Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing

Time for an update about the Chevelle!

Last week I did spend a lot of hours cleaning and try organizing the ABM shop, it was way more than just a mess when I started but now it starts to look like I want it again! It’s a pretty big problem to have the race car and some stuff that I need to it inside a small shop were you also try to do your daily job….

Finally after some organizing / cleaning and with the Chevelle in the right place in the shop I got some help taking the motor apart to see how it looks like after the last event at Tierp Arena already 12, yes  12 Weeks ago!… time flies for sure, again!.. Anyway the motor did look pretty much exactly like I guessed it would do after how I used it in the last rounds this season.

Good night you evil women from hell, time for a pretty long nap before it’s time to check trough and service the driveline.

And that’s where I started, do you understand why I wanted to organize some in the shop…? 😉

I really don’t have any interest in building a car for someone like it is right now, and I’m pretty sure the next car that gonna be built in this jig is a new car for myself so I decided to take the jig out from the shop to make room for the Chevelle at that spot instead, feels way much smarter so I can work better in the shop with customers engines etc. 

Much better, and a lot of space in the shop instead of a complete mess…

Checking leak down, it was good at least to 80% of the motor… 🙂

Sometimes all you need is a little happy and strong girl, then Sofi is the right girl for the job! 😀

Valve train and heads of the motor, and things looks pretty much like they have been doing all year since we fired the motor up the first time with the new stuff, not better just the same… One good thing with the new rocker arms is that we haven’t hurt any adjuster screws or pushrod cups this year like we did in every pass last year… we’ll ok, I did now find one cup and screw I’m gonna change just because I got plenty of them and I feel that’s more than ok after 30 passes this year on the same parts! 🙂

Rods and pistons out.

Heads apart for inspection, the job we did on them before the last outing looks just perfect! But I still got an issue that’s keeps coming back, have tried to talk with the manufacturer about it but no solution on the problem yet…

Pistons, rods, wrist pins, bearings and rings on the operation table to get measured and compared with old notes and measurements how they are new, and once again CP-Carrillo to the top!! 🙂 The parts above on the bottom picture is what I used up on the last event but I also saw that in the computer and on the spark plug but I didn’t do a change big enough to stop it, then we saw it now on the leak down check, lean is mean! Well at least I think it feels good that I can blame myself for testing the limit on the parts instead of that the part isn’t good enough for a motor like mine, I have pistons in the motor that made 30 passes this year and last year I made 4 passes and saw problems coming on them!… I think that only take out one cylinder because I’m playing around with the fuel and ignition is just fine, without finding the limit you will never know where to stop for real and I can only blame myself for it, haha! 😀

Well, that’s all for now! Now I know what I need to do and buy to get the motor complete and ready to make a pass again, next time long time from now it’s time to take the motor block out and hone the cylinders and check the mains then put it back together again. Of course we are gonna service and check trough the converter, Bruno drive, transmission and rear axle too but to them I got the spares I might need and also there is pretty much just a check and now work or thinking on them. 🙂

Organized and ready to go to bed 🙂 Sweet dreams! 

First qualifying round ended up in a 4.03/301

The plan for 2017 was to make a mid 3.80 pass with our Chevy powered Swedish built Chevelle and also win the championship!

We are done with the mid 3.80 pass with our 3.84 at Tierp, and to win the championship this year we need to win the whole event at the finals at Sundsvall Raceway and Victor Jansson needs to either not go to the event or not get into the qualifying list so I don’t see that we will take home the championship because Victor have pretty much already done that if he just takes the car to Sundsvall and makes one pass. They have done a great year so far and I am happy to say you are soon the 2017 Top Doorslammer champions guys! 

We do right now share the second spot in points with Rimbert Wahlström in the Top Doorslammer Series and I am pretty satisfied with that anyway because we have done a pretty awesome year this year! We did miss the eliminations on the first event due to parts failure in the motor, we got the number one qualifier spot and top speed on two of the events and then one semi final round and two final rounds on totally 4 outings in 2017 and that feels really good!!

Before the Northern Swing I decided not to go to the Racestar event at Tierp Arena in the end of July just to save money and go for the championship instead, BUT it have now changed after realizing how little chance (or no chance) we have to win it and ending up on second place / first looser is just as exciting to end up as number 10 in the series if you ask me so I have changed my mind and will end the Top Doorslammer series here for Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing and go for a 3.7X pass on the Racestar event or at least repeat the 3.84 we did earlier instead! If you ask me a 3.7X pass means way much more to me than ending up on the second spot in the championship on a track I need to take out pretty much all power out of the motor just to take it from the starting line to the finish line and also risking the car with a lot of steering when doing it….

Already got two of these first looser trophys! 😉

So what do you say? Go for the second spot in the championship being nobody or go to Tierp Arena with our Swedish self-built non lightweight Chevelle with a conventional headed Chevy Big Block power plant, using a PSI D blower and not the outlaw C model without a girly traction control tuned by the monkey inside the car that drives it, it might be some smoke on the finish line to get that 70-pass but it will also be the last event for 2017 and it must be better to make a big thing of it so everyone will remember us! Right?

We got one more bottle to open up this year!!! 😀

After TD round 2 the race at Tierp Arena we did hurt some parts in the motor because of some tuning issues with 4 cylinders that is running way much harder than the rest, but after some changes I did I was pretty sure the problem would be solved! BUT, the next problem is that we are out of spares…. Missing pistons, wrist pins and piston rings and we didn’t have the money to order more (of course special order stuff and no on shelf) because this have been an expensive year already from the start, so I did just decide to run the motor really safe on the Northern Swing Tour just to keep the motor together. 

Today we unloaded the Chevelle to check up on the motor after some really high temps on the egt:s in all elimination rounds in Piteå, I was pretty sure the low timing caused it because the motor pretty much did burn the fuel in the exhaust port instead of in the combustion chamber just to keep the power low and get down the track on a safe tune, but I still was a bit afraid that I hurt some pistons, wrist pins and rings….

I was pretty sure this was it for Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing in 2017, but I’m sorry to say that you have to see us on the track again this year because the motor looks like brand new on the inside this time! And we have made about 14 rounds on the motor since we did service it with a lot of new parts and that feels pretty good, I have found a problem solver to the cylinders that did eat up parts! 
So now it’s time to take away that safe tune again and just bring out that mean Chevy Power instead!

It all looks good!! 😀

Car went way better than what I expected, needed to do some driving but no problems (there is a steering wheel in the car) 😀 But then i spun the tires and hit a shake at the 330 mark 2.8 out, the place were it always is a problem here at this track… but still pretty good with a 4.41s when I was totally off the throttle at 3.1! 🙂

But now I got a graph to read so now I just need to get by that spot, time for some thinking.

Green is the wheel speed and the blue is the lateral g-meter…

Pretty good 60ft to be here on a track they haven been racing on the last year.

Soon ready again!

It’s around 2 in the morning and we are just ready after some service on the Chevelle, first thing tomorrow is to load the car and some other stuff in the trailer and then hit the road for the first of the two event of the Northern Swing that start at Sundsvall Raceway with the third round in the Scandinavian Top Doorslammer Series! See you there!! 🙂

She’s so fine (and in good shape again) 😉

It did cost a couple of parts to make all those 3.8x passes at Tierp Arena about 2 weeks ago! But now I have learned more about what the motor wants when it comes to the tuning and how different cylinders are running more or less hard, look forward to try out some new stuff this coming weekend! 

Out from the trailer and ready to get some love in the shop!

Heads are fully serviced!

Checking and measuring everything.

Some new stuff is going back in the motor.

We went trough the whole motor and now it’s like brand new! (one more time) We are ready for the northern swing!

Another 3.8 run!