Photographer Tapio Valja 
Photographer Tapio Valja
Photographer Thomas LePrince
After Finland the torched head was repaired and the bike cleaned from the bottom to the top. It had aluminium sprayed over many components that has to be removed. Engine and transmission was totally disassembled for inspection and cleaning. The head seal was modified for more efficient transportation of heat. New Pushrod balls in the Uddeholm Vancron 40 was made and installed for testing. Greger Johansson who is taking one year off the racing, busy with building new engines, has been with us in the team this season. He is an expert in sheet metal works and did reshape the intake tubes for better more rigid mounting in the future.
We had a wonderful weather in Mantorp, up to 30 degrees C. At Thursday before the race had Leif Andreasson organized a MSD and Racepak on track training. Over 100 people did participate. Joe Pando MSD and Tim Andersson Racepak did an excellent job at the presentation and could give all answers on the tricky questions that came up.
As previous year did Super Twin Top Fuel and Top Fuel Bike run 1/8 mile on Mantorp because of the short stopping distance. New for this year was 1000 feet for Top Fuel Cars same length as NHRA start with in the Denver race this year.
Friday morning early, time for qualification for the Super Twins. We got big expectations and with the shorter distance we can try to find a “window” for our tune up without destroying to much parts. But we got the same problem again, torching the head direct after the hit. The team took a quick decision. We have to fix it for Saturday´s qualification. There is something in the tune up, fuel mixture, ignition, comp ratio, boost that not is right. Mechanical there is nothing to do except for maybe some smaller design changes. Nothing breaks it just torches.
Just before noon Charley and Jarmo borrowed a car and drove 2,5 hours home with heads and cylinders. Matte, Greger and Göran “Spex” Lönnmark did stay at the track cleaning up the bike and fix, inspect and replace parts.
In the teams workshop a new rear cylinderhead was completed and made ready for use with seats and guides, machining for nozzles and head seal and porting. Three more head studs were added in the hot area on both heads. The front cylinder head also needed seal fresh up because of smaller burn marks. The cylinders got the extra holes for the new studs. After a contact with Chris Brown at ARP did we choose studs and torque values to optimize the mount of the heads. The pistons were modified for lowering the comp ratio and with support from Tom Prock at Venolia did the top of pistons machined in shape to be optimised for nitro.
After 16 hours in the shop, eight a clock in the morning, did Charley and Jarmo drove back to Mantorp. At the track did a lot invited guests and sponsors have a lot of questions and also big expectations and hope too see the bike running down the track. Carina took care of all guest and the guys could assemble the bike. We missed the first qualification pass because the bike was not ready in time. After a warm up in the pits and small adjustments did it seems to run very well. Ready for last chance to qualify.
Time to make the run. Now the engine does not sound as good as it did in the pits, runs almost only on one cylinder. It cleans up during the burn-out and revs easily 6500 rpm at 20% throttle opening. Down to idle again, still running bad. What is the option, we have had been running fairly good with the old bike also starting with bad idle and this is the last chance to qualify. It is worth a try.
As soon as Charley open the trottle did aluminium from the front cylinder head spray out in huge flame and the last bend of the intake manifold also came loose. Big disappointment in the team. After all hard work and still similar problem.
We have been backing off on the tune-up as much as possible within the possibility of the design and when checking the logger everything looks great, except for the bad idle of course and that was even worse this last run at Mantorp.
At the elimination day did the team got the time discussing what to do and what possible can be done to solve the problem. The flame temperature must be lowered.
By talking with other teams at the track and see and compare logged runs and discuss design solutions we did collect as much info as possible to go on with our own bike. The positive thing with the overload of the engine parts we have experienced has been a continues development of the design in some areas that we will have good use for in the future.
Svein-Olav Rolfstad won the final at Mantorp and is now in the lead in the Championship.
We had a wonderful weather in Mantorp, up to 30 degrees C. At Thursday before the race had Leif Andreasson organized a MSD and Racepak on track training. Over 100 people did participate. Joe Pando MSD and Tim Andersson Racepak did an excellent job at the presentation and could give all answers on the tricky questions that came up.
As previous year did Super Twin Top Fuel and Top Fuel Bike run 1/8 mile on Mantorp because of the short stopping distance. New for this year was 1000 feet for Top Fuel Cars same length as NHRA start with in the Denver race this year.
Friday morning early, time for qualification for the Super Twins. We got big expectations and with the shorter distance we can try to find a “window” for our tune up without destroying to much parts. But we got the same problem again, torching the head direct after the hit. The team took a quick decision. We have to fix it for Saturday´s qualification. There is something in the tune up, fuel mixture, ignition, comp ratio, boost that not is right. Mechanical there is nothing to do except for maybe some smaller design changes. Nothing breaks it just torches.
Just before noon Charley and Jarmo borrowed a car and drove 2,5 hours home with heads and cylinders. Matte, Greger and Göran “Spex” Lönnmark did stay at the track cleaning up the bike and fix, inspect and replace parts.
In the teams workshop a new rear cylinderhead was completed and made ready for use with seats and guides, machining for nozzles and head seal and porting. Three more head studs were added in the hot area on both heads. The front cylinder head also needed seal fresh up because of smaller burn marks. The cylinders got the extra holes for the new studs. After a contact with Chris Brown at ARP did we choose studs and torque values to optimize the mount of the heads. The pistons were modified for lowering the comp ratio and with support from Tom Prock at Venolia did the top of pistons machined in shape to be optimised for nitro.
After 16 hours in the shop, eight a clock in the morning, did Charley and Jarmo drove back to Mantorp. At the track did a lot invited guests and sponsors have a lot of questions and also big expectations and hope too see the bike running down the track. Carina took care of all guest and the guys could assemble the bike. We missed the first qualification pass because the bike was not ready in time. After a warm up in the pits and small adjustments did it seems to run very well. Ready for last chance to qualify.
Time to make the run. Now the engine does not sound as good as it did in the pits, runs almost only on one cylinder. It cleans up during the burn-out and revs easily 6500 rpm at 20% throttle opening. Down to idle again, still running bad. What is the option, we have had been running fairly good with the old bike also starting with bad idle and this is the last chance to qualify. It is worth a try.
As soon as Charley open the trottle did aluminium from the front cylinder head spray out in huge flame and the last bend of the intake manifold also came loose. Big disappointment in the team. After all hard work and still similar problem.
We have been backing off on the tune-up as much as possible within the possibility of the design and when checking the logger everything looks great, except for the bad idle of course and that was even worse this last run at Mantorp.
At the elimination day did the team got the time discussing what to do and what possible can be done to solve the problem. The flame temperature must be lowered.
By talking with other teams at the track and see and compare logged runs and discuss design solutions we did collect as much info as possible to go on with our own bike. The positive thing with the overload of the engine parts we have experienced has been a continues development of the design in some areas that we will have good use for in the future.
Svein-Olav Rolfstad won the final at Mantorp and is now in the lead in the Championship.
