Started off nice--good weather at SIR (Seattle International Raceway), spent
most nights the week before checking over Peyote and replacing it's fuel
lines with braided stainless (I'm just not very fond of gasoline fires). Did
a general nut and bolt, and drove it up and down the driveway a few
times--everything was great.
Fine day at the track, clear and cool. Went out for practice, the first hot
laps I've taken in Peyote--what a hoot. The little bugger rips! But on the
third lap, headed into turn 1 at the end of the straight, as soon as I
touched the brakes the car started sliding. Got off the brakes, but it just
kept sliding, and finally spun, sliding off into the infield at 90+. I mowed
a bunch of grass for a long way, and finally stopped without any great
drama. But the engine would barely crank and when it finally did start, it
sounded horrible--I thought I might have separated the header. Flat-towed it
to the pits and popped the engine cover, and immediately saw oil everywhere
and the oil filter turned free of the base about 1/4".
Never had an oil filter come loose before, but of course everyone started
telling me how they safety lock their filters with a hose clamp around the
filter and safety wire. Humph.
Spent Sunday pulling down the engine--all the bearing are trashed of course,
but the pistons look okay so far. We'll see how they mike out. The center
main bearing cap came out in two pieces, which was a bit of a surprise. From
the appearance of the metal it may have been cracked for a while and the
extra heat finished the job. Of course there's Babbitt everywhere. I cleaned
the crank up enough to see that there's not any deep scoring. With a little
luck in can be just polished clean. I'd rather have a quarter thou extra
clearance than be .010" under. We've got a good local machine shop--they'll
do the right thing.
Here's a question--I have spare bearing caps, can a replacement be simply
bolted on or should I have the machine shop fit it. Okay, it's a dumb
question because I pretty much know the answer.
Anyway, I should have Peyote back together pretty quick. The only hard part
is that I'm out of town for about three weeks starting this Friday. I'm
going to have to plan this all pretty carefully. Might even have to pay
someone to rebuild the engine (heaven forbid).
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