Since we had hurt the motor at the November event just previous, we decided to put all of the new parts that we had into this new motor. It was over the Christmas break that we were really trying to get everything finished machine wise and then build the engine and install it with the intention of trying to get to this test day, as the testing opportunities at Sydney are very limited.

We did get to the event with what we thought was possibly our best motor ever, everything machined up great, new crank, pistons and rods and we were looking forward to getting a few decent test passes in on the day to give us a base line to move to the next step.

We unloaded and set up the pit and went about our designated chores. Everything was fine, so we started the engine a few times and kept dropping oil pressure. We changed oil, put a spacer in the oil pump to increase the flow, etc etc. Well, it seemed to be stable so we thought we might as well give it a small run to determine if all was good.

Went to the line, started the engine, did the burnout and backed it up. All the team noticed the oil pressure was REAL LOW and they notified the Crew Chief who thought that they were alerting him to something else (we still don't know what). He then gave the order to send it. It was only to go out to about 300 feet and the click it. Well, didn't quite get to 300.....and it went 'Snuff'.....will never forget that sound and that is just what it sounds like, a 'Snuff' then all is quiet. You can only hear the cleanup crew as the vehicles roll....

Zoomed to the bottom of the track and the car was parked in the braking area with the motor and drive train locked up.....we eventually got her off the track and basically knew what the problem was, well it's not Rocket Science when you see oil all over the place and a hole in the oil pan. So we towed her back to the pit to whence everybody was very solemn. This was a big hit to the budget the team has (which is NONE) and was going to take some time to recover.

We tried to ascertain the problem that the engine had apart from the obvious, and loaded her back into the trailer and headed home.

We pulled the engine the next day and sourced 2 problems. One was the oil pump had grabbed the relief plunger which stopped supplying oil to the engine and with the new blower being super tight, it grabbed us as well. You live and learn.

We have now obtained a new oil pump section, fixed the bottom end plus the heads and are nearly ready to go again.

We have been super diligent on getting this unit back together, and have even blown ANY budget we had to make it happen.

We will be back out soon.

Ah, this Drag Racing......worse than drugs!