Jeff hollered “let’s go, they opened the gate early!” We hurriedly stopped our preparations and threw everything in the trunk and followed the other cars into the pits. As soon as the switch over was done, I found a spot in the staging lanes. Cars were still pouring in the entrance gate and filling up the pit spots, and there was probably 20 or 30 cars ahead of me in the staging lane.
All 3 of the leaders in the hot rod class were in the pits. Tim Hall in the international pickup was in the lead with an average of 9.948. Mark Fisher in the 32 Ford pickup was a close 2nd with a 9.989 average. Richard Abbott was in 3rd with a 10.067 average. My 10.275 average put me in 4th place. It was beginning to look like I didn’t have much of a shot at a top 3 finish unless one of my competitors were to drop out, or drastically slow down for the last 2 days. But yet with the good pass I made yesterday and the possibility that it could be improved upon, I had high hopes of improving my average today.
Exactly 30 minutes from the time the first car went down the track, I pulled the coupe into the burnout box. After the burnout, I took my time staging the car. I waited until the Christmas tree was green (remember, reaction times are meaningless at drag week), brought the Hemi up on to the two-step rev limiter at 5000 rpm, then dumped the clutch as I released my thumb from the horn ring/line lock switch and rolled the gas pedal down onto the floor board. The anti-bog strategy worked, but still the launch was a bit soft. When I shifted into 3rd, the RPM did not drop as one would expect so I lifted and got back into it and then when I hit forth it was obvious the clutch was slipping. So I aborted the pass and rolled through with a 10.62 at 111. https://youtu.be/1-UUPBWnIBI?t=49m23s

Thanks for the update Joel

During the early morning thrash........ the clutch didn’t get adjusted properly?

I’m sure all will be revealed.......

Back in the pit, “are you going to take that one?” asked Jeff. “I don’t know. I don’t like it. It’s going to kill my average.” After the 10.17 at 137 mph yesterday, I was really feeling that the car had a 9 in it today. According to the Wallace calculator, 137 was enough mph to go 9.70s. So the 2nd half of the track was under control. I just needed to get the first half sorted out. Launching at part throttle and rolling into it had all but eliminated the bog. But I probably need to be more aggressive and just mat it upon launch to get the car up on the tire and get the 60 foot down. “I’m going back for another pass” I said to Jeff. I could see on his face, he knew that meant another long hard, hot day. "Your call" was his response.
I had taken the same 6 turns out of the clutch adjusters this morning that I had the prior 3 days. As the thickness of the sintered iron clutch disc wears down, it is necessary to compensate by tightening the spring adjusters. I figured that all the stop and go traffic on the street had taken its toll on the clutch. So, I decided to tighten the clutch 2 turns for the next pass. Was that enough? Who knows, it's just a guess. Also hearing from the racers who keep track of such things, the density altitude was over 3000 feet. Each time I had leaned out the main jets, the car had responded with more mile-per-hour. I reckoned at 3000' it was time to lean them out another step.
While we were in the pit making the changes on the car, Freiberger announced over the PA that Tim Hall who is leading the hot rod class with his small block Chevy powered International pickup was in need of a head gasket. I moseyed over to his pit spot which wasn’t too far from mine and took a gander. They had the heads off, and there was a blur of activity. I couldn’t help but contemplate what it would mean to my standing if he dropped out. 3rd place gets you a one week head start on the race to register for next years event. But that’s not going to happen, I figured. Couple of things about running a small block Chevy: yes, it will probably break, but you can buy all the parts you need to fix it from a vending machine in the lobby.
Once the hemi coupe was in the staging lanes, I felt like I had some time to walk around a bit catch up on all the scuttlebutt. But I wasn’t going to get too far from the car, not after yesterday’s hard learned lesson! Most importantly, I learned that Dale Gebhard and his trunk monkey were both okay after yesterday’s crash in the mountains. So that was great news! More good news was that Hemi Squirrel had decided to stay in the race and made the drive to Bristol. The bad news was that Andrew Starr was unable to continue with his stick shifted, Pro Street N/A 56 Chevy, thus forfeiting his second-place standing. I heard several more stories of the harrowing drive through the mountains yesterday. I was sure glad that we took the freeway!

Tom Bailey in his Pro-mod style Camaro was still leading the unlimited class, and the event overall, with a 6.685 average ET. In a street car, for crying out loud! David Schroeder was holding down 2nd place overall with his big inch, nitrous fed, 1966 Corvette. He had run well into the sixes on Tuesday and Wednesday, but his 7.30 pass on Monday drug his average down to a 7.039.
Mike Finnegan with his Blasphemi 55 Chevrolet was doing battle with Jared Scott in his Falcon Ranchero in the Gasser/A class. Both cars are the epitome of cool with their roots blown Hemi’s and stick shift transmissions. Scott had averaged 9.115 the first 3 days, Finnegan holding down 2nd with a 9.276. Finnegan was trying desperately to achieve his first 8 second pass, and yesterday at Charlotte, he came oh so close with a 9.007.

As I was getting closer to the tower, and thus closer to my next pass, suddenly it dawned on me. How much fuel did we have in the race tank?!! Where was Jeff, I didn’t see him anywhere around? I opened the trunk and looked for the dipstick and it wasn’t there. I was starting to feel a sense of panic as I was way too close to the burn out box to be wondering how much fuel I had. I quickly called Jeff on the cell phone and thankfully he answered. I said where’s the dipstick? Did you dip the tank today? He said “don’t worry about it there’s enough.” “Did you check it?” I asked again. ”Don’t worry about it there’s enough.” That did not give me a great deal of confidence, but I wasn’t going to leave the car and walk all the way back to the pit for the dipstick. “You better get up here, I think they’re going to be sending me down the track pretty soon.”