Congratulations Doug! I was talking to J.D. last nite and we were marvelling at
your success - that's flying with a 50 year-old motor!
Ed
ARDUNDOUG@aol.com wrote:
> Group,
> A couple of the other participants gave us a blow-by-blow of their salty
> experience so here goes with mine.
> I had the 1313 XXF/FMR ready for the June El Mirage, running a listless
> 174 on a 184 record. During the post-race checkout I found a couple of
> exhaust seats on the Ardun heads that had moved around, ruining the leakdown,
> as well as my Vertex mag coil needing replacing.
> I removed the offending head and ground the seats in preparation for a
> chassis dyno run which yielded 327HP on gas and 425HP on 55% nitro. After the
> dyno session and the Muroc Reunion I experienced the same valve problem on
> the opposite head, corrected the leaks, and discovered that in the assembly
> process I'd only given the exhaust valves 95# on the seat. Off came the heads
> again to shim the springs to 140# on the seat. I was hoping that the valves
> had hammered the seats rather than the scenario of inadequate heat-treating
> done after the heads were extensively reworked.
> The car was in the trailer 2 weeks before Bonneville. Talk about a spooky
> feeling, wondering what I'd forgotten and when the second shoe would drop.
> Thursday noon the 10th, Son Brian and I left Castro Valley (Bay Area)
> Calif. with a 2 car caravan and his Bassett(sp?) hound Othella. Friday at
> 3:30AM found us at the "bend-of-the-road", very sleepy.
> We pulled on to the salt at 7:00AM, found pit space that Roy Creel had
> saved for us, unloaded the modified roadster, and were in the tech line at
> 9:00 waiting for the inspections to begin at 10:00 as advertised. Fortunately
> the inspection started early and we were back in our pit with the "Inspected"
> sticker before 10:00AM.
> The rest of the day we "kicked-back" as much as can be done in 100 deg.
> weather, renewed old acquaintances, and made some new ones.
> Saturday morning brought the drivers meeting at about noon and the start
> of the long lines to run. After all the trouble I'd had with this motor I was
> preparing myself for the thrash of changing to our spare "bullet" after the
> first run. This particular Ardun had given me "fits" from the git-go, mostly
> due to my own mistakes and carelessness. The spare bullet was the one we ran
> 198 with at the World Finals before the cylinder we wounded earlier failed.
> About 2:30 Saturday we were at the front of the Long-Course line,
> strapped into the car and ready to go.
> The "moment-of-truth" with the Ardun always seems to be at the 2-3 shift.
> It will pull pretty good in low and second, but if the tune-up is off or the
> engine drops a cylinder it won't pull past 5500RPM.
> In low gear it doesn't do much but spin the wheels. The 2.46:1 C-4 low
> gear really needs to be replaced with something around 2.1:1.
> On this run I made the mistake of shifting 1-2 with full throttle and the
> thing about swapped ends on me. After gathering my wits I got down to
> concentrating on keeping the car between the cones and the black lines, made
> the 2-3 shift at 6500, and was delighted to watch the tach start its climb
> back from the bottom of the cam range. When it passed 5500 well before the 2
> mile marker I knew it was doing OK. The car handled very well but took
> constant attention due to a small amount of wheel spin and the drivers
> tendency to over-control.
> Leaving the 3rd mile the tach was slowly creeping past 6300 and I knew
> that we had qualified on Bill Taylor's 1969 record of 201.
> As I passed the 4 mile marker I knew the car was several MPH over the
> record and started slowing, turning out before the 5 mile marker and coasting
> to a stop behind Jack Costella's crew on the return road. They hadn't heard
> my speed but gave me a welcome drink of ice water. The sight of my crew
> coming toward me with the horn blaring told me what I wanted to hear. We had
> a 1/4 mile trap speed of a little over the record, a mile speed of about 205,
> and a 4th mile speed of 208.
> We then took the car to impound, checked in with Dan Warner, replaced the
> nitro with gas in preparation for the return-run warmup, read the plugs,
> calculated the density altitude for our run (7800') and waited for the
> morning return pass.
> The evenings get pretty short when you have a car in Impound. By the time
> you get to the KOA, take a shower, and eat dinner it's often 11:00PM Mountain
> time. In order to be at the "end-of-the-road", fed, shaved, and ready to
> start preparing the car by 5:45AM we had to get up at about 4:30AM (3:30 on
> my Pacific Time watch).
> Sunday morning brought a density altitude of about 4800' so we changed
> Saturdays .115 pill for a .110, warmed the oil with our Moroso pan heater,
> warmed the engine on gas, replaced the gas with 55%, and were ready to follow
> Dan Warner out to the starting line at 7:00AM.
> On the second leg the car behaved well, turning 202 in the 1/4 trap, 208
> or so in the mile, and 211 in the middle mile. Not wanting to flog my 50
> year-old block I lifted after the 4 mile marker and was on the return road
> before passing abeam of the 5 mile markers.
> Back to the Inspection lines again for the event I'd been after since
> first attending Speed Week as a spectator in 1968 and driving at Bonneville
> in 1987, the induction into the "Two-Club". What I'd wanted for Sooo long but
> dared not anticipate had finally happened.
> J.D.Tone, one of our LSR group, did the engine measurement with a folding
> device I furnished (Elmo Gillette invented it) that fits down the spark plug
> hole and confirms the bore. J.D. is a long-time XO GMC racer/record holder
> and has been a great supporter of my LSR efforts.
> If I'd been any help to my crew before getting my "hat" I was completely
> worthless afterward. I was on a different planet.
> Back to reality, it was Sunday morning and we had achieved our main goals
> on the second day of the meet. Dave "Hayseed" Thomsson had upped his own
> XXF/BSR blown Ardun record and was ready to go after my 1988 XXF/STR record
> of 143. Not wanting to go out leaving anything on the table we changed
> classes and started after Hayseed's XXF/GMR record with Brian driving.
> Back in the pits we discovered a long split in one of the welds in our
> coolant tank. Brian, Ed Weldon, and Kent Walton scrounged some J-B Weld,
> silicone from town, and aluminum angle trim from my trailer, and fashioned a
> temporary "fix" that stopped the leak.
> I knew from my experience at Muroc that the Ardun on gas needed a shorter
> gear than it did on nitro. Brian, however, insisted on trying the 2.48:1 cog
> on gas. We changed nozzles, spark plugs, fuel, pill, reset the barrel valve,
> and were at the front of the line at 2:30 Sunday.
> When Brian made the 2-3 shift the engine had a helluva time pulling it,
> finally getting back to 5600RPM at the end of the first timed mile for a
> speed of 179. Still, we had qualified and headed for impound.
> In impound we discovered another split in the coolant tank and the guys
> went to work with more J-B Weld, silicone caulking, aluminum trailer trim,
> and sheet metal screws, this time fighting the 4-hour window allowed for
> preparing the car for the return run.
> Monday morning found Brian with the gears changed to the recommended
> 2.7:1, the engine warmed, and ready for the second leg of his record run. He
> turned a 186 in the 1/4 trap but the car got a little loose and he lifted in
> the mile, slowing to 184. The average was still 181 for the record, Brian's
> first Bonneville record. He's been driving our Ardun powered Dragmaster at
> the nostalgia drags since 1992 but this years Muroc Reunion was his first LSR
> record.
> Meantime, it was Monday afternoon and we still hadn't had the rocker
> covers off, the oil was still looking OK, and the oil filter looked clean, so
> we decided to do Rookie runs on gas for crewmembers Ed Weldon and Mike
> Gorvad. You should have seen the smiles on their faces. Now they're REALLY
> hooked.
> Tuesday the car just stayed parked in the pits. Brian took the chase
> pickup and headed for home with grand-dog Othella. He is starting a new high
> school teaching job in Napa, CA, moving into a new house, and has a lot of
> preparation to do.
> By afternoon the weather looked pretty threatening so I trailered the
> car, cleaned up the pit, and moved the rig to the "bend-of-the-road" to avoid
> a soggy mess if we got hit by a thunderstorm.
> Wednesday night was the Two-Club banquet. Lots of vintage engine people
> there including McCain & Houtz (220MPH XF/BFL) and the Hudson Guys (220+MPH
> XO/BFS)(I believe).
> Thursday AM I headed west, arriving home in 11 1/2 hours. Now the cleanup
> starts.
> It's now Tuesday night and everything's cleaned up and de-salted, the
> Ardun's vital signs look OK for the November El Mirage 2-day meet, and I can
> spend some time getting ready to test-n-tune the dragster with the 4:71 blown
> 258ci Ardun. Hopefully we'll be introducing this engine to the modified
> roadster soon.
> My street roadster, the Wife's car, and my 1958 Morris Minor LCV Van are
> all sporting "Bonneville 200MPH Club" license plate frames.
> For those of you that have read this missle thus far, thanks for
> listening.
> Ardun Doug King
>
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