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Hold on to your seat, its going to be one crazy true story you are about to read!
Round 1 — Part 1 of 2
As I was behind schedule 2 weeks before Long Beach, I had finally got the motor running and was able to focus on other small details that had to be done. I started the motor at about 1 am, let it idle for a few minutes then proceeded to give it some throttle. When all of a sudden I realized a knock coming form the top of the cylinder head that didn’t sound normal to me. Very quickly millions of ideas started running through my mind of what it could be. Unfortunately it seemed like it was no easy fix. Considering the time of day I couldn’t do much. So I decided to try and get some rest for what was to come.
Early in the morning I decided to call the machine shop that built my cylinder head with all of my performance parts (from BC Brian Crower) only to be told to take the car down there so they could hear it. So there I go, I load up the car, drive 20 minutes away and was told that the head seemed fine and it surely must be something on the bottom end. With that I took the car home and quickly started disassembling the front sub-frame to drop the oil pan while the engine was still inside the car. I pulled rod bearings number 2 and 3 out just to realize that they still looked perfectly brand new from when I installed them. So I re-assembled the whole thing back together and decided to do a leak down test which came back with perfect results. I also decided to do a compression test which also passed with flying colors. I then decided to pull off the exhaust manifold just to make sure there was nothing inside of the collectors. I then realized there was oil on 4 of the 6 exhaust ports of the cylinder head, I immediately called the machine shop once again and told them my findings. They still assured me that it wasn’t the head but said if I wanted to I could take the car over there so they could see it again. At this point I was beginning to lose my mind and starting to get a bit frustrated to say the least. Giving them the benefit of the doubt I took it down there AGAIN! After seeing the head they denied any possibilities if it being the head. I told them I was going to take the whole motor out and start from scratch and told them I would take them the head once it was off so they could double check their work. This was on a Saturday afternoon the weekend before Formula Drift.
So I went home and started taking everything apart. I took the whole motor out of the car put the engine on the engine stand and started taking apart the motor. It was 8 pm at night when there was only a block hanging on the engine stand. At this point I was contemplating whether or not to take the head back to the machine shop that did the work the first time. My friend Uriel saw a post of my frustration on Facebook and called to inform me of a machine shop that does really good work, Torres Performance Shop. So having faith in his recommendation I decided to take the head first thing Monday morning to Torres Performance Shop.
When I got there I spoke to Tony and explained to him my situation and that I HAD to be at FD Long Beach Rd 1 in 4 days with a running car. He agreed and told me he would do anything in his power to get it done. That Monday afternoon he gave me a call and informed me that the valve lash was way off. We were at 34 thousands when we should have been anywhere between 10 and 16 thousands, and 1 valve was completely missing a shim. So he asked me to find the shim and take it to him while he began to adjust and calibrate the intake side. Later that day about 4:45pm I received another phone call from Torres Performance with some more bad news. Due to the old adjustment my exhaust valves were cut too short and he could no longer use them to get the adjustment he needed and I would require new exhaust valves. I quickly started looking for new exhaust valves. I called my sponsor BC asking for replacement valves which are 1mm over sized, only to be told all they had in stock were .5mm and the ones I needed were back order for 2 weeks…great just what I needed! I called around and no one had what I needed locally except for one place, FRSprort. Of course there was a catch and it couldn’t be so easy, they were almost $500. Being a privateer that was a big hit.
First thing Tuesday morning I drove down to Fontana Nissan to pick up a shim then to FRSport in Irvine for the valves, then shot straight to Murrieta to drop off the parts at Torres Performance. I was told it might be done that night or for sure first thing in the morning. I watched as the clock struck 5 and still no phone call. I had to impatiently wait till morning before I could get my head. At this point I was a sitting duck and couldn’t do much with out my head.
Wednesday morning I received a call from Torres Performance with shockingly some more bad news…my exhaust cam was cracked and now broken! So now I needed a rare hard to find RB26 exhaust cam. At this point I was beginning to lose hope of making it to my first pro FD event. I was beginning to think of all my disappointed sponsors. I didn’t want to let them and most importantly myself down. Once again I frantically called every place imaginable to try and locate an exhaust cam. To my disappointment the closest ones available were in Kentucky and Florida. I had hit my lowest point when luckily one of my sponsors Scott from Fontana Nissan/Nissanraceshop.com gave me a call and informed me he knew of an exhaust cam. My fellow Fontana Nissan/Turbo by Garrett/Turbosmart/Whiteline Flat Out teammate and also Scott’s Girlfriend Kerryann De La Cruz (http://www.facebook.com/KerryannDeLaCruzRacing) owns and drives an R32 which is currently under construction and she would let me borrow the exhaust cam off of her car. I just had to pick it up in Irvine, 5 minutes away from where I had picked up the valves less then a day ago. So I drive out there yet again got the cam and headed straight to Murrieta. I had a glimmer of hope and decided to wait at Torres Performance for the head to be done. 3 hours and $700 later I was driving home, wasn’t too sure if I was happy or sad that my head was done. So as soon as I got home I started re assembling my engine and thanks to my dad, my little 13 year old brother and friend Mogly the engine was running by 4 am Thursday morning. Now it was really crunch time as I had to be in Long Beach for re-tech and weigh in by 7pm.
Needless to say I wasn’t able to sleep and continued working on the car. By 1pm Thursday I was loaded and headed to Gavilla Automotive where my best friend Hilario was ready to finish my exhaust. I got there and at that point realized my alternator was no good and had to jump start my car to drive it onto the lift. By 3:30pm I was headed to OSR Dyno where my good friend Reggie was waiting to dyno tune the car, something that should have been done weeks ago. Better late then never right?! While he was dyno tuning and setting up the Haltech I was installing the rear Lexan window and passenger Sparco seat. At the same time my spotter and good friend Tony did a tire run for me to Falken headquarters in Fontana to pick up the new rubber for round 1. Time was not on my side, it was now 5:30pm. I needed to get on the road for Long Beach ASAP. I asked Reggie if I could take the car and bring it back to finish dyno tuning after re tech roughly about 11 pm. To no surprise and his support he agreed and said to just give him a call on the way back and he would open up the shop for me. So we unstrapped the car from the dyno loaded up and headed to Long Beach. We got to Long Beach exactly at 7pm rolled the car off the trailer and straight into tech. We weighed in at the 275 class and had to change a couple of things but fortunately we were granted to drive round 1 and passed tech. So once again we load up the car and head back to Fontana to make our way to OSR Dyno. We stopped and got some Panda Express as it was basically my breakfast. After eating I grabbed a fortune cookie, cracked it open, read my fortune and really felt as if it was a sign for me.
We arrived an hour off our guesstimation time, it was now 12am Friday the day of FD. So we strapped down the car on the dyno as Reggie and Mario worked their magic. I was a bit anxious to say the least, I kept anticipating another road block. To my surprise everything went pretty smooth and at 2 am the final dyno run was made.
Let me tell you…at that moment I wanted to cry. I was so proud of all that was accomplished and what I was able to build in my garage with my very own hands.
So we loaded up and finally headed home but not to sleep but to keep working on the car. I had to be in Long Beach by 8:30am for a mandatory drivers meeting. So I get my to do list and give myself til 6:30 am at the latest to leave the house. 6:30am quickly came by and passed and we still hadn’t finished up or loaded the car. So we stopped the work, loaded up the car and hoped to finish the car before practice. We got to Long Beach at 8:15am, I suited up and barely made it to the drivers meeting… since they decided to start it early!
Part 2 coming soon! Too much to write for 1 entry, and hold on to your hat kids the story only gets bumpier from here!
