2017 04 09 Prepare for Season Day 2

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Progress continues on the dragster getting ready for the 2017 season.

The fire bottles have been mounted in
place.

Before that could happen, I had to clean up the filth that has accumulated over the last seven seasons of racing. It is hard to believe that I have been running this dragster that long. Below is the before and after images of the brackets that hold the fire bottles in place.
                                 

The big event is the engine is between the rails.
                                                           

The decision has been made to run 8.0 again this year (we might still try and run 7.5 as we strengthen the engine to take more HP, and if we blow it up the 7.0 engine is sitting in the wings and is close to being finished). A tough decision. That means running in the same class as last year which combines 10.0, 9.5, 9.0, 8.5, and 8.0 Makes for a big class and worst yet when you come up against a slower vehicle you have to sit at the light while that car gets a head start down the track.

Sitting there at the tree is really tough.

We never ran another 8.0 vehicle all last year.

More clean up. This time it is the home made fuel pump bracket. The current set up is a belt driven fuel pump off of the crankshaft with an old Hilborn pump mount. The pump is mounted to the back side and the lines for the feed and return are connected. The extra holes are for the bracket that holds the blower belt guard (I forgot about the guard when I put four bolts in, two will have to come back off to mount the guard bracket (tomorrow)). On the 7.9 engine it will be driven off the cam along with the mag.
                               

Polished up the sides and top of the radiator and installed it. Replaced the rubber hose links between the radiator and the feed pipe, and the feed pipe and the inlet to the timing cover housing.
                               

I have always had a piece of plywood that covered the radiator to protect it from damage. I decided to finally paint it, I was going to paint it the color of the engine and then thought better of that and painted it Chevy orange so that it does not get forgotten, what do you think? I could always go back and paint it again.

Still a long way to go and a short time to do it.