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Post by seeingred on Jun 2, 2016 14:42:05 GMT -6
Well the good news is I believe my month and half long fight with the gremlin is over. It appears as if the 7AL box was the culprit. The bad news is I now have a broken engine as I had a lifter go bad. Not sure if it hurt anything until I check it out, but you never know with the lifter failure, it may not of hurt anything or it could have damaged a bunch. Well I finally made it out with the car for the 1st time since messing the engine up last year and my gremlin I chased for several weeks last year IS NOT GONE! Made a couple passes last night and the only good thing is that it seems worse now and has a pop. Not only did it have a little steady pop while under a load, but it seemed to build a little more heat than normal, so that took us back to fuel or timing. We attempted to check the timing, but it was jumping all over the place from 36-230. Never seen that before. So the good news is that I may have found what's wrong, but still need to find the issue. We unplugged the crank trigger and plugged in distributor and it does the same thing, so that eliminates the crank trigger. I believe I am going to put a new set of plug wires, a new coil on it, and new cap and rotor. We did go through and check grounds and they seem good. I will add that all of these things above I am looking to replace are all 20 years old. Clay , I've seen plug wires start having problems with less then five seasons , I had a electrode slide down and touch the ground strap after half a season and when that happened I thought it bent a valve with all the popping , banging and missing it wouldn't hardly go down the track , personally I think the hotter ignition systems like the 7al is harder on the plug wires and cap / rotors but to me the juice is worth the squeeze , that is just my Mopar opinion lol .
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Post by 338d on Jun 3, 2016 5:57:41 GMT -6
Well I finally made it out with the car for the 1st time since messing the engine up last year and my gremlin I chased for several weeks last year IS NOT GONE! Made a couple passes last night and the only good thing is that it seems worse now and has a pop. Not only did it have a little steady pop while under a load, but it seemed to build a little more heat than normal, so that took us back to fuel or timing. We attempted to check the timing, but it was jumping all over the place from 36-230. Never seen that before. So the good news is that I may have found what's wrong, but still need to find the issue. We unplugged the crank trigger and plugged in distributor and it does the same thing, so that eliminates the crank trigger. I believe I am going to put a new set of plug wires, a new coil on it, and new cap and rotor. We did go through and check grounds and they seem good. I will add that all of these things above I am looking to replace are all 20 years old. Clay , I've seen plug wires start having problems with less then five seasons , I had a electrode slide down and touch the ground strap after half a season and when that happened I thought it bent a valve with all the popping , banging and missing it wouldn't hardly go down the track , personally I think the hotter ignition systems like the 7al is harder on the plug wires and cap / rotors but to me the juice is worth the squeeze , that is just my Mopar opinion lol . I will take that Mopar opinion any day bud! Heck at these times I will listen to anyone's opinion. I do have a set of plug wires to put on tonight along with a new coil. Checked out the distributor last night and it seemed to be ok. I feel like i'm getting close, hopefully by the end of the weekend I have car that can be raced again.
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Post by 396z on Jun 3, 2016 12:10:54 GMT -6
Some more ideas I ran across just in case it's not fixed. Main power switch. I have seen these go out and cause intermittent power disruptions causing backfire, fueled plugs and more. Distributor pickup inside the distributor. Ignition coil can also cause similar issues if it goes bad. Just a few more ideas if you get stuck Clay. I know you've been battling this a while. Good luck.
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Post by bartc on Jun 3, 2016 12:17:45 GMT -6
clay
i think you should mortage the house and buy a brand new dragster
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Post by 338d on Jun 3, 2016 13:29:06 GMT -6
clay i think you should mortage the house and buy a brand new dragster The divorce would cost more than the dragster! Lol
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Post by dennismopar73 on Jun 3, 2016 19:01:39 GMT -6
clay i think you should mortage the house and buy a brand new dragster The divorce would cost more than the dragster! Lol Fuel related is a possibility?
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Post by racerone on Jun 4, 2016 5:53:12 GMT -6
I chased popping under load for 8 weeks . Replace just about everything . The dist cap rotor mag pickup wire plugs . Finally replaced whole dist pop went away . Can drive u nuts because of time money and the available track time when open . Good luck .
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Post by 338d on Jun 6, 2016 7:45:44 GMT -6
Well my timing issue ended up being nothing as after I changed everything it was still acting goofy. Went and borrowed a different timing light and all was fine, so I am back to where I originally started at a year ago, going back to fuel. I have went thru my carb 3 times, but have another carb I am putting on for Wednesday night to try. The complete distributor swap I have not tried yet either and may go that route next. Race cars suck!
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Post by dennismopar73 on Jun 7, 2016 11:25:52 GMT -6
Well my timing issue ended up being nothing as after I changed everything it was still acting goofy. Went and borrowed a different timing light and all was fine, so I am back to where I originally started at a year ago, going back to fuel. I have went thru my carb 3 times, but have another carb I am putting on for Wednesday night to try. The complete distributor swap I have not tried yet either and may go that route next. Race cars suck! May not be a carb fuel As in fuel delivery issue , looking over your post , it appears it's been with you longer than you think
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Post by 338d on Jun 7, 2016 11:37:01 GMT -6
Well my timing issue ended up being nothing as after I changed everything it was still acting goofy. Went and borrowed a different timing light and all was fine, so I am back to where I originally started at a year ago, going back to fuel. I have went thru my carb 3 times, but have another carb I am putting on for Wednesday night to try. The complete distributor swap I have not tried yet either and may go that route next. Race cars suck! May not be a carb fuel As in fuel delivery issue , looking over your post , it appears it's been with you longer than you think Yes Dennis it could be just that and I think you are correct that it was probably there longer than I believe, it just finally showed up all the way. I'm sure when I do find the issue, I won't be surprised if its something really stupid, but it has been almost 1 year now and I would love to get to race it again. Going tomorrow night to try some things before going on vacation.
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Post by 338d on Jun 27, 2016 8:01:51 GMT -6
Well, after all the wasted trips to the track, pulling my hair out, spending money, and sleepless nights, I believe the gremlin has been found! The one item through this entire process of changing parts that was the last one ended up being the culprit I believe. I had 1 bad sparkplug wire out of the 8 on the car! New wires are on and car is loaded and ready to Friday night. Won't know for sure until then, but 99% sure that was the problem. I guess it could fire at idle, but under a load it just didn't have enough and probably why it started very intermittent and slowly got worse. Thanks for all the input and feedback from everyone. Now hopefully I can go race and you guys can take turns beating me up!
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Post by racerone on Jun 27, 2016 19:03:08 GMT -6
Hope it is the problem and solved we had made to many trips to the track to get ours right . Also your still in good shape for still chasing points .
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Post by 338d on Jun 28, 2016 5:59:38 GMT -6
Hope it is the problem and solved we had made to many trips to the track to get ours right . Also your still in good shape for still chasing points . Lol! I think my points chasing for the season is out of reach missing 3 races in a row! Went from 20pts out of 1st to 184 out of 1st place. It would take one of the greatest comebacks of all time to pull it off. Oh well, I just want to go racing and have fun and we will see what happens.
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Post by 338d on Jun 30, 2016 7:23:03 GMT -6
Took the car to the track last night and the pop the car had the 1st time out this year was gone, so the plug wires fixed that, but the car still laid over going down the track. Changed carbs and it did the same thing. Put Randy's fuel pump on it and it blasted of two great runs in a row. Ran 5.752 on the 1/8 and 9.024 on the 1/4. Came back and ran 5.752 on the 1/8 and 9.023 on the 1/4. I have never had a belt drive pump fail and have actually never talked with anyone who has, but I guess they can like anything else. We had it apart twice over the last year, but never found anything wrong, so I guess I will send it in to BLP and have it gone through.
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Post by 548h on Jun 30, 2016 8:50:55 GMT -6
Took the car to the track last night and the pop the car had the 1st time out this year was gone, so the plug wires fixed that, but the car still laid over going down the track. Changed carbs and it did the same thing. Put Randy's fuel pump on it and it blasted of two great runs in a row. Ran 5.752 on the 1/8 and 9.024 on the 1/4. Came back and ran 5.752 on the 1/8 and 9.023 on the 1/4. I have never had a belt drive pump fail and have actually never talked with anyone who has, but I guess they can like anything else. We had it apart twice over the last year, but never found anything wrong, so I guess I will send it in to BLP and have it gone through. That's awesome you got it fixed. Hopefully we'll see you Friday.
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