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Grattan Raceway SCCA Majors	Tuesday, August 26, 2025
We got the FP#73 engine rebuilt after blowing the engine at the Mid Ohio Super Tour race. It broke a piston and cylinder due to one of the wrist pins moving, due to a loose circlip that holds it in place. However, we just couldn’t find the time to test run the car at either the Mid Ohio regional race, or the Thursday night TestnTune. Therefore, we took the chance that it was good and went to the last qualifying race of the year at Grattan Raceway. So, if the car gave us problems, we would not qualify for the championship runoffs race on Oct 4. This was also our first trip with the new engine installed in the Discovery RV pulling the fully loaded inTech trailer. We had loaded the trailer the Sunday before, so Kev & I met at the shop on Friday and got on the road by 2pm. We needed to do a 5-hour trip and get there before registration closed at 9pm. About an hour out we heard a pop when one of the trailer tires blew. OK, that’s not really a big deal so we put on the spare. We started looking for somewhere to get another spare for the rest of the trip. About and hour later we stopped for diesel for the Discovery near Ann Arbor. Kevin re-torqued the wheel we had just installed, and did a check of the trailer. He found another tire that was flat and we didn’t have a spare. Fortunately, there was a trailer dealer right next to the gas station. We went there and bought two tires mounted on steel wheels, installed one and put the other in the trailer as a spare for the rest of the trip, and off we went. With about an hour left in the trip to the track, we heard another one pop, stopped and put our new spare on. Traveling a bit slower, we made it to the track about 8:30pm, made it through registration, and parked upon the hill outside the track. The next morning Kevin found a fourth tire on the trailer that was flat. All of the tires that blew were original tires that had been on the trailer for 5 years. I immediately started hunting for trailer tire places and found one just 8 miles down the road and they had our size in Carlisle tires, which I have always liked. At 9am we went out for our first qualifying session. As soon as they released us onto the track it started raining, and it rained hard. As our 20-minute session ended it stopped raining and never rained for the rest of the weekend. Because of the rain, we were 3rd on the grid. As soon as qualifying was over, we borrowed a street car from a friend, drove to the tire place and had them mount 3 new tires on our wheels. We rushed back to the track for our race which was at 1pm right after lunch. Kevin was in first place before turn one and drove away from the other 29cars in the run group. He won the race by 60 seconds over the 2nd place car, and turned in a couple laps faster than we had ever gone there before, but still a half second slower than the track record. We never thought about a track record here because this track is not an Integra track. It has 12 turns, 9 of which are blind that you have to be turning before you see it. The previous track record was set by a Lotus Super 7 which is a 1000lb roller skate that is very fast in corners but not fast in long straights, perfect for this track. After the race we went to the scales and impound. We weighed in 2 pounds light so they pushed us off and zeroed the scales and put us back on. Then we weighted 5 pounds under before I pointed out to them they didn’t have all of the wheels on correctly. They moved the car and it came out to exactly on weight. They said good, and pushed us off. We were very low on fuel. As we were waiting in impound, we saw the head race Stewart walking over to talk to Kevin which we knew wasn’t good. One of the corner workers had reported that Kevin had passed under yellow – a disqualifying offense. Turns out a slow car had pulled over on the side and pointed Kevin by while in a no pass zone. He wasn’t supposed to do that and Kevin was not supposed to pass, so they let it go. We took the car back to paddock, mounted a set of new Hoosiers to be tempered in tomorrow mornings qualifying session, added gas, and downloaded data from the AEM data logger. Those will be our race tires for the Runoffs race on Oct 4. We added fuel and checked as much as we could. After that we went to the dinner. The dinner was good but wasn’t exceptional like it usually is. We spent a couple hours talking with Mat Wolfe and Greg Gauper, then went to Mat’s paddock to talk. It was a cool night. Sunday morning, we were up early on a cool but gorgeous day. We had Carries breakfast sandwiches, then retracted the pushouts, lowered the jacks, and pulled the trailer up onto the ramps so we could install the two new tires on the last two original tires on the inTech trailer. Then we went out for the 10-minute qualifying session which was just long enough to temper the new Hoosiers for the Runoffs. We took the car back to paddock to put on the older tires, add lots of fuel so we wouldn’t be underweight, and checked fluids – just like the good old days with the ITA Integra. For the Sunday race we just wanted to finish, and see the car run a long Sunday race before we take it to the Runoffs. We started on pole but this time had the EPROD car right behind us, who should have more hp and might beat Kevin to turn one. Nope, Kevin was first into turn one after the green flag and he drove away for the whole race. After he got out in front aways I thought he would slow down just to finish, but on the 4th lap he came on the radio kind of franticly that I couldn’t understand and I thought he might have had a problem. It scared the crap out of me! I finally realized he said something about a track record. I looked at the online timing Race Monitor and realized he had just turned a 1:25.160 which was a third of a second under the current track record of 1:25.461. – HOLY CRAP, we did not expect that. He explained later that the early laps are the perfect time to break the record if you are ever going to break it. The tires are at the perfect temperature, and you haven’t yet caught a bunch of slower lappers that you have to drive around. It was also a perfect day for it, cool air temperatures to make horsepower, and total sun heating up the track surface. After that he did slow down and run mostly 1:28s until late in the race when he turned in two back-to-back laps in the mid 1:25s. He said he wanted to see if the car could run that fast after having already turned 20 laps. In impound he weighed just 10 pounds over, and that was after I gave him two bottles of water the chug. I made sure to send videos of the action to his kids and the rest of the family since the race was not streamed on line. After impound we loaded the car and the Yamaha cart and were on the road by 2pm. We were happy that we had no issues with trailer tires on the way home. We even cooked Carrie’s lasagna while on the road, then took turns driving to eat. That was actually the first time I drove the RV since we had the new engine installed. It was as successful a weekend as we could ask for, the flat tires notwithstanding. If the car keeps running like that, and Kevin keeps driving like that, we will be hard to beat at the Runoffs.
Discovery RV Repairs	Monday, August 25, 2025
Fleetwood Discovery Repairs Apr 18 - Jun 27, 2025 On Friday Apr 18, while driving to Summit Pt Raceway with Kevin, Carrie and all three kids, the Discovery developed a running problem. It sill ran, but was low on power and blew black smoke. We were on the highway still an hour out from the race track late in a Friday evening, so we decided to try to make it to the track. It was especially difficult because we were going though the mountains of West Virginia, and we were pulling the loaded inTech trailer. It made it to the track and we raced both days, but we had some issues, which you can read about in a previous news article. On Saturday we went and picked up a rental minivan so we could get home. Monday morning, we managed to drive the RV to a local Freightliner dealer only about 10 miles away. I have to say, based on the way it was running, I thought the problem was a leaking head gasket. We knew that the local Freightliner might not be the best option but we didn’t have many options. They called me on Wednesday and sent me an estimate for over $4000 just to check the compression on the engine. Yeah, that was ridiculous so I called Peterbilt and got the name of Rusty’s towing service. I called them and arranged for them to go and get the rv and tow it to Peterbilt in Grove City. I had used them before to replace a bad injector on the RV, and they did good work. On Friday Rusty’s picked up the RV and dropped it at Peterbilt for $3100. Michael at Peterbilt found that pressure was leaking between #5 & #6 cylinders. He worked up an estimate to remove the head of $9000. It was so much because the head weighed over 250 lbs and could not be lifted manually. That meant we would have to remove the radiator assembly to get to the engine from behind. I call him and suggested he remove the window in the bedroom and reach in with a lift truck to get the head off. He liked that idea and changed the estimate to $6000, which I approved. On May 5th, he tells me the block is damaged so I go to Peterbilt on the 6th to take a look. The head gasket indeed developed a leak between 5 & 6 cylinders. Probably because we kept running it after the leak occurred, the block got damaged at the leak which was not repairable. At this point we both started looking for replacement engines. Michael explained that we should look for a Cat C7 engine with the same prefix on the serial number so it goes in easily. Our number was WAX20453. There were at least nine different prefixes on the C7 engines of that time. Over the next four weeks I learned more about the C7 than I ever wanted to know. I found lots of C7 engines around the country but most were low horsepower (225-250). The higher horsepower engines (300-350) were built with stronger pistons and other stuff to support that horsepower. The Low hp engines were selling for about $8,000, and the high hp engines were about $10,000. Most all of them included a ‘core’ charge of $1500 to $3700, and most of them had about 70,000 to 100,000 miles on them. I found a couple C7s in PA that were government surplus. They were 2005-2006 models that were never used and stored in custom made containers. They claimed they were 275hp but were capable of over 300 with programming. None of them were WAX engines but the guy claimed they would work just fine. I also found a place called Reviva, that offered completely rebuilt engines with new pistons, bearings, valves, bearings, etc. Those were $19,798. They were run on a dynamometer and actually came with a guarantee that even included some labor charges. I also found a place in Kentucky that was an RV salvage yard with tons of salvage RV’s and RV engines, each priced at $12,000 but no core charge. I didn’t care for the price, but I liked the idea of the rebuilt, dynode, basically new engine from Reviva. While looking for engines, I started looking for places to install the engine. I assumed we would install the engine at Peterbilt because it was already there, and Michael and crew did good work. However, I found that Peterbilt charged $197/hr for working on trucks, and $230/hr for RV’s. Most all other places charged about $190/hr. most places estimated 60 hours to install the engine but Peterbilt estimated. I think it was about here when I thought about junking the RV so I asked Visone Salvage how much they would give me for it the way it was - $5000, that’s all! I found Mainline truck and RV service near Cleveland who seemed very good and not super expensive. However, when I mentioned the Reviva engine, he said they refuse to install those because they have had issues with their engines, and they never stand behind their warranty. Apparently, Reviva used cheap Chinese parts for their rebuilds and did not honor the warranty. When I talked with them further, they said they do not do CAT engines because they don’t have the software to get into the ECU. Finally, as I was looking at the engine inventory at Visone Salvage yard I found they had just removed a CAT C7 engine with the WAX prefix, and with only 49,400 miles on the engine. Some of the engines I looked at were rust buckets. This one was beautiful. I found it late on a Friday and had to wait until early Monday morning to see if they still had it. Bucky at Visone first said he thought that one had already sold, but we went and looked and it was still there – so I bought it at $12,000, with no core and no state tax. Now I had an engine so I just needed to decide who would install it. After talking more to Bucky, I found every question I asked him he answered well. I had a feeling I could trust him. And his estimate was 50-60 hours at only $170/hr. He also did not require any payment until the job was done and ready to drive away. On Monday June 2 Rusty’s Towing Service hooked up the Discovery and towed it to Visone to have them install the new engine. Even with this towing charge of $1947 it was cheaper for me than having Peterbilt do the job here in Columbus. He told me he couldn’t start on the job immediately but started working on it around the 16th. He noticed the missing tilt-out window in the bedroom which had just happened, and had it replaced right away. I asked him if he had a motorized canopy to replace our bad one and he gave me a price of $1000. I declined that because I can get a new one for that price. I talked with him several times and I send him a new exhaust elbow which is notorious for rusting out and cooking the electrical basement when it does. That happened to us way back in 2015 so we thought it might be time for another new one. I also send him a new air filter for the Discovery which it needed and told him to use my new spare alternator, serpentine belt, and fuel filter. I talked with Bucky several times during this process and he was always very accommodating. I think he sensed how nervous I was about this whole process so he tried to reassure me that they knew what they were doing. I talked with him on Tuesday June 24 while he was out driving my RV. His mechanic drove it for a test drive, then he drove it for several hours to make sure it was good. During that drive they heard a noise they didn’t like and found a bad bearing on the belt tensioner, and replaced it. I also hit him with a list of questions that I had compiled like – what brand and type of oil, power steering fluid, and coolant and a bunch of others. He never even hesitated with an answer which showed me he knew what he was doing. He told me it would take between 50 and 60 hours for the job. I expected at least 60 hours but he came in at 54 hours, plus some supplies, oil etc. and state tax. The total bill was $10,310 which I was pretty happy with – if it was now a good running engine. I didn’t want the block so I asked him to remove all the important parts off the old engine and put them in the RV basements, which he did – the Huie, water pump, air compressor, alternator. I already had the head with all the injectors, etc. We were all leaving on Friday for our annual trip to Oshkosh for the 4th of July party at the Lake House, so we needed to go pick up the RV on Thursday, which we did. We left at 6am and arrived at Visone at 9:45am. I had wired the money to them the previous day so I expected it to be all ready. Unfortunately, they had not received confirmation of receipt of the funds from their bank. After sitting for a couple hours, I got insistent that they call back their bank. Turns out it was there and the bank guy was too busy to call us back….. We finally left at about noon and arrived back at the shop ay 530pm due to Friday night traffic. However, the Discovery ran PERFECT! We unloaded the parts and tucked it away inside the building and plugged it in to shore power. A couple weeks later Kevin and family took the RV down to the Ohio river with carries family for the weekend and it ran great and everything worked fine. A few weeks later we used it to pull the Featherlite with all the kid karts to G and J racetrack for a Saturday/Sunday event and it ran perfect again. The final test was when Kevin and I pulled the fully loaded inTech stacker trailer to Grattan MI for our last qualifying race of the year. We had four flat tires on the trailer, but the RV ran perfect. So perfect, in fact, that we ran through a complete tank of fuel and got 6.8 miles per gallon where we always got around 5mpg with the old engine. And that number included running the diesel generator which uses fuel from the main tank, for at least 4 or 5 hours while at the track. So, it looks like the new engine starts better, runs quieter, smokes a lot less, has more power, and get better mileage than the old engine. Sounds like a win to me.
Another crappy weekend	Monday, May 26, 2025
After missing the Pittrace event two weeks ago due to a rainy weekend, we were anxious to take the car with the new Cora engine out on our home track. The only changes we made to the car was remounting the exhaust system by cutting off some the damaged turnout, and making more clearance to the shifter mechanism. Kevin also ordered and installed a new swivel mount at the end of the shifter rod that mounts to the gearbox shaft. It eliminated 80% of the slop in the shifter, really nice. We were in group 2 and our first practice session was at 8:30 Friday morning. We tried 10 times to get someone from OVR to do an annual inspection on the car the weeks before but couldn’t get anyone to even call us back. Since we did not have the Discovery RV we had to drive up Friday morning. Tech opened at 8am which left us no time to make it to that session. So, we just loaded Friday morning and drove up in time for the first qualifying session after tech. At tech everything went well until we tried to go back to paddock, when the car would not start. We have been fighting an elusive electrical problem for weeks now. The day before I actually replaced all of the wiring to the injectors. Anyway, this time it sputtered a bit like it was a timing problem, so we decided to replace the EPM with the spare. It didn’t work initially so I reversed the mount by 180 degrees. We were very happy that it worked and ran well. We made sure to calibrate the new EPM with the timing light and save the program. Carrie arrived to help us out without the kids because they were in school. At 1:10pm we went out for our first qualifying session with almost 40 cars. Kevin kept going faster until he was on overall pole. Just as he was coming off the track, Craig Chima took over the pole by about a half second. Carrie drove home while we changed tires, added gas and locked everything else in the inTech trailer for the night. We went to the Roadhouse for some very nice steaks, filled up the Excursion with diesel, and checked in to our Days Inn motel. Then we went to a sports bar nearby for a couple beers before going back to the room. Kevin managed to get us a handicapped room on the 1st floor right next to the lobby. Saturday morning, we showered and took advantage of the free breakfast, checked out, and went back to the track early for or 8:25am 2nd qualifying session. The track was slightly damp, and Kevin went 2 seconds faster than any other car on the track, but not faster than the day before. We took it over the scales to check our weights and found the diagonal was off by quite a bit. We adjusted it several times before Kevin was happy. We also noticed the Flagtonics was saying the battery was low which indicated the power wire had popped off. We got everything on the car finished right before lunch when Mike & Jane Falk arrived. I took them on a tour of the track with the Yamaha cart and we had some lunch. On the first lap of the race, Workman dive bombed Craig & Kevin in the first corner to get to the front. By the time they came around the track a full course yellow came out due to the two E PROD Mazda’s getting together in the keyhole. They screwed around trying to get the cars apart for several laps and then decided to get a truck to pull them apart. By then they decided to black flag the session then end the race. Pitiful!! When we got back to our paddock, Kevin said he heard some clicking in the head of the engine. We decided to adjust the clearances of all the valves which were a thousandth or two loose. We also noted that the 1-3 Oxygen sensor would not boot. We had a spare sensor but decided it wasn’t important and we would get it later. We locked everything in the inTech and drove the excursion directly to Mill Valley ball field to watch the end of Walt & Eds baseball game, then Cora’s game was right after on the same diamond. After the games I went home with Diane, and Kevin took the Excursion home. The next morning, we all drove directly to the track for our Sunday race at 8:50am. Ed came with Kevin, and Walt & Cora came with Carrie. Kevin started 3rd again on a beautiful day. On the first lap, as he accelerated on the green flag, the car belched out white smoke and quit. Kevin coasted to the esses and they pulled him off the track. To save time, I took the Yamaha around the track and towed him to tech, then to paddock. Walter and Edwin helped us load up and we took the car to the shop and unloaded. Sheryl, Dede & I went downtown to attend Drew’s high school graduation ceremony. A couple days later I removed the head and found the #4 cylinder had cracked and let all the coolant escape. That block was given to us by Sam for nothing and had a block guard installed. We removed the guard because we thought it might be illegal. We think it must have been used in a charged engine and had some stress cracks in the cylinder. Fortunately, nothing else was damaged, just the block. UPDATE: Upon further inspection, it appears the real problem was a snap ring that holds the wrist pin secure in the piston, came loose on the outside of the #4. It slid over and hit the cylinder wall, and eventually the stress forced the break of the cylinder. We decided that all of the pistons were not reusable so we ordered new.
Interesting time at Summit Point Majors	Wednesday, April 23, 2025
We haven’t been to Summit Point in 12 years but we thought we try to get our qualifying races out of the way early this year so we went on Easter weekend. It was also a special time because all the kids had Good Friday and Easter Monday off of school. Also, the modifications to the car were ready. We added new Wilwood 4 piston aluminum calipers on the rear of the car. We installed a new six puck clutch disc, installed the new required 55mm intake restrictor, and we rebuild the Cora engine that exploded at the Runoffs last year. The only parts we reused were the head with 2 new valve seats and new valves, the crank, the Harmonic Balancer, and the water pump. We had the car on the dyno at SloMo the week before and it ran well. It was down by about 3-4 hp, but it gained hp on the lower end, and it was smoother and didn’t fall off as much at red line. Kev, Carrie, Walter, Cora, Edwin, Lacey, and I left for the track in the Discovery RV pulling the inTech trailer about 11am. About half way there we got a warning from the RV that the coolant was low. I had checked it before we left and it was fine. We pulled over and found some small splashes which looked like they were coming though the radiator from the other side but it was minimal. We refilled the overflow coolant tank mostly with water, about 2 gallons and continued on. After about another 2 hours we got the warning again so pulled over again. We filled the coolant again with about 2 more gallons of water. Also, the engine seemed to be blowing a lot more black smoke out of the exhaust. We were about 60 miles from the track so we decided to see if it would make it. It was low on power and smoking but it limped into the track about 930pm. The kids went to bed while Kevin and I unloaded the trailer because we were first on track at 830 in the morning. The next morning, we got the car on track and turned in the fastest lap by over one second(1:24.354) while tempering a set of new Hoosier tires. At 10am we did the second qualifying and went even faster. Then we tried to decide what to do with the RV. We agreed there was unlikely it was going to make it back home so we quickly went to National Car Rental and got a van to get us home on Monday before they closed. We also searched extensively for a place to repair the Discovery. There was a Freightliner dealer just 10 miles away but of course, they were closed on the weekend. We made it back in time for the 2pm Saturday race. For some reason still unknown to us, the car stalled on the grid right before going out. When it finally started, we were a lap down. Kevin took the car out and again ran the fastest lap (1:23.989) by 1.5 seconds but finished 13th of 18 cars. Saturday night they had a great meal of brisket, mashed potatoes, and a broccoli casserole, with peach cobbler for dessert. We did minimal work on the car and put the kids to bed. That night both Carrie and Walter had stomach problems through the night. The next morning it was still beautiful weather for our 8:50am, 25 lap, Sunday race. Kevin was still on pole and even though he had a horrible start and was in second place, he quickly passed Strittmatter and walked away for the lead. About half way through the race there was a full course yellow for about 4 laps. When the green flag was shown, Kevin stretched out another big lead. With just a few laps left Kevin heard the noise of the exhaust bouncing off the track. He slowed down but maintained a small lead. Suddenly in one of the turns the exhaust caught something on the track which lurched the car off track which caught and destroyed the air damn and splitter. Not knowing what else was wrong we brought it in to end the race a lap down in 13th place. We found the two rubbers holding the exhaust pipe had popped of the mount which allowed the pipe to drag on the ground. Later on, we looked at some very early in the race video of the car on track and saw that the exhaust was hanging low on one rubber mount right away at the start. We believe we knocked off one of the rubbers from a low spot in the grassy paddock, and the second rubber popped off eventually during the race. We never found out what it hit on track to knock the car off track. We had the rest of that day and all night to wait for the Freightliner place to open at 7am Monday. The track manager graciously allowed us to leave the trailer there until we could come back for it after the Discovery was repaired. We realized that if the car was here and the repairs took more than a week, we wouldn’t be able to race at Pitt in 2 weeks. Carrie had a great idea to see if Alliance Motorsports, who is based in Hilliard, had any room on there several transporters for our car, and they did. We loaded up the car with everything we needed to race and put it in one of there trailers. Kevin also arranged for another friend to take two sets of our wheels & tires back home as well. We watched other races and waited for the track to completely empty out – which was weird. Monday morning, we all got up at 6am, packed up the RV, moved everything we needed to the van, and called the Freightliner dealer to see if he would take our Discovery in for repair – they said yes. After some tense moments getting the RV to start, we moved the trailer over to where they told us to put it, and limped the RV to the repair shop. We got on the road for home by 9am and had an enjoyable ride home with the kids singing their favorite song along with the radio. The trip home was enjoyable and a lot quicker without the RV and trailer. We stopped at the shop to get my and Carrie’s cars. Kev & Carrie dropped off the rental car at National and we all met at Walt & Ed’s baseball game. The next day the service rep called me with a ridiculous estimate just to diagnose the engine problems so I talked with Peterbilt Cat service center and arranged with Rusty’s towing to go pick up the RV and tow it back to Grove City to someone I trust.
Ready for another new year	Tuesday, April 15, 2025
We rebuilt the blown "Cora" Engine, and it is the best engine we have ever built. It was down a few peak horsepower from last year but gained a bunch in the mid-range. It also did not fall off at 8000 rpm like the old one did. And that was after adding the required intake restrictor of 55mm. We also took this opportunity to replace the old clutch disc with a new 6 puck design. We installed Wilwood 4-piston aluminum brake calipers on the rear of the car. It maybe did a little better braking than the OEM brakes, but the best improvement was getting rid of the emergency brake mechanism which tended to loosen the brake pads which also affected the fronts as they wore. It also gave us the legendary wear characteristics, and easy maintenance that we have enjoyed on the fronts.