Thunder in the Heartland

[PatrickStapler]

This is the Event Thread for Thunder in the Heartland. Discuss the event below.

View full event details here and mark yourself as Going or Not Going

 

[PatientZero]

There are a ton of events going on that weekend. CAM Challenge in STL too. Unfortunately I have drill and can't go to any of them.

 

[PatrickStapler]

It’s race week…finally…

 

[PatrickStapler]

Well…it wasn’t all roses for us this race. Started at from the house at 3:50AM Friday morning. Got to the interstate around 4:30AM and North we go. About 15 minutes up the road and the truck literally shuts off at 75MPH…nothing. Reduced Engine Power notification pops up on the dash. Reduced I say…I got nothing. I shift the truck in neutral, turn off the key and coast for about 10 seconds. Turn the key back on, fire up the engine, put it in drive and it takes off. Take it back up to 75MPH and we drive on…second fuel stop, several hours later we jump back on the interstate and bam…dead again…WTF??? Now I’m really worried. If you remember, this event last Fall was when my trailer decided to eject an entire wheel assembly. Now we’re thinking we aren’t meant to race at Heartland Motorsports Park. We decide to push on and the truck shuts off at least another dozen times before I realize that driving slower around 60MPH the truck was seemingly ok. So we finished the trip at that docile pace…arriving about and hour and half later than planned, but we made it.

Borrowed a teammate’s code reader (luckily he had one) and get P0093…excessive fuel leak. So the hunt is on…no leaks anywhere. Decide to disconnect both batteries and let it sit for the weekend and get to racing.

Saturday morning we have our practice session…all good. First race all good. Second race all good…did a little farming…until the last lap. Come out of T6 start ip the hill into T7, upshift to fourth…clutch pedal stays on the floor…WTF…can this weekend get any worse? Lug the car around and off the track back to the paddock and under my tent. Let the car cool…get it up on stands and start inspecting things. All the clutch linkage is connected and working properly, but nothing is happening with the clutch. Finally figured out, the clutch fork pivot bracket on the bellhousing had completely flattened out allowing the clutch fork to separate from the clutch release bearing. We were done.

Left the track at noon Sunday and drive six hours at 60MPH to grab some dinner and a hotel. Did some research on the truck to find a plausible solution of the high pressure fuel regulator going bad. Ordered one of those and hopefully that cures that.

Anyway…here are a couple pics from the weekend.











There were a few other cars, but for some reason the site says they don’t have the correct file extension.

 

[TMSBOSS]

Sounds like a “Fun” weekend.
The 73 Vette reminds me of my first car, 68 Vette custom paint and hooker side pipes.

 

[PatientZero]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of truck?

 

[PatrickStapler]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of truck?

2015 F250

 

[PatientZero]

2015 F250

Diesel I assume?

 

[PatrickStapler]

Diesel I assume?

Yes...sorry. 6.7L. The weird thing is, after we stopped for lunch on Monday, the code cleared itself and the truck ran perfectly fine at 75MPH+ the rest of the way home. At any rate, it's still getting the new part installed.

 

[PatrickStapler]

Sorry…forgot to post we were doing ChampCar at Hallett this weekend. Could have won Saturday. Second driver had a slight off track excursion. Shoved the front sway bar up into the oil pan. Bent the pan up into the oil pickup shutting off all oil pressure. Spent the next three hours swapping motors…again. We did actually finish the last two hours of the race.

Went back at it today. All four drivers had an awesome day. We were all really consistent. I had fast lap (1:29) for most of the day…until one of our two hot shoes got in the car for the last two hours. He beat me my .5 seconds. I was pretty proud of that.

Class winner on Sunday and sixth overall….post race inspection