I hope to have better results at the track with the Z this year.
The 2009 season was plagued with mechanical problems. From early in May at the True street car race the
transmission case splits open and causes the engine to over rev, throwing the alternator belt which in turn got
under the blower belt, and caused it to break sending pieces of Kevlar slamming into the fiberglass hood. NICE!
A month or so later after all of those damages were repaired I made another attempt to get it down
the track. This time on the first pass it was very lazy and would not run hard in high gear. I made a
few adjustments on the laptop and Half way into the second pass i discovered that the fuel pressure
was way low. I aborted the run and found that the fuel filter was the culprit. At that point I should
have just driven the car home, but instead decided the remove the element and try to run the rest of
that day with no filter between the tank and pump. A big mistake! Long story short, some 60 plus
dollars later for a new fuel pump coupling, and once again having to go get my car trailer to get it
home, I learned a valuable lesson that I should have known all along. YOU NEED THAT FILTER
THERE!
On my third, and what ended up being my final trip to the track in 09 I decided to take the car on the
trailer. I had not trailered the car to the track in 3 years, but it had gotten old having to figure out how
to go get it when the car broke the last 2 times. I figured once it stopped breaking on me I would
start driving it to the track again. It turns out..a good thing it went to the track on the trailer. I did not
get passed low gear on the first test run when the head gasket on the drivers side let go between
number five and seven cylinders. On tear down I discovered it also torched a half inch deep and
quarter inch wide gouge in between these two cylinders as well. After consulting with a few others I
sent the head back to Reher Morrison for repair. Within a week it was headed back to me repaired
as new, and with a very reasonable charge for their services. I had concluded that: the time before
at the track when I was having low fuel pressure issues, those cylinders must have run the leanest
and with boost pressures creeping upwards of 17-18 lbs, The gasket just failed. I did have the car
back together for a late season Street Car race, but it got canceled due to weather conditions.
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