The “bars” are back in town – NASA American Iron Javelin Update…

Got the Javelin back from Evil Genius Racing. The 3rd link mount has been fixed. They plated a much larger area around the 3rd link box and added the support bars the car originally had from the main hoop to the sides of the box. These bars are also thicker than they were the first time around. Hopefully I won’t have this problem again.

Of course, all the new plating and bars were bare so I had to prep it all and rattle can it. I lucked out as the light gray chassis paint I found matches what Maaco used when they painted the interior. After the paint dried I remounted the accusump and bolted the seat and battery back in. Then it was time to take care of a couple of other odds and ends. First I safety wired the brake caliper mount bolts. Then I replaced the passenger side header gasket. Last time out with the car I had a pretty bad exhaust leak. Once I got the header off it was easy to see. The bottom corner of the gasket for cylinder 8 was gone. So I replaced it and then instead of using the same header bolts I switched over to Stage 8 locking bolts. It was my first time using them. They work but it does take a lot of time to get them right. I didn’t want the bolts to be able to back out at all. So I ground some of the tear drop shaped tabs so that the bolts couldn’t back out even a touch…

And next on the list I took the car back to TFB Motorsports (Tim Barber) at Sonoma Raceway. After I switched from the big 1 3/4″ long tube headers to the 1 5/8″ Edelbrock shorties I never touched the carb. Seemed like I should get the thing tuned for the new exhaust setup. So I dragged it over there and Aaron from Huffaker came over and did the carb tuning. I expected it was going to be running rich with the header change but actually it ended up being a touch lean on the top end. So Aaron changed jets and fattened it back up a bit. The Dyno tune shows that switching headers cost me FIFTY HP at the wheels! This is the same dyno that the car was run on back in February with the old (big) headers. Wasn’t expecting that much of a hit. I want to either make custom, large diameter shorties OR use some larger Jeep shorties if I can modify them to fit. Bottom line is that I had gone to a salvage place and bought a bunch of lead because I thought I was underweight for the power I had. Now it’s the opposite. I’m 100 lbs heavier than I need to be for the power… So I’m thinking of ways to save weight. I’ve got lots of ideas but they all take time + money to do… I’ll try to pick at it some this winter. For now I just want to get the car back on track and see where I’m at…

pics below: