My shootout results!
Aug 21, 2012, 04:49 PM
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My shootout results!
Fathouse Fabrications would like to thank the crew at Buschur Racing for hosting, and thank everyone who came out for the 20th annual DSM/EVO Shootout this year making it the best year we all can remember!!! It was great meeting so many new friends and seeing all our old friends who swung by and hung out at our booth. Everyone at Fathouse Fab put in a lot of hard work and effort for the shootout and being able to share it with everyone and all our friends is what it’s all about.
As it seems with just about any race you try to make there are always setbacks and obstacles to overcome.* A lot of effort was put in to building a new engine package for the Fathouse Fabrications shop Evo to come out stronger than ever before. The package selected was built by our own in house engine builder Thomas “Tommy B” Bemis. He opted for the Fathouse Fabrications Outlaw series engine featuring CP 10.5:1 Pistons and Fathouse Fabrications spec GRP aluminum rods for the car.
With our open house only a few weeks in the past the plan was to get the car together after the open house and do some testing before the shootout . All went well and the week before the shootout the new engine was in the car, broken in, and ready to make some Jam!! The first few passes at the track were shakedowns knocking off some of the cob webs from the long sit this winter.* Everything seemed to be going great and that always seems to be about when the floor falls out. Jeremy “fathouse” Howell got the nod to lay the spurs to the car.
On that pass the car got out of the hole a little lazy with a 1.8 60’ time Fathouse nailed the gears the rest of the way until the car started laying over just before the 1000’ mark. The boards lit up and a 9.78@149.53MPH which to this point was the quickest pass for the car. At the end of the track the car was still running but something was surely a miss. The staff at the track informed us we wouldn’t be making any more passes in the car as it is a mostly full weight street car still and didn’t have most of the required safety equipment for those speeds and times. We loaded the car up and headed back to the shop to give it the once over and start chasing down the issues.
What we found was a real wind out of the sails moment. During the pass the ground wire for the cam sensor broke. As best we could tell it was just from the years of heat being so close to the turbo and we can honestly say that had the car not had the cam sensor heat shield it would have probably happened long ago. Unfortunately after looking at the logs we lost the wire going into 4th gear. Causing the timing in the car to go out of whack and caused the air fuel mixture to go way lean and melted the #2 piston down. The event was pretty bad while it didn’t melt down the other cylinders the heat got to them and deformed the pistons and cylinders.* We found all this out the Saturday night before the shootout. And with customer cars needing to be completed as well as completing manifolds, catch cans, and intercoolers for the display for the booth time was in short supply.
Everyone feeling dejected and down about the whole situation. *Tommy thought about what we could put together in “time” which was a grim outlook. Sunday afternoon everyone returned to the shop and the head was removed to better check the damage. What was found was worse than expected! A large hole had been melted through the #2 piston and the molten aluminum dropped through to the rod and melted away parts of the GRP rod as well as really hurting the cylinder wall.
The head had seen some heat as well and was going to need attention also.* Time was running thinner and trying to have the machine work and parts overnighted left too much on the shoulders of others to plan on racing this weekend.
Tommy said after walking around the shop a bit that he thinks he can put something together here that will spin. “spin” didn’t sound to promising but the engine is Tommy’s department and “spin” was better than nothing. What was put together over the next few sleepless days was what Tommy called Bon Jovi. All of us with weird looks on our faces wondering why Bon Jovi? He simply said because this engine is “living on a prayer!” *Tommy took a set of old JE piston that were laying around that had come out of a hurt engine and used a wire wheel to clean them up to “somewhat round” and “smooth”. These pistons didn’t have good wrist pins to go with them and one piston was missing a top ring. After disassembling the hurt engine Tommy was able to reuse the CP upgraded wrist pins and as he put it “the best top ring we had” to make the JE used set complete. He then took to the block to clean where all the molten aluminum had made its way. The GRP rod was cleaned up and matched to the others as best it could be by hand. Then the cylinder walls were attended to. A combo of stone and ball honing netted something a piston could travel up and down in. Still with a very rough cylinder wall attention was turned to the cylinder head were some sanding and hand lapping got it to a point where the engine was ready to go together.
The Thursday night before the shootout the car was turned over started and shut down almost as quickly. To the shootout it was! The game plan we set was to run the car only for the first round of qualifying and park it till we were bumped or ready for eliminations.
Saturday morning we arrive at Summit Motorsports Park and setup our booth for Fathouse Fabrications and begin prepping the shop car for the weekend.
The call came out Saturday evening for first round of qualifying and we headed to the lanes. Fathouse pulled the car in for his first pass and once on the two step the car was billowing smoke. This was not a surprise at all as the best cylinder in the engine had a piston to cylinder wall clearance of 10 thousandths. The clutch was let out and the car did work! The heat started building in the engine and sealing up. The car rocketed to a 9.73@152.66MPH this was the quickest and fastest pass for the car ever! After sitting out for the next round of qualifying we were in 13th on the ladder not wanting to get bumped out we decided another run was worth the risk.* The car staged up and a smoke screen was made on the starting line again. Again the car just trained down the 1320. Not bettering our time but backing up the 9.73 pass with a 9.78@151MPH.
The biggest fight facing the team now was spark plugs. Burning so much oil at the starting line the plugs were in bad shape by the end of the pass and fouled so badly that they just wouldn’t fire again. So for the first round of eliminations we found ourselves all the way up to the number 9 spot due to the breakage of other cars. Having a set of sanded clean spark plugs we took to the lanes for first round. The car got out cleanly and really laying the power down however on the 2-3 shift the car hit the rev limit and with all the oil burning and shape the plugs were in they fouled out and the car just sputtered the rest of the way down the track. On the return road the car started to clean up and run better and while the round was lost the Bon Jovi lived through the weekend. Our goal weeks before the shootout was to make the quick 16 field and win a round in our mostly full weight, full interior street car. With all the setbacks and work put in we consider the weekend a success considering we ran a personal best *E.T. and MPH and meet most of our goal of qualifying for the quick 16 field running what at best could be called a Frankenstein of an engine.* Keep a look out for what the car can do in the coming months when we can get our A game back together and in the car.
I will update the post with some vids as soon as they get online. Some guys had some go pros on my car and a bunch of others took vids.
Thanks!
As it seems with just about any race you try to make there are always setbacks and obstacles to overcome.* A lot of effort was put in to building a new engine package for the Fathouse Fabrications shop Evo to come out stronger than ever before. The package selected was built by our own in house engine builder Thomas “Tommy B” Bemis. He opted for the Fathouse Fabrications Outlaw series engine featuring CP 10.5:1 Pistons and Fathouse Fabrications spec GRP aluminum rods for the car.
With our open house only a few weeks in the past the plan was to get the car together after the open house and do some testing before the shootout . All went well and the week before the shootout the new engine was in the car, broken in, and ready to make some Jam!! The first few passes at the track were shakedowns knocking off some of the cob webs from the long sit this winter.* Everything seemed to be going great and that always seems to be about when the floor falls out. Jeremy “fathouse” Howell got the nod to lay the spurs to the car.
On that pass the car got out of the hole a little lazy with a 1.8 60’ time Fathouse nailed the gears the rest of the way until the car started laying over just before the 1000’ mark. The boards lit up and a 9.78@149.53MPH which to this point was the quickest pass for the car. At the end of the track the car was still running but something was surely a miss. The staff at the track informed us we wouldn’t be making any more passes in the car as it is a mostly full weight street car still and didn’t have most of the required safety equipment for those speeds and times. We loaded the car up and headed back to the shop to give it the once over and start chasing down the issues.
What we found was a real wind out of the sails moment. During the pass the ground wire for the cam sensor broke. As best we could tell it was just from the years of heat being so close to the turbo and we can honestly say that had the car not had the cam sensor heat shield it would have probably happened long ago. Unfortunately after looking at the logs we lost the wire going into 4th gear. Causing the timing in the car to go out of whack and caused the air fuel mixture to go way lean and melted the #2 piston down. The event was pretty bad while it didn’t melt down the other cylinders the heat got to them and deformed the pistons and cylinders.* We found all this out the Saturday night before the shootout. And with customer cars needing to be completed as well as completing manifolds, catch cans, and intercoolers for the display for the booth time was in short supply.
Everyone feeling dejected and down about the whole situation. *Tommy thought about what we could put together in “time” which was a grim outlook. Sunday afternoon everyone returned to the shop and the head was removed to better check the damage. What was found was worse than expected! A large hole had been melted through the #2 piston and the molten aluminum dropped through to the rod and melted away parts of the GRP rod as well as really hurting the cylinder wall.
The head had seen some heat as well and was going to need attention also.* Time was running thinner and trying to have the machine work and parts overnighted left too much on the shoulders of others to plan on racing this weekend.
Tommy said after walking around the shop a bit that he thinks he can put something together here that will spin. “spin” didn’t sound to promising but the engine is Tommy’s department and “spin” was better than nothing. What was put together over the next few sleepless days was what Tommy called Bon Jovi. All of us with weird looks on our faces wondering why Bon Jovi? He simply said because this engine is “living on a prayer!” *Tommy took a set of old JE piston that were laying around that had come out of a hurt engine and used a wire wheel to clean them up to “somewhat round” and “smooth”. These pistons didn’t have good wrist pins to go with them and one piston was missing a top ring. After disassembling the hurt engine Tommy was able to reuse the CP upgraded wrist pins and as he put it “the best top ring we had” to make the JE used set complete. He then took to the block to clean where all the molten aluminum had made its way. The GRP rod was cleaned up and matched to the others as best it could be by hand. Then the cylinder walls were attended to. A combo of stone and ball honing netted something a piston could travel up and down in. Still with a very rough cylinder wall attention was turned to the cylinder head were some sanding and hand lapping got it to a point where the engine was ready to go together.
The Thursday night before the shootout the car was turned over started and shut down almost as quickly. To the shootout it was! The game plan we set was to run the car only for the first round of qualifying and park it till we were bumped or ready for eliminations.
Saturday morning we arrive at Summit Motorsports Park and setup our booth for Fathouse Fabrications and begin prepping the shop car for the weekend.
The call came out Saturday evening for first round of qualifying and we headed to the lanes. Fathouse pulled the car in for his first pass and once on the two step the car was billowing smoke. This was not a surprise at all as the best cylinder in the engine had a piston to cylinder wall clearance of 10 thousandths. The clutch was let out and the car did work! The heat started building in the engine and sealing up. The car rocketed to a 9.73@152.66MPH this was the quickest and fastest pass for the car ever! After sitting out for the next round of qualifying we were in 13th on the ladder not wanting to get bumped out we decided another run was worth the risk.* The car staged up and a smoke screen was made on the starting line again. Again the car just trained down the 1320. Not bettering our time but backing up the 9.73 pass with a 9.78@151MPH.
The biggest fight facing the team now was spark plugs. Burning so much oil at the starting line the plugs were in bad shape by the end of the pass and fouled so badly that they just wouldn’t fire again. So for the first round of eliminations we found ourselves all the way up to the number 9 spot due to the breakage of other cars. Having a set of sanded clean spark plugs we took to the lanes for first round. The car got out cleanly and really laying the power down however on the 2-3 shift the car hit the rev limit and with all the oil burning and shape the plugs were in they fouled out and the car just sputtered the rest of the way down the track. On the return road the car started to clean up and run better and while the round was lost the Bon Jovi lived through the weekend. Our goal weeks before the shootout was to make the quick 16 field and win a round in our mostly full weight, full interior street car. With all the setbacks and work put in we consider the weekend a success considering we ran a personal best *E.T. and MPH and meet most of our goal of qualifying for the quick 16 field running what at best could be called a Frankenstein of an engine.* Keep a look out for what the car can do in the coming months when we can get our A game back together and in the car.
I will update the post with some vids as soon as they get online. Some guys had some go pros on my car and a bunch of others took vids.
Thanks!
Last edited by FathouseFab; Aug 21, 2012 at 04:59 PM. Reason: Pics link repair
The best turnout the shootout has seen since the few years ive been going. Ill be getting in contact with you shortly for your catch can
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Aug 22, 2012, 09:11 AM
#9
Thanks for the great write-up of the whole ordeal prior to and during the race.....talk about perseverance from you and your team!
I thought i stumbled across a quick vid of your car somewhere and that's why i posted in the SO thread about how ya did and it looks like you did great for pieceing together that motor last minute.
That pic of the luach is just NASTY
I thought i stumbled across a quick vid of your car somewhere and that's why i posted in the SO thread about how ya did and it looks like you did great for pieceing together that motor last minute.
That pic of the luach is just NASTY
