Finally dipped into the 9's....and then broke

My heap is loving the new rear suspension and pro drag radials. The DA was 200ft this morning and the hook was great...1st pass of the day was a 9.95 with one of my good friends tripping the 60ft timer with his rear wheels in the other lane. The 2nd pass was a 9.98...the 3rd pass - not so good. It wouldn't do a burn out, I thought the line lock crapped out so I staged anyway. It spun a little and took off but it didn't feel right. The oil pressure was 1/2 of what I usually see. I shut it off on the return road and got pushed back. Found #7 exhaust rocker stand busted off the head and the push rod in 2 pieces. No piston to valve contact. The cam and lifters look fine. I have the A429 heads Dave F had on the "cheapskate" build in the builds forum. I think I got off lucky but I'm going to pull it out and check everything. I put new springs in the front of the car and now under braking the low oil pressure light comes on pretty much every run now because the car noses down so much more. The pan is baffled but I need to improve it. Any suggestions there?

Damn that sucks, need to weld up the boss.

Add another quart or two of oil.

If that is a solid cam you may look your lifters over for possible cause of oiling issue. I had a set of solid lifters with no restriction inside to keep from flooding oil to the top end. It's basically like solid rollers installed wrong,puts all your oil in the valve covers. That stud could have just broken but I'd say not. Retainer hitting the guide,coil binding,or a valve seal hung in the inner spring can do that. Just a few problems I've experienced.

I had 8L of oil in it. They are notched Johnson hygrade lifters that cam with my cam. I think it's an old canton pan but I'm not 100% positive. I only had the braking oil pressure if I really piled on the binders with the old springs. Now it's a fight every run to keep the light off. I'm wondering if I'm filling the covers with oil up top. It's a HV pump. I'm seeing 50-60psi at the stripe. Maybe I should have a HP pump instead of a HV? Or a stock pump?

There are 2 other welded bosses on either side of the broken one that Dave had repaired.

200 foot DA!!

Daaaaaaannnnngggg!!! I'd love to get in on some of that!

And our track is at 300ft above sea level. I saw 13ft on my weather station 15 min before that. We have raced in October with a -400DA.

BigBlockRanger wrote:200 foot DA!!

Daaaaaaannnnngggg!!!  I'd love to get in on some of that!

We get air like that here, in the middle of winter....

We can get it here in the mornings during the May and Sept races. It was 3000ft Saturday afternoon.

You should invest in a stud girdle. Normally only required with a roller cam but since the head has ( now) three repairs , it's telling you something needs to change.

You need an Oil pressure accumulator. My car would do the same thing when I was running FEs and the accumulator cured the "Red Light" from the oil pressure sensor on deceleration.

Congrats on the Single Digit ET

gt350hr wrote:   You should invest in a stud girdle. Normally only required with a roller cam but since the head has ( now) three repairs , it's telling you something needs to change.

My engine has had rocker stud girdles for 5 years, one of the first things I bought. The heads were purchased with 2 stud bosses already repaired. It was nice to hit the single digits as that was my goal for the summer so that's a big - CHECK!..LOL...Now to start going rounds more consistently - that's my next goal.