No racing this weekend

    A combination of events will keep the Cuda Beast in its garage this weekend, instead of hitting the track at Montgomery Motorsports Park for the season's last Southern Outlaw Tour race. The Beast's torque converter is on its way to PTC for some work, as Paul said the tolerances of some important pieces are off by a few hundredths, meaning they don't fit together properly. Also, chilly weather, at least by racing standards, has settled over the South for the past several days and will run through the weekend. That means a cold track and iffy racing conditions. Finally, Paul has agreed to fill in at his church this Sunday while the pastor is out of town to conduct a revival, so he was possibly looking at getting back home in the early hours of Sunday morning, grabbing a shower and maybe a couple of hours of sleep, and getting up in the pulpit.
      So, the Beast will remain idle throughout November, and then head way south to Bradenton Motorsports Park, near Tampa-St. Petersburg, for a big three-day race the first weekend in December. Paul said it will be a 9-to 10-hour drive, but the temperatures should be fine for racing.
     With 2013 winding down, Paul had been looking east for 2014, to the Carolinas at a no-screw-blowers series, but it just announced that it will cease operations after a 10-year run, and will hold its final race this weekend. Paul said there is another Carolina series that is a possibility, and maybe some races at Lassiter Mountain. Of course, the Cuda Beast team could join the pro mod technology arms race, but that takes gobs of money and thus is not something Paul can do without major sponsorship, as he's largely financing his racing out of his own wallet.
    We'll preview the Bradenton race after Thanksgiving. Have a great one.

Huntsville recap: Unhappy on the starting line

   The Cuda Beast's timing controller had bad timing in more ways than one at Huntsville last weekend. Paul and the Cuda Beast team headed to the Rocket City full of optimism, with the engine at full strength and backfiring problems likely solved. But the first test pass revealed that the timing controller, added when the Beast switched from a clutch setup to an automatic for this year, was not working. Paul said today he had been suspicious of it for a while, but Saturday, the suspicion was confirmed.
   The 4 seconds or so of a run are sliced and diced into intervals of tenths of seconds by the timing controller -- pulling timing out of the engine at the start to get the car off the line, and putting it back in at various levels for the rest of the run (that's my layman's understanding of it; hope it's reasonably accurate). It's hard to imagine that such tiny changes, happening so quickly, could have such big effects, but they do. Paul's controller wouldn't pull timing out at the start, so the Beast blazed the tires at the start, killing any chance of a decent pass.
    With the controller not working, Paul took a guess at the timing to get the car off the line -- timing it would have for the entire pass. No luck. The team passed up the first round of qualifying, readjusted the timing and went out for round two and blew the tires. They dropped the timing again for the third round, but again the Beast killed the tires.
    Saturday's racing wrapped up fairly early, so Paul said he set about trying to find someone who had a spare controller like his, an "8973."  In asking around, Paul said he found out that 8973s had fallen out of favor, and a new and less-expensive device, called a "grid," was now in wide use. A fellow at Huntsville had a rolling chassis for sale that had a grid, and he let Paul borrow it for the Beast. After church Sunday, Paul and the Beast went out for the final qualifying round with the grid, and took a stab at the timing, the lowest Paul said he has ever used at the start. The Beast spun the tires all the way to a 4.39, and the same went on in the second-chance race. Paul bought the grid controller, and is now looking to Montgomery in a couple of weeks.
     Paul said he talked with the mechanic for another team, who said Paul needed to consider one of two factors to get the car launched: blower boost or backing the timing off. Paul said he now has a boost graph to look at that is a picture of the boost for an entire run. He said he's inclined to leave the boost alone, and concentrate on the timing to get the car off the line. "We're not shaking the tires. We're spinning them," he said. "We have a mountain of torque -- we've got to harness it."
    So, Paul plans to hit the track at Montgomery as soon as it's ready, to get at least a couple of test runs before qualifying starts. If the Beast responds and hits its potential, somewhere in the high 3's, that meet will wrap the season. If the right combo is still elusive, Paul says they'll look for other races. "We'll go to Florida if we have to. We'd like to end in the 3.90s, and know where we are going into the next year."
    We'll be back in a couple of weeks to set up the Montgomery race.    
    

Back on track: Huntsville

   Car and driver are back in good health, mechanically and physically, so the Cuda Beast and Paul Gibbs are on the way to Huntsville this weekend for a Quick 8 shootout. Paul got a final check of his back yesterday and says he's feeling good, and he's optimistic that for the first time in a long time, the Beast's problems with backfiring are under control. After brainstorming with fellow racers, Paul believes a change from a less-expensive spark plug and the addition of a crank trigger to better control timing are the essential pieces of the puzzle.  He rues the false savings of the cheaper plugs: "We've lost a lot of money and chances at winning because of backfiring."
    The engine has been rebuilt, including a new No. 8 piston and new head gaskets to provide a bit more relief. It's basically the setup Paul was going to take to Orangeburg, S.C., last month for a race, before his back went out. That race was won with 3.9-4.0 times (screw blowers are banned), easily in the Beast's capability. That Carolina series, the Quick 8 Outlaws, could be where Paul races next season.
    But it's Huntsville this weekend, site of the Beast's last outing, which produced the best run of the year despite the backfiring and its related problems. The schedule on the flier above has been changed: There will be three rounds of qualifying on Saturday, starting at noon, with a fourth round on Sunday morning, and then eliminations at noon -- good, Paul says, as the nights now are getting too cold and too damp for safe racing. He passed on racing there last year at this time for those reasons.
    Not sure if Brian C. of promodifieds.us will be able to attend any of the racing, but check that site anyway, as information does tend to get out through other folks.

Orangeburg off

     Usually, it's a problem with the car that keeps it from racing. In this case, it's the other essential part of the equation: the driver. Paul Gibbs says he has had back problems off and on since his 20s, and on Monday it went out big time. When I talked with him Thursday, he was confident that the worst of it was over, and that he would be pretty much back to normal in a few days. He's getting more treatments for it today and tomorrow. So, no trip to Orangeburg this weekend, which would have been an interesting race from a competition standpoint (no screw blowers) and history (a return to the track where the Beast crashed and came close to burning up a couple of years ago).
    Meanwhile, Paul has been talking a lot with other pro mod folks about how they've dealt with backfiring problems, and will try a new tack: different spark plugs. These are NGK plugs Paul ran years ago; they cost $7 each, and are replaced after each run. Paul switched to a less expensive NGK plug (about $2) that offered the same performance. But the design is different, and another racer said that design can lead to backfiring. Paul remembered that the Beast never backfired on the more expensive plugs, so they are going back in. With this move, Paul said he won't change his valve spring pressure.
    When his back gets better, Paul will be back in the shop to replace a piston in the Beast's hemi (likely connected to the backfiring problem) and install a device called a crank trigger that is designed to keep the engine's timing more consistent during a run.
    So, if all goes well, car and driver will be healthy, and the Beast will be back at Huntsville in a couple of weeks. The last race there produced the best run of the year, but the Beast should be in position to better that, and maybe break into the 3's.

Huntsville recap, and a weekend off

   

    Last weekend's race at Huntsville was a pretty good one for the Cuda Beast in terms of performance and knowledge gained. Paul ran a 4.17, a season's best, to take seventh in a tough 8-car field that had the fastest cars running 3.70. He went out in the first round against the No. 2 qualifier and blew a burst panel at the finish line.
    Some of the times for the weekend were definitely suspicious, but the track assured Paul that his 4.17 was good, and Paul said he could really feel the G-forces in the driver's seat. Most interesting was a 60-foot .095, which is essential to sub-4 times. But 100-150 feet out, the tires smoked just a bit, and the Beast then hazed the tires the rest of the run, leaving two black strips down the track. So, a 4.17 with the tires not fully hooked up for most of the run was definitely encouraging.
    The blown burst panel brought back the backfiring problem that Paul had hoped he had solved with a new distributor cap. This latest episode got him to thinking about what happens deep inside the engine. He said he's never run a lot of valve spring pressure to keep from breaking parts, but the backfiring indicates that valves aren't fully closed when they should be. Plus, blower boost acts to reduce the actual valve spring pressure. After discussing the situation with his valve spring supplier, Paul said he's going to bump up the valve spring pressure for the next race.
    About the next race, Paul had this weekend's SOT event at Montgomery on the calendar, but he's passing (and weather may cancel it, anyway) it up to work on the engine and get ready for a race next weekend at Orangeburg, S.C. The engine passed a leak-down test after the latest backfire, but Paul says oil from the No. 8 cylinder indicates a ring problem, so No. 8 is getting a new piston and rings this weekend.
    Returning to Orangeburg after a couple of years brings up memories of a crash and fire, but Paul says that's all just history. The appeal of the race is that no screw blowers are allowed, which levels the racing field. More and more ADRL-spec cars are turning up at the races the Beast attends now, which means its 3.90s capability would still not be competitive. Though the payout at Orangeburg isn't as much, the chance to win it is much better without screw cars in the field.
    In fact, racing in the Carolinas next year is a definite possibility because of the ban on screws. Paul says he would be ready to go to a screw setup, but that would require sponsorship, which he doesn't have. We'll preview Orangeburg next week.        

Goin' back to Huntsville, Huntsville, Huntsville . . .

      Not exactly the same effect of the old Dean Martin lyric, but Paul and the Cuda Beast team are hoping for big hits this weekend at the Bama Nationals. The last outing for the Beast was also Huntsville, where it eked into the field and lost in the first round to top qualifier/track record holder/eventual winner Dwayne Watkins. At that race, the Beast was basically running as a six-cylinder, as Paul found blown head gaskets in a postrace engine check, with two cylinders leaking badly.
     All that has been fixed, and a backfiring problem has also been dealt with by a new, extra large distributor cap. With all of those factors cleared up, the Beast will run with its current torque converter setup to see how it takes the healthy engine. Paul said the team will arrive today and set up, and hopes to make a couple of test passes Saturday afternoon, before the evening qualifying sessions. Paul said he hopes to hit the track soon after it opens for testing and a few cars go down.
    This race is an eight-car field, and has drawn some criticism for its scheduling across two days, qualifying Saturday evening and racing on Sunday afternoon. There have been indications that some racers may pass this one up, so it's hard to say how large and tough the field will be. I'm not sure what the coverage will be online, but check the message board at www.promodifieds,us , and if I hear anything from Paul, I'll try to pass it along. Next weekend will be Montgomery and the Southern Outlaw Tour. Safe, fast racing for all.

Good hunch

    Computers are a huge help to drag racers, giving them a complete picture of the performance of all the systems on a race car during a run down the track. However, seat-of-the-pants intuition remains essential.
    As the Cuda Beast's lagging 60-foot times pointed to the need for a different torque converter configuration, Paul also suspected from the driver's seat that the engine seemed weak. Last weekend, Paul decided to perform a leakdown test on the motor, and found that cylinders 1 and 8 were leaking, 8 especially. Paul said normal leakdown on his motor is no more than 6-7 percent; cylinder 8 was 35 percent, enough that air could be heard and felt. That indicated a blown head gasket -- detected early enough that the Beast dodged damage to the head and/or block that would have ended the season. Paul had new head gaskets on hand, and at the end of a long day in the shop, the Beast's hemi passed a new leakdown test with flying colors.
    Still, the Beast will have new computer info available at the next race, back at Huntsville, with a new device that will give a readout on engine boost for the entire run. Also, the fuel management system will be all in for the race. "We're going to throw everything we've got at it, all the technology we've invested in," he said. If all the pieces fall into place in the next few races and the Beast starts to meet its potential consistently -- 3.90s and even high 3.80s -- Paul said he would be likely to keep his roots blower setup and forgo a switch to a costly screw blower. Nailing the torque converter configuration will yield big gains. The Beast had .098 60-foot times with its old clutch setup; Paul said the converter should drop that to .094 or better.
    The schedule is Huntsville and Montgomery this month and next month, for a total of four races to wind up the season.