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Re: Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:59 am
by Bruce69Camaro
Update: I took the car to the track for an interesting day.
I'll spare you all of the "pre-race" issues that went on that day, but after my first burnout, the car died on me. I re-fired it three times and couldn't keep the car running so they pushed me out. I got it back to the pits and we started to look around for possibilities.
One thought was with my fuel line running close to the coil, that it might be arching, so we fixed that, but then it was noticed that all my air bleeds in the secondary were wet.
We go back up to the line and this time the car stayed running and I ran a 10.34 @ 134.77 MPH. My 60 was enough to make you vomit, so don't ask!
I shifted at 7200 RPM and crossed the line at the same RPM.
While stopping for my ticket, the car dies again. I get it running and back to the pits.
We pull the plugs and they we grayish in color and figured that they look this way due to a lot of idling.
Get the car back in line and I run out of gas while in the staging lanes.
We originally had 2.5 gallons in the cell and that was odd that I was out of gas so soon.
So I make another pass and I run a 10.36 @ 129.77 MPH and this time I lifted for some unknown reason! Again my 60's sucked.
I was too worried about keeping the car running to really concentrate on anything else.
This time the car dies again at the ticket booth and after three times, it re-fires and I get back and load the car up.
Again we noticed the carb was wet up top.
I get home and drain the fuel system and I used over 3.5 gallons of gas for two runs.
The motor ran great and pulled very hard (Thanks to Ray), so I have no worries about it being a motor issue, so I started to pull the carb apart and I did find some debris in the secondary fuel bowl, so the car b is going to get a cleaning to make sure everything is clean.
But for having issues, I'm happy with two 10.3's and a 134.77 MPH which is a personal best for me.

Re: Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 11:12 am
by wikd69
Yay !!!! Great work - it sounds like you're back in business :)

Re: Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 4:38 pm
by John_Heard
Glad you were able to get out and play with it some while the weather still allowed. Now you have all winter to play around with the carb and get that problem straightened out.

Re: Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 9:18 pm
by wikd69
Of course if you lived in Sacramento, you could be busy planning your runs during the annual New Years Day Drag Race Event at Sacramento Raceway. If you lived in Sacramento.

Re: Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose

Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2017 3:56 pm
by Hitchcock
Nice Job brother! Glad to see you got to go and put up some good numbers!

Re: Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:40 am
by Bruce69Camaro
I took the carb apart and found nothing, it was all clean.
Fired it back up after changing the oil/filter and it still had a miss.
Did some reading on MSD's site and changed the plug gap from 40 to 35 and fired it up.
Sounded a little better but still had that same miss.
Well it looks like I may have found the problem.
I put on a new coil and the motor was able to rev up with no issues but I ran out of fuel, so I won't know for sure until the spring, but I'm 95% sure that was the problem.

Re: Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:01 pm
by wikd69
What coil are you running, and, what's your comp ratio ? I run my plugs at .030 - pretty tight but then my dynamic compression under boost is pretty ugly.

Also, check how hot/cold your plugs are and see what others are running for your build.

Just some thoughts...

Re: Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose

Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:14 am
by Bruce69Camaro
I'm running the 6AL w/ Blaster 2 coil right now. I got a good deal on a 7AL2 and will use the Pro Coil.

Compression is 13.7:1 and I reset the gap to 30.

Here is a quote from a guy at MSD and it contradicts what they state in their manuals.

"But if it’s a race engine with compression ratios of 13 or 14 or 15:1, with 0.030in or 0.040in plug gaps, the ignition system is greatly disadvantaged. Generating a spark that’s compelled to jump a wide plug gap is inviting trouble."

But if you look at the 6AL or 7AL manual, it says, for 13.0:1 compression and above, they suggest 35-45 gap as a starting point with the 6AL and 35-40 for the 7AL.

I'm using -7 plug.

I was reading a thread the other day and a guy recommends running a wire from the negative side of the coil to the engine block. He said “With CD ignitions you can ground the coil negative terminal to the engine so the HV firing energy is direct to the plugs, not to the battery first and then back to the engine.”

Have any of you done this?

Re: Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose

Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:28 am
by wikd69
I ran the conventional MSD Blaster 2 cannister coil for quite a while before jumping over the the solid state MSD Blaster SS coil.

When using that conventional coil design you have to make sure you don't install it laying down - it needs to be standing up, vertically. I found that I would develop a miss and then the ignition would just drop out altogether after running for awhile After talking with the MSD folks, I learned that some of the coils coming from the factory have an air bubble in them which exposes part of the internal coil winding when they are installed laying down. That part of the coil would overheat and the coil would just stop working. Took a long time to discover that problem. This is what eventually drove me to go with the solid state coil from MSD.