Finally made a pass yesterday. Right out of the box, car went 9.937, but 60' times were up in the high 1.4's, so things should get better. Rear gears were making way too much noise on the return road. We popped them out and nothing is broke, or damaged, but the pinion is very loose. Not sure why, so we put the car in the box and will be giving it a closer look today back at the shop.

Hopefully, no big deal with the gears, and we can improve on performance with a few passes this coming week-end.

Ken Gasbarri

So what's your combo, weight, is it a race car etc.

Doug;

The car is a 64 Malibu. It has been back-halfed and caged (chrome-moly). The body is steel except for hood and deck lid. Aluminum interior.

The 598 cubic inch engine is based on a Merlin tall deck "pro block" bored to 4.6 with a Lunati 4.5 inch contoured edge "stroker" crank. The pistons are Wiseco and piston rods are Manley "H" beams, and I forget the length. The heads are Dart 320's that have a very good flow job done on them. Isky roller cam with a lift right at .800 . A Dart "tunnel ram" holds twin 1050 dominators that still need some tuning. The compression ratio is 14.02/1. I have two powerglide trannies, one with a brake the other without. Mark Williams Aluminum drive shaft along with one of his nodular "thru-bolt" carriers holding a set of Richmond Pro 35 spline large pinion 4.29 gears on a spool with MW 40 spline gun-drilled/lightened axles. Aerospace disc brakes all the way around. Aluma-Star 15 X 16 rear wheels with 16" wide 33" tall Goodyears. The front tires are also Goodyear, but much smaller. Stroud chute that I have had to use only once when the right rear caliper came loose, wrapped around the axle and tore the brake line out, leaving no brake pressure at 130 mph and 600 feet of track left. It slowed enough to make the corner.

The driver is really handsome, but dumb as dirt, or is it really smart, but uglier than sin. Drat, I hope it ain't dumb as dirt AND uglier than sin.

Anyway, we are hoping to get down to the mid 9's here at Bandimere so that we have a shot at the 8's when we go down to sea level. We just might do it, but first we have a few things to mend and some tweakin' to do.

Oh, and it weighs 2800 lbs. "staged"

Ken Gasbarri

Sounds like a very nice ride.

That is scary as hell about the brakes...I'll never forget the night I made a 4 foot high jump off a road into a ditch due to brake failure. I was only going about 40-45, I don't want to think about a 130 MPH "oh ****" brake warning light :eek:

How did it get slowed with no brakes?

Ken, that's an awesome shakedown run!

Well, after thrashing on the center section for the better part of the day, Rick (my engine builder) finally discovered that one of the spacers didn't make the transistion from the old pinion to the new. The spacer has the same coating as the pinion, and was overlooked. Somehow this was my fault because I wanted my center section a week after the day he promised to have it ready "tomorrow". Anyway, the problem has been eliminated, the car is back together once again, and tomorrow I will enter my first race all season. I gotta believe that I don't have a rat's azz chance, but then again, just being there is somewhat of a victory.

Oh, and Thunderstruck. I got lucky on that brake failure incident. I was way out in front, so I lifted early, and had intended to brake harder than normal to try and make the first turn off when the brakes failed. I popped the chute, and when the car slowed enough, down shifted to 1st and moved the steering wheel back and forth (very shallow) to scrub off speed. I was still going fast enough when I got to the final turn off to make it interesting, but things turned out OK. I guess it is true that "Angels look out for small children and fools".

Would it surprise you if I mentioned that now I check ALL chassis components EVERY time we go to the track?

Well, gotta go pretend to be doing something for 8 hours to earn my entry fee. Have a good one.

Ken Gasbarri

Just wanted to add: Rick is one hell of a engine builder, and a super guy. He has done a lot for us, and we would adopt him if we could. (then we could ground him when he screws up). He runs a very busy engine shop, has 9 kids, and is recovering from a terrible crash that put him in ICU for almost 4 months. I really need to cut him some slack. Hopefully, I can learn to do that.