1st Annual BD Diesel Performance- Truckin Nationals

We made it. Ended up being a 23 hour day. Going to go and buy a battery and see if we can get the pig running. Then wash everything up
 
Did you get a look at your flexplate while at Excell? They fix you up with another?
 
Did I read right that even Randy's tow rig is going to have Nitrous? Then who is gonna tow it home? ;)

I got the wise idea last night to try to reseal my passenger side intake plenum before leaving, how long can that take? ;) A few stuck bolts later it is mostly back together (waiting for the sealant to cure). I think I'll stick around here (maximizing cure time), head over to PIR for tonight's test & tune, then leave really early morning for the event. I talked to Brad at G&J as he was getting ready to head to BC with DirtyMax, it was SNOWING in Billings!
 
Should a good weekend in Pro Street , got word that Donavon ran low 10's on a mild tune last weekend in Seattle.

IMG_9749.jpg
 
We are here with 4 super street trucks. Goin for beer and wings now. Woohoo. The drive is over.
 
Flex plate was ok, it was the adaptor plate. For whatever reason the adaptor plate that was on it was 5/8 inch thicker where the starter mounted. So neither the 5.9 or the 6.7 starter would work. So I took the adaptor plate off of the old engine and got the boys to put it on for me.

On another note, we actually did get the truck to run today,, just not very well... I think that the crank sensor was toast. I went and bought another one, going to put it on tomorrow morning. Hope to have it running and over to bd by 8 30 am
 
I'm sitting in a Les Schwab in the South Seattle area with 2 damn "mystery flats". I always bleed my tires down at the races then air them back up before driving home. At Bremerton 2 weeks ago I did the usual, but both outside rear tires lost almost all pressure in the 3 hour drive home. I thought maybe the valve cores were bad, but they weren't leaking. I aired them up, and both tires held all their pressure for the past 2 weeks (but I didn't drive it much in that time). I drove it 15 miles to the track last night, and both tires had lost all their pressure in that short drive. Aired them up again, and they held pressure fine all night, checked just before I left this morning (and hit the valve stems with soapy water after checking pressure just to make sure they didn't start leaking right then). Started driving North, and at the first spot I stopped (3 hrs into the trip) one outside tire was completely flat, while the other one hadn't lost a bit. Aired up the flat one, and could not hear any leaks. Drove 5 miles to a Les Schwab, and that one is almost flat again! Looks like I'll be getting to BD about the time things wrap up.
 
Michael said:
I'm sitting in a Les Schwab in the South Seattle area with 2 damn "mystery flats". I always bleed my tires down at the races then air them back up before driving home. At Bremerton 2 weeks ago I did the usual, but both outside rear tires lost almost all pressure in the 3 hour drive home. I thought maybe the valve cores were bad, but they weren't leaking. I aired them up, and both tires held all their pressure for the past 2 weeks (but I didn't drive it much in that time). I drove it 15 miles to the track last night, and both tires had lost all their pressure in that short drive. Aired them up again, and they held pressure fine all night, checked just before I left this morning (and hit the valve stems with soapy water after checking pressure just to make sure they didn't start leaking right then). Started driving North, and at the first spot I stopped (3 hrs into the trip) one outside tire was completely flat, while the other one hadn't lost a bit. Aired up the flat one, and could not hear any leaks. Drove 5 miles to a Les Schwab, and that one is almost flat again! Looks like I'll be getting to BD about the time things wrap up.
Click to expand...

Michael,
Do you think you might have a cracked rim? Nathan Black had rim issues a couple years ago.
Jim
 
Great day today, Great weather, great people. But very disappointed in my truck. 2 cyl's not firing. Guess I am going to have to race the ford tomorrow.

On a side not, Shawn hit over 1060 HP, truck sounded great.
 
Ron galas hp 1084 hp on dyno
Aaron schaff 1081 hp on dyno
Shawn ellerton 1069 hp on dyno

Off to the track to see who will who will reign in super street

Dirty max just got in town
 
pbft said:
Michael,
Do you think you might have a cracked rim? Nathan Black had rim issues a couple years ago.
Jim
Click to expand...

Jim,
I hadn't thought about the rims, I remember Nathan's problem now that you mention it. However, I don't think it is the issue since both rims have held pressure despite hauling the camper.

Remaining info to my story - after waiting 2.5 hours in Les Schwab (which I understand can happen on a busy Saturday), the guy tells me that the tire has become delaminated inside - the "liner" has become detached, and they will not even put it back on a rim for me due to liability. He gives me a quote for all 6 new tires (for a paltry quote of $1379.41). I tell him to just put the spare on and I'll be on my way. He has trouble with the plastic hex on the retainer which holds the spare to the bracket (its metal threads are somewhat rusted to the bracket threads), so his manager comes out and mangles the thing with vice grips, but eventually gets it off. If I wanted it destroyed I could have taken a torch to it, but I didn't say anything. Have you ever heard of PB Blaster?

Then a little while later the manager comes to me and tells me that the spare is too old and cracked to put on, and the only way my truck is leaving their lot is if I buy a new set of tires from them. I tell him I will just put the spare on myself then. He tells me "I'm not going to let you do that, it's a liability issue if I allow you to do that". Now those of you who know me know that I'm a mellow, not-in-your-face sort of person. I did get in his face, and told him that I WAS going to bolt MY spare on MY truck and drive out of his parking lot, and he is welcome to try to stop me. I also reminded him that it IS a dually, and it drove in to his shop with an outside flat. He told me he would let his technician put it back on, but that "this never happened, there will be no reciept and no evidence". So after wasting almost 4 hours at the Les Schwab, I am on my way out with a delaminated tire strapped to my roof, a mangled spare tire holder zip-tied under my truck, and a wheel in my camper. I made a few calls and located a used tire place down the street, and $80 later I had a similar tread tire in good shape mounted to my original alloy wheel. By this point I was going to be hard-pressed to get to BD before the end of the day, so I tossed the tire/wheel into the camper and headed North. Throughout this time I also called the Firestone dealer that I bought the delaminated tire from (which is 26 months and 16000 miles old). I asked the question first what kind of warranty comes on that series of tire (30,000 miles). When I explained the situation, the guy tried to tell me that tire damage is only covered by the road hazard warranty which I declined. Of course there are lots of things that I can do to a tire to cause it to delaminate internally ;) Needless to say, he is getting a visit from me on Monday...

I made it to BD and had a great time chatting with the crowd that was still around. Chad from Alligator put his truck on the dyno, Michelle from Diesel Performance Specialties harrassed me about EV2 gauge wiring (which led to a wiring demonstration in the parking lot), and a bunch of us went out to dinner, where I learned that there is some top secret Duramax project that Shawn is working on, and he will not tell anything about it despite having drank 13 beers.
 
What's happened in SS??? Ron I'm glad you got that truck workin on the dyno....awesome.
 
I know one thing that happened in SS (I think it was the final, but not sure) - Shawn's truck blew up rather spectacularly, including catching on fire on the race track. He had exploded a turbo, and the oil sprayed on the exhaust and caught fire.

In DirtyMax we were fighting two different problems with similar symptoms (fuse blown for the power portion of the auto-shift controller, and a shift fork out of place in the transmission). Either way, we were getting great wheels-up launches but unable to shift past 2nd, maxing out at around 102 mph. Brad came up with a temporary solution, which required me to do the most boring burnout I have ever done (1st gear only, max 2200 RPMs), but we were able to make a final pass of 9.21 @ 141 mph, with a 1.24 60' time despite tripping the 60' clocks with the back tires (it was carrying them well past 100').

If anyone is still interested in the saga of my tire hassles, I think I have finally found the root cause. The valve stems seem to leak through the valve cores when driven over rough roads (of which there are plenty along I-5 in Washington). The real reason I just started experiencing this is because someone stole the valve caps off the truck when I stopped at a store on the way to Bremerton. They were the metal type with a rubber seal, so they would have held air even without a valve core. I didn't think it was possible to lose air through the core that way, but I managed to find two metal caps in my toolbox, and experimented on the way home, trying one outside wheel capped first, then the other one. In each case, the uncapped one lost most of its air as soon as I hit rough roads, while the capped one did not loose a single psi. I drove the last 170 miles (including the roughest road yet) with both of them capped and did not lose any more air. The reason the inside ones did not lose air is because they have 4" extenders on them, so they are effectively capped. I suspect that the supposed delaminated tire is really fine (you can just see a tiny spot where the inner liner is loose). Going to have it remounted today and see if it holds air when I have the stem capped.

Regards,
Michael Pliska
 
soggy said:
Anyone have videos? Especially of the wheels up launch:evil
Click to expand...

I'd love to see any videos or photos from the event!

After the race we were looking at the in-truck camera footage, watching slo-mo to see where we were along the track when the front end finally settled down. Hopefully when Brad and Phil get home they can post those videos.

Here's the only photo I took at the event!
Mission-Dirtymax.jpg
 
anyone know who won in sportsman et? i made the second round of eliminations but i had to leave early ( my 10 month old was in the sun all day and getting cranky)

it was to bad we had to wait around all day for the gasser's to run , but other then that a good event, alot of nice trucks!
 
I think it was a guy in a dark blue Duramax dually who won Sportsman ET, but I'm not positive. He took out the guy that beat me in the semi-finals, so he was at least in the finals.
 
Congrats on the R/T and 60' time Michael! That is getting out of the hole for sure.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top