On May 27th and 28th, the Terrain Trippers held their 16th Annual Memorial Day Classic in Brighton, Colorado. This was also a 3 day weekend, and a convenient time for me to cruise down to Denver and take posession of the new engine for my race Scout II "Little Devil".
During RMIHR 1999, I had slow-cooked my poor 75k mile '72 304A the entire way to Denver, and ended up swapping in a running 345 just to get home. John Comer and I had been talking about having him build me a "race engine" for a while, but (at least in my mind) it was always "in a while." Since I left John with a 304 core, and then returned home to blow up the last running 304 I owned in the race truck, coupled with a bonus at work in February (right after I killed the 3rd 304) all combined to result in having the Need, the Parts, and the Money to have a proper racing engine built.
We started to make plans on how and when I was to go about taking posession of this latest Comer masterpiece. Memorial Day just happened to work out as a relatively convenient time to make the exchange. There was a mild race in Denver that weekend (Terrain Trippers) to break the engine in, and a Monday to drive home on, and I would have John Comer on hand for initial dialing in of the engine.
I removed the battered 304 from the race truck and dropped in a pre-IC 392 core I had purchased from the junkyard to give to John. On Wednesday after work, I hitched the racer up, and Michelle n' I headed for Denver in Tigger, flat-towing Little Devil.
We stopped in Columbus, MT that night, then continued on the road the next day. As I rolled into Sheridan, WY I noticed Tigger's new 345 was surging a bit, and as I pulled off at The Rock Stop, the engine died in the intersection before I could turn left up the road into the gas station parking lot. I popped the hood and found gasoline oozing from my carb onto the hot intake manifold! Yikes! For a moment I tried to adjust the float a time or two, but was met with gasoline just pouring out of the sight plug, causing an even bigger fire risk.
I marched back to Little Devil, and reached into one of the boxes of parts I had brought along - a Holley 2300 2bbl I was returning to John Comer - and replaced my 2300 2bbl with John's in the middle of the intersection, dropped the hood on the just-a-little-too-tall air filter stud and put a dimple in my hood, then drove to the Rock Stop.
Back on the road with a functional carb, we stopped again in Wheatland, CO to top off the fuel tank for the drive to Cheyenne and to reattach the speedometer cable which had popped loose. I called John and told him where I was, and when I was expecting to arrive.
Not 15 minutes later, I was climbing a grade, and had down shifted into 3rd gear (wide T19, 4.10s, 33s) and proudly watched the tachometer climb up to 4,000rpm. I considered shifting, but concluded my new "built" 345 would gleefully handle 4000rpm for a few moments longer. So there, at 50mph as I neared the crest of a hill, I heard a loud BANG and then a sound similar to an exhaust leak. I think Michelle's face turned white with dread. Not just that we might be stranded, but there was a $2000+ engine with a mere 4,030 miles on it that I'd spent a winter building that just made a terrible BANG and continued to make Very Bad Noises.
We pulled off immediately - there just happened to be an exit at the top of the hill.
I let the engine idle for a moment while I popped the hood and listened. I begain immediately to wonder, "Maybe I bent a pushrod or broke a rocker arm.. something easy, something small.". I narrowed the noise down to just a tapping on the passenger valve cover.
We shut the engine off, and I proceeded to remove the air conditioning compressor before pulling the valve cover from the very hot engine (I had traveled over 400 miles that day).
With the valve cover triumphantly set aside, I surveyed the damage. Yup. One bent push rod that was popped off its rocker arm. I used Michelle's cell-phone to call John Comer and ask what I needed to do. While on the phone I exclaimed, "Oh, wait, there's a broken rocker arm, too!". And with a moment of John's counseling, we determined a couse of action.
I walked back to Little Devil and tipped the tilting front clip forward to expose the 392 core. Off came the valve cover, and the rocker shaft and pushrod assemblies were removed. Then the rocker shaft from Tigger's 4,030 mile 345 was removed. I replaced the broken exhaust valve rocker and the corresponding intake rocker with parts robbed from the 392, then reinstalled the rocker shaft with two pushrods from the 392, replaced the valve cover, and left the air compressor off. This sounds so easy to do now after having done it a few times, but the first time took well over an hour, if not two, and the engine was certainly hot.
With things back together, I headed for Cheyenne and Denver once again, stopping in Cheyenne to gas up and call John to let him know we were on the road again. I was leery of running the engine over even 3500rpm after that.
Finally, around 9 or 9:30pm, I drove into the parking lot of Gryphin Racing / Gryphin Automotive Services relieved to see John Comer and Jimmy Donahue (III) waiting for me.
We unhitched Little Devil and pushed it inside the stall and closed the door, grabbed our suitcases n' such from Devil and stowed 'em in Tigger, and I then followed John back to his home and a waiting hide-a-bed.
Knowing John is an early riser, I woke early and waited to hear him ready to leave. I dunno if I just didn't hear him, or if he was up really early, but Comer was long gone when I rose. I pulled on some work clothes, said "Good Morning" to Pansy, "See you later" to Michelle, and retraced my steps back to the Gryphin Racing shop.
John had already delivered my intake manifold to the machine shop to have it milled slightly - it didn't line up with the heads on the new 304 after the milling was done to bump up compression. That was the last item we needed to put the new engine together.
We started off by lifting the front clip off, then yanking the 392 core and pressure washing the entire engine bay of Devil. We then retrieved the intake manifold, and set about putting the little 304 into its new home.
Just after 5pm, the motor was in, the 350cfm 2bbl Holley installed, and we were ready to fire it for the first time. Wow, what a sound! The 10.25:1 304 crackled to ear-splitting life through the open 4-1 Stan's Headers. I'm sure the grin on my face was HUGE.
A quick jaunt around the complex, and we were ready to tidy up the rest of the install.
We put some 31x10.50 Mickey Thompson Baja Belted HPs on 15x7 aluminum wheels on that I purchased from Jim Donahue. We rigged up the neutral safety switch, and finished up for the night around 12am.
Saturday morning we went to start Devil to back it off the lift, and had NOTHING. The neutral safety switch had failed in the middle of the night. Several attempts were made before we had it working again - resulting in a few hour delay no one really liked.
Finally we had everything loaded up. Gryphin, Banshee, Devil being towed behind Argus, Troll, and Tigger and our IH motorcade headed for Brighton.
We were greeted by our IH Comrades at the race - Mark and Kathy Korsten and Will Marsh were waiting our arrival. Will n' Mark pitched in immediately to help me unload Devil (which doubles as a trailer when I'm flat-towing).
Finally I made my way over to register for the day's fun.
| Tom Potato Race - 128k - 2.3Mb | Larger Version - 16.8M |
After the potato race, we did the Sir Lancelot race, which involves "spearing" loops hung from poles while you drive around in a circle for time. Didn't get any video of that.
Then we moved on to the "Dogbone Racing" or "Ice Racing in the Dirt". Yippee!
I still need to learn to slide Devil's rear end a little around the turns, but it was always a fun attempt with my new motor that was loud and had some pep to it!
| Jen Dogbone - 128K - 668K | Larger version - 4.8M |
| Mark Korsten - 128k - 794K | Larger version - 5.7M |
We also ran the Belt n' Boogie races. Here, you start opposite each other, drive 1/4 lap and the passenger has to retrieve a ring from a hanging pole. Drive another 1/4 lap and the passenger bails out to retrieve another belt from an orange cone in the center of the track. Make another 1/4 lap and the passenger places one of the belts onto the hanging pole, and finish your lap with the driver bailing out to "horshoe toss" the remaining belt onto a horeshoe stake.
| Tom BeltnBoogie - 128k - 3.4M | Larger Version - 25.5M |
I didn't MPEG all of the belt n' boogie races. As you might imagine, I was awfully tired after just the first race - it was 95 cegrees or so and not a spot of shade.
Here's the new motor, as I back out to make another belt n' boogie race:
| Backing Out - 128k - 164K | Larger Version - 1.1M |
Ultimately, I won second place (I think) in the belt n' boogie.
Unfortunately, I caught just the tail end of John Comer's run in the Belt n' Boogie (camera was acting up):
| The Toss - 128k - 242K | Larger Version - 1.7M |
I did get his second go 'round though.
| MrC BeltnBoogie - 128k - 982Kb | Larger Version - 7.1M |
While Mr.C was hard at work at the end of the day:
On Sunday they ran the drag races. Will and Mark faced off early on:
| Will v Mark - 128k - 416k | Larger version - 3Mb |
I was eliminated in the first round:
| Devil Draggin' - 128k - 502K | Larger version - 3.6M |
I did manage to get the jump on one Jeep though...
John and Pansy had some fun in their rigs though. Ultimately, John Comer took both first and second place, after elminating himself!
| MrC in Banshee - 128k -202k | Larger version - 1.4M |
| MrC in Banshee2 - 128k -344k | Larger version - 2.4M |
| MrC in Gryphin - 128k -218k | Larger version - 1.5M |
| Pansy - 128k -212k | Larger version - 1.5M |
| Gryph vs. an EB! - 128k -202k | Larger version - 1.4M |
| Inexperienced driver rolled a Jeep!! - 128k -780k | Larger version - 5.6M |
We paused to take a group photo or two of the Super Scout Specialists Racing Team
With the weekend's racing coming to an end, we collected our prize money and packed things up. Michelle n' I left Brighton and headed straight for home. We stopped in Douglas, WY for the night without any incident. We continued on for home the next day - again, without incident. The drive home was much less eventful than the trip down!
Tom
Race Reports
Copyright 2000, Tom Mandera