World of Speed - Bonneville Salt Flats 2008

I took the 'Beast out to the salt again this year.  This year my in-laws were able to go out with me.  My pit crew and I had a great time.  The weather was perfect, partly cloudy, cool and a great salt surface. 

I was trying to hit 130 mph again, like last year.  Over the winter, spring and summer, I made several changes in an attempt to get more out of my little 2.0 L 4-cyl engine.  I didn't have much money to invest, so the changes were pretty limited this time around.  I wrapped the intake manifold, re-wrapped the exhaust manifold and turbo fitting, dumped in some Purple Ice into the coolant and used Quaker State's High Performance synthetic 10W-30 oil. 

My first run wasn't even as fast as last year, so I knew I needed to make some changes.  I retarded the timing to 15 deg, and tried again.  I got pretty much the same results so I made more changes.  This time I inflated the tires to 60 psi, removed anything that might cause drag like the wipers, mirrors, and rear spoiler.  I also disabled the knock sensor (wrapped it in some towels) (DON'T DO THIS).  This time I ran faster to the 1/2 mile, but then the engine coughed, sputtered and died.  I knew somehting was wrong, but I was hoping it was just a turbo pipe that had blown (I was running between 15 and 20 psi boost when it died).  I pulled back around into the pits and discovered that I had very little compression in #4 piston.  We were done, so we loaded it up and headed back home. 

When I got it back home, I ran compression tests (1-150, 2-130, 3-0, 4-30), and found leaks in the 3rd & 4th cylinders.  I also discovered some nasty spark plugs.  #2 was totally eaten away, and only #4 had the center conductor left. 

I just pulled the head and found the problem.  It turns out that the exhaust valves couldn't hold the pressure this time around.  Here's a shot of the valves.  You can see the holes in the exhaust valves of cylinders 3 & 4.   Still not sure about the spark plugs. 

Here are my track times from this year:

And here are some more pictures from this year's event.