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April 28th Hello hope you are all well, Thanks to Rich for picking up the heads on Friday even though he was very busy, had a chance to see his car running as he has a split screen moggy minor with a small block chevy under the bonnet and it sounds sweet. I have had a pleasant weekend down at Steve's, left Steve and Ian to do the engine while I went to the garden centre with my sister. I was looking for one of those trees that money grows on but I couldn't find one any where. Ian has been playing with the camera again at the weekend so I hope the pictures don't take to long to download. As he realised he had been taking them in the wrong format last time and they were taking an age to download. Sorry about that, hope they are ok this time. 
Steve reannealing the copper head gaskets. 
In the water they go. 
Here is the block just before the heads went on. 
The heads are on now and we are nearly ready to take it home. 
All ready to put in the back of the car and take it home. Well we got the engine home but it was a bit of a slow journey as with the engine, blower, engine stand and all the bits in the back of an Astra to say it was a bit over loaded was an under statement. But we just took it slowly and hoped the police wouldn't see us. Well with the engine back on its stand in our workshop we can now get on with the next stage of getting the van back on the track. Richard and Helen (my crew) are coming up for the Bank Holiday weekend and we will be putting the engine back in the van. So all that remains for me to say is a BIG THANK YOU to Steve for helping us with the engine and I hope everyone has a great and safe time at Shakespeare County next weekend. Until next time take care and remember, April 24th Well my update is late again but I am still recovering from the Easter Thunderball at Santa Pod. 3 days of drag racing perfect, well nearly as I was only crewing and not racing myself. Big congratulations to Steve 'Wheels Up' Wells, my brother-in-law, for winning Pro-ET at the weekend. He also ran a personal best on Saturday of 9.792 @ 132.61mph. WELL DONE. However we had further problems with the engine, the valves are flapping around in the heads (technical term). So the heads have been to Knights to have the valve seats re-cut. Rich is picking them up today (Friday) and we are going to collect them from his and then going to Steve's to finish it all off, HOPEFULLY. Do you know when you get that feeling that something or someone is trying to tell you that you shouldn't be doing what you're doing? Everyone at work keeps saying "Have you ever thought of taking up another hobby?" Drag Racing is not a hobby it is a way of life any one who has tried it will tell you that. Once you have been down that 1/4 mile you are bitten by that bug. And if you have ever thought of having a go at racing but was unsure then there is a good article in Mays edition of Custom Car Magazine that you might want to read. Until next time take care and remember, April 7th Yes I know I said an update on Wednesday and it's now the following week but time is just running away from me at the monent. YIPEE though as the engine looks good Big Thanks to Peter Knight of Knight Racing Services for all of his help, advice and assistance. We took the engine down to my brother in laws at the weekend where he and Ian started the process of building it. Ian and Steve started by checking that the pistons and con rods fitted together nicely and then they had a dummy build up of the block checking all the clearances of the bearings and grinding the block where the crankshaft and con rods were making contact. They then spent an age cleaning the block with a mix of hot water and truck wash. After which they then wiped the bores with automatic transmission fluid until they were clean and then made sure that the crank, rods and pistons were all clean and free from any grinding dust from the engine. The cores plugs were then put in and that was Saturday gone. Sunday, our day of rest, so it was down to Santa Pod to blow the cobwebs off the Pop ( and Steve) and for me to take up my position as crew. It was just good to be back at the track and get my first Drag Racing "fix" of the year. Oh and by the way Steve put in 2 good runs, all ready for the Thunderball at Easter. Until next time take care and remember, March 31st Hello everyone, GREAT NEWS the engine is ready and we are getting it tomorrow night (Tuesday), So I will post a full report on Wednesday night. Until then take care and remember, March 26th, 2003. Well I am back finally! And it's good to be back, so much has happened since i've been away you would not believe. Thanks to Sarah Steel for sorting the PC out for us (sorry it gave you such a headache.) It all took longer than expected but a big THANK YOU to those faithful few who kept hitting the web site each week. Unfortunately we still have one small problem NO ENGINE! Delays with some machining, Customs not playing ball and releasing some parts has put us well behind which sadly means that there is no way that I will be racing at The Easter Thunderball at Santa Pod or the Excitement Nationals at Shakespeare County, at present we are hoping to be ready for the Main Event at Santa Pod but the way things have started this year I am most definatley not holding my breath but I will keep you updated each and every Monday with all the latest news how ever trival. For those of you 'muttering' well why didn't you start getting things ready earlier. Well one problem my friend when we need things we have to work and save for them. I shall be at Santa Pod for Easter as I will be crewing for Steve 'Wheels Up' Wells with the Orange Pop Pick Up. If there is any thing you would like to know or any thing you would like to see on the site then please drop me a line as I would love to hear from you. Until next week take care and remember, February 10th, 2003. Sorry folks but it is going to be short and sweet this week. Firstly we are running critically low of disc space on our PC and we will probably have to hold fire on the updates for a few weeks to try and get it up graded so we can continue to run the website. Secondly the engine will not be ready for us to collect for another week so, so things are somewhat quite. So thanks for tuning in and we shall be back after this short interval !!!!!!!!! So take care and remember, February 3rd, 2003. Well I hope every one is ok after all the snow! As I look out of the window I wonder if this is the end of the bad weather and we can start to enjoy spring now and the forthcoming race season. Well the update on the engine block is that it has been line honed and decked and is being bored at the moment, I can't wait to get it back. I am so looking forward to this season and I am going to have every thing crossed hoping it will be a bit better than last year, but you never know what fate has in store for you, do ya. As obviously we don't have the engine yet it has been a bit quite on the news front. So I thought I would explain what a run down the ¼ mile is like for me. We are in the pairing lanes and it's Helen's job to strap me in my harness, do my helmet up, make sure my neck brace and gloves are on and secure the window net. The final push up to the first marshal and all eyes are now on Richard, I will watch him to give me the signal to start the engine. I will drive onto the track around the water box to keep the front tyres dry and pull up to where Rich is standing, I will flick the thumb leaver on the gear shifter so I can put the van into reverse and Rich will guide me back into the water box with hand signals. You will be guanteed whenever I do this I can never just reverse straight back, I'll get it right one day. Richard then brings me forward slightly and will signal for me to stop. At this point I need to engage the line lock, which is done by pushing the brake pedal and then pressing a button on the steering wheel, which activates an electric solenoid in the front brake pipes. This keeps the front wheels locked so I can release the brake pedal so the rear tyres are free to spin. After this Richard will give me the two fingered salute (in a nice way of course) which is just reminding me that I should have already selected 2nd gear and I will nod to him when I have done this. The next signal will then be for me to start the burnout, this is to generate heat into the rear tyres and because the tyres are made of a very soft compound its makes them very sticky and you stick to the track better. To get the tyres spinning I just stomp on the loud pedal, I keep an eye on Rich and also an eye on the rev counter as when the engine gets to about 5000 revs I shift into top gear so that the engine is not under so much strain. When he gives me the nod I release the line lock button which disengages the front brakes and the van will start to move forward, the idea is to let it go forward a few yards to make sure that you are away from the water and the tyres are dry. Then Rich will open my door to allow some of the smoke out of the cab and check with me that every thing is ok, he will then arm the rev counter, this records the run so we can watch it back afterwards to check for top end revs, slippage and any bogging that the engine might have suffered. At this point I check the water temperature gauge and if need be I will turn the radiator fan's on then I select first gear and he shuts the door and its all down to me, I move forward until I break the first light beam this will make the first light on the Christmas tree come on which is called pre-stage and before moving forward to stage I check the other vehicle is in pre-stage as well. This is not too important in qualifying but if on race day you go into stage before the other person is in pre-stage then he or she can get the start line marshal to make you reverse back out Okay we are both in pre stage time to ease off and on the brake pedal letting the van gently creep forward until the wheels break the second light beam. Again this will light up the second set of bulbs down on the Christmas Tree and this is called staged. The start line marshal will press a button which will activate the tree now all I see is the three yellow bulbs in a line light up one after the other. Anticipate that 3rd yellow coming on and stand on that accelerator pedal as hard as you can. All this time all you can hear is the scream of the engine. On comes the bright red shift light to tell me to change gear, my hand is already positioned over the gear shifter and I pull it once towards me, now I'm in second. Just one more shift light and then it is flat out, it's all down to the van now. I just keep hold of that steering wheel and aim straight. Across the finish line, look at the supercharger boost gauge to remember the reading for the records, lift off the gas pedal gently and turn on those radiator fans. Take the exit off the track and pull up to one side to let her cool down and to take off some of my gear. That is how it was done last year. This year I will have to learn to take more notice of the gauges in the van, I tend to fixate on the track and nothing else. I will also need to start taking in my surroundings ie the other person I am racing. I don't have much movement in the van once I am strapped in and so we have set up some small mirrors on the inside of both doors so I can see around me. It is just trying to get use to them as it is not like looking in the wing mirrors of a car and at nearly 120 miles an hour they tend to vibrate some what. Well that's how it is for me and I can tell you I have got butterflies just telling you about it, can't wait!!! Well until next week take care and remember, January 27th, 2003. Hello everyone I hope you are all well. This weekend has been mainly about stripping, cleaning and checking things in readiness for the engine, which is now at the engineers and should hopefully be back with us in about 2 weeks so we can then build it. Ian's gone through and looked at the fuel pumps, starter motor and water pump etc. Richard (our crew chief) has taken the valves and all bolts to work. He is checking how many valves might be bent and he is testing that the bolts and studs are okay. Our heads (the engine's, not mine and Ian's) have been given the all clear from the engineers as we thought in the explosion last August we had damaged one of them. So that's real good news! We have also moved the axle back ½ inch this weekend to give more clearance for the prop shaft as we suspected that it might not have had enough travel inside the gearbox . This is done by winding the rod ends out by even amounts. Ian took a picture of this to show you but you couldn't see it clear enough so we will try and do one for next week. As there will not be a lot going on for the next few weeks, next weeks Latest News will be about what it is like inside the van on the ¼ mile. Well until next week take care and remember, January 20th, 2003. Thanks to everyone who has sent us an email or signed the guest book. As you can see from the pictures the tunnel is nearly completed just a few more dzus clips to go. The shifter is now situated in its' new place on the tunnel. It's funny how changing one thing leads to a lot more changes, as all Ian wanted to do was put in a passenger seat and that meant a new tunnel, moving the shifter & the MSD and doing some wiring alterations. The 'About Me' page has now been updated with a picture of me (under much protest). This was after various comments that there were pictures of other people on the website apart from me. Damn, thought I'd got away with it!!!! Bit of good news that we have just heard is that Witham Oil are going to supply us again this year with our lubricants. Many thanks guys!!!!! There is now a new race date's page which shows the events that we are going to attend this year (fingers crossed). We will also update this with any shows that we manage to fit in this year also. Well until next week take care and remember, January 13th, 2003. Good Morning, Afternoon or Evening depending on when you are reading this, I hope you are well. I want to start off by saying a Thank You to Simon Foyle who works with Ian for lending us his camera so we can put some pictures on our site so you an actually see what we are doing. So here is a picture of the cab of the van with two seats in it now, so at least Richard won't be bashing his head trying to balance in the foot well when we are driving down the fire up road. As you can see we have taken the covers off to save the last of them from the Lincolnshire mice. Also in the last week Ian has lovingly bashed the beginning of a new tunnel into shape. Still a few more bends to go and that should hopefully be completed today. You don't have to have an expensive fabricator or your own specalist equipment to do this. We have done ours with a stanley knife to cut the metal (just score it 3 times with the knife and then fold it back and forth and you get a nice straight cut.) and then to get the bends just score once on the reverse side with the knife and bend it over the edge of the bench. See what you think when the photo is on the site next week. The block has now been cleaned, de-burred and the oil ways at the front and back of the block have been opened out to allow the oil freer drainage back to the sump. Here are some pictures of the block in its present state before it goes off to be re-bored. As you can (hopefully) see in the pictures the block wants decking due to corrosion which we didn't really want to do as this brings the compression ratio up which is not ideal as we still want to run on pump gas to keep the cost down. This site is not to tell you now to build a dragster, but it is about four ordinary people having fun and having a go at drag racing. If you are a fellow racer you may find it boring and simple. Sorry about that but we wanted it to appeal to the drag racing fan who may want to know a bit more about what we get up to and to hopefully interest new comers to the sport. But Hey there is the guest book so tell us what you think. We will keep the web site updated every week through out the year. So I hope you will be with us through thick and thin. Well until next week take care and remember, January 7th, 2003. With Christmas out of the way and the roof repaired on the workshop the van is now out of the garage where it has been stored since August 2002 and is now back in the workshop. On inspection it can be seen where the Lincolnshire population of mice have been partying! New padding for seat is now required. Well we have saved enough to get some of the internals for the engine so at least we can make a start on it. We had a lot of plans for this winter but they all were put on hold when the engine went, so we are just doing what we can. We have put a new floor in the front and altered the chassis slightly to allow for a passenger seat to be fitted and have given the van a good going over too make sure every thing is ok. Found a couple of little things that need doing. Looks like one of the seals on the half shaft is leaking so that's a job for this weekend and am also going to move the rear axle back ½ inch to give more clearance on the prop shaft. Other things that we will be doing are a new radiator as the Opel Kadet one that is in there at the moment is not quite big enough. But until the engine is back in we can't really work out the size so that will have to wait for now. The new season is fast approaching so best get on. I will update the latest news every Monday morning to let you know what we have been up to so until next week take care and remember, ^ BACK TO TOP ^ |
About Me - Everything you wanted to know about me...but were afraid to ask. Latest News - Why not see what we are up to. Race Dates - Why not come and see us in person. Van Specs - What makes me tick. Pictures - You know you want to look. Ian's Page - Blood sweat and tears. The Crew - What we get up to. Links - Sites that I think are cool. Contact Me - Click here to email me. Guestbook - Click to sign my guestbook
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