[DeTomaso] Russ Fulps Race Engines & Dick Drenske to the rescue

Sun Sep 9 01:59:43 EDT 2007

I have had this intermittant miss I couldn't ID. Took it by a local tuner and he was certain it was the distributor and if not the distributor a broken spring or worse a piston ring. The intermittant miss started quite a while ago even before the Nebraska ORR in August.  In August it wasn't bad enough not to run but the miss got worse after we came back from  Nebraska.

  I  talked to some of the guys as well as another tuner and just kept getting the same answer. So yesterday I just decided to bail on the team at Silver State next week, leave the Pantera home  and just go up and hang with JB, Chuck, Jason and Doc while they ran...party a little bit, relax and not have to worry about doing anything.  Then JB started mad dawging me threatening me with my own medicene threatening to expose Ely party photos IF I did not get the Pantera fixed this week. 

  As a side note you gotta love your buddies for loyalty,  understanding and compassion. Yea, I was whimpering like you sad sacks usually do....But all it  took was  JB to kick me back in the ass to get me jump started again and that was enough to at least convince me to get some expert advise and get Russ and Dick to work on Saturday to find the problem once and for all.

  I met Dick and Russ Fulps, who by the way had earlier rebuilt this engine in '06 early this morning at Dicks shop in Huntington Beach and they both dug into the Pantera with a vengence.....Dick had pulled headers, plugs, valve covers etc and again inspected the MSD distributor and gear thinking it might be the problem (it wasn't)....last weekend  we replaced plug wires, spark plugs and a new MSD cap and rotor and even took the MSD dist to a dist shop to have them re-check....Dick double checked the valve train, valves, springs, etc...and everything looked good and was tight. . .but I still had the f@%ing intermittant miss. I was as close to the problem as I was to my tail and I still couldn't find it. Frustrating and pitiful!

  Dick and Russ put everything back together and I re-started the engine and they both listened to the engine again and Russ said, "lets pull the Holly 830 apart"....

  Russ immediately found the problem which turned out to be a bad power valve!!!!   I've never had a power valve go 'half ass' on me before in 25 years but this one did go half ass on me....I have had power valves go  twice before but they were obvious and it was so obvious even I could figure out it had to be a blown power valve....Anyway, I drove across town  to Team C's Race Shop in L.A. and bought a couple replacement power valves, came back to Dicks shop and Russ and Dick put the new power valve in the Holly and they had the engine and 180's back together in short order.

  Soon as we re-started the engine there was  an immediate big improvement just in sound alone. I took the Pantera out for a quick test run and the engine felt like it picked up an easy 50HP...Yea, the miss and power loss was that great.

  The Pantera in my short test run home ran like it did at the NORC in May...a wild scalded monkey... Dick and Russ followed me in their cars to make sure all was okay. Took the car out about two hours ago again and it feels so good to have the power back and the miss ID'd and fixed.

  So to Dick Drenske and Russ (Russ Fulps Race Engines) I want to say thanks again for supporting me and supporting the team and working on your day off to get me ready for Silver State for next weekend. Oil and filters tomorrow and one final safety check and I am good to go for Silver State.

  And JB, you rat-bastard... I'll see you in Ely. ;-]>

Mad Dawg Antenucci 
Team Pantera Racing 
  The 1st & still the only vintage race team in open road racing 
www.teampanteraracing.com