Expensive Weekend

[kenmac]

As some of you will know going by some of my previous posts, I crew on a Nitro dragster.

Well this weekend we were racing at Shakespeare county raceway got there and set up on Friday, car fully checked out and set up for a test run Saturday.

Completed the test run Saturday car had a good burn out and launch, car back to the pits oil, plug change, pressure leak down test, refuel and a thorougher check over,all good.

Sunday race day, car run up in the pits to check fuel pressure and general running, temps, oil pressure etc, all good so ready to race.

First race of the day burn out done, in to stage lights go green Tony hits the throttle and it was off, so far so good, hit the air shift for second gear, shifts OK but the clutch let go and disintegrated, engine over rev's to nearly 11000 rpm then BANG, blows the supercharger off the inlet manifold snaps the supercharger belt so now starts over fueling, hydraulics with Nitro fuel and blows the bottom end out, snaps the crank, breaks 8 rods, smashes the block to bits, and damages various other parts front covers, blower restraints, fire to computer wiring and body work etc.

The rough cost £10 / £12 grand OUCH !!!!

We have two weeks to get it ready for the race on the 22nd of May at Santa Pod, god help us :D

[Saraj]

ouch thats got to hurt

[Asi]

ouch thats got to hurt

same mate. hope it all gets sorted

[Steviewevie]

Ouch !

[Rabster]

some serios power and big ouch

[jsj24uk]

That's what I would call "The Big Bang".

[Chosen One]

I would say you broken something. Call the AA and RAC

[Y2Kanjar]

Sorry to hear this man, hope you get it sorted in time

[DJ Wozza]

Big Bang and some Big Bills :o

Sorry to hear this Ken, hope you guys are back racing soon :)

[aztecbandit1]

Thats some serious engine damage :o

Wasnt that a pretty new engine Ken?

[Yeldarb]

Thats some crack, well beyond liquid metal I think :(

Good luck sorting it out for the next race.

[sparkystav]

Thats one big crack.

[cameron is200sport]

ouch

[bigdavegrr]

Wow.

I'm going to be at Santa Pod when you guys are running, being a bit of a freelance photographer, would be nice to get some pictures of the people on the forums! What does your car and truck look like? I'll make sure I find you guys!

[steve2006]

And I thought I had a major job on changing an LS starter motor!

[chrisis200]

Crazy how one part starts to destroy the thing, sorry to hear this and good luck getting it sorted :) Hopefully will be bigger & better when your done.

[kenmac]

Wow.

I'm going to be at Santa Pod when you guys are running, being a bit of a freelance photographer, would be nice to get some pictures of the people on the forums! What does your car and truck look like? I'll make sure I find you guys!

You wont be able to miss us as the truck will be the same paint job as the car!!!!, definitely pop your head in and say hello

[kenmac]

Thats some serious engine damage :o

Wasnt that a pretty new engine Ken?

No this one was from our old car, so about just over a year old and had seen a few runs with no major prob's, the one we are putting in now is brand spanking new so we hope this one lasts as long as the old one did.

Here are some pics of the car in action the day before.

http://peterdonaldson5305.fotopic.net/p58041814.html

[kenmac]

Here is a better look at the engine :doublesho

Cylinder 1 & 2

Broken liners :doublesho

Busted con rod

New block in place this morning

Pistons going in lunch time

Engine built up this afternoon, just the blower to go on, clutch and gearbox then ready to travel then we finish it at the track.

[swfcdan]

i was just thinking, im sure ive read this thread somewhere else.i notice you on mb club too lol. its just clicked

[kenmac]

You fraternize with the enemy as well then

[swfcdan]

You fraternize with the enemy as well then

indeed :P

[kenmac]

This weekend we were at the Main Event at Santa Pod, and what a mad rush to pull this off in more ways than one, we have just had the Truck & Trailer plus the car wrapped which was tight time wise as we had to pick them up on the way to Santa Pod on Thursday night but as you can see they look fantastic.

You will all have read about our major engine failure a couple of weeks back, well this still haunted us this weekend, we had to complete 1 run Saturday, 1 run Sunday and both of your times were added together and that dictated as to which round you were in on Monday.

So as I said problems from the engine breakage hit us this weekend as on Saturday we went to run the engine up to fine tune it (as we can only do this at track side as it's to noisy anywhere else) and had no oil pressure, undone the oil feed lines and no oil coming out the oil pump is mechanical so was striped down but all was fine, but listening to the pump whilst turn it over you could hear the it cavitating so with that we took all the oil feed pipes off and pressure tested them only to find that during the fire after the engine exploded the heat had melted the inner rubber tubing and we had a small hole under the steel braiding in the oil main feed pipe so was drawing in air, so while all this was going on we missed our slot so no racing on Saturday which put us on the back foot right away.

We all came to the conclusion that as this wasn't a points weekend for us just an exhibition class and we couldn't now get in to the final and could only get 3rd or 4th place as we only had 1 run out of the 2 needed we would use this as a test session for the new engine and not to push it just in case, which is just what we did.

Saturday no run

Sunday 6.53 @ 200mph

Monday 6.75 @ 191mph (went out of shape as the tyres spun up at the eighth mile point so had to come off the throttle and hit it again)

but it shows us the engine is perfect and that we are getting over the clutch issues as we had the strongest launches so far, so we had to settle for 3rd place but that's the way it goes and we are still in good shape for the next points round in 2 and a half weeks.

[Guest inicol63]

Ken that one expensive sport you have ££££££££££££££££££.

But I happy to see your back on track with the new engine.

Good luck for the rest of the season...

[kenmac]

Ken that one expensive sport you have ££££££££££££££££££.

But I happy to see your back on track with the new engine.

Good luck for the rest of the season...

Cheers inicol63 it can be expensive at times but really as far as motorsport costs go it's not to bad, but in saying that we are trying to find some sponsors at the moment so fingers crossed