The Cart Before the Horse: Spec 3 Build

[Senor_Taylor]

Well... it happened AGAIN.

Junk yard motor was amazing until it wasn't. Battled some issues with the cooling system to start the day, but got it sorted and ran a new Personal Best by 2 full seconds (consistently) and qualified 5th out of 15 drivers for the Friday race. My mirror fell off during the race, but I ended up in 4th place with the 3rd place guy in my sights and running similar times, then with 2 or 3 laps left... I dropped a valve.

Lesson learned? Replace valve retainers on these cars before anything else. I've got some horrible luck (no one else has seen a failure rate like I have), but also that's on me for slapping a junkyard motor in all willy-nilly like that.

I picked up a built head from a fellow racer, but the head is undocumented, meaning I don't know for sure what was done except valve seals, and 14 new valves. I'm 80% certain the valve retainers were replaced, but I'm not sure I want to chance it. Depending on when parts get here, I may try to have everything back together for an even I'm instructing at next Thursday. Fingers crossed.