20-24 Fast Lane 7/15/14 11:50 AM Page 24
Fast Lane running ok with that crack. No telling how long it had been that way. It had not been apart for 30 runs. If we need it for a few runs it should be OK. No time to fix it, the rods have only 30 runs, so I put the heads and intake back on and got it ready to load in the travel crate. Another problem arose. Zeke, my racecar, was still on the stands. I had started Damien earlier. I still needed to tweak the NOS/Animal nitrous fogger system. In doing so I warmed the engine up again, cranked the throttle enough to burst the nitrous. Whooom! After I did, smoke started pouring out the driver side header big time. Oh man! I had hurt a piston. Later, I found when I burst the nitrous # 6 had cracked the ring land above # 2 ring groove. I found several like that with nitrous engines during my many years. The land cracks behind and away from the piston. You cannot see it. To check, use a small screw driver in the upper and lower ring grooves, and
carefully apply pressure up and down. If that land is cracked behind there, it will move. We needed to get wrapped up and on the road to Englishtown, NJ, nearly 1,000 miles away. No time to fix Damien. My regular crew help that was to go East with me, and a friend, were already here at my shop. We changed engines, putting the Monolith with the cracked sleeve liner back in, started the engine and it ran fine. (I refrained from bursting the nitrous!) We got to Englishtown in the nick of time for the Wednesday “Night of Fire” and ran the best times and MPH ever with that old Zephyr and the Monolith with a cracked cylinder. We looked at plugs every run. They were storybook examples. All exactly perfect readings. On Saturday night, our USSC Circuit was booked at Atco, NJ. We had time when we got there and pulled the passenger side head off. I measured the crack with a machinist 6-inch ruler. The crack had
Circle 24 for more information 24 July 2014 | EngineBuilder
moved about .060” further down. We had made four full hard runs. I determined the crack must have moved .015” a run. We put the Monolith back together. We ran our USSC Chicago style program and got in the finals. We ran well, but not as well as Walter Henry. We went back home and checked the crack. It had moved down .060” more. We had made four more runs at Atco. Cranking compression was still even at 190+. We had a UDRA finals at Great Lakes that coming weekend and I capped the UDRA championship for the second year in a row, winning Outlaw Pro Stock with the Monolith and the cracked cylinder. When I later removed the passenger side head at my shop, I measured the crack. You guessed it. The crack had moved down another .060”. We had made four more great runs at Great Lakes. ■