[Wayne Davis]

Originally Posted by DAD Wayne The car Roy Robins won the first Knoxville Nationals in was named "Fido". It was originally an old Champ car that Harry Hyde (Days of Thunder) modified to race with the then Modified division at the Sportsdrome in Jeffeersonville Indiana. Andy Hampton drove for him then and in 3 short years they won every race in sight and single handedly killed open wheel racing in the Louisville Kentucky Market. Harry went on to NASCAR fame and at one point racing with a kid named Tim Richmond. Hollywood went on and made a movie about the odd couple. Harry sold the car to some guy up in Ohio I think by the name of Hoffman and Roy borrowed it from him to take to Knoxville with a home made wing on it. He came back with all their money in his pockets. Honest Dad himself

So much history!! what I love about speedweeks in Florida come Feb. ...... al the stories that are been told....enjoyed last year at Bubbas when me Jack Hewitt and Duke Cook got together tilling a bunch of old stories

[Roy Bleckert]

The annual Midget discussion thread on IOW is about to surpass 13K views.... we can now go back to regular programing LOLLL !!!!!!!

[Wayne Davis]

Isn't this called going "VIRAL"!!!

[PatrickMead#13]

Originally Posted by Wayne Davis Isn't this called going "VIRAL"!!!

They make an cure for that.......lol
Called Midgets......😃

[gearguy]

Cheap - Fast - Reliable: Pick two of three
I've been fielding cars in the Illini Series since 2008. I started developing a Honda motor in 2009. We ran two different Hondas last year, one with EFI. Here's what I have learned:
1. Unless you luck into a very low mileage [<50,000] motor you will want to rebuild your salvage yard motor. Add $2000 for parts and machine work. It costs $140 in gaskets & bolts to pull the head off one of these motors.
2. The bolt on parts are very pricy. I don't like the look of the single throttle body but real racing injection is $2000 or more.
3. Fuel pumps are a PITA. An electric pump of sufficient quality & volume is over $300. A GOOD mechanical pump is >$400.
4. Accessory drive parts & brackets are very costly. Look at the catalogs. Figure $600/750 for bracket/pulley/belts; more if you have yo change the water pump. We may put more thought into the serpentine OEM system.
5. Ignition systems are also expensive. I don't know of anyone using a modified OEM system. Aftermarket systems are >$800. EFI more like $1350.
6. Oil pans are $500. I tried making my own; required more fab skill than I could round up in my circle of volunteers.
7. Headers are also expensive. I used modified passenger car headers but real racing headers are going to be $500 or more.
These costs are baseline numbers. You might do better, you might do worse. EcoTecs are always going to be cheaper than Hondas in the salvage yard because there are so many of them. All the bolt on stuff is about the same.

[DAD]

Gear

Had to take my shoes off to do the computation, but what I got out of your post is, you race with a $9000.00 Honda motor. Of that $9000.00 initial investment you can expect to reuse about $6000.00 in reusable parts from your original investment on your next engine. How many races or seasons do you expect to get out of your Honda?

Taking everything into consideration sounds like you are doing pretty good.

Honest Dad himself

PS Do you guys also race backwards? http://illiniracing.com/gallery-3_html_files/292.jpg

[gearguy]

Dad, your math skills are right on. We expect to get (2) seasons (35-40 shows) without any big cash input. Each winter you need to take apart and inspect but the parts on all these DOHC motors are pretty durable. Some motors may need close attention to timing chains & valve train parts. Others need bottom end scrutiny [bolt torque & bearings].If people really through money at these things & get them up to 375 HP they will not get 2 seasons out of them.
It is all about what we engineers call the "S-N" curve. As stresses go up the life goes down. This is why Top Fuel & Funny Cars get basically new engines every 10 seconds of operation [High stress/low life] & car ferries last 100 years [low stress/long life]. Modern DOHC motors are designed to go 200,000 miles as maintained by a 20 year old college student [infrequent oil changes, cheap gas, mixture of short trips and 85 mph trips home for the weekend].

[DAD]

Gear

Watching them top fuel mechanics overhaul a motor is more exciting to me than watching them things jump down the drag strip.

From your rules book I would ass>ume that you are using stock internals right. When we strike out for that magical 400hp mark the internals will improve substantially and help add to the engine life span. The week link in the modern Midget "Clone" race motor seems to be in the head, if I am not mistaken. If the bottom end if machined and assembled correctly it is pretty much bullet proof. The 4 valve overhead cam design seems to have cured a lot of problems associated with Push Rod single valve head designs of the 1950's.

I dislike the EPA with a passion but had it not been for them we would probably be driving around in reconstituted Edsel's today. They forced action on the manufactures and true to form you engineer types met that challenge.

Now if the EPA would also come down on the modern race sanctioning bodies we might see change. I doubt if we consumers have enough clout to bring about much change by ourselves.

Honest Dad himself