Time for a minor Minor update.
Cash flow is really an issue for us right now, and spare time's been really limited as well as I had to sort out some family issues. This update is mostly about some things that I've learned about the car, and formation of the initial plans.
Today I got one side of the car jacked up. I have to keep my other two stands in reserve for tire swaps on the autocross car, so I'm waiting for some more jack stands to be delivered. Before lifting it I took a closer look at the driver ergonomics. The halo seat that was in the car at the previous Challenge had been sold, so it came with one molded plastic seat on a homemade frame, and one fiberglass seat.
I set the molded plastic seat and frame in place on the floor and sat in the car. I'm under 6', but the roll cage bars were level with my ears (remember, the top's been chopped in front). Obviously, that wasn't going to work, and having the steering wheel directly on my thighs wasn't going to be good either. I swapped seats and set the fiberglass seat directly on the floor, and that wasn't too bad at all. It put me well under the roll cage, and the steering wheel orientation was acceptable.
I don't know about the door bars; Stampie suggested that they wouldn't pass NHRA tech, but I don't think I could get in and out of the car with a higher bar. As it is, it's very tight. I'm going to get a quick release for the steering wheel to facilitate rapid egress.
I got a look at the underside of the engine. Tripp said that the only run time on it after it was built was for the Challenge, and looking up from the bottom it sure looks it. That was good to see.
Good front shocks, that's nice.
One of the things I liked to do when I had Holly carbs was install a quick change adaptor for the vacuum secondary spring, and the lightest spring so the secondaries would tip in as early as possible. With the light weight of this car and the 3500 RPM converter, it needs the light (white) spring. Nice surprise that the modified spring housing has already been installed, and although the paint is all gone from the spring, I'm sure this is the lightest one. Scratch that off the list. Oh, and I found a fuel pressure regulator in one of the boxes, too. Noticed that the jet sizes are written on the metering blocks.
The radiator is small, and there's no fan (or shroud), and no transmission cooler; you can see the transmission lines are joined together under the front of the engine with a section of hose. Cooling is going to be an issue.
There's a couple of small auxiliary type fans in the stuff that came with the car. I'm going to look for a taurus/Mark VIII set, hopefully there's room for them behind the radiator. It's tight down there, but there's a bunch of room behind the radiator with the engine set back.
Engine set back. This is really a front-mid placement.
I'll have to figure out how to cool the transmission. It did come with a pair of small coolers, one really cheap looking one finned one and a stacked plate one that's probably OEM from something. Not sure where I'm going to mount them.
When I picked up the car, Tripp mentioned that it would probably make about 300 HP. It turns out that it has a Comp Cams XFI280 roller cam. With this cam, 10:1 compression, and the exhaust ported Vortec heads, dual plane intake, 750 carb and long tubes, I think a solid 400 HP may be possible.
Tripp forwarded me the email chain from the Comp Cams advisor, who suggested that 93 octane pump gas might not be adequate with the iron heads, so that's definitely a lot of cam.
I've bought a oil pump priming tool and some Comp Cams break-in oil additive, so after I finish raising the car, I'll dump the oil, let it drip for a day, then refill it and prime it. I'll have to install the starter, put fresh gas in the fuel cell (I hope that ethanol free 93 will be okay for just starting and running the engine), and then try to fire it.
The transmission linkage isn't right, won't shift through the whole range. Tripp said it probably needs a new cable. He also said the transmission was the weak link, so I'll have to see what's up with that. Dropping the pan will be interesting. May need (expect to need) a rebuild.
More to come, but it's going to be slow.