Aussie Gremlin

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Posted: Jan/25/2023 at 9:51am

I've been doing a bit of racing, but there hasn't been anything particularly exciting to report until now perhaps.

You may have heard some of the Street Outlaws No Prep Kings cars and drivers are coming to Australia for a USA vs Australia series of races around the country which should be a bit of fun.

No I'm not running with those guys, I'm far too slow for that, but they are running a 1/8th mile 7.0 fixed index street car class as one of the support categories, so I'm up for that. That's where you guys come in, hopefully with some good ideas to get me to that 7.0 number. Best I've run over the 1/8th mile is 7.193 under really good conditions, more like 7.4 during our hotter summer weather, so I'm going to need to find a few tenths.

I have about 4 weeks to do something and don't want to spend too much cash if possible (already have to buy an engine diaper for this event) and want to stay all motor, so N2O is out. I have a nice Bullet solid flat tappet cam tucked away, which would be the most obvious direction to head in. Currently around 230 deg @ 0.050" hydraulic flat tappet with 0.540" lift, Bullet cam will give me 251/255 deg @0.050" and something like 0.650" gross lift with my current 1.7 rockers, this is probably my lowest cost option.

Any other suggestions greatly appreciated.

I've finally given up drinking for good...........now I only drink for evil.

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Posted: Jan/28/2023 at 8:14am

So the main plan here is a cam upgrade, basically because I already have the cam sitting on the shelf, but before we get to that there are a couple of other things to tackle.

One of the things I've wanted to do on the car is upgrade from the factory oil pan and since I have a couple of Canton road race pans sitting on the shelf, it seems like a good opportunity to bolt one of them on while I'm changing the oil. More oil adds weight, which probably won't help with going quicker, but it will give a little more peace of mind.

So out with the trusty home built engine support:

Then it's a relatively simple job to drop the engine crossmember and drag link to get the pan off:

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to hang the engine off the front left header tube, only to find that the left header needs to come off to change the oil pickup, DOH:

Simple fix there, should have done it like this in the first place:

Little look up one of the cylinders, seems ok:

Since I'm already that far in, it seemed like a good idea to inspect some bearings just for extra fun, this is cylinders 1 to 4:

Those rod bearings are looking a little average, I guess they have done 400 passes now, so I think some new ones might be in order. Curious as to what sot of lifespan to expect from the bearings in a racing environment at my level?

Rod journals look ok so far:

Pulled the rear main, bearing looks ok, so I'll just replace the seal to hopefully address a slight leak there.

Now I have to wait until Monday to try to track down some new rod bearings over here in the wild west, that's Western Australia.

I've finally given up drinking for good...........now I only drink for evil.

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Posted: Mar/06/2023 at 1:45am

Time for a couple of catch up posts.

New vs old rod bearings:

Rod journals got a bit of a hand linish:

New rear main seal in there somewhere:

Reworked the dipstick tube (see earlier picture, was at an odd angle), this looks much better:

Finally got the oil pan mounted up, did need to drill a hole in the baffle for the dipstick tube:

Of course the old transmission inspection cover bolts couldn't be installed with the new oil pan in place, so had to modify the bolts (shortened head and thread).

Passenger side header I removed had obvious sealing issues, flange outline on the gasket tells the story, and sealing would have been even worse with the embossed copper gaskets I wanted to run:

Welded up the header flange, stupid design has a bead of weld around the ports, which would be ok if they did the job properly:

Grind and file finish:

Then got the engine diaper installed, reinstalled the header, bolted up the cross member and rest of the front suspension:

Had to adjust the idler arm bush position so the drag link wasn't dragging on the the oil pan/diaper.

Filled the thing with oil, pulled the distributor to prime the oil system, reinstalled the distributor, fired it up and reset the timing.

Of course half the engine diaper then proceeded to melt onto the exhaust, hopefully there is enough left to pass scrutineering in a week or so.

Did get run the car at the strip last night, not unexpectedly, it didn't go any quicker but at least it now has about 10 more psi of oil pressure at the end of the run, so hopefully the extra oil pan capacity has resolved possible oil starvation issues, or maybe it's a little less bearing clearance or maybe it's just fresh oil.

Oh, I thought I was changing the cam, I guess I still have to do that.

I've finally given up drinking for good...........now I only drink for evil.

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Posted: Mar/06/2023 at 1:56am

With the bottom end sorted, it was time to rip into that cam change, some disassembly required:

New cam going into the hole:

Cam specs FYI, solid flat tappet:

It was a real challenge getting the cam dialed in, my timing set only had increments of +/- 8 degrees, so I could get the ICL to 109.5 deg and have 0.010" exhaust calve to piston clearance at zero lash or have the ICL at 101.5 deg with 0.010" intake valve to piston clearance, obviously either of these options would be a little close to comfort. Managed to get hold of a used Rollmaster timing set at short notice which allowed adjustment in 2 degree increments and finally ended up at 103.25 deg intake centerline which is close enough to the came card for me. At zero lash piston to valve clearance on the intake was 0.032" and on the exhaust 0.052", this is still bloody tight, but hopefully once the lash of 0.016" is added in and there is a bit more resistance from real valve springs, we won't have any nasty surprises.

Separate piston to valve discussion here https://www.theamcforum.com/forum/piston-to-valve-dilemma_topic118710.html

Hindsight is a marvelous thing they say, If I'd just pulled the engine in the first place, could have whipped the pistons out while doing the rod bearings and oil pan job and cut some deeper valve reliefs into them. At least I got pretty dam proficient in measuring the cam dial in, must have done that at least eight times

Out with my trusty Hitachi drill for another oil prime up, the new solid lifters definitely seemed to put a lot less oil up top that the old hydraulics, which is hopefully a good thing.

All back together ready to go:

Little bit of cam run in video, the EFI really helped there as you can just set the idle in the 2000-2500 rpm range, varying it throughout the process while you keep an eye on other things:

Trying to do the right thing I ran in the cam in with the original Edelbrock springs (single plus damper), which are a bit lighter than the Comp 930-16 springs (dual plus damper) that I've been running on these heads, so after run in, I had to swap the valve springs again and reset the lash all over again.

Edited by WesternRed - Mar/06/2023 at 2:07am

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Posted: Mar/11/2023 at 6:40pm

So while I was running in the cam, I happened to notice that the headers were turning dull red in a couple of spots, so I grabbed the shed fan and set that up to provide some cooling, will have to remember this for next time:

But if you remember I mentioned earlier that the fancy new diaper had melted somewhat, well running in the cam finished it off:

In the bin with that and with only one day until race day, it was time to build a belly pan, should have done this in the first place.

Ran out of paint, but maybe it will catch some oil if needed:

The drama didn't stop there, fired the car up on race day, only to find that the gear shifter was frozen in place, the diaper wasn't the only thing that melted during the cam run in. Managed to force it into drive and load it onto the trailer. Phoned Kwinana Performance who were sort of on the way to the track and fortunately they had some new shifter cables in stock, bought 2 just in case. Quick change out of the shifter cable at the track:

And finally ready for some action:

I've finally given up drinking for good...........now I only drink for evil.

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Posted: Mar/11/2023 at 11:29pm

On with race day, "Street Outlaws USA vs Australia", basically a group of cars and drivers from the No Prep Kings show had travelled out to Australia to take on the Aussies in a 4 round series at Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, with Perth being the first round. This was all no prep racing over the 1/8th mile, something we don't usually do here, Perth Motorplex is a 1/4 mile track and there is always some level of track prep involved even if it is a bit average for your typical Wednesday night street meet.

Was pretty cool to see some of the stars from the show in person, so here are a few happy snaps just for the record:

Of course I'm not racing those guys, bit out of my league, but there was a 7.0 fixed dial in support class for me, basically heads up eliminations over the 1/8th mile, so run as close to 7.0 as possible without going under. The main goal of the cam upgrade in the previous posts was to get me closer to the 7.0 time over the 1/8th mile as I normally run somewhere around 7.5. Something else I'd never seen before was "instant green" on the lights, once both cars are staged there is a time delay and then you get the green light, no amber lights at all. No timeslips either, just win or lose.

We got one test run on the Friday, then straight into eliminations. For the test I ran against this Centura from South Australia, hemi 6 with a shot of N2O. He got the jump on me at the lights and man was it slippery down track, they had spent half the day scrubbing the track and we were the first two cars out on track, needless to say there was a fair bit of on and off the throttle on that pass even though I got off the line alright, lost that one.

First round of eliminations, I ran against this Falcon, missed the start and it was all over. The big boys had done a run by then and laid down some rubber, so it was a half decent run other than missing the jump. Somebody got hold of the times for the first round and for me it was a 0.760 reaction time and 7.253 @ 95.2 mph, the reaction time sounds terrible, but was pretty much middle of the road except for the Falcon which was the quickest of the bunch with a 0.481 RT and ran 7.072, going on to take out the final for the day and collect the prizemoney.

So that was it for day 1, time to watch the rest of the show as a spectator.

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Posted: Mar/12/2023 at 1:51am

Day two and time for another crack, I'm usually a one man show, but managed some crew for the day, so we put up the tent for the full professional look:

Practice run against this V8 swapped Mazda RX7, nailed the start on this one:

But the track got the better of me and she got me at the finish, good race:

Was good to have somebody there to get some video of the run from the start line, straight away I can see some suspension tuning might help my cause.

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Posted: Mar/12/2023 at 2:15am

First round of eliminations, up against the Centura again, outsmarted myself and red lit.

Not the most successful race weekend, but good to be part of something different. Maybe the Gremlin will pop up in the background when the TV show goes to air. Did have a chat to Farmtruck and Azn on camera, cool guys, hopefully they bring the dung beetle next time and we can race.

PS: for you guys who don't know what a Centura is, it is a French Chrysler product, 4 cylinder over there, but the Aussies managed to stick an inline 6 cylinder into them for our local release along with the 4 cylinder option. Cool mid size car, probably on par with the Hornet

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Posted: Mar/12/2023 at 4:43pm

Well done Darren. Good reporting, with the videos felt like we were there.

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68 AMX 390 ex USA.

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