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.................-- Hooley's 2007 Bonneville Experience --
........................Heartbreak on Day One -- A Lot of Work
...........................Qualified for a record -- More Reality
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Sorry, but this picture is of the car and crew for 2006. In 2007 we got so busy we didn't have time to do a car/crew picture. A number of these people where also on the crew in '07. 2006 974 crew with Loyd "Hooley" Huffman on the left and then to the right, Sumner Patterson, Sam Woodard, Charlie Gould, Jerry Pace, Mark Maupin, Frank Kocinski, Scot Darling, Keenan Willbanks, Ken Tindall, Gerald Chrisman, Patrick Melson, Benny Rhoads, John Kimbrough, Jim Rivers and George Hakes.
Note: Unless otherwise stated all of the pictures below were taken by Jim Rivers. Thanks Jim.
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.............................................................( photo by author )
Speed Week started for some of us the Monday before with the annual get-together at my place in Blanding, UT for hikes and a barbecue the night before leaving for the salt. If you are only into racing you might want to skip down the page a ways.
Sunday night 11 Canadians from the 1149 car showed up at the motel across the street. They were the Siewerts,
Don & Marilyn and their sons and their families ages 5 to about 75. We went out Monday to an Anasazi ruin called
Lewis Lodge located on the ledge in the picture. This is a pretty good hike from a 4 wheel drive road and everyone
in the group made it. I was impressed.
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.............................................................( photo by author
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Since you probably couldn't make out the ruins in the last view here is a close-up. The .....
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.............................................................( photo by author )
.........ruins go for probably a 1/4 mile along the ledge. Here is Rob Siewert's three girls, Gina, Kayle
and Morgan. They made the whole trip under their own power. I think they make those Canadian kids tuffer than what
is being turned out south of the border in the good old US of A.
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By Tuesday the group had enlarged by another 6-7 more people and we went to a ruin called Peninsula house and
it is on the side of that large rock out on that peninsula. This was a pretty long hike and the temp was probably
in the 90's compared to the 80's the day before.
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The ruin on the rock. This has not been restored and is at least 700-800 years old. What will your house
look like 700 years from now??
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By Wed. the group had now grown to over 20 people and we went to another couple ruins up a shorter canyon, this
being the first one.
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The second set of ruins were located in two large semi-connected caves.
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Wed. night we had the barbecue and Rob Siewert (back to camera) fixed a great dinner that featured pork loin
and chicken. There were about 25 very happy people sitting around and eating. You can also see we had Hooley's
stude in my shop doing a couple last minute things to it. We stored the 800 lbs. of weight at my place last year
and we put it up on the lift and put the weight back in. Thanks for coming everyone.
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We left the next morning (Thurs.) about 6:30 for the salt. We always stop in Moab, UT for breakfast at the Main
Street Diner, great food at good prices. The trailer is pretty overloaded and that proved to be a problem later.
The new paint job on the trailer courtesy of Darryl Ward looked great.
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Arriving at the salt this was the condition of getting onto the salt from the end of the pavement we faced during the week. Sometimes it would be deeper and sometimes shallower, but always some water. But what the heck at least we were racing. Usually when there is this much water at the end of the road forget racing. SCTA found some dry salt for us. Thanks guys!!!
The picture above was taken as the engine died from sucking in water. he was LUCKY to get it restarted without hydro-locking it.
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..........................................................( Picture by George Hakes)
I had water inside of my teardrop on a couple trips across the lake, but only on the floor.
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This was home for 8 days. This picture was taken later in the week when some of our neighbors had already broken and headed home.
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There were a few changes to the car from 2006 with the hopes of getting our speed up from our 241 mph exit speed to over 250 mph. One concern had been the small block crank and driving the blower at higher rpms. We only ran to 7070 rpm last year, but hoped to pull up to the cam's 7500 rpm power peak this year and were worried about breaking the crank snout at the higher rpms. This potential problem was hopefully solved with a front crank support from RCD Engineering (see arrow).
Hooley also changed the pulleys on the blower to hopefully produce the 100-150 HP increase we need to run a little over 250 mph over our low 240's last year. The boost went from last year's 8 lbs. to 12-14 lbs. this year.
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Another change was to add water injection from Snow Performance. Note since we run a "gas" class we could only put water in this system. I feel the water injection might have helped us a lot as you will see below. The picture above is the water tank and there also was a pump and computer that came with the system along with the nozzles that were placed in the top hat above the blower. The computer sets when the system starts injecting (lbs of boost) and when (lbs of boost) that it reaches full injection.
Hooley also made mounts to add weight to the very front of the car. About 150 lbs. right over the front axle center-line (or where an axle would be, the car has A-arms. Another mount to add 100 more lbs in front of the 150 lbs.. We started with the 150 lbs. in the front.
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The last major change was to put a tow bar back on the car. This had to be redesigned from what we ran the first year. Hooley made a mount that had two tabs that stick out through the front valance. When I was at his place a few days before Speed Week Patrick and I made the actual tow bar that attaches to the tabs and hooks to the trailer ball at the back of the Suburban. We made this change as the last two years we have been pushing the car to the starting line and back to the pits and felt this is just too dangerous with the limited visibility in the car. This way we just hook on and tow it around. We still use my truck to push it off the starting line.
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We decided to run as soon as possible on the opening day (Sat.). We put the car in line at 7 am before the driver's meeting and were just a few cars back from the front of the line. There were two courses and they were both long/short courses with the long course cars (capable of running over 175 mph) running to the 5 mile marker and the short course cars running to the 3 mile. We were put into the course 1 line which ran by the pits.
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Here the starter is making sure Hooley is strapped in properly and advising of the course conditions.
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Here we have been given the signal to leave the line. Our problems started just ahead of this. When you are on the starting line there are two lines of cars/bikes (see the roadster to the left). They then rotate back and forth between the two lines. This year it was made clear to us that once they wanted us to go we had better be ready or we would be asked to pull aside. The car in front of us went and I asked the starter if the other car would go to the right of us. He said it would. Then for some reason very shortly after that he said we were next and that they were now waiting on us. We quickly started the car and left. It wasn't their fault, but we got out of our rhythm, which then caused us major problems.
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Here I'm pushing Hooley up to about 55 mph at which point he pulls away from me. The other major change to the car that I didn't mention above was the addition of a re-conditioned G-Force transmission which let us pick almost any gear ratios we wanted except one gear still remained 1 to 1. The new ratios were a very high 1.92 1st, 1.33 2nd, 1.00 3rd and an overdrive .931 4th. The car could leave on it's own in 1st, but it is easier on it to leave after some speed has been built. With the 1.92 1st the car can run over 120 mph at 7000 rpm in 1st just to give an idea how high 1st is. Still with the high 1st Hooley (according to the data recorder) could never use more than 24% throttle in 1st and only 29% throttle in 2nd (7000 in 2nd is over 175 mph). More throttle in that meant tire spin and a possible spin. Porkpie who is from Germany is to the left of us taking pictures.
The first run resulted in our third fastest time to date with a speed of 232 mph. That sounds good, but when I got to the car Hooley felt the car was done. He said some "dummy" forgot to turn the water pump on. Normally he leaves the line with the water pump (elect.) off and turns it on a 1/2 mile or more down course after the motor has built a little heat. I think with all the rush at the starting line and getting out of our rhythm and this being the first run of the year resulted in a lapse that cost us.
The moral of the story, if you aren't really ready at the starting line maybe pull out and re-group and practice, practice the starting line and run sequence before you get there. We have been lax on this and having a check list and it almost ended a year's worth of preparation. Also the way the water pump comes on will be changed for next year.
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It was a depressing moment we all suffered through down course about 6 1/2 miles with water coming out all the exhaust header pipes and even out the scoop going to the blower. At the moment we really felt we were done and it was just an hour into the meet. We regrouped and decided to at least tear the engine down to see the scope of the damage. The picture above is the beginning of that process.
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Here the motor tear-down continues.
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.........and further along. This was all on Saturday.
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An examination of the heads revealed that they were warped about .016 in the centers towards both ends. The car in the background is from Cortez, Colo. near me and is the one that I adapted the hood for and made the scoop for.
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Next some bearing caps were pulled and the bearings looked good. No pistons were pulled, but there was no evidence of metal transfer from the pistons to the cylinder walls. So we were faced with severly warped heads. After visiting other pits someone gave us the name of Jeff at Wolverine Machine in Salt Lake City that might be able to help us. We called and caught the guy at work on a Sat. afternoon and he agreed to see if he could help. Mark and I took Mark's rental car straight into SLC. The valves were pulled and the warpage measured. Since it appeared to be mostly in the middle just milling the heads would mean a lot would come off the ends and not so much in the middle. He said he would like to wait until his dad came in on Monday to see if he could straighten the heads some before they were milled. We agreed to pick them up Monday afternoon. Sunday we did what we could, which wasn't much at this point. This was the first night I had more that 6 hours sleep since the previous Sunday and probably the same for most of the others.
Monday Mark and I went in and picked up the heads late in the afternoon and got back to Wendover around 10 pm. They had to take about .018 thousands off the heads and regrind the valves and redo the valve seats. This would prove to present a problem. The other bad deal was that they were suppose to have new head gaskets for us, but they had to be ordered and would be delivered to our motel on Tuesday.
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The head gaskets didn't arrive until after noon and no those aren't the new ones. What happened next was we put the heads back on the engine and installed the Jesel rocker arm setup. We then couldn't adjust the valves since between the valve job and the milling of the heads there wasn't enough adjustment in the rocker arms to set the valve lash. Jeff took some blame for this as he said he should of asked us about the valve train and then he could of taken some off the valve stem tips.
After talking things over we decided if we could shim the rocker arm assemble up we might be ok. We took the old head gaskets that were .040 thousands thick and ...................
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..............made spacers to fit under the rocker arm assembly. Here I'm straightening them out after cutting them out with tin snips and drilling holes in them with a step drill.
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Here you can see the shims we made under the rocker arm assembly. Now we were able.......
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to set the valve lash and....................
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........ continue putting the motor together.
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We finished late Tuesday and fired the motor. Next we had to pull the valve covers and all the valve train so we could re-torque the heads and then put it back together and reset the lash. We got done about the same time that security came by to run everyone out for the night.
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We also decided to put more weight in the car. We had about 200 more lbs with us and we added that to the weight pockets that are between the driver area and rear tires on both sides. We had to pull part of the belly pan to do this. We could have added another 100 lbs. to the nose, but we were affraid that this might cantilever some of the added weight off the back so we didn't do that.
So at this point we have the car running again and feel like "real racers" as we didn't head home with our tail between or legs, but instead tore the motor down and made repairs in the pit and were ready to go again even though it was now Wed.. What we were really ready for was some more humiliation that is so common on the salt. We talked about going and getting more gas, but since we had run 3 runs in the past we felt it was a waste of time and we wanted to get in line and run. Remember the tank is sealed, so it wasn't easy to check the fuel level. Well as you have probably guessed by now Hooley runs to about the 2 mile mark and runs out of fuel. How embarrassing is that!! Especially since we did it in 2006 also. Believe me we will have a sight tube on the tank in the future. We surmised that we ran more gas through the motor running it in the pits than we thought we did. At first we didn't know we had run out of gas and were afraid something else had gone wrong with the engine.
The other major thing that happened to us on this run was with the car in line and about 15 cars back from running Hooley gets in the car and for some reason pushes the clutch in. It just goes to the floor. We add fluid to the reservoir and it just leaks back out somewhere in the bell housing, so we think the seal went out on the slave cylinder, but there is no way to easily get to it and if we could what could we do. It is decided that I'll push him up to 55-60 and he will rev the motor and engage 1st and shift the rest of the run with no clutch. This worked perfectly and we did the same on Thursday and Friday. It was a good thing we had the new transmission as I don't believe the Muncie we had been running would have survived this along with the 800+ HP we now had.
Now it is Thurs. and we have gas in the Stude and it is mid-morning and a good time to run. The track is going away, but Hooley does a great driving job and we qualify on our record from last year with a 238 mph average in the 5th mile on our 236 mph record. The exit speed was 243 mph, better than the 241 from the previous year. He did this with less 100% throttle time than in 2006. Be sure and look at the video links below for this run and Friday's run. You will see that Hooley almost had to pull the chute a couple times. The car was from one side of the course to the other. Also look at how thin the salt was down by the 7th mile at the end of the course. I think we had the 5th or 6th fastest time for Thursday. So after the run we take the car to impound and worked on it for the 4 hours. I can't even remember now what all we did, but we just got done before our time ran out.
Friday morning we are on the salt and in impound a little after 6 am and we along with the other cars in impound make our way to the starting line at 7 for the return runs. Hooley does another great job of driving and at the 2/14 and the 3 mile he is ahead of the Thursday run and things look good for a new record. Then at the 3 1/2 mile the car just suddenly turns about 30 degrees to the left (watch the video) and Hooley has to pull the chute. The car does some wild back and forth swings, especially whenever he tries to steer it like at the 4th mile markers and the timing lights. He gets it under control and pulls over to the return road. Our week is over at this point as the meet will soon shut down.
We learned a lot about ourselves this year and feel we have paid some more dues to the salt gods. A couple years ago we probably would have stopped Sat. and gone home. We didn't get in many runs, but we did run faster than last year and I think 250-255 mph is in the car just the way it is on a track like we had in 2006. We will add more weight for next year and decide if any other changes or in store for the car. We didn't go home with a new record, but we did go home with a lot of pride and memories that we will take to our graves.
Thanks to everyone on the crew that pitched in and helped through this ordeal. Thanks also to all of you that support us on the Internet and who stop by the pits and give us encouragement at Speed Week. It means a lot to us!!!
Oh yeah, the trailer blew a tire between Wendover and SLC and then the power steering pump broke and that took out the belt driving the water pump which resulted in the water overheating and breaking the plastic radiator on the suburban. No big deal after all that had happened during the week, they were back on the road a couple hours later. I had stayed to help break down the course and made the 430 mile trip home and arrived about 10 that night to find out they still hadn't gotten to my place when they were suppose to be ahead of me. I called them and found out they were a couple hours behind me and they got to my place around midnight and no I didn't stay up for them. They left the next morning and got home Sunday. What a 2 weeks!!!!!!!!
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The other big highlight of the week was everyone that was at my place for the hikes showed up in the pits one day wearing these T-shirts and presented two to me. Thanks guys, gals and kids it meant a lot to me. I had them autograph one for me. I also got two extra and we auctioned them off with a two day tour with me as the tour guide at Salt Talks on Sunday night. That money, thanks Sparky (the high bidder), went to Jon at landracing.com to help support his site.
c ya,
Sum
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Now make sure you watch these videos:
Thursday's record qualifying run of 238 mph:
http://www.youtube.com/v/uSrGmZC2M1M
Friday's aborted backup run with a spin at about 225 to 230 mph:
http://www.youtube.com/v/VyWUfWaWEDQ
If you are interested in looking at the data from our data loggers and how I interpret it ( CLICK HERE )
...........................................( Construction Pictures )
.....................................................( Changes for 2005 )
......................................................( Changes for 2006 )
........For The Car's Construction Story and Pictures
.............................................................( CLICK HERE )
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