2010 Front Engine Dragster Misc Task to Re-Install Engine

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The engine is back and now to tackle some misc task to get the engine back into the dragster. First task is to get the engine painted. A good car nuts project. We have been through this before so not a lot of words, just pictures. It came out pretty nice thanks to the help of the car nuts!
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We discovered that the water cross over was contacting the valley pan. This is the second valley pan that I have purchased that has not fitt well, first one was from Butler, and this one is from BPO Engineering. By pressing on the upper half of the manifold that bolts to the head the other side would rise up, pivoting on the edge of the valley pan
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DSC_1485_small Note the gap between the head and the water crossover. We found an easy fix, We ground off some material from the under side of the crossover See the pictures below for the indicator mark on the bottom of the crossover and the area that we ground out
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DSC_1484_small It now sits flat against both heads and the holes are lined up.

Now on to a larger task. We have been pledged with a close to over heating problem. I can drive to the staging lanes, make the run, drive back to the pit and be at 180 to 200. There have been may proposed fixes for the problem. We decided to go with restricting water from the front two ports on the heads, and pulling water from the rear ports. The rear ports are normally plugged. There is an adapter made to allow you to do this and it bolts onto the stock filler neck. We drilled and taped the back side of the water crossover. I have this adapter, but it would have required us to run the rear water return lines on the outside of the intake. So…….

DSC_1479_smallThis is the water crossover with AN fittings installed on the back side.
Below you see the plugs removed from the head, 3/4 to 1/2 brass pipe reducers and 90 degree 1/2 inch to AN fittings installed

 

 

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As I stated above I want to restrict the front ports to the same size as the rear ports so the pump pulls equally from both the front and rear ports on the heads. I bought brass hex head female plugs, cut them off even with the heads and drilled 1/2 in holes in them (equal to the holes in the AN fittings in the rear. We cut slots in them so I can use a large screw diver to both install and remove them.

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DSC_1518_smallAll lines are finger tight, no stress on any of them or the crossover and the bolt holes for the crossover are centered on the threads for the bolts in the heads.