Thanks a bunch everyone. It was a long day and unfortunately didn't work out to well for us.
It started as a great day. Cool air and sun. We got to the track by
8:30am and finally got in and unloaded by 9:30. We had a check list of
things to go over before making any runs. One of which was to make sure
the 2-step was setup properly. When Jeremy fired the car up and tested
the 2 step I noticed a bit of moisture come out of the left tailpipe
along with some light white smoke. I honestly thought it may just have
been from the car sitting overnight, the cold weather and the 2-step
loading up the cylinders with fuel. I really didn't think anything more
than that as the car ran great on the dyno and I had no other reason to
believe there was an issue.
So we headed to the staging lanes. Lowered the tire pressure to 14psi
and made our attempt at our first run with the new setup. The 2-step
was set at 3500rpm's and immediately blew the tires off. The track prep
was crap and I'm sure the cold weather didn't help. Since it was such a
horrible launch Jeremy shut down even before shifting into 2nd and
aborted the run.
Since the car was still cool he rolled back around and got into the
staging lane again. Waited a bit for our class and then stepped up
again. This time the 2 step set a little lower. Launched the car. Same
thing. Blew the tires right off finally got back into it by granny
shifting into 2nd and then stayed in it through 3rd and 4th. We
obviously didn't expect much due to the launch and slow shift into 2nd.
The run yielded a 10.40@138 and change. I don't have the slip but the
60ft and 1/8 time and 1/8mph weren't anything special.
When Jeremy came back around from that run he told me he noticed some
white smoke out the drivers side exhaust when he let out of it after
the 1/4 mile mark. At this point we started getting concerned as even
though the launch was junk we should have seen a faster mph for the
power we're making. So we started to look into what was happening with
the smoke and moisture. My first inclination was to check the radiator
reservoir. When I opened it up it was very low. There was only about an
inch of fluid from the bottom of the tank. The last time I had checked
the tank was when we were on the dyno. Since then the car has been
worked on so it's possible some fluid may have been taken out but again
I was very concerned. We ended up pulling all of the plugs. What we
found was some light pepper speckle on most of the porcelain which
means that at some point the car detonated or ran hot. We did a
compression check on each cylinder and everything checkout out fine. So
we put the plugs back in and I flashed the car with the 93 octane
aggressive tune. The tune we were running before was the race gas only
tune.
Get up to the line with the 2 step lowered a bit more and launched the
car. Same thing. Blew the tires off however it wasn't nearly as bad as
the last run. The run actually looked like it was going well until I
see the brake light lit up from a distance and see that Jeremy shut
down before the end of the run. He coasts through the traps and the
board lights up a 10.13@124.17. I believe it was around the 1000ft mark
where he let off. When Jeremy comes back around to the trailer he said
that as soon as he went into 4th the car broke up so he shut down.
After reviewing the run on paper it was going real well until the back
end. We had a 1.535 60ft and 6.56 1/8th@112.16mph. We believe that if
the car stayed on it's course from that 1/8 mile time and mph we should
have trapped 144-146mph and seen that 9 sec pass.
Now here's the negative part. We know something is going on with the
car. The moisture in the exhaust, loss of fluid in the coolant tank and
the way the plugs looked make it pretty clear that we're going to have
to pull the motor for a checkup. It's not worth it to risk hurting the
motor so in order for us to see what's going on it's got to come out.
Whether it's a blown head gasket or something else it needs to be fixed
as it definitely played a role in the poor performance of the car today.
I'm somewhat upset as I was expecting a better day and we were really
hoping to see some 9.60-9.80's however I completely understand that
this is just how it works with racing and accept it. The motor will
come out this week and picked up by our engine builder for him to take
apart and find out what's going on. We look to be back up and running
in a couple of weeks.
On a positive note we know that the 1/8th mile time we saw from our
only somewhat clean pass is an indicator that the car is strong. Being
that it was also done on the 93 aggressive tune and not the race gas
tune also makes us realize there's a lot more in her. We also learned a
bunch about our suspension setup which will be helpful for later on.
Lastly it was a great day spent with my family and friends. My wife,
son, employee and crew from UPR made it all that better considering
what was going on.
I'll have a video and some pics up later and promise to step up and give you guys that mid 9 sec run you're all waiting to see.
For now thanks to everyone for all their support.
Have a great weekend.
Jared
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