1.6 rockers and Dana housing

[Don Dulmage <big-d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Gary Wager tested the 1.6 roller rockers on the 400 cheapy.
We had heavy rains here the night before and it rained hard about 5 miles from the track as well. The track was off a bit which is a normal condition here if we race right after bad weather (I dont know why but it can be as much as 2 tenths off. Probably a combo of air pressure, too much humidity and a bit of slippyness trackside. )) 
Anyway, he made a few passes with the 1/6 rockers installed . He had a set of new aluminum Roller rockers from Cat. they appeared to be very good quality and installed with no trouble.  First pass was 7.83 and he could not get below 7.80. After a few passes he reinstalled the stock  stamped steel rockers and stock 400 pushrods. Time dropped to 7.60 on the first pass and stayed betweeen 7.60 and 7.66 the rest of the day. As a check he has a buddy with a bowtie car that runs about the same times. and Gary said he checked with Ron to see if his times had changed due to improving weather or traction etc since both cars were off about the same due to the rains. The chevy did not change so we are giving the rockers credit. 
He said he thought we should retry the test sometime with a fresh set of valve springs as these have been on the heads for several years as he is supicious that it could be the extra valve action provided was too much for the old springs (Comp cams 924s). I agree that would be a good idea. However it is interesting to note so far he didnt get any of the gains expected from going to roller rockers  or from the higher ratio. 
Cam BTW is  310 duration (adv) and 525 lift hyrdaulic. 
Not the definative test ,yet , and we arent writing them off but still interesting. When we do the spring thing and retry it I will report the results. 
Now remember, we have no axe to grind here and we are not done testing yet. We are selling nothing (well ok a few books but no parts) We are just a couple of curious old farts who want to know "what happens if we.......?"
We wanted to see if we take a good working well flogged combo and installed 1/6s would the car go faster or slower. It would appear this particular combo didnt like it but we will try it a couple of more times on this and other motors.  I have asked two cam grinders i know what they thought and got the same answer both times (exactly) "sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesnt" 

We also conveted the car to a Dana. We bought  a 3/4 ton axle from the local wreckers and chopped the full floater ends off and welded Moser ends on with Moser axles. All done by hand with a square  to check all was straight. It worked great  and the axles slid into place with a gentle squeeze by hand. We bought a couple of these danas for $150 each . Now that the wrecker knows what we are doing I am sure the price will rise but it was a very easy conversion. 
Why the Dana? While i have never hurt a 8 3/4 myself Gary popped two cases last year. Could be his old narrowed axle housing was getting bent from ten plus years of hard racing. He had it narrowed proffesionally but the axles would never go in nicely so maybe it was never straight to start with.  Probably the 32 X 14 X 15 tires dont help either. A housing brace and a mild rework would have probably saved it but he wanted Dana and now he has one for very little money. Car is a 4 link suspension currently.
Don
Author of
Return to Deutschland (True Adventure)
Old Reliable (Mopar)
http://stores.ebay.ca/Don-Dulmage-Enterprises
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