[DeTomaso] Vegas

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/23/07 11 02 19, artstephens at charter.net writes:


>      Could it be that you are driving your Pantera to Vegas this year? 
> 

>>>There and back, in fact!   I had a great time, the car ran like a top, 
except when it didn't.

The carburetion was about 90% right, so at the track John Christian did a 
full rebuild/blueprint, making a few Secret Tweaks and upping the primary jet 
sizes a bit, and afterwards it was absolutely flawless.   In the afternoon I 
tiptoed around the track (only slight familiarity with the track since I really 
haven't driven it for three years, and have NEVER really driven a Pantera on the 
track except for one outing that Russ kindly offered up his pushbutton, and I 
really wussed around then too).

Later on I turned the wheel over to Gray Gregory, who really flogged the hell 
out of it, driving it right to its limits (which were kept relatively low due 
to the Euro T/A tires on 10-inch Campy wheels, about which Gray issued 
editorial comments in the form of various expletives about once per lap).   But 
overall the car ran quite strong.

At the end of the day, it wouldn't start.   Turn the key, solonoid clicks, 
but nothing.

Sigh.

Dave Bell push-started it and hopped in and we drove to Vegas uneventfully; 
the next morning, we had to bump-start it again to get out of there.   At the 
track I discovered the cable was a bit loose on the starter; a little turn of 
the wrench got that sorted.   Right, time for some more track driving!

Craig Thompson from Australia hopped into the passenger seat, and we turned a 
few good laps until the car started to stutter and falter.   I noticed the 
gas gauge was low and the light was blinking, so I assumed I was getting fuel 
starvation in the corners.  Zoomed into Larry Stock's paddock, beeped the horn 
and got five gallons of race fuel added, then zipped back out onto the track, 
where a half-lap later it started to fizzle out, then sputter, then almost 
completely died.   I just barely made it back into the pits when the car quit 
completely.

Pushed it to my paddock and let it cool down; my diagnosis was clogged fuel 
filter (since I'd experienced exactly the same symptoms in the Cobra after its 
first outing on track, which whipped up a bunch of debris in the tank and 
plugged the filter up).   I have an Earl's cleanable filter, which I opened up and 
found completely plugged up, with the fiber sock from the fuel tank pickup, 
and on top of that a healthy glob of silicone, left over from somebody else's 
poor decision to seal the fuel vent with silicone instead of the proper rubber 
gasket. :<(

Once the filter was cleaned, the car started right up.   Went out onto the 
track again, got in about four or five good laps and then it started to falter 
again.   WTF?

I have the good fortune of having a fuel pressure gauge plumbed into the 
carburetor feed, and it revealed that the fuel pump, wasn't.   I was down to about 
2 psi, then 1, then bouncing between 1 and zero psi.   This was discovered at 
the end of the day on Friday when virtually everybody else had left, and 
Larry Stock had just about finished packing his trailer filled with parts.   I 
trotted over there, and he kindly unpacked the thing so he could reach in and 
hand me a new fuel pump!

Unfortunately, it had different fittings than mine, so my hoses wouldn't 
work.   Craig and Jay from Australia, plus Serge De Moor from Brussels, and Dave 
Bell were all hanging around and helping greatly, and some of them zipped into 
town for some rubber fuel hose and a filter.   After about an hour of futzing 
around, VAROOM the car was running again--and continued to run like a top for 
the rest of the event, and the whole drive home.

Several people got the chance to drive the car--Roger Coates and Johnny Woods 
from the UK, Gray Gregory and Dave Bell, and all of them seemed genuinely 
surprised at what an excellent car it is.   From my very honest descriptions of 
what a total pile of junk it was when I bought it, most had limited 
expectations for it.   But when 17 years and uncounted dollars are committed to a project 
such as this, the results had BETTER be excellent!

It was a fantastic weekend, breakdowns aside, and the car is everything I 
hoped for, and more.   The intake manifold is chucking out oil at both the front 
and rear walls, so this week it's going to get R&Red with a new gasket, and 
I'm going to finish off a few other details like installing a new, new fuel pump 
so I can use my proper lines again (moving the fuel filter from the suction 
side to the pressure side, which I learned the hard way is the proper way to 
go).   But overall I'm quite happy!

Tell us about the ups and downs of your week in Nevada, Art!

Mike


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