My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Well, my first teardown didnt go as expected. We were chosen to go to the barn Friday after class. After removing the head for Wayne (D5) and crew to inspect, the following numbers were found,

Intake runners, 137.x on a 140cc max
Exhaust runner, 57.x on a 60cc max
Combustion chamber, 55.x on a 54.9 min
Bore 3.935, stroke 3.005
.040 total deck, piston to head

Also, bore, stroke, ring height, carb, intake, wheelbase, etc all checked good. Valves were pulled and valve job and valves inspected, all also good.

Then came the camshaft. Intake checked .396 on a .399 max. The exhaust checked .405 on a .399 We rolled and checked it a couple of times, with a range of .402 to .406

I couldnt believe it. I do my own assembly and knew exactly what I had, or so I thought. Travis knew where I went wrong and told me what to check when I got home. He was right, my checking lifter is a Comp Cams solid and the plunger is well short of the height of the hydraulic Smith lifter that's in the engine, right around .100 shorter. A rookie engine assembling mistake on my part, and I take full responsiblity for my ignorance. This resulted in my DQ.

First off, I want to apologize to my son and wife for embarrasing them. I feel I let them down and I'm sorry. 2nd, I want to apologize to Tom Moock for our class runoff in Belle Rose, I am sorry for that as I hadnt changed anything since then, so it was undoubtedly wrong then also.

And, I want to thank the Tech guys for showing me respect. They were very professional and went far above showing extra patience with me, because of it being my first time. Hell, I filled out the whole teardown card not knowing most of the area was for Wayne to put his notes in. (I was just trying to help.......)

I'll see you guys at Indy with it apart for Tech to check and hopefully put this mess behind me.

Wade Owens, 3913 Stock

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade,
Dont beat yuorself up too bad. It was an honest mistake and we all make them on occasion. If you really wanted to cheat there are plenty other things you could have done. I don't know you but I do think you are a stand up guy for admitting your mistake and offering appoligies for something you really didnt know about. I would definately call your cam guy though as he should have followed your specs to begin with. Good luck with putting her back together and trust me it will be ok. See you soon at the races.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade, Sorry to hear about your DQ. The rule book says they should have checked it with a solid checking lifter with zero lash at the retainer. I'm trying to understand how different lifters will change the actual cam lift.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Different plunger heights will change the lift with a ball / stud type rocker arm (GM products for example). It won't with a fixed rocker like a mopar shaft.

Wade, the reverse is true for tech. If you have a plunger height of "X", make sure tech is the same height in relationship to the distance from the base of the lifter to where the pushrod seats, i.e., you have to know the lifter length, not just how low the pushrod cup is in relationship to the top of the lifter.
Like Floyd said, it's nothing to beat yourself up on. I would be more embarrassed if you were leaving a lot on the table with sloppy specs. The numbers you gave show you are pushing up to tolerable limits. Good, that's what makes it, not sloppiness!

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

wade, ur not the first and wont be the last. but u did the right thing in accepting techs decision and u`ll gain respect from divisions:) tech and u know ur to the better for it. this happens and dont worry about it. just fix it and go win ur next race and it will be behind u. best of luck to u and u still have the baddest 283 in the country.:)

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Jeff, so am I thinking right by saying that the taller lifter is actually slightly changing the rocker arm ratio due to the fact that the push rod would mover ever so slightly closer to the fulcrum of the rocker arm, which would increase lift?

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Darrin,
You are on to something, but it's not that simple. At the rocker arm you are dealing with 3 angles. The angle of the pushrod to the lifter. The angle of the stud and the angle of the valve stem. If you extend these angles up they will meet at some point. The trick is to get the rocker in the correct position to get the desired ratio. The rocker ratio can be altered by moving the position of the rocker up and down these angles. When you do a geometry set up you have to stick with all the components or at least their sizes/shapes. Shorten the lifter or pushrod and the back of the rocker drops. That pulls it down the angle of the stud and can roll the rounded pad of the rocker back on the valve tip. Geometry changes. Wade, don't feel bad. My worst DQ was a blessing. Right side wheelbase came up short by 1/4 inch. Lost #1 position and record...Turns out there were problems with the right front suspension. The DQ forced us to look at things. Caught it before it broke and created real problems. I will bet you will find some othere areas of your engine to improve while you have it apart fixing the geometry problems.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade, Don`t worry about class at Bell Rose, We change things on my car over the winter slowed it up 2 tens, changed back and picked up 2 tens in air not as good as Bell Rose. You are not the first to fall victim to Wayne`s tool for checking push rod and lifter length, Darrin Christen they use a adjustable solid lifter and your push rod, they make it the exact same length as your lifter and push rod you run in your motor to check valve lift. Tom

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Thanks Adger, thats exactly the way I was thinking about it. I just didn't know how to explain it.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Tom, so if you run a hydraulic lifter, do they adjust the checking lifter to match your lifter collapsed or pumped up?

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade I seriously doubt .06 lift on the cam is going to effect the ET of the car. If your stuff is fast now it will be next week. If anyone looks at you in a bad way they really need to look in the mirror.

Herb Jr

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade, I think that everyone on here will agree that you should consider this your initiation!
Welcome to the NHRA! Now you're official!

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

I found a few that were like this in my early days with IHRA. After I explaned what tech looked for and how cams were checked we had very few problems later on. Its no big deal and just fix the minor problem and go on. The lite bottom ends and doctored up heads and intakes are a far greater problem for tech to deal with. Your fellow racers and tech wont "Hang" you for it.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade,

Like the consensus says, fix the problem and move on. You're not the first to get bounced for tech. The guys I ran with in the 70's lost a class win at Indy due to a bad cam. My take, the key to something like this is what you learn from it.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

I need to throw in my 2 cents worth on this. The dial indicator must be exactly parallel to the travel of the valve to read correctly. The least error in angle will cause the indicator to read a longer path than the valve travel. It's like the long side of a triangle. You can check this on a lathe or mill with a digital readout. set the indicator a little out of line and see the difference in readings you get. Hey, Wade , you're still going to have one of the baddest stockers in the land. Don't feel bad, carry on !! Bob Michael

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Darrin, they use pumped up for length, Bob^3240 Wayne use`s a razor blade between the the spring and the retainer to place dial indicator on to check lift, last time mine was checked at Topeka. Tom

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Had the same thing happen when I set the record at Bradenton many years ago. It was with the FWD Caddy. The cam in FWD is allowed to be .430 or more if it came stock with more lift. I checked .432 on the exhaust several times. Did .002 make a performance difference? Nah, but rules are rules. Bill Holt was the guy who did the checking and schooled me in lifter, push rod, and rocker differential and gave me all the slack he could. No good! I was bounced but I learned a lot that day. Put this behind you. It happens to all of us at one time or another who compete seriously. Jim

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

In overhead cam motors sinking the valves,grinding the tips, or putting new valves in changes the measured cam lift.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade you are a true class act. Most guys would blame everybody under the sun. I know you and Alky Alex will get to work and you'll comeback scary fast.



Walt

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

The following is printed in the 2010 NHRA rulebook under Stock - Camshaft.

<"...Lift checked at valve retainer, with zero lash. Hydraulic lifter cam will be checked with pushrod and rocker as run, plus solid lifter, at zero lash. Plunger height of checking lifter will match extended height (no preload) of hydraulic lifter.">

In teardown we match the total overall height of the checking lifter to the hydraulic lifter without preload. We even have a special tool for matching the total lifter/pushrod length. We also make sure the dial indicator is operating parallel with the valve stem by lining it up in all directions.

Travis

(Disclaimer: Opinions expressed by me on this forum are exactly that, my opinions.)

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

...likewise if you were .010" under the max allowable lift (and probably more than .010"). your car wouldn't be any slower. My opinion is of all the aspects of a cam, the lift is the least critical. I know I was shy upwards of .020" shy in my D/S AMX on occasion and when I got it right I was hard pressed to tell the difference.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Something racers should keep in mind is spare rocker arms in case you break one. Here is a point that is sometimes overlooked.

You have set up your valve train for lift within the specs but you break a rocker arm. Will the rocker arm you install in place of the broken one meet the lift spec? While setting up your valve train, check a few extra rockers to keep as spares. Be sure that the spare rocker will meet the lift spec no matter which cylinder it is placed on. In teardown we may check any cylinder and that does not necessarily mean it will be #1.

Travis

(Disclaimer: Opinions expressed by me on this forum are exactly that, my opinions.)

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade, That's why its called Class Racing. You, your car, and your whole racing program displays nothing but Class. Although its unfortunate that you were found on the wrong side of the of the edge, it was an honest mistake.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Good point I am just finishing up doing my lift measurements and sure enough 1 or 2 rocker arms were .002 - .004 over the max lift. Had to do a little juggling to get everything in spec. Actually didnt think about measuring some spares, break one in eliminations you barely have enough time to change said rocker let alone measure it (been there done that)!

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Travis made a very good point about rocker arms, i was in teardown a few years ago and
just ripped the rockers off in a hurry not paying attention to where they came from and got
them mixed up, well my lift gets checked and came out exactly on to the thousandth but
the thing was .06-.008 to the good at home and i couldnt figure out why my result was any
different. now all rockers come off and get set in sequence as they vary a little.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Too bad Stock isn't ''just a bracket race''. You wouldn't have had this happen ;)

Sorry to hear about this Wade, I know you'll be back, fast as ever at the next race.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

I took a check ball out of a valvebody and layed it in the pushrod cup of the Comp solid lifter I used to set my total lift with at home. It measured 1.8035. The placed the same ball on the Smith hydraulic and it mic'd 1.954. Over .150 taller. I'll go back and shorten the close ones and we should be ready.

Thanks to everyone for the pep talk and compliments.

See you guys soon.....

Wade

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

One more thing to remember.....not all dial indicators measure the same. When I worked for the Dept. of the Navy I used to calibrate all kinds of precision tools. The standard or tolerance of a dial indicator is plus or minus .001 (one thousanth) of an inch. Some "OFF BRANDS" are allowed .002 plus or minus so use a quality brand such as Starrett or Brown and Sharp. If you check dead on at home there is always a chance you could be one over during tear down. Its best to be a few thou. under to be safe. A couple of thou wont make your run faster but it could get you DQed.
Same deal when C C'ing your chambers and runners. ALWAYS use a certified burette and rubbing alcahol with some food coloring in it and check your heads while at room temp. Hot cylinder heads could make your chambers come up a little short if your close to begin with.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

I agree with Terry on this one. Years ago with the Hemi. We worked for weeks to get everything right on. Shortening push rods, grinding valve tips, shimming rocker stands, etc. Everything was just about right on. We had to knock the oil out of the bearing with a mallet before checking the deck height.
We were lucky and never got tossed. A thousanth of an inch isn't going to make you go any quicker but it can get you tossed.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Totally agree with Terry on the burette & fluid issue. First time I tore down my Mustang in 2004, I ended up .4 of 1cc shy on combustion chamber volume. To their credit, the NHRA Tech guys let me clean any carbon from the piston top, and re measured it several times, but it kept comimg up short. Turns out the alcohol my machinest buddy used in his berette was dollar store stuff, between that, and changing the spark plug heat range, it put us under the min spec. Got disqualified, and had to leave the track without getting any money back, and had to arrive with the heads off at the next race for inspection, before being able to compete again. We just had to sink the valves a tad to get back in spec, but the embarrassment of being caught "cheatin`" was no fun at all. The teardown was entirely expected too, as we were setting a record that had been at a minimum for some time, so obviously we THOUGHT that everything was on the up & up.As Mike Carr mentioned, that never would have happened at a bracket race!

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

I remember a 283 racer of immense merit from Div.6 years ago talking about how he went through about a hundred stamped Chevy rocker arms to get the 16 that he liked.It never hurts to have an assortment of push rods of every length from .200"long through .200" short in .050" increments. It's unbelievable how much that can affect lift.Lifter plunger and pushrod cup depth can vary by .100" or more,depending on the brand of lifter,as well.A tall lifter combined with a long pushrod could affect the overall height of that part of the valve train by as much as .500" from the extreme of a deep cupped lifter and a short push rod. Try those extremes and see what happens to lift. You might even run past the design limits of the rocker arm slot to further add to the madness,mayhem,and misery,not to mention the issues in teardown.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Also it is good that the total length of the push rod and lifter to be checked are taken into consideration as Travis noted. If not, there is no assurance that the "checking" lifter seat profile and the push rod end profile from the engine fit together at the same height. The checking lifter seat I use is machined to form a conical "V"shape with a large enough radius that the pushrod cannot be deflected up through out its range of motion.

Another variable is the flatness or how parallel the retainer is around its diameter. For example: Spin the retainer around and check lift at several places and you will get different readings on some depending on the accuracy of the machining. In extreme examples, where the spring winding ends will slightly cant the retainer in that spot.

As others have stated, minus .010 lift won't affect much, however, +001 will ruin your day. So plan on cutting it as close to possible to the edge but keep it within the limits regardless of the circumstances.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

There was some really good info talked about in this thread. I'm also currious as to how temprature will affect readings during tech. Do they allow the engine to cool completely before teardown. Also, what about during fuel check, is there a certain temp. they use? Doesn't temp. affect specific gravity?

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade, hold your head up high, you're a great guy and a great racer. Some of the best professional engine builders in the game have been bitten by the exact same thing, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You and your family should be very proud of what you have managed to accomplish.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Wade -

The way you have handled this situation moves you to a position of respect in my eyes. Using a venue for communications like this forum to come forward with the facts, readily admit mistakes and errors and ask for forgiveness is exemplary for the entire Stock/SS community. It is such integrity that has built value into this form of racing that is rarely found anywhere. Believe me, there are very few if any racers who have been involved for a period of time and who have gone fast enough to get torn down multiple times who have not been caught by honest mistakes. The complexity of the machinery and the rules we race by makes the challenge formidable and the successes inspiring. We learn from every situation and build on that experience for excellence.

I have not met you, but will be honored when we do. I have followed your performance and been impressed that you can make a 283 run as fast as you do. Periodically a racer will exhibit a performance level that will grab my attention, but this situation has added respect for character to my opinion of you.

Re: My Teardown @ St Louis.....
 

Dwight, You are right that 283 run's great and Wade haves that POWER from BES Racing Engines!!!:D:D:D