April 2010 Archives

This video is of the Monaro at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin Michigan. At the time the Monaro had a 427 big block Chevy with Rons Flying Toilet injection, powerglide and Dana 60 rear end. The heads were home ported 049 large oval chevy iron castings. You can see I was dialed a 10.93 and ran 10.936. That combination was deadly consistent. That engine ended up dropping an intake valve and destroying itself. From the date of the video file I believe this to be from 2004.

This next video is my first race car, a 1981 Camaro. When I first started racing it I had a tired old 350 in and it ran 15's. After getting the bug I went big block and low 11's before selling it and putting the big block into the Monaro.

Chris, if you're reading this, please don't take it personally, but I gotta vent. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I bought the Ute, and would do it all again, but this car/truck was just a mess and needed some serious TLC. My first clue was when it wouldn't start in freezing temps in St Louis, requiring the winch to get it into the trailer. When I got it home and checked the oil, it looked like mud and was actually full of gas I assume from excessive cranking. So the first thing I did was replace the oil and filter. To try and resolve the cold starting issue I have replaced the plugs, leads, coil, dizzy cap and rotor, coolent temp sensor, and installed an MSD 6AL. The plugs that were in it were the wrong ones and two of them were loose. The TBI 350 is from a 93-95 truck or suburban as is the 4L60E trans. I'd say its a high mile unit, but when running seems to run good and make good power without smoke. It still has the cold start issue and smells of gas when running so I have a used TBI unit on the way from Ebay as I suspect the regulator.

While I had it up on the lift I checked all the basics and could tell the front U-joint was shot so I replaced that. The old one was so badly rusted that the needles were practically dust. Try walking into an auto parts store in the US and asking for a front U-joint for a Holden HQ...but I was able to get one thankfully. I also noticed that the transmission crossmember was not bolted in and was just resting on the chassis mounts so I put some bolts in. There is rust in the rocker panels but the floors are solid. The right rear tyre had a nail in it so I plugged that. The water pump was shot so that was replaced. All the accessories have been relocated to move the power steering pump to the right side, but unfortunately this means that the serpentine belt only contacts the crank pulley for about 1.5" and the belt slips. I have ordered a longer belt and I hope I can reroute it to get more pulley contact as the squeeling is driving me crazy. There was a coolant leak from the back of the intake because the rear two intake bolts were missing. Oh and the serp belt was cutting into the lower radiator hose so I replaced that as well. The bench seat is trashed but I have a pair of grey leather buckets from a Honda that may fit nicely. None of the gauges work with the exception of the tach.

So what else...? The two tie rods are bent, the lower ball joints were installed with a sledge hammer, the left exhaust manifold is cracked, the speedo needle is missing, etc etc. Still, how often do you see one for sale in the US? And I sold the Probe for $600, a nice profit.

Felt like taking a break from fabrication today and doing some wrenching so I assembled the rear end. The Ford 9" rear end has 4 main components, the housing, the center section (pumpkin, pig, third member, center chunk, etc, etc), the axles and brakes. As you know from previous posts my housing is a Chassis Engineering fabricated 9" with old style Ford housing ends, Moser supplied the center section and axles, and the disk brakes are from Strange. A word of advice here when ordering your axles, have your brakes selected in advance as the Strange brakes come with brackets that need to go on before the axle bearings are pressed on.

Using some gasket sealer and a gasket I dropped the center section into place. I had to hit the hardware store for 10 3/8" 24 tpi stainless nylock nuts as they were not suppled with the housing. The housing did come with axle seals that get installed into the axle tubes. As I dont have a seal driver I used a big socket and buggered up one seal so I had to get another one from Napa. Lube the seals with some oil and insert the axles. Bolt them in with the T-nuts and brackets from the Strange kit, install the disks and calipers (both are directional) and voila, you're done.

I opted for the 4.11 gear ratio with a Moser steel spool and nodular iron case. In hindsight the extra $150 for an aluminum case would have been money well spent as the iron does weigh quite a bit. The 4.11 gear is the "pro" gear which uses harder metal than "street" gears and is made to hold up to a transbrake and high horsepower. Using the TCI calculator for RPM, assuming a tire size of 29.3", 135mph trap speed, 5% converter slip, the 4.11 gear gets me out the back door at 6684 rpm.