Challenger Drag Pak Owners

[DonatoEng]

Big's Challenger is getting some updates and he is planning to run it more.
There are several more Challengers that will be running soon.

[Stewart Way]

Chris
The cert requirement is not 9.99 in SS. It is SS/A thru SS/I and GTA thru GTG, stick and auto AND any car running 9.99 or quicker. If you think you may ever want to run SS at an NHRA event where stock is not being contested you will need a chassis cert.
Strange as it sounds, take your car and put the 5.7 in it and enter SS/IA and run the 10.70 index and need a cage but run 9.70 with the 6.1 in A/SA and no cage needed. Your 6.1 in SS/EA has a 10.35 index so running SS should be no problem but you will need a chassis sticker.
Let me know when your back in ATL.

[Chris "drooze" Wertman]

Thanks.....Thats all Clear as Mud...lol...

Back home in Ohio with a touch of pneumonia.....couple days of nuclear antibiotics I should be alive again.....

Originally Posted by Stewart Way

Chris
The cert requirement is not 9.99 in SS. It is SS/A thru SS/I and GTA thru GTG, stick and auto AND any car running 9.99 or quicker. If you think you may ever want to run SS at an NHRA event where stock is not being contested you will need a chassis cert.
Strange as it sounds, take your car and put the 5.7 in it and enter SS/IA and run the 10.70 index and need a cage but run 9.70 with the 6.1 in A/SA and no cage needed. Your 6.1 in SS/EA has a 10.35 index so running SS should be no problem but you will need a chassis sticker.
Let me know when your back in ATL.

[davidhuff]

Originally Posted by drooze

Thanks.....Thats all Clear as Mud...lol...

Back home in Ohio with a touch of pneumonia.....couple days of nuclear antibiotics I should be alive again.....

WOW,you are having a tough time getting your new car to the track.Hope you get well soon!

[Chris "drooze" Wertman]

Originally Posted by davidhuff

WOW,you are having a tough time getting your new car to the track.Hope you get well soon!

Eh sometimes its like that, Ive changed about 6 things for a better option, either now or later.....

Tapped a valve yesterday cant get a new one in or other heads I have done till monday. (Im having a Ford Prostock guy do my heads Ironic eh....(and NO no cutting to the castings, 0 none....lol) No biggie like a .005 bang, I just dont have an abundance of spares yet. It could be cut straight if it was an intake Id consider it, but not an exhaust. looks like a tight guide and a bit of stem warpage hung it full open and a back smack , piston all good, and just a hair of a bend, we found it while doing a CR check and leakdown test through the tuning process. for a baseline. 3rd check I think

There have been 2 times we "could" have tracked it, but when it does I want no gremilins....none....so either now or later.....

All in all taking a car from bare chassis to finished in 3 months dosent seem too bad.....I dono....never done any other stockers, paint wiring, plumbing, everything just me and the old man...(most of Jan was off because of his and my sons hospital stays) 3 months would be good for a pair of bikes (I always do those in pairs an A and a B bike....usually the B bike ends up faster....go figure) Next time I do a stocker Im going to do it the same was 2 at a time.

Im not discouraged and too stupid to get that way , a little annoyed at myself for getting sick and slowing the pace, but what I have dropped down in the last 5 days or so the old man has taken up and then some, hes a machine......

Car is "offline" monday and early tuesday for its "Wrap anyway" so at least something is getting done.

I may add a second battery as well once I get her back on the scales on Tue, Ive got the weight to spare and I could use the juice for our electronics package.

Well see.....

[Wayne Kerr]

[QUOTE=drooze;170344]Thanks.....Thats all Clear as Mud...lol...

" also, just quite accidently, saw something I dont think I was supposed to...but it has me wondering, it was his and it was for his DP car.....a very very interesting piece for certain. (It also had his name on it and when I asked , the pretty obvious it was "nervously" confirmed, and my statment was yeah, theyre pretty much like ours, only to be asked........are they like x and y.....my answer was ? I dono, I never had it outta the box.....didnt need to And thats the truth, it turns out its different, same manufacturer different"

Help me out here about the "clear as mud" thing. I'm confused.

See you at the races,
Wayne Kerr

[Chris "drooze" Wertman]

Touche...

But in Stewarts comment, it made sense I just am to sick to process it.

In my comment it was "sortof intentionally" garbled



[QUOTE=Wayne Kerr;170356]

Originally Posted by drooze

Thanks.....Thats all Clear as Mud...lol...

" also, just quite accidently, saw something I dont think I was supposed to...but it has me wondering, it was his and it was for his DP car.....a very very interesting piece for certain. (It also had his name on it and when I asked , the pretty obvious it was "nervously" confirmed, and my statment was yeah, theyre pretty much like ours, only to be asked........are they like x and y.....my answer was ? I dono, I never had it outta the box.....didnt need to And thats the truth, it turns out its different, same manufacturer different"

Help me out here about the "clear as mud" thing. I'm confused.

See you at the races,
Wayne Kerr

[Rich Biebel]

Quote from Mr Drooze....

"Tapped a valve yesterday cant get a new one in or other heads I have done till monday. (Im having a Ford Prostock guy do my heads Ironic eh....(and NO no cutting to the castings, 0 none....lol) No biggie like a .005 bang, I just dont have an abundance of spares yet. It could be cut straight if it was an intake Id consider it, but not an exhaust. looks like a tight guide and a bit of stem warpage hung it full open and a back smack , piston all good, and just a hair of a bend, we found it while doing a CR check and leakdown test through the tuning process. for a baseline. 3rd check I think"


So just let me get this correct......this is your second engine..........It came from a proffessional engine shop or builder and now it has a bent exhaust valve after some test running? You are guessing it came from a tight guide or a valve stem that was warped? The heads are off and your getting it fixed.......

Race engines generally have some type of bronze guides and they rarely seize. Steel or iron guides also work but the clearance needs to right and seals might not be used by some to allow some oil in there. Exhaust need to be looser from the heat........If one valve did it what makes you think it won't happen again on another one.....If a valve seized or started to drag even momentarily it will almost cetainly have some discoloration or metal transfer on the stem........Bottom line is if your valves hit your pistons your going to be hurting another engine.....


As far as Chassis Certs and various rules.....

Stockers don't need some things even bracket cars do going strictly by ET's the car runs. It's a foolish way to write the rules. If you go to your local track just to make some runs during a bracket race...you will need to meet the rules by your ET's for bracket racing.....

So even though your car may run in th 9's and not need a sticker to race in Stock at an NHRA race.

If you do that at your local track you will need to meet all the rules to run in the 9's
Chassis cert. safety gear and a license.....

[Chris "drooze" Wertman]

So just let me get this correct......this is your second engine..........It came from a proffessional engine shop or builder and now it has a bent exhaust valve after some test running? You are guessing it came from a tight guide or a valve stem that was warped? The heads are off and your getting it fixed.......

Sort of I see there being 3 possibly 4 distinct possibilities, and I will leave it to the "head guy" to make a call depending on what he sees on dissasembely.

But in general Correct, in these engines according to that SAME builder these valves are prone to warpage, dont forget he didnt spec em Mopar did.

Race engines generally have some type of bronze guides and they rarely seize. Steel or iron guides also work but the clearance needs to right and seals might not be used by some to allow some oil in there. Exhaust need to be looser from the heat........If one valve did it what makes you think it won't happen again on another one.....If a valve seized or started to drag even momentarily it will almost cetainly have some discoloration or metal transfer on the stem........Bottom line is if your valves hit your pistons your going to be hurting another engine

Its a "Possiblity" egt's were good so only an abnormal warpage would have caused it , and hence limited it to 1 valve.

There are 2 other blatant possiblities that could cause only 1 valve to tap (note all our runs were under 6800 at this point so.....) that not it .....

There are very tight clearance issues on the exhaust rockers and the retainers.....its possible there was a momentary "tip up" of a retainer causing a lock condition , the geomoetry on these engines if youre familiar with them would easily cause this hang. We have now a solution to that as well and some cut and scalloped reataniers that drop down another 20 thou, as well as offset locks to move the entire set down, and I can just hit my desired (and Stanton confirmed with MY Valve springs at his facility) a 1.750 installed height, Our springs have a higher rate and pressure than anything else available for this engine, over 460 on the rate... that too was a suprise to him I think, as well as smaller core diamater and Overall diamater which should lend nicley to high rpm stability.

The 3rd possibility is that , and its unlikley that there was a clearance issue, but your right, the bronze alloy thats used would be VERY unlikley to seize.

There is also a possiblity and it was a hair on the tight side .015 total gap on the shim on that rocker, I guess I can open those up to .010 each but....well that seems sloppy to me, then again this engine isnt going to be turning 15k rpm for an hour at a time either like the other engines I usually play with (yeah the bike crap)

The heads are in no way shape or form "race ready" Stanton SPECIFICALLY dosent do any valve or seat work to them, why ? Because everyone wants em their way. The valves look like "Diesel" valve profiles from a WWII generator especially the Intakes.....they are RedLine valves....but well nothing is done to them.

So our head guy reffrered to us by a very knowledgable SS/AH guy who frequests here, well, the guy knows his stuff, I wont second guess his ability. So that leaves a simple solutu

If you think or have any concept that these engines are "ready to race" feel free to call Gary Stanton himself and ask......far from it. That was a problem , communications, we were led to believe that apparently a miscommunication.

Well be good, it takes what it takes....

Do you have ANY other expanation of what could have caused a "FULL OPEN" hang that was non damaging on the valve return and obviously not recurrent ? Only left scuffing a light tip on the valve pocket of the piston , on an engine that never made it over 6800 rpm on these pulls

I see those 3 or 4 options and I subscribe to the Occams Razor principal "If you have two theories that both explain the observed facts, then you should use the simplest until more evidence comes along"

That being said, I am very open to any constructive insight of what could have caused this pnenomema to occur under said conditions.

Cheers

Chris

[Rich Biebel]

If the rockers hit the retainers and not the valve tips it will usually cause you to drop a valve from the locks coming loose. It generally does not cause a valve to "hang up". The only instance of valves "hanging up" I have ever seen is from guides that were too tight or over heated and lost lubrication.

Stockers often run some very close P-V clearances and it sounds like you need to be checking this. I would assume these engines have roller cams and I have no clue as to what a redline might be for one. 6800 sounds pretty low for most modern Stockers with the parts that are out there today. If it does have hyd. roller lifters I would assume something else is limiting it's rpm capability.

I am not familair with any of these engines or the valvetrain layout.
Warped valve stems is a new term to me....
Of course with the questionable quality of the parts out there today anything is possible I suppose.......

Your valvetrain is your most critical area in most any race engine and that has always been my view......You break something on top and it often leads to catastrophic failure.....