ProBird strikes again
 

Rick went .003 in the finals tonight in Pro class at our track against last year track champion and got down to the top end put a fender on him and did the pedal feast across the stripe. Now that was a whooping. Good job Rick.

Holy cow! Congrats again.

Nice job Rick. You the man.

Way to go, Rick!

:)

Keep the winning going.

:)

Nice job! That guy can race.

When you're hot -YOUR HOT!!!! good job - Bill

... nice :D ...

Rockin Rick...

Hell yeah! Great job Rick!Your just a big ol hairy American Winning Machine!Dang Man is it the Wheaties you eat in the morning? Or the ice water runnin through your veins?! Anyway good Job

Congrats Rick!!!

congrats! again!

Congrats! Unstoppable!

Damn Dude! Keep it up! :thumbup:

Congratulations! The consistency is impressive, continued success.

Cool....way to go Rick..
Sorry I didn't catch up to you at Norwalk..

its too bad the car is wounded rick.. im going to go down this weekend and break in some tires before the big labor day race at I-57. We dont ever get our cars to the track on the same weekend. LOL Congrats on the win.. youve had a good year, hopefully nothing too bad with the car.. Im going to try to keep my hot streak going as well. let me know if you need any help.. im 20 miles away :)

Thanks again everybody. It's been a very good year so far. I showed up yesterday with a hurt engine. It's having head gasket issues. Not a big deal as it hadn't lost any water as of the 3rd pass when I decided I better start looking things over. I was just trying to limp it through the day and maybe win enough money for a new set of head gaskets.

I knew it was going to be a long day after the first 3 passes. I went 6.07, 6.11, then 6.20. I couldn't get the car to hook for anything but most everyone else was running some of their best times of the season. That's when I started to do some investigating.

I dialed from 6.23 to 6.18 and had I run every pass out it would have ranged anywhere from 6.05 to 6.17. I had to make sure I had a better reaction time than the other guy and make it as close at the stripe as I could. I don't think I made it to the mph stripe any of the passes before I started pedaling. In the final I knew I had to make it good and went .003 and closed up the finish line to .013. I dialed 6.18, ran 6.23, and looking at my 1/2 track numbers it would have run 6.05 so I killed almost 2 tenths on that pass. I just didn't have any idea what the car was going to run from pass to pass so I had to play the game a little different than normal. Anyway, it worked out for the best and the car made it through the day. Now hopefully I can get a set of head gaskets here and put on before Saturday night. Getting them here in time will be the biggest problem.

How many passes are you guys getting out of a set of Cometics? I've made 114 passes with this set. I think they started going away about 10 passes ago. ;)

Norwalk?
:D

1/4 mile racing takes a toll.

:)

good job Rick...hopefully you get it fixed for the next race.......Gene

Thanks Gene!

Rick did you retorque the heads after running? Any idea where the gaskets blew?
Dad had a set of Cometics fail and we believe it was from not retorquing.

No I didn't retorque them. Only a guess right now, but I believe it's probably between 4 and 6. I'll tear it apart as soon as I have the gaskets in hand and find out for sure. How many passes did he get before they went and where did they blow?

He had 75ish runs on them. The fire ring was blown out on a couple of the cylinders. We sent the gasket to Cometic so they could look at them (at first we thought they were defective), they told us it was improper torque. Since we started retorquing them we havent had any issues. Might not be the same problem your having but its worth thinking about.

Great Job again!

I have a set of 4.350" bore x .042" in stock if you need them I can ship Tuesday.

Calvin Hill
Hill Performance
708-250-7420

[QUOTE How many passes are you guys getting out of a set of Cometics? I've made 114 passes with this set. I think they started going away about 10 passes ago. ;)[/QUOTE]

972 passes, over five years...

Nice job of driving both ends...Congrats!

Thanks Calvin, I'm needing .051 thick. I'll let you know if the ones I ordered won't be here by weeks end.

972 passes on head gaskets??? Damn! That would be nice.

I've got about 75-80'ish passes on my 505 with 14.58 CR..
As per insert in Cometic gaskets I got from Butler I re-torqued them....along with Copper coat..Only have about 15 passes so far but all seems well..
I have a 4.356 bore..of course all my failures were 3&5 ...4&6...
I modified my shaft system so I can now re-torque without pulling apart..;)
Prior to this replacement I didn't re-torque nor use Copper coat..per Cometic.
Not sure who put insert in package ???

congrats again Rick

Thanks Kevin.

Rick, if it comes down to not being able to get a set of gaskets, I have a set of .051's at the house for my 535 that you can have as long as you replace them with the same thing as soon as you can get a set. :) From me to you would probably be 2 day UPS.
Check with Butler though, I got mine from them and they had them in stock.

972 passes, over five years...

Nice job of driving both ends...Congrats![/QUOTE]

What's you're CR Axle ? I never repalced mine when at 13.78-1 CR..
Guess the high cylinder pressures come at a cost..:rolleyes:

DITTO! retorque! i had issues until i started doing it. my gaskets last on average 3 seasons and thats with winter tear down. close to 200 passes each year, just start checking them i do it 3 or 4 times before going to the track for the first time then check them periodically and have found a few taking more torque. congratulations on the win you are having a year to remember. danny

Sorry to hijack Rick's thread but....what heads & how much torque??..
Do you use Copper Coat?

How often are you retorquing? And are you backing the pressure off then going to spec. Or just pulling to spec?

Woulda,shoulda,coulda..I don't back nothing off..
Not the way I was taught to do on old Datsun motors....what the hey??...:D

e heads 95 ft lbs and yes always copper coat. i never back them off i just retorque qnd have always found them taking some after initial start. danny

I really appreciate the offer Rob. That's who I called. They were out of stock but expected to have them either late yesterday or probably today then send them on thier way to me. Hopefully that comes through. If not I can always borrow a car or take the week off.

Thanks for all the advice on these head gaskets. I guess I'll have to quit being lazy and retourque them. Just a pain to pull the shafts off to do it but definately will since it sounds like they should last alot longer than they did. I just wasn't sure how long they should last since the other brand I had been using I only got about 80 passes. It's definately easier to retorque 'em rather than replace 'em. There probably isn't any chance of retorquing them now and it being all good is there? As of right now there isn't any water leaking into the cylinders when it sits. There was a vapor trail behind me during a pass and it was definately pressurizing the cooling system though. Lol! Good info guys.

[/QUOTE] What's you're CR Axle ? [/QUOTE]

Just under 13/1...

[/QUOTE] 972 passes on head gaskets??? Damn! That would be nice.[/QUOTE]

Thats why I used Cometic, when I pulled my D-ports with less than 100 passes on the motor, the Felpros were burned between the exhaust valves...

Rick.....having to pull the rocker shafts made me lazy to...Jack Gaydosh explained to me that I could grind my shaft mounts to get at blocked head nuts...about a hours work with die grinder and Dremel tool and now I can re-torque without removing chit..;) Sure makes it easy..I also removed some metal from my sockets to spare the shaft stands some..doesn't seem to effect the shafts any..16 passes @ 7,400...and no problems..I have Jessel's on Tigers..

Thanks Troy- I'll take a look at that and see if I can do the same.

Of course the head gaskets didn't make it here in time. They got sent out yesterday and will be here next Tuesday. I went out to check the torque on the head gaskets. I torqued them originally to 100 ft lbs. I started at 75 to see where I was at. 75 was good, then checked them at 90, ok there. Then to 100 and ok there. went to 110 then 120 before I got 2 of them to move a little. It was a top one between cylinders #2 and #3 and the lower one on the front exhaust port by #2. So I'm guessing the torque on the fasteners wasn't an issue. I checked the oil and no water in the oil and nothing in the cylinders. I'm not seeing any bubbling in the radiator anymore either although I did have to add about half a gallon of water. Compression test showed cylinders 4 and 6 at 200 lbs. 10 lbs less than all of the others. My leakdown tester took a crap so I couldn't test that. I guess it may only happens when it gets hot or after a hard run???. I did get the temp up to 210 and everything seemed fine. I'm going to go ahead and race it today and keep a close eye on it before I pull it apart next week once I get the new head gaskets. Wish me luck.

Gd luck!

I swear sometime Rick your racing is mostly around luck. Between you and your brother I never seen any two luckier. So I won't wish you any luck, you have it all. Lol Kick some butt today.

The only thing better than having a good year is having 2 in a row. Go Rick!

I sure stunk the place up last night. I couldn't cut a light to save my ass. I was fine till I switched lanes. Traction was a major problem again this week too. First pass I dropped the shift point back to 6200 to be easier on the engine. That was a mistake. It doesn't work too well when your shift point is lower than your stall point. The car spun hard and shifted as soon as it launched and then spun even harder. It went 6.44 with a 1.49 60'. I put everything back for the next pass. It still spun hard but went 6.25 with a 1.44 60'. First round I get bumped to the other lane and picked up enough it would have run 6.12 with a 1.38 60' on my 6.28 dial. I gave the stripe back at the finish by .010. I really screwed that up. I bought back and decided to stay in that lane the rest of the night. The car worked a little better there but not me. I think it's time for a new set of slicks to get back to an easy to dial car.

So no signs of head gasket issues? If not thats great!

None other than it was getting hotter than normal and was down on power a little. It's coming apart next week to check things out to see what's going on.

You are still on a good run, you should come up to Byron and plan on taking the Hill Performance Q-16 sponsored money.

Calvin Hill
Hill Performance
708-250-7420