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A few days into tuning our new AEM Infinity EMS, the SR15VET began to sound like it was running on three cylinders. Being just days away from Speed Week, this was disastrous timing. This is when Nick did what he does best, transforming himself into Captain Zombie Vampire and staying up for nights to fix something. Along with Jen and Evan of 5523 Motorsports, the SR15VET was partially torn down for inspection.
What they found were shattered keepers and a pair of bent intake valves. The hypothesis is that spinning the SR15VET to 8,200 RPM was just too much for the factory 20V springs to manage. This resulted in poor valve control (float) and ultimately, failure of the keepers as well as piston to valve contact. After further checking, we determined that the SR16VE N1 dual springs were not going to offer any improvement over the 20V springs. This lack of options from the Nissan parts bin meant that a custom solution would be required.
Clark Steppler and Jim Wolf Technology would reach deep into their bag of tricks to pull out some special ovate springs to improve valve control. Nick Hunter and the crew at 5523 Motorsports would stay up one more night to put humpty dumpty back together again to finish the day we were scheduled to leave. However, this would all be for naught as Murphy’s Law would strike once again.
For those of you with a careful eye and a keen attention to detail, you’ve probably noticed that the title of this article is now called, “The Road to World of Speed.” Well, that’s because SCTA Speed Week was rained out just days before it was scheduled to begin. See, the land speed racer’s most formidable competitor is Mother Nature. When you decide to race on a dry lake bed, it doesn’t take much rain to make it a lake again. This is the same thing that happened to me years ago when I was trying to enter the 130 MPH and 150 MPH Club at USFRA’s World of Speed event.
Although Speed Week has been rescheduled to take place at SCTA’s World Finals event on September 30th, the more the probability of rain increases the further into fall we get. Looking at past weather history, Annie figured that there was roughly a 40% chance that SCTA’s World Finals event would be rained out; so instead, we’ve decided to return USFRA’s World of Speed event. Regardless of all the drama and hardship we’ve experienced, it would be pretty cool to finish up the Triple Crown at the same USFRA event where we had entered the 130 and 150 MPH Clubs. Hopefully, we’re done with all the “challenges.”
