Nopi Nationals Sept 24-25 Moroso

SlowWhite · 09-21-2005

Well looks like I'll hopefully be making my Track Deput at the Nopi Nationals this weekend.

But since I've never been to an event like this I'm not sure what to expect or what all I'm going to have to do. Anyone who's competed at one of these events can you please give me some insight as to what to expect. I know the Elite guys typically go to events like this.

**Shane@DBPerformance** · 09-21-2005

Are you going to try to compete in a heads-up class or bracket racing class? The best heads-up class for you would probably be the Sportsman Power Street class. I think you have to have full exhaust, no slicks, absolute full interior, stock steering column and turn signals, 1 power adder only, etc. Pretty much a close to stock looking car. I think they just started allowing AWDs in the Power Street class sometime this year, we saw a fast Evo wipe up the class at St. Louis. If you want to run an open exhaust, partial interior, etc, then it would be the Sportsman Turbo 4 class, but most of that class runs in the 10s. I am not sure if they run a pro tree or sportsman tree in the heads-up sportsman classes.

Make your car as legal as possible to pass tech. Make sure your battery is secure and your helmet is legal. If you don't have a cage or scattershield of or something need to run the time you might run, then just tell the tech inspectors that the car runs mid 12s, if they ask.

SlowWhite · 09-21-2005

I was told by the guys in the orlando club to run in the 1.6 turbo class. However I don't have scatter shield, or a Jacket that's SFI rated. (both according to the rules are required if you run faster then 11.99.

I'm now running 25psi, 56.6lb/min and 429g/sec with zero counts of knock on 92 oct.

I'm only going to run 92 oct since I won't have time to drive the car on 116oct so I won't be used to it. Plus until I get my car up to tech there's no point in running faster.

Shotgun! · 09-21-2005

Wow! I had no idea you were getting ready for this. Best of luck! I hope you can get some good video.

SlowWhite · 09-21-2005

I wish I could but I don't have my camera mount yet. And I can't find the camcorder battery so all I was able to do is run it off my car power converter, which means the only video I can take is from inside my car. Which wouldn't be so bad when I'm racing but I know I'm going to wanna get some video of the pro cars running. I'll have to tear apart the house tonight to look for it.

SlowWhite · 09-24-2005

Well I'm embarrased to post about my day but as I have some issues that need to be worked out I'll post about my day.

To start Brent was there but had a blown intercoolers so was only running 8@170's.
He did say he ran 7.3@190 on Tuesday when I blew. as I talked with him in the morning as I had 3hrs to kill before they opened tech/racing. was good to see a familiar face and he even remembered who I was (took him a couple seconds as he hadn't seen me with a shaved head but once I mentioned Speedwerks and Elite he knew exactly who I was.

Anyrate back to my car and my horrible day.
To start the car was running awesome on the way up there did 4 back to back pulls in 3rd to 9K with zero problems got me really pumped.

But when I got to the track I noticed smoke coming from my intake manifold? (just a little bit and as I know previously with my 7 bolt I know I'd had oil get into my intake before not sure how as I have it so that both my lines go to my catch can versus back into the intake. But none the less after 5 minutes of running the car with the fans on it went away. And didn't happen again for the rest of the day.

However. as Tech gave me a hard time when I told them I'm hoping to run mid to low 12's they gave me a hard time about if I went faster then 11.99 I would be asked to leave.

So that prompted me to run slow my first run:
so rolled off the line in typical Barton Fashion:
2.458
6.184
9.118
85.29
11.601
13.731
101.98

What was bad was 1n2nd were great but 3rd couln't go above 8Krpms car just went flat on it's face as I got close to it.

didn't make any sense so I reviewed the logs nothing out of the ordinary still seeing 55lbs/min in third at 8K (22psi I might add) Zero counts of knock.

So back off to the line this time launched at like 4500rpms (bogged it big time)
2.410
6.193
9.180
84.87
11.681
13.815
102.35

this time I reved out 1st and 2nd longer but still had the same problems in 3rd and 4th but now I couldn't go above 7800rpms. Just was really flat once it got to 6500rpms and got really choppy/back firing at 7k on up. (still 22psi, 50lbs/min)

I pulled over and reviewed logs and still no knock nothing out of the ordinary other then my timing is down to 11 where typically it's at 14.

I decided to stutterbox launch on the 3rd attempt and from here on out. I turned it on and gave it a rev when I noticed a huge puff of white smoke come out the back of the car. (great!!)

get out the car walk to the back no smoke coming out the tail pipe. Ok WTF?

Now I asked a fellow DSMR to help me had him rev the car and sure enough white smoke came out. (great blown head gasket)

Said F' it. checked the over flow tank (no bubbles level is still perfect) Checked oil (still perfect)

Head back to the lines Told the guys hell with it I'll probably going to get kicked out for smoking the starter guy. But I at least want to make 1 pass with stutter box and NLTS to see if that betters my times.

Sure enough Bogged launch at 5750rpms but down to a 2.1 ran 13.4@97mph woo hoo.

Came back to the pits the guys were like no smoke other then a little at launch. nothing while going down the track. Officials didn't say anything do me so when back to the lines. But upped my Launch RPM to 6K

Long story short - finally got my car to stop bogging when I upped the launch RPM to 7K and started running consistant 1.7 - 60's. Felt awesome out the hole. traction was insane just up and went no tire spin just off and running under boost right out the whole.

Ran 7 back to back 13.0-13.1@101mph. But every time in 2,3,4th couldn't rev past 6500rpms. car would just back fire and basically fall on it's face.

I did buy new NGK plugs and swapped them out after my 8th run. (did 16 total) - Note - my number 2 cylinder plug was completely black. the rest were a nice grey So I actually got excited once I saw that thinking oh fouled plugs.

But nope didn't change a damn thing. And to make matters worste on my last run of the day. (decided to see what happened if I turned off stutterbox)

1st gear was great pulled a 1.72 - 60' pulled hard to redline. shifted into 2nd wouldn't go passed 6500rpms shifted into 3rd when I hear this increadable bang fallowed by 4 more clunking noise's....

I immediately lock up the brakes come to a screaching halt as to not track oil down the track. The car dies as soon as I take it out of neutral so I'm thinking Blown motor... GREAT!!!

Get out Wave to the tower to send the tow truck, Pop the hood expecting to see parts everywhere, but instead what do I find parts laying all infront of my car, I'm like WTF!!! I'm stopped like 20 feet from them. Ok maybe they flew forward from under my car.

Look under the car expecting to see oil and crap everywhere. Not a single drop... ok maybe cracked axle/bad tranny. Grab hold the axles give them a shake still fine.

ATV guys shows up to give me a toe and I'm like I don't know what's going on. No oil NO coolant, but I found these 3 parts laying infront of my car and this one underneath it. I don't know what's wrong but had them tow me back to the pits so I could check it out. Called Jenny and said come get me.

Get back to the pits and check it all out. Oil level is fine Coolant level was normal. No oil leaks, no coolant anywhere. checked it over as best I could. And found nothing. So decided to start it up. I"m hell if it's blown it's blown not going to get any worste.

Started right up and idle perfect not a sound out the motor...... OK...... Must be tranny. Put it into 1st (had a noticable slop side to side in the shifter but still went right in) gave it some gas and away we went.... Ok tried reverse... no problem...

Called jenny back said ok cars running and tranny's working in 1st I'll try to limp it home.

Headed out and not a single problem on the way home. all 5 gears, boosted just fine, car was completely normal... (tested it in small incriments but slowly kept adding a little more power, etc) till finally I was doing full out pulls Still wouldn't go above 6500rpms with out falling on it's face and stuttering really bad. but still ran 22psi 50+lbs/min with no problems got it home popped the hood no bubbling, No Oil, NO Smoke.

I really don't get what the hell happened today. But sometime I'll lift the car and check it out completely. Oh and I noticed that the 2 bolts that hold the shifter cables to the tranny were almost all the way backed out. So hopefully that's my slop.

I will say this in closing Temps out side where really hot, my intake temps sometimes reached 160's, Coolant temps stayed at 200 for the most part except when I drove slow then they got up to 220 while at idle occasionally. But again when there was airflow over the radiator they went right back down to 196-200.

I have no idea what to look for for this rpm think my wires a year old with less then 4K miles on them. Spark Plugs are now Brand New. There is nothing out of the ordinary on my DSMLINK LOGs through out all of there there was little to no counts of knock.

I only wish my car would have been running at it's full potential with those 60' and more power band then 800-1200rpms would have made for and increadable day.

All and all bad but she still made it home in so far 1 piece.

**JET** · 09-24-2005

Anytime it makes it home in 1 piece you should be kinda happy

I would do a boost leak test on it. Do you have a hose clamp/zip tie on the BOV line? I have seen that happen a lot when you hit a certain boost and it blows open, which pops off the BOV.

**Shane@DBPerformance** · 09-24-2005

I would have given up after the 2nd or 3rd run. Something magical would have had to have happened to go from the 102mph you were running the 122mpg you should have been running.

EclipseGST · 09-24-2005

I had this same thing happen on my car... Do you have GM Maf and translator setup? If so, take the cover off the box and make sure its not on RPM mode. If it is and you dont have the white wire plugged into an RPM signal wire you will get a misfire in high RPMs as you described. Happened on my car, switched it back to MAF mode and it worked fine now.

SlowWhite · 09-24-2005

I'm still running the stock MAS... I have no idea what going on. The spark plugs are the same ones I had in my 7 bolt back when I last dyno'd at elite so when I pulled them and saw how different the #2 was from the rest I really thought that was going to solve my problems. But no luck. Why would my #2 be really really black and the rest be Grey?

Any suggestions on what I should look for? I logged every single run on DSMLINK if anyone needs to see them.

I did have 1 problem the other night where it pulled a check engine light for "Random Misfire" But I was supposed to disable that since I'm running the 6 bolt and CAS now. So I cleared it and turned it off. And she went back up to full power. My brother mentioned that his old GTP had two limp modes (or what ever you call it) one was where it wouldn't let you boost at all which is what happened above. And the second was where it wouldn't let him rev in the higher rpms.

Do you think Resetting the ECU might be a shot? Or am I just wishing to hard that it's something simple

**Shane@DBPerformance** · 09-25-2005

Did you set the base timing with the CAS and DSMLink?

slowbubblecar · 09-25-2005

I don't think resetting it will do much. You have dsmlink set to invert cas? It could be the wires if it is a misfire.

SlowWhite · 09-25-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by ecoli

Did you set the base timing with the CAS and DSMLink?

The only thing I did was plug in the CAS and then switched the wires on the coilpack, and turned off Random Misfire.

What do I need to do to set the base timing?

**Shane@DBPerformance** · 09-25-2005

You need to time it like a 1G. Hook up a timing light, go into DSMLink and turn on the ground timing button, and adjust the CAS so that the base timing is at 5 degrees.

SlowWhite · 09-25-2005

I'll have to go out and buy a timing light. But thanks for the help. Also I have adjustable cam gears could those possible have slipped? If so do I just line up the arrows like normal?

I think the fact that the intake temps were 160 degrees could be a big part of it. But hopefully sometime this week I'll get a chance to work on it so that I can stop speculating and actually do some investigations into it.

Also what should my ARP Head Studs be torqued to? I want to check them also.

SlowWhite · 09-25-2005

Ok just did a quick pull of the spark Plugs and a compression test.

Here is a picture of the spark plugs in order from passengerside to Driverside along with there compression. (done while motor is cold, spark and fuel disabled)

#1 - 180
#2 - 170
#3 - 190
#4 - 170

Oil level is normal, Coolant level is normal. However these spark plugs have 7 runs down the track and then 18 miles back to the house on them and look how White/Black they are.

I"m going to have to build a leak down tester.

**JET** · 09-25-2005

#2 is definately having issues. You might want to do a hot compression test on the engine to see what you get. I would also swap the plug wire to see if it is arc'ing.

slowbubblecar · 09-25-2005

wow, that is pretty shitty compression for being a new block.

SlowWhite · 09-25-2005

Jet what do you mean by swap plug wires/Arcing? Do you mean swap the wire that coincides with the spark plug that's "Black" to see if it's just that wire that's bad? or what are you talking about?

slowbubblecar · 09-26-2005

I am pretty sure he means put a new wire on that one (black) to see if the spark plug wire is causing the problem. He doesn't mean change the order.