The Gress motor swap saga was absolutely unbelievable. Most of the work was done by Robert Patton, Chuck Taylor and Bob Sheilds. JP and Fred also worked hard. There were a couple other guys involved in the effort and I’d be grateful if folks reminded me who they were.
Everyone worked so damn hard it was…I dunno, like something meant to reaffirm a guy’s faith in humanity. I mean those guys absolutely worked their asses off as if they were racing the clock for their very lives hour after hour. It was just unfudging believable.
We got the motors swapped in, I dunno, maybe 4hrs. But then we couldn’t get fuel nor spark. I don’t recall what we did to get fuel finally, but it took 3 coils, crank sensors and ECU’s to finally get spark. That was probably another 4hrs.
Then we had some oil leakage from the oil filter/oil cooler attachment and we put some sealent on to cure overnight.
Sunday we had more fluid problems, but it turned out to be power steering fluid and not oil. We’d left unfastened the “closed loop” power steering pump delete hose.
I got to race on Sunday, but got my ass kicked. Instead of 1:54’s and 55’s I was running 1:59’s. Junkyard motor seems to be really sluggish around 4500 revs or so. On theory is that the cause of this my disconnected O2 sensor, any comment on this problem?
Jim Levie and I had a great battle for most of the race. For the very first time I tried to take a defensive line a couple times. I found that I need practice. When I take a defensive line I brake too late and really screw up the turn. Nothing like practice to reduce suckage.
Later edit: Fixed crediting the right Bob that worked his ass off. And he’s not even a SpecE30 guy. He just dove in because he’s that kind of guy. Thanks to Robert Patton for pointing out the error.
