Wednesday morning, the Kristensen’s who built the motor had arrived, and they came over. We ran the engine and they diagnosed it as running lean. Apparently they had tuned the motor on 12 volts, and our Total Discharge Controller boosted the voltage up to 14 volts and the voltage correction leaned the motor out. In the pits it sounded like it was running OK, so we went out to qualify later in the day. I managed to go 6thquickest on the day – 8th quickest overall, but the motor never felt right, and by the end of the session, was firmly on 3 cylinders. Back in the pits we continued to work on the engine. A leakdown test revealed no internal problems. We changed the coils and the car stayed on 3 cylinders. The only thing we hadn’t changed was the fuel injectors. We were able to order a replacement set from RC Engineering, and they arrived the next morning on UPS by 10am. We put them in and the motor ran on all 4 cylinders immediately. We also made some changes to the airbox to increase the airflow to the intake. Late in the day, Nate Wilcox from B&J Engineering flew into Milwaukee with our new transmission as checked luggage. The crew pulled the well used and unreliable gearbox out of the car while we drove back from the airport, and had the new one in the car an hour after we got back to the track. As soon as we tested the new box on the jackstands we knew this was different. No noises, easy to shift and quiet in every gear was the first noticeable improvement. 

 We asked for and were granted a hardship lap yesterday morning, and even though the track was damp, we went out on slicks and I got the car to pull thru all 5 gears at wide open throttle. By now with the new injectors, the engine was running rich at 11.5 to one, and the new gearbox had one small problem. It popped out of 5th gear as soon as I took my foot off the gas. Back in the pits, Nate modified the 5th gear detent to increase the tension, and Joe Kristensen leaned the motor out by 8% and we were set to go. 

 At 10:30 the green flag waved and GTL was away. I took the wrong line into turn 1 and got passed by two cars, dropping me to 10th. I got one spot back fairly quickly going up the front straight, made a pass back to 8thcoming into turn 5 the next lap – only to see a waving yellow flag ahead. You aren’t allowed to pass in a yellow flag zone for safety, so I gave the spot back to avoid getting a penalty, and two corners later took the position for good. I ran down Bob Clark in his red CRX a lap later, and out accelerated him up the hill from turn 5 to turn 6. Up ahead, Chris Bovis retired after his grill was blocked by leaves, overheating his engine and damaging it. That put me in 5th, where I basically ran by myself for the rest of the race. I nearly caught Rob McFarlane at the end of the race, but he managed to hang on to his spot. We made our minimum weight by 2 lbs after the race, and had only 1 liter of fuel left in the car at the end, so we couldn’t have gone any farther. After the disappointments of the previous four attempts, 5th was the maximum we could achieve this year, and we did. The whole team was very happy with the result. 

 At the same time, the engine builder for the GT3 car, Sean Powers had received all the new parts he needed, got the cylinder head back from the head shop. By midnight Thursday he had the engine reassembled, and my best friend Bruce and his wife Jocelyn had left earlier in the day to make the 7 hour drive to Dayton, Ohio. They loaded the engine into our rental car and headed back to Elkhart Lake, arriving at 6:30 in the morning. After a couple of hours of rest, they came up to the track for the GTL race. 

 Yesterday, we put the engine back into the GT3 car – very easy job and it fired right up, just as TE McHale, the president of American Honda came over to see the car and talk to us. Talk about good timing. This morning we took the car to tech for inspection and passed, and then got our name put back on the entry list (they took it off because we hadn’t made any qualifying laps). So tomorrow we will start the GT3 race shotgun on the field – and the only Honda. Hopefully we will have another good result like we did yesterday! 

 Jim