<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14pt"><div></div><div>Russ,</div><div>If you read Mike loooong ;-)> report below you'll see his steel gear ate his cam ....I know that will come as no surprise to you and yea I remember what you said about NOT running a steel gear but my question is what if anything have you heard about the <b><u>poly gear</u></b>?<br><br></div><div><br></div><div>Thanks<br> </div><div><strong><font color="#0000ff"><em>Mad Dawg Antenucci <br></em></font><font color="#ff0000">Team Pantera Racing</font></strong> </div> <div><em><strong><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#007f7f">The 1st & still the only vintage race team in open road racing </font><br></strong></em><font color="#0000ff"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
href="http://www.teampanteraracing.com">www.teampanteraracing.com</a></font></div><div><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14pt"><br><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> David in Durango <adin@frontier.net><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> TPR List <tpr@teampanteraracing.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Mon, June 20, 2011 7:46:23 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [TPR] ? - for the dawg<br></font><br>
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<div>From: <a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:MikeLDrew@aol.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:MikeLDrew@aol.com">MikeLDrew@aol.com</a><br>Subject:
[DeTomaso] Pantera fall down go boom :<(<br>To: <a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:detomaso@realbig.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:detomaso@realbig.com">detomaso@realbig.com</a><br>Message-ID:
<<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:844d.67fcf0e2.3b2fdbb8@aol.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:844d.67fcf0e2.3b2fdbb8@aol.com">844d.67fcf0e2.3b2fdbb8@aol.com</a>><br>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"<br><br>Hi guys,<br><br>Those of you who were at
the POCA Fun Rally last weekend perhaps noted that <br>every single Pantera that
drove to the event, safely drove home at the end <br>of the weekend, save
one.<br><br>Unfortunately, that one was mine. :<(<br><br>I've been loving my
new 408 stroker Cleveland, which has utterly <br>transformed the
car. I had a wonderful drive up and over the Sierras, tempering my
<br>enthusiam a bit in deference to the handful of Panteras that were running
<br>with me (also a reflection of a recent run-in with Johnny Law that I managed
to <br>escape from for about $300, but my next ticket will result in points on
my <br>license).<br><br>At the track event, the first thing I did was to bleed
my brakes, as my <br>pedal was soft and squishy. I got a bit of
trapped air out, which improved <br>things, but they are far from where they
should be. I think this is a result <br>of some uncharacteristically
horrible engineering that took place when my <br>friend who restored the car
years ago, fabricated new brake lines. For <br>reasons unknown, he
deliberately placed a big loop in each line, which is <br>seemingly guaranteed
to trap air and result in a spongy pedal--exactly what I have <br>had all these
years. I think I am going to trash all the hard lines and <br>start
over.<br><br>But anyway. Once the brakes felt up to the task
(although far from <br>perfect), I started driving on the track Thursday
afternoon, and the car was much, <br>MUCH faster than two years ago.
I'm still very handicapped by my <br>super-crusty tires (my intent was to burn
them off at this event and then replace <br>them when I got home) which kept
cornering velocities laughably low, but also <br>provided lots of opportunity
for sideways antics at relatively low speeds.<br><br>Two years ago, I would
enter the front straight in 3rd gear, upshift to 4th <br>at about 5500 rpm, and
just be nudging 110 mph when I felt it was prudent <br>to lift for the first of
the three S-curves leading to the hairpin at the <br>end. This year,
with all the extra power, I was topping 130 mph.<br><br>Whee!<br><br>The thing
is, I would reach the 6000 rpm rev limiter well before the <br>turn-in
point. My choices were to either upshft to 5th gear for just a
moment, <br>then back down to 4th, or to just coast for a bit. Since
nobody was paying <br>me for this and there were no trophies on the line, I
elected to do the <br>latter. My car has an MSD system with the
'soft touch' rev limiter; the bumpf <br>that comes with the MSD box indicates
that there is no harm in just riding <br>the limiter, as it randomly cuts spark
from various cylinders to keep the RPM <br>at a predetermined maximum
point. So often times, I'd keep my foot to the <br>mat and just ride
the limiter for 100-200 feet or more, then lift off and <br>turn in.<br><br>At
the end of the first day, the car was running just a little bit
weird. <br>I was having trouble with the idle speed, and in fact the
next morning I <br>had to turn the idle up quite a bit.<br><br>I then went out
for a second day of more fun and games on the track, and <br>the motor seemed
'off' ever so slightly. I was driving with a raised <br>eyebrow, and
then I came down the front straight and noted that it was well down on
<br>power; with my foot to the mat it was 20 mph off at the turn-in
point. I <br>determined that I would pull in at the end of the lap
for a look-see.<br><br>Didn't happen. :<(<br><br>When I got to the steep
uphill, the engine started stuttering, and I had my <br>foot on the floor trying
to keep it going to at least the top so I could <br>pull off. But
just before the top, it went POP and quit, leaving me stranded <br>on the side
of the track, and causing a yellow flag in that area for the <br>rest of the
session.<br><br>I figured the distributor shear pin had sheared.
There were no other <br>indications, I had fuel, no clanking noises from the
engine, so it was pretty <br>apparently an ignition issue.<br><br>They threw the
checkered flag and I coasted down the hill to a safe spot <br>and abandoned the
car until lunchtime. Rich Boschert was kind enough to tow <br>it in
to the paddock on his flatbed trailer, and then any number of <br>volunteers
stepped in to help sort it out.<br><br>Steve Liebenow offered up some shear
pins, and I figured I'd be rolling a <br>short time later. But then
the distributor cam out. Bad news. <br>Distributor gear
totally mangled. :<(<br><br>Then we started thinking about getting a
replacement gear from Summit, just <br>down the road. But Chuck
Melton took a look-see down into the engine, and <br>what he saw was far from
good--the drive gear on the end of the camshaft <br>was destroyed as well.
<br><br>Trailer time. :<(<br><br>Fortunately for me, Rich has to drive within
a mile of my house on his way <br>home. He was kind enough to
trailer my Pantera back to the hotel, and then <br>back home Sunday afternoon,
and allow me to follow behind at the wheel of <br>his lovely green Pantera, so
all things considered, this went about as well <br>as could be expected under
the circumstances. Sunday morning we had an <br>uneventful drive
home, and since we had two other truck/trailers and another <br>Pantera in
convoy with us, it was easy to unload the car and push it into the <br>garage,
where it now sits, sad and forlorn.<br><br>Here's some photos of the gear on the
distributor. All of the teeth were <br>filed razor-sharp, creating
much slop in the timing (the cause for my idle <br>problems no
doubt). But then, a number of teeth simply sheared off
<br>completely, which caused the car to stop dead.<br><br><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=32311">http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=32311</a><br><br>When
you click on each photo, it opens up in a normal-sized view, but you <br>can
select the max size, which shows really excellent detail; you can clearly
<br>see where the teeth were literally sheared off.<br><br>I've since been in
touch with Dan Jones, John Christian and others, <br>attempting to determine the
cause of the problem. I was using a steel hydraulic <br>roller cam
core, and a Crane steel gear advertised to work well with such
<br>things. However, I did have a couple of things going against
me:<br><br>1) Excessive oil pressure. I purposely
re-used the oil pump from my <br>previous engine because it delivered 50 psi
there (verified with a mechanical <br>gauge) and I did not want high volume or
high pressure, both of which are bad <br>for Clevelands. However, my
new engine (perhaps due to tighter <br>tolorences) sees the oil pressure gauge
pegged. Probably 80 psi at operating RPM. <br>The
literature that comes with the cam gear says that it will live with a <br>steel
cam, EXCEPT if excessive pressure or volume oil pump is used. They
say <br>that rapid wear will then result--which I got. So, since oil
pumps are <br>cheap, I'm going to start over from scratch with a new Melling
M-84A. (The <br>Summit website is incorrect and doesn't list this
for the 351C, only showing <br>it as applicable for the 351M and
400M. But in fact this is a 351C pump, <br>as shown on Melling's
website.)<br><br>2) Driving on the rev limiter. Although
MSD says this about their <br>system:<br><br>There are two ways to limit your
rpms. The rough way simply cuts off <br>ignition spark, which can cause
backfiring, extreme engine roughness, and possible <br>engine damage. The gentle
way is with these MSD Soft Touch rev controllers. <br>They use sophisticated
computer circuitry to drop spark one cylinder at a <br>time, until your engine
is at or below its maximum rpm. Those cylinders are <br>then fired on the next
cycle, to prevent them from loading up with fuel. The <br>result is smooth rev
limiting action without all the rough stuff.<br><br>The truth appears to be that
even this 'gentle' process is rather hard on <br>the system, perhaps aggravated
by the fact that I'm running a gear drive <br>instead of a timing
chain. It didn't occur to me that running on the limiter <br>for a
few seconds at a time would stress the system, but in hindsight (and <br>after
consultations with Dan, who hadn't heard of such a thing but <br>subsequently
did research and found other stories of people suffering similar damage to
<br>mine after running on the rev limiter, regardless of whether they were
<br>using a timing chain, gears or whatever) I'm sure that my driving habits on
the <br>track created this problem. I'm going to address this by
fitting a higher <br>RPM pill in the MSD (the motor is built to go to 6500 all
day long but I was <br>being 'conservative' and had a 6000 rpm chip in the MSD)
and by avoiding <br>touching the rev limit, if at all possible, and certainly
avoid deliberately <br>doing so and just keeping it on the limit.<br><br>I think
the gears were perfect when I drove over the hill to Reno, and I <br>just busted
them all to hell at the track.<br><br>Tomorrow I'm ordering a new cam, same as
the old one (did I mention how <br>wonderfully this engine ran?).
Dan also turned me on to a new distributor <br>gear. Tri-Tec
Motorsports now makes a carbon-reinforced polymer distributor <br>gear for the
351C/460.<br><br><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.tritecmotorsports.com/Carbon_Ultra-Poly">http://www.tritecmotorsports.com/Carbon_Ultra-Poly</a><br>-Ford_Distributor_Gears.htm<br><br>I
am going to phone them and see what they have to say. I don't want
to <br>run a bronze gear, because of all the maintenance hassles, but a steel
gear <br>might not be as good a bet as one of these glorified plastic
ones. At this <br>point I think I've got nothing to lose by
trying.<br><br>The motor will come out of the car early next month (no time
before then), <br>by which point I should have my new components in
hand. With the help of <br>friends more knowledgable than I am
(which is most of them, when it comes to <br>engines anyway!), I hope to have it
repaired and ready to go in a day, then <br>installed another day
later.<br><br>I will have to pull the oil pan and clean all the metal shavings
out (and <br>also from the front of the engine), and the oil pump pickup is
likely filled <br>with debris. It goes without saying that the oil
filter will be changed as <br>well. While we'll take a look at the
bearings while we're in the <br>neighborhood, I'm fairly confident that the rest
of the motor was unaffected by this <br>little glitch.<br><br>We'll
see!?<br><br>Once it's up and running, I'll pull the distributor every few
thousand <br>miles to inspect for any signs of untoward wear or
failure. I'm hoping this is <br>a one-time situation to be quickly
and relatively painlessly resolved.<br><br>Fingers
crossed!<br><br>Mike<br><br></div><br><br>__________ Information from ESET Smart
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