Here is a video of my weekend at Willow Springs that my son put together. Pay particular attention to the video at 6:25 and watch the lower most gauge at around 7:43.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir1TSs-Kpkg

That looked like a lot of fun! What kind of camera did you have in the car?

- Robert

A friend of mine has 2 chase cams he let me borrow.

Was the the oil pressure gauge? Looks like it went to 0. Bummer! Keep us posted on the diagnosis.

Seen your car there. what happen did the pin let go in the distributor gear?

Yep, it was the oil pressure gauge. I haven't pulled the distributor out yet but the motor sounds normal when it turns over however the rotor doesn't turn so I am pretty sure that is the problem. The funny thing is, I read about this issue when I built the motor so I did double roll pin the gear but I am thinking that maybe the roll pin I used wasn't hardened. What do you think? Are there different strength roll pins?

what are the specs on the motor. So most of those laps are in 3rd and 4th?

The motor is a 351c, 30 over with 4v open chamber heads. I used pop-up pistons to bring the compression ratio up to around 10.5 to 1. I used a Lunati hydraulic cam that has .565 lift on intake and .588 lift on exhaust. The advertized duration is 300 intake, 310 exhaust. 234 intake and 244 exhaust at .050 tappet lift. It pulls pretty good until about 6000rpm.

Yes, mostly 3rd and 4th for the whole track. 2nd a couple of times but as I become a better driver maybe I wouldn't need 2nd.

quote:

maybe the roll pin I used wasn't hardened

Scott,

You may have gotten a Chinese roll pin, or your oil pump may have sucked up a piece of something that was in the oil pan. If the pin were too hard, it would be brittle and shatter easily.

Try looking for a roll pin at an aircraft parts supply. All of the aircraft parts are supposed to have traceability. Try Aircraft Spruce. They are located near you in Corona.

A spiral roll pin is available. McMaster-Carr has them, but I don't know where they get their pins.

John

Scott, there are other possibilities which you'll find when you pull the distributor. First and most common is the roll pin. I've not heard of a double roll pin breaking so it may well be one of the others. #2 is breaking the pump driveshaft between the pump and distributor gear; hardened drivershafts are less than $15. #3 is actually shearing badly worn gear teeth off the distributor drive from a couple of causes, one of which is metal incompatibilty and the other is a cam with its integral gear cut on the wrong tooth-angle. The last has happened from all known cam grinders since they all buy cam-blanks from one of only about 3 manufacturers. I'll be waiting to find what the root cause actually was. On the good side, if dropping the pan and checking #1 or #2 rod bearing shows only light bearing wear, you dodged a bullet. Good luck-