Our epic MFactory shootout adventure w/ event pics
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From: GONE FISHIN'
Our epic MFactory shootout adventure w/ event pics
I don’t even know where to start with saying how crazy the weekend was so ill see if I can muster up some of the highlights, but im sure most are here to see the pics anyway. None of the pics are edited besides some auto crap and cropping because of the number. If you want any particular pics I will get them to you in full size and properly edited.
I arrived at half-race at 1pm on Wednesday to throw Jake’s (indub) car on the dyno while he was at work so we could head out that evening. When I get there Aaron and Henry are busting some *** trying to get their car together so they could head out to the track that evening. Joe over at locash had another customer’s car on the dyno that shouldn't take to long so I just sit around and wait. Come 6pm Joe finally finishes up with the car and has to head home so at this point we are already without a tune for the car on the new turbo. I start packing things up as Aaron and Henry finish up the car and get it loaded to head out to firebird. Jake finally shows up around 8:30 or so in the new truck he bought just to tow the trailer for the event and we get everything hooked up and ready to jam out. We are about an hour behind schedule and we head out. As we are cruising up the first mountains out of town the truck throws a cel and loses power so we pull off the road to check it out. We take out the obd2 reader to check it out and to our luck it cannot make a connection. After 15 minutes of dicking around in the dark and checking everything out we decide to continue as for some reason now it revs freely and drives fine. We continue on and the truck does the same thing about 10 minutes later we pull off shut her down and wait then get back moving shortly after. Around this time we get a call from Aaron and Henry saying the car is running great and they are going to head up for the event also. After the continuous on off power loss we start to recognize a pattern that if we give the truck more that 50% throttle or any load its going to act up so our pace now is anywhere between 45-65 mph for the trip. After playing driving games with a drunk driver we finally make it to the Utah border. We stop at a small town to get some gas and snacks and realize around this time that we lost another hour with the time change. We keep on trucking along constantly pulling off to let the truck reset itself and we finally get some momentum going when bambi decides to get a nice look at the front of the truck. We nail the brakes and the deer mopes out of the way non chalantly just barely avoiding its demise. Around this time the sun is coming up and the scenery is great to look at, however no one told us AZ folk we were going to be driving through 44 degree weather in July. Cruising for awhile with the heater on we pull off once more next to a creek to let the truck regain normal driving abilities, next thing I know it’s an hour later and we both fell asleep on the side of the road. Still trucking along we come to our first big town and see a napa so we pull in and see if they have a working code reader. The man working the desk was very generous and gave us his personal code reader, but it still failed to connect. Well on the way I was searching Google for any possible answer I could find related to the truck and came up with either fuel or tranny problems. We picked up a fuel filter and changed it out and after tinkering for 45 minutes or so finally get the system to prime and we are on our way. Well the truck still doesn’t want to get out of its own way but it’s not going into limp mode anymore so we finish up the last leg of the trip. We get to Courtney’s (uglyasscivic) house around 1230 and bring our bags inside and head out to get some real food with him and Steve (antilag). Once back we push the car into the garage and pull the tranny out as Jake had been having issues with the brand new gear set he put in a week prior. Aaron, Henry, and Shorty show up so everyone is here now. We get loaded up and bring the tranny to Cort's buddy’s transmission shop. We get things torn down and second gear is in pretty bad shape along with all the syncros; this is also around the time I broke my belt buckle for those that wondered why I didn’t have one. We get some new syncros round up and have the tranny guru get everything put back together in tip top shape and pray second gear holds up for the weekend. Once back we get the car ready to go and head over to the dyno with both cars. On our way just to our luck we have a blowout on the trailer and luckily we have a spare. Jake gets on the dyno and the car feels great and is shifting smoothly and almost breaks the record for most power ever made on that dyno. Aaron and Henry take their turn but things aren’t looking so great, the car wasn’t making good power and had a horrible leak down. We get back to Courtney's house and pull the head to check out the head gasket and all seems well. We pull out a straight edge and check the deck and to our astonishment the sleeves had sunk now with only 18 hours till the first round of qualifying. We get the motor out and everything torn down somewhat smoothly minus 1 clutch bolt stripping and Court says we can bring it to the machine shop at 7am when they open; mind you this is 11 hours from qual time. We check out the internals a bit closer and 3 of the pistons are cracked now really putting us in some ****. Luckily Mr. Green has a spare set of correct size pistons. 7am rolls around and Court and I get to the machine shop and the guys make it a priority to get the block done as soon as possible. We pick up the block around 11:30 and get to work with 6 hours till first round qualifying. Everything in the motor goes together great and we get to the the clutch and put the new bolts in and to our luck once again the new ones were hitting the tranny case. Back to the hardware store this is our last chance we get some bolts and the new ones clear the case by a hair. Everything gets zipped together and the car starts right up we load her on the trailer and make our way to the track. We arrive at 5:30 just in time to get pitted and get hassled a bit during tech because the scatter shield didn’t have a sfi number. Jake makes his first qual pass but the tranny still isn’t cooperating and bogging hard out of the hole. Back in the pits everyone is having their fair share of problems already. On to the next round yet more second gear issues with Jake and it just doesn’t want to make power up top and Henry makes a pass, but loses a plug wire. Jake gets back to the pits and the slicks decided to eat up his front end. We get jakes car loaded up so we can fix the front back at Court's house while Aaron Henry and Shorty head back to the dyno. We go pick up some beer and steaks and decide to grill and chill out for a bit. After eating I am pretty sure I was introduced to one of the greatest gambling games ever... left right center. Now is about the time Jake regained some luck kicking our *** in the game then proceeding to play Courtney for $20's instead of $1's and continued winning. Jake and I head out to the garage and on a whim decide to change back to the Garrett turbo and get the front fixed. There was also a small incident with fire that I am not going to go into. 5 am rolls around and we decided we needed some rest before eliminations day as it seemed to be non existent any time prior in the trip. We finally get up and turns out we way overslept and had to hustle big time to the track. Jake decided to run 24.5's and got in his first "clean" pass and Aaron and Henry made qualifying. I get hollered at by track officials because your shirt can't say f*ck on it; welcome to Utah. First round of eliminations came around and Jake had a bye and Aaron and Henry were up against Reynolds. The car acted up again the top end and Reynolds took the win. Next round was Jake vs. Courtney and Jake’s tranny once again wasn’t a happy camper and Courtney took the win. We got all packed up after all the shenagins following the event and headed back to Mr. Green’s house for some social drinking and left right center with a bunch of people. After a hectic weekend it was finally time to head home but we opted to get lunch and check out SLC instead. The whole group got some sushi and I must say I had one of the best rolls I've ever had despite my stomach hating me for it. We headed up to snowbird ski resort and did the luge then headed up to the top of the mountain. I never though I would have a snowball fight in august, but it happened. The peacefulness at the mountains top was a huge relief from everything but reality checked in and it was time to get home. We said our goodbyes to the group and headed home. The truck was running great as one of court’s friends checked it out when we were on the dyno and got it fixed and we were making great time. We decided to go home a different route through Vegas and found a shortcut on the map. Well the "shortcut" turned into us losing about 2 hours and driving through dirt roads for quite some time. Finally back in AZ Jake and I were fighting sleep and somehow made it home in one piece. Everything got unloaded from the trailer and was covered in dirt from the road mishap but after that we got home and it was time for some well deserved rest.
I can't express enough my thanks to Courtney and Angela for letting all us Arizona guys stay in your house and the hospitality you gave us. Courtney your just amazing man, you went out on a huge limb to help the competition and the world really needs more people like you in it. It was great meeting all the new people and seeing some old faces too. I made some new friends I don’t plan on giving up anytime soon.
See everyone soon.
On to the pics:
I arrived at half-race at 1pm on Wednesday to throw Jake’s (indub) car on the dyno while he was at work so we could head out that evening. When I get there Aaron and Henry are busting some *** trying to get their car together so they could head out to the track that evening. Joe over at locash had another customer’s car on the dyno that shouldn't take to long so I just sit around and wait. Come 6pm Joe finally finishes up with the car and has to head home so at this point we are already without a tune for the car on the new turbo. I start packing things up as Aaron and Henry finish up the car and get it loaded to head out to firebird. Jake finally shows up around 8:30 or so in the new truck he bought just to tow the trailer for the event and we get everything hooked up and ready to jam out. We are about an hour behind schedule and we head out. As we are cruising up the first mountains out of town the truck throws a cel and loses power so we pull off the road to check it out. We take out the obd2 reader to check it out and to our luck it cannot make a connection. After 15 minutes of dicking around in the dark and checking everything out we decide to continue as for some reason now it revs freely and drives fine. We continue on and the truck does the same thing about 10 minutes later we pull off shut her down and wait then get back moving shortly after. Around this time we get a call from Aaron and Henry saying the car is running great and they are going to head up for the event also. After the continuous on off power loss we start to recognize a pattern that if we give the truck more that 50% throttle or any load its going to act up so our pace now is anywhere between 45-65 mph for the trip. After playing driving games with a drunk driver we finally make it to the Utah border. We stop at a small town to get some gas and snacks and realize around this time that we lost another hour with the time change. We keep on trucking along constantly pulling off to let the truck reset itself and we finally get some momentum going when bambi decides to get a nice look at the front of the truck. We nail the brakes and the deer mopes out of the way non chalantly just barely avoiding its demise. Around this time the sun is coming up and the scenery is great to look at, however no one told us AZ folk we were going to be driving through 44 degree weather in July. Cruising for awhile with the heater on we pull off once more next to a creek to let the truck regain normal driving abilities, next thing I know it’s an hour later and we both fell asleep on the side of the road. Still trucking along we come to our first big town and see a napa so we pull in and see if they have a working code reader. The man working the desk was very generous and gave us his personal code reader, but it still failed to connect. Well on the way I was searching Google for any possible answer I could find related to the truck and came up with either fuel or tranny problems. We picked up a fuel filter and changed it out and after tinkering for 45 minutes or so finally get the system to prime and we are on our way. Well the truck still doesn’t want to get out of its own way but it’s not going into limp mode anymore so we finish up the last leg of the trip. We get to Courtney’s (uglyasscivic) house around 1230 and bring our bags inside and head out to get some real food with him and Steve (antilag). Once back we push the car into the garage and pull the tranny out as Jake had been having issues with the brand new gear set he put in a week prior. Aaron, Henry, and Shorty show up so everyone is here now. We get loaded up and bring the tranny to Cort's buddy’s transmission shop. We get things torn down and second gear is in pretty bad shape along with all the syncros; this is also around the time I broke my belt buckle for those that wondered why I didn’t have one. We get some new syncros round up and have the tranny guru get everything put back together in tip top shape and pray second gear holds up for the weekend. Once back we get the car ready to go and head over to the dyno with both cars. On our way just to our luck we have a blowout on the trailer and luckily we have a spare. Jake gets on the dyno and the car feels great and is shifting smoothly and almost breaks the record for most power ever made on that dyno. Aaron and Henry take their turn but things aren’t looking so great, the car wasn’t making good power and had a horrible leak down. We get back to Courtney's house and pull the head to check out the head gasket and all seems well. We pull out a straight edge and check the deck and to our astonishment the sleeves had sunk now with only 18 hours till the first round of qualifying. We get the motor out and everything torn down somewhat smoothly minus 1 clutch bolt stripping and Court says we can bring it to the machine shop at 7am when they open; mind you this is 11 hours from qual time. We check out the internals a bit closer and 3 of the pistons are cracked now really putting us in some ****. Luckily Mr. Green has a spare set of correct size pistons. 7am rolls around and Court and I get to the machine shop and the guys make it a priority to get the block done as soon as possible. We pick up the block around 11:30 and get to work with 6 hours till first round qualifying. Everything in the motor goes together great and we get to the the clutch and put the new bolts in and to our luck once again the new ones were hitting the tranny case. Back to the hardware store this is our last chance we get some bolts and the new ones clear the case by a hair. Everything gets zipped together and the car starts right up we load her on the trailer and make our way to the track. We arrive at 5:30 just in time to get pitted and get hassled a bit during tech because the scatter shield didn’t have a sfi number. Jake makes his first qual pass but the tranny still isn’t cooperating and bogging hard out of the hole. Back in the pits everyone is having their fair share of problems already. On to the next round yet more second gear issues with Jake and it just doesn’t want to make power up top and Henry makes a pass, but loses a plug wire. Jake gets back to the pits and the slicks decided to eat up his front end. We get jakes car loaded up so we can fix the front back at Court's house while Aaron Henry and Shorty head back to the dyno. We go pick up some beer and steaks and decide to grill and chill out for a bit. After eating I am pretty sure I was introduced to one of the greatest gambling games ever... left right center. Now is about the time Jake regained some luck kicking our *** in the game then proceeding to play Courtney for $20's instead of $1's and continued winning. Jake and I head out to the garage and on a whim decide to change back to the Garrett turbo and get the front fixed. There was also a small incident with fire that I am not going to go into. 5 am rolls around and we decided we needed some rest before eliminations day as it seemed to be non existent any time prior in the trip. We finally get up and turns out we way overslept and had to hustle big time to the track. Jake decided to run 24.5's and got in his first "clean" pass and Aaron and Henry made qualifying. I get hollered at by track officials because your shirt can't say f*ck on it; welcome to Utah. First round of eliminations came around and Jake had a bye and Aaron and Henry were up against Reynolds. The car acted up again the top end and Reynolds took the win. Next round was Jake vs. Courtney and Jake’s tranny once again wasn’t a happy camper and Courtney took the win. We got all packed up after all the shenagins following the event and headed back to Mr. Green’s house for some social drinking and left right center with a bunch of people. After a hectic weekend it was finally time to head home but we opted to get lunch and check out SLC instead. The whole group got some sushi and I must say I had one of the best rolls I've ever had despite my stomach hating me for it. We headed up to snowbird ski resort and did the luge then headed up to the top of the mountain. I never though I would have a snowball fight in august, but it happened. The peacefulness at the mountains top was a huge relief from everything but reality checked in and it was time to get home. We said our goodbyes to the group and headed home. The truck was running great as one of court’s friends checked it out when we were on the dyno and got it fixed and we were making great time. We decided to go home a different route through Vegas and found a shortcut on the map. Well the "shortcut" turned into us losing about 2 hours and driving through dirt roads for quite some time. Finally back in AZ Jake and I were fighting sleep and somehow made it home in one piece. Everything got unloaded from the trailer and was covered in dirt from the road mishap but after that we got home and it was time for some well deserved rest.
I can't express enough my thanks to Courtney and Angela for letting all us Arizona guys stay in your house and the hospitality you gave us. Courtney your just amazing man, you went out on a huge limb to help the competition and the world really needs more people like you in it. It was great meeting all the new people and seeing some old faces too. I made some new friends I don’t plan on giving up anytime soon.
See everyone soon.
On to the pics:
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Honda-Tech Member
Joined: Jul 2008
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From: Lowell, MA, USA
Re: Our epic MFactory shootout adventure w/ event pics
I need a high resolution pic of T1's car to finish the flyer but he has to be doing a burn out!
Someone please get me a pic asap!
Someone please get me a pic asap!
