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Is this what I think it is???

staywide8

By staywide8
in Passing Lane

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ohioko4s4 Newbie

ohioko4s4

Posted
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Got home about 5am last night after a long past 10 days. My short version: we basically couldn't catch a break. My long version:

 

A freak motor issue (and still unexplained by a number of folks who have taken a look at everything) prevented us from finishing testing some of the changes we completed a week before the race. So Accelerated patched together a new motor and they finished assembling literally Friday and loaded everything into the trailer unfortunately completely untested. We arrived into Maryland Sat am crossing our fingers. Unloaded the car, JN loaded a few Motec changes along with a new nitrous table using different aux inputs (trying to correct a wheel sensor pick-up problem we had in testing) and fired it up. After waiting through two hours of oil down after oil down, we finally get to the line for Q1. Arm the N20, pre-stage, bump in on the tbrake and it starts lurching forward then immediately catches fire from a N20 backfire. Basically the new N20 aux table wasn't recognizing the inputs and just started spraying as soon as it was armed. I remember thinking this can’t be happening, but when fire started coming up through the tranny tunnel, it started to get hot real fast. I was about to pull the Safecraft, but Don quickly killed the main power and prevented any serious damage. In hindsight, not having really thought this situation completely through before, I turned the ignition and fuel pump off quick enough, but left the acc on, which kept the N20 active. The crazy thing is other than the shredded intake, some lines, solenoids, wiring, and a few other misc things, the car was unscathed. Not sure if it was the 40 degree temp, the killer wax Beege put on it :) or just sheer luck, but nothing cosmetically was damaged in the least. Pretty lucky I guess.

 

After contemplating packing it up, we started taking things apart and realized if we could find the parts we needed and a TIG welder, we might be able to put it back together in time to make the last round of qualifying. J Miller and his track crew introduced us to everyone we needed to hopefully get it running again. The intake was really ripped up, but after a lot of hammering and some impressive welding skills, it was leak free. We fired the car back up late Sat night, I make a quick test run down the access road and loaded it back into the trailer.

 

Sunday arrives and we have one chance to make qualifying. After much debate about the strategy and tune-up, my kill mode suggestion was over ruled for a safe wastegate spring, no N20 pass. :D We ended up qualifying #8 with a 7.97 peddling 2nd. I believe the bump was 8.44. Unfortunately, we got knocked out during the first round (due to what we believe was a failed nitrous solenoid failed at the launch). It only cut a 1.55 60 but still ran a 8.05 to a winning 7.99.

 

On the bright side, we cut a 1.23 60 ft Sunday am and ran a 1.25 and 1.26 the week prior on our only two hits, so we’re getting the launch/suspension figured out on the 28*10.5 - when everything works properly. The car is making great power too. We ran a 7.67 on a problematic ‘kill mode’ pass the week prior, so we’re confident it has a 5x in it within some more testing. We’re not going to let BL keep the .59 WR for much longer. :cool:

 

We were all really looking forward to this event, so it was obviously a disappointing end result. But I guess it would have been a small miracle to do much better given all the set backs we had. But at the same time, it was a week we’ll all remember for awhile! Jason and his team put on a killer show and all the Domestic 275 guys we've become friends are great to hang out with. We'll be back next year with hopefully less last minute changes and some more time to test.

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