Here's where my track day ended!!!!!

During the second session after lunch the oil light came on for a split second in a hard right turn and in the next quick left it came on again and the motor was history. The fact that it was turning 7800 rpm at the time may account for the utter destruction. I was hoping to be able to use the ported head but I'm not so sure this thing is gonna be salvagable.

Notice the missing exhaust valve. It apparenlty had an altercation with the piston. Both of which no longer exist. It has also wiped out one of the cam lobes, which once again I was hoping to continue using. It broke two rocker arms up badly. The cam lobe face has ground the left edge off on one of the broken rockers. I don't know if it's a big deal or not yet. I've got to check the mating surface and see if I can smooth out the face enough for it to work correctly. The biggest problem is that the combustion chamber is really beat up and I don't know if this thing is gonna be usable again. The block and crank are history also. That would be apparent from the holes in the block and savage beating the rod journal took from that exploded rod.

At least I've already got a used RedHead back in the car and ready to keep going. I don't know yet if I can put my cams in it till I determine the actual damage to the lobe. I'm already working on getting a new piston and having the assembly balanced. The remaining questions are do I use these cams again or do I go all the way to C6ms? Do I have to get another head ported and polished? What ever happens I know that this combo is absolutly awesome!!!! As the saying goes, "That's racing!!!"

As usual, I went out Saturday morning from Buttonwillow down to North Hollywood and bought a new motor. I drove home and replaced the motor. I was ready to go at about midnight but I'd had so many little problems with the install that I was just too exhausted to pack up and go back to the track. The next morning with my back killing me and not a lot of sleep I decided that my state of mind wasn't the best for driving let alone towing all the way back to Buttonwillow. So, I decided to let it go and went back to sleep. There's always next month at Willow Springs...if this one would have been at Willow Springs I'd a gone but...

OK!!! So I didn't make it back to Buttonwillow but I'm ready for Willow Springs next month. I've got a sweet RedHead in at the moment that appears to have no miles on it what so ever. Notice how clean the valve cover is. Now take a look at the head. The Cams don't even look broken in yet. There's no junk anywhere in the head. The cam sprockets don't have any wear marks on em. This motor has a ton of oil pressure cause it's brand new. Maybe it's my turn to get a nice motor to work with.

So for the moment I've got the JWT S5s installed in the new RedHead. This motor is Euro 10:1 compression motor. It runs very nice. My new plan is for this to be my backup motor so when I blow the next Monster I can quickly pop this back in the car and not miss anymore track time. This motor should put out 170-180 setup like this so that'll do for the moment. I've already got another SilverHead ready to build another Monster out of. Unfortunatly I've got to do another port job as I don't think there's any fixing the head I have. The head is cracked from the spark plug to the valve guide. I might be able to fix it but I don't know that I trust that. I'm also contemplating doing an engine swap with a VVL motor instead but the jury is still out.

So goes the never ending battle to go racing....