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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.