Thread: Hello from an old member

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Originally Posted by pel

Ha Ha!
That sort of sums up how I'm doing my R&D (race and destruction) testing

That's how most of us did it! I once saw in a video Connie Kalitta saying how they had broken an axle.. their first ever... He then explained they had installed new slicks and turned up the boost and nitro... His next reply was "I guess we need stronger axles, 'cause we ain't backing off the motor!!!"

So - nothing has changed in all these years! Just keep having fun with it!

That sums it up well I think
No point in going backwards eh ?

I'm so close to going into the 9.5's now that I can taste it. And once I've done that the 8 second pass will be the next goal. As this 8 second runs gets more possible I find that I'm backing off with trying to rush anything just to get back out and race again. My Wife wondered if I was loosing enthusiasm, but its quite the opposite now. I'll be happy to take the next year to gently fine tune as required to get the next 3/4 of a second that I want

8's??? HMMmmmm... not sure about that with the current "program"! LOL...

Originally Posted by 34_40

8's??? HMMmmmm... not sure about that with the current "program"! LOL...

We all have our dreams eh?
9.6 down to 8.99 seems possible to me now. I guess it will mean a new converter and the gearbox rebuilt to race specs as this gearbox is a stock TH350. And probably some head work to fit MLS gaskets again, and maybe adding lightness with glass fibre doors and tailgate with polycarb windows which will shave 100lbs off the body. I think I may need to look at aero mods as well to make the car smoother as she is a bit drifty over 130mph.
It wasnt that long ago that I was going to retire the car when we broke the 10's as I thought this would be the limit of what I could do with the MGB.
But now an 8 second timing ticket seems possible ? So I'm going to have a go for it before the 40 year old body rusts away.
I've said before that I'm very happy with what the car has done to date. 9.6's on a stock steel body car thats 40 years old with all stock suspension + slapper bars and a bolt in roll cage. Full glass and interior as well. Can you imagine the look on folks faces over here when I run my first 9.5 !!

Can you imagine the look on MY face when I run my first 9.5

Originally Posted by pel

We all have our dreams eh? Can you imagine the look on folks faces over here when I run my first 9.5 !!

Can you imagine the look on MY face when I run my first 9.5

I know the day you report that you've run a 8.99 (or better!) I'll be walking around for a week with an ear to ear grin! Yep.. we're rootin' for you to pull it off!! 8-)

Thanks Dude!!
I've been talking with a transmission guy today. I met him on "Rod n Sods" forum and he lives just around the corner. He works for a tranny shop just 17 miles away. They do all sorts of auto stuff. They make the gearboxes for our UK Big Foot and other trucks. He was saying that they could take my converter and upgrade it to what I want. He says they normally do a 3-5 days turnaround, but if its for a desperate racer they will do it overnight if required.
And they are talking around $600.00 So that may be an option. ?

What a strange week this has been??

I took the car to a friends workshop last Sunday to replace the head gaskets. This should have been a routine top end rebuilt... or so I thought ?

My friend had opened the workshop for me and he was also doing work on his camper van for a road trip this year. It was his birthday and his family had not really done much to celebrate the event. So I arranged for several of our drag race buddies to turn up to "help me with my car"

I let them get busy with the tear down and clean up on my engine while I snuck around arranging the cake and bunting in his engine shed while he worked on his camper van. By noon my engine was stripped and cleaned ready for new gaskets and a rebuild. I had by now got the BBQ fired up inside the main workshop and treated everyone to handmade burgers with all the trimmings. I managed to slip all the boys party hats and part poppers etc. One by one we all snuck into the engine shed and left our presents for him.
Then at 1pm I called him to say there was a fire in the engine shed. He came running and all the boys followed. He found the fire was 52 candles burning bright on top of his Spider Man cake

We all sang happy birthday and popped the poppers and blew our party razzers !! My mate laughed and then filled up and we all had man hugs and cut the cake. It was a great moment as he realised why I had brought so many race buddies to help me

Then when the dust had settled we all got back to our jobs. This is where it kinda went down hill for me

One of my chums mis read the torque wrench and pulled my heads down wrongly. I'm talking 90 ft/lbs instead of 70 ft/lbs eek!!! And he didnt use any assembly lube under the ARP nuts. So I had to back those off and re torque myself after fitting new gaskets and glue (2 hours).

Then we got back on track and I fitted the rocker gear only to find that one of the bolts pulled a thread in the head DOH!!!

That was it for me I'm afraid. I told the boys to wrap it up and load all the parts into the truck as I wasnt happy to do anymore. It was one of those moments when you just know the best thing to do is leave it alone and come back with a fresh head. So on Monday I dug out my Helicoil kit and got to stripping the rocker gear. But within 2 hours I was feeling rather unwell to the point where I had to go indoors and sit down. Man Flu had struck me !!!

I stayed in bed and off work for 3 days. But today I got out of bed at noon and made my way to the garage. I sat looking at the engine while I sipped a nice cup of tea and then rolled up my sleeves. I got the Helicoil installed the rocker gear back on in 1 hour

This was like a shot of adrenaline for me I must say. Yesterday I was in a mood that left me feeling like I could not be bothered with the car anymore. This evening I'm looking forward to a few nights next week where I will get the blower and inlet gear re fitted and ready to fire up for next weekend. I think the Man Flu is leaving me now. Although I do feel like I have been hit by a truck as all my bones ache. Even my eyeballs ache ??

I'm going to chill this weekend and do some family stuff and then on Sunday I'm crewing for a friends car at the track to make sure its tip top for a grudge race we will have on 22nd June at the track We both have the same engines with superchargers. Mine has the 4/71 his motor is pro charged and he is running 10psi more boost with EFI and lots of electronics and laptops and maps etc + a Ford 8.8 rear end with 5 link and caltracs.
I just have a dissy, MSD and a dominator sitting on top of the blower. So it should be a good heads up race I think?

PHEW!!
I'm glad I got all of that out...... I'm feeling even better now as the doorbell just rang to announce the arrival of my Friday night Chinese dinner which i can smell wafting through the house

Sorry this is more of a blog than real car stuff but I've had a few days off the computer and I'm in the mood to talk...

One more thing that was brought to my attention today. My lovely Grand Daughter Faith has just showed me what she will be wearing to her first ever day at the track on 22nd June this year. She will be 9 months old on 22nd June. And I'm looking forward to showing her off.....

Sorry to hear about the issues, but good on you for giving your buddy a party! What a cute klittle grand daughter, and nice shirt. These flus lately have really been a pain in the u know what. I'm tired of them for sure. Haha

WOW, Talk about a rollercoaster.. Good to hear you're feeling better and that's an awesome pic of the youngest crew member!

Give her a hug from all her "Uncles" on this side of the puddle 8-)

Originally Posted by 34_40

WOW, Talk about a rollercoaster.. Good to hear you're feeling better and that's an awesome pic of the youngest crew member!

Give her a hug from all her "Uncles" on this side of the puddle 8-)

What he said.
Some days you're the windscreen . . . and some days you're the bug.
Good that you're feeling better now though.

Those last few comments mean a lot to me guys!! Especially the Uncles across the puddle

I've been working out the race budget for this year and I have come to the conclusion that I can afford to buy the new torque converter and have transbrake gearbox refreshed and also get the fibre glass doors and trunk lid + lexan windows. OR I can get the fibre glass parts and lexan windows, and take my Daughter and Grand Daughter to France and Euro Disney in August for a week......... After much thought I have decided that the 8 second attempt can wait, but I will enjoy doing space mountain, pirates of the carribean etc for a few days. I'm looking forward to having my Grand Daughter on my lap as we ride the boat while I sing along to "its a small world after all" on that ride. I have already booked and paid for the trip now, and we will be staying in a log cabin on a camp site in France where we can enjoy the sun and the lakes (as well as fishing for Grandpa) and the horse riding and swimming and even more fishing in the sun.... The little girl is more important to me than the 8 seconds right now! So I'll have to be happy with 9's for this year while I enjoy time with the princess before I'm too old to do it

Good for you! Got the priorities right, for sure!

Times two! What Mr. Spears said! She'll only be a little girl for a short time, enjoy each moment you can.

Yep she won't be young for long, enjoy the time you have with her!

I intend to enjoy every moment with the little lady guys!!

The Retro Cars Show is now on us. Its next weekend.... And despite my power plant issues I'm still gunning for a 9.5 second pass ??
I have some ideas of how to do it if we dont have a bad headwind.... So I'm going for it in a big way


On another note I'm happy to announce that the Slingshot / Digger that I also am involved with will now be ready for a good haul next weekend. After many many months of electrical problems I have finally convinced my friend to ditch the Megasquirt and coil pack system. And today we finished the installation of a front driven MSD dissy and coil + an MSD digital7 box. The old girl fired up first time and ran the best it ever has. The last day out she ran coughing and spluttering at half pedal to reel in a 9.9 @ 143mph. This was the last straw for me with this old system as I have had a year of problems with it. We tried all sorts of things to make it work. But 3 weeks ago another friend came over with his scope and we saw that the square wave signal we needed was lost somewhere in the pcb and all we were seeing was batches of spikey signals for the spark trigger instead of square waves.
Long story short...... We powered it up today, I sprayed meth into the scoop for 3 seconds and then it cranked but would not fire. The MSD box showed no signal from the crank trigger wheel as the LED was not flashing? I took me 5 seconds to check and find that we had plugged the crank trigger input to the cam trigger plug. So unplug one and re plug to the right socket and she fired up first time and ran with a nice idle. We have to observe MSA rules at Santa Pod so we also got the chute fitted and working. The car made 143mph on a fast rough idle. Now it seems to be running sweet I can see it hitting 150mph with no effort on our first shakedown pass next Saturday. We dont actually have to use the chute. But we do have to prove thats its fitted and working if we hit 150+ mph. We can tidy the plug leads at the weekend if we have time. But as its working I just want to go racing