On the 'mildly' Cheap SS Monte Carlo chasing a 9.0____(oil pan woes)

[64nailhead]

Made it to my NHRA tech inspection - barely. I had no idea what to expect. As it turns out the car never left the trailer. If I’d a known that, then I would’ve not bothered installing the converter and trans. I will be be more knowledgeable next time lol.

I had to drag the car to my work for access to a welder that would burn in the door swing outs. Thursday’s night I had a friend help me winch it on the trailer and off I went. I got the dash bar in Thursday nite by 3am. Friday night, last night, I got the door bars in and the trans and converter. The converter showed up Friday at 4pm. I had assumed that the car would need to move, but I was wrong.

So I finished with the bars, converter and trans, and loading in the trailer at 4:55am. I got home and showered and slept for 2.5 hours and headed off to the inspection (1 1/2 hours away).

So after tons of stress and not knowing

 

[81cutlass]

Now that's a win!

 

[motorheadmike]

Made it to my NHRA tech inspection - barely. I had no idea what to expect. As it turns out the car never left the trailer. If I’d a known that, then I would’ve not bothered installing the converter and trans. I will be be more knowledgeable next time lol.

I had to drag the car to my work for access to a welder that would burn in the door swing outs. Thursday’s night I had a friend help me winch it on the trailer and off I went. I got the dash bar in Thursday nite by 3am. Friday night, last night, I got the door bars in and the trans and converter. The converter showed up Friday at 4pm. I had assumed that the car would need to move, but I was wrong.

So I finished with the bars, converter and trans, and loading in the trailer at 4:55am. I got home and showered and slept for 2.5 hours and headed off to the inspection (1 1/2 hours away).






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So after tons of stress and not knowing

View attachment 198474

F*ck yeah!

 

[Northernregal]

What was the feedback from inspection? Other than heck ya you can party hard!

 

[motorheadmike]

What was the feedback from inspection? Other than heck ya you can party hard!

I think he is sleeping, or stroking his tube with vigorous approval.

 

[64nailhead]

What was the feedback from inspection? Other than heck ya you can party hard!

They were most concerned about the cage attaching points to the frame .They mentioned that the welds, despite not being pretty, obviously had penetration and enough heat (no bird sh*t). He recommended an additional gusset on the passenger side where the main hoop intersects the roof hoop. And they told me my driver door bar is about an 1” to high in the front, but it’s not a big deal because I had the dash bar. They didn’t look under the hood, they did verify the 9” wheel ends, checked the seat, seat brace and belt mounting.

He also checked every tube for thickness and diameter.

It was pleasant deal. The two NHRA guys were great - friendly, knowledgeable and didn’t mind discussing what they seen on my car.

I’m glad it’s done, I was stressing over it too much, unnecessarily as it turns out.

motorheadmike I did sleep all night lol, which is unusual. I usually sleep for less than 5 hours a night.

 

[bracketchev1221]

Yeah if I was here more I could have told you a chassis cert has nothing to do with the drivetrain. It’s a common thought. You can bring a bare chassis with no body and they could put a sticker on it. If you ever have a drag racing question send me a message. My car was 8.50 certified for 20 years. Nhra Super Gas 1221.

 

[64nailhead]

I didn't want to say anything, but the initial fire up Friday night (Saturday morning really), the car ran like *ss and I mean big time AWFUL - but ran. Obviously, I had no time to dig into that but I did this morning.

Some of the back story, while I was waiting for the converter I put in a new radiator (after drilling a hole in the old one - picture me still slapping my head on that one). I put in a chin lip under the radiator and cover under the cooling module. That required some welding on the core support, and of course the welding on the cage Thurs and Fri night. When I weld on any of our cars ALL of the modules and the battery get disconnected.


Umm, heads up for you Holley users out there. When you unplug the module that has the flex sensor input and forget to plug it back in - expect the car to run like *ss. My flex sensor is on the I/O module that I added over the winter.

All's good now lol.

I will admit that I hate to post questions of 'please help, I don't know what's wrong with my homegrown sh*t, can you tell me?' I thought it was worth mentioning that usually when something isn't right it's never a bad idea to double check everything that you just touched rather than assuming the worse. Kinda like 'should I change my oil?' If you're asking that question then the answer is a resounding YES lol.



Off to testing the converter and finding somewhere to run next weekend

 

[64nailhead]

Unfortunately no runs this weekend. Next weekend though, planning on a trip to go visit Bruce at Beaver Springs, PA and run several days.

I made it to local cruise in last night and amazingly there was a bone stock and 100% complete '84 MCSS there. Same color exterior and interior. I shouldn't be surprised as they are not rare at all.


Regarding the converter, it appears that I can get this easily to 3900 on the trans brake ad also can get into boost in less a 1.5 seconds. I turned the CO2 on once and put it to 8psi in less than 2 seconds. So, I'm guessing I'll be able to make this work.

 

[64nailhead]

2nd fan for this setup.


New Flex-A-Lite Flex Wave fan

This is a Spal setup for a ‘00’s GTO that was given to me. The original 15” Spal fan gave up this spring and would barely turn. So I put in the ‘Mishimoto that was laying around (14”). But I could not get the car too cool off once it got over 210. So I bit the bullet and bought the Flex-A-Lite fan that is rated at 3000cfm. I can safely say that it’s moving double the air of the Mishimoto. And it now will cool the engine at idle to the point of shutting off the fan on low side shut off temp.

I also had issues at highway speeds since I put the tube core support in. I put in a 2” chin spoiler directly under the rad, but that only made a minor improvement. So I made the chin spoiler 4.5” and that solved all highway driving temps. 4.5” seems pretty low , but it’s still 1/2” above the oil pan.

The best part : the chin spoiler is made from two big truck rear 1/4 fender top flaps ($2.75 each).

The bad part : the Flex-A-Lite fan was $152 from Summit. At least it works.