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Another CSCS (Canadian Sports Compact Series) Sunday funday is in the books and we’re already looking forward to the next. As you guys may already know, CSCS is the biggest sport compact racing series in Canada. Enthusiast from all over the country, and even some of our neightbours from down south travel up to Ontario both to compete and spectate. There’s something for all sorts of enthusiast at CSCS. Drag, drift, circuit, show, food and plenty of eye candy to leave you with a sore neck for a while… READ MORE

CSCS Round 3 Highlights at Toronto Motorsports Park

CSCS Round 3 Highlights at Toronto Motorsports Park originally appeared on Autoblog Canada on Thu, 24 Jul 2014 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Holley Performance has announced a new partnership with the NCM (National Corvette Museum) Motorsports Park, and is sponsoring the Park’s Control Tower and Event Center in Bowling Green, KY.

“It is only fitting that two great American motorsport brands like Corvette and Holley unite with our sponsorship of the NCM Motorsports Park,” said Trevor Wiggins, Holley VP of Sales. “This track is going to secure Bowling Green’s identity as a motorsports town and we’re proud to be a part of it.”

The two-level Holley Control Tower and Event Center will feature 6,300 square feet on each level (12,600 total in building) including 1,800 square feet of meeting and classroom space, lobby/retail area, restrooms, catering kitchen, reception office, administrative offices, race control room, storage and more. The second level will feature a 2,100 square foot open-air viewing deck, available for private events. A Winners’ Circle Podium is slated for the paddock side of the building, and the overall design of the Holley Control Tower and Event Center mimics that of the Museum.

Holley has been in Bowling Green since 1951, and has been an important part of the Bowling Green economy, currently employing over 250 people at its Russellville Road facility. The company’s industry leading products include electronic fuel injection systems, carburetors, exhaust systems, and many other products for high performance street and racing applications. Holley has powered every NASCAR team since the 1960s with products made in Bowling Green including their current EFI throttle body.

“We have been talking to Holley since we first announced that we were building a Motorsports Park and they were as excited as we were,” said Mitch Wright, General Manager of the NCM Motorsports Park. “Those conversations grew into something bigger and we are thrilled to have them on board.”

Construction on the Holley Control Tower and Event Center is planned for 2015.

The post Holley Sponsors NCM Motorsports Park Control Tower appeared first on Engine Builder Magazine.

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The Cummins ISX engine is one of the workhorses of the Cummins brand and will continue to be a dominating factor in power generation applications, mining and industrial settings.

Cummins ISX engines are also very popular as a heavy-duty truck application engine.

Blake’s Remanufacturing’s remanufactured Cummins ISX engines are rebuilt to OEM specifications in our ISO 9001 level machine shop. This means that even older model Cummins ISX engine applications are often rebuilt using better, more updated parts and techniques than the original engine. Cummins ISX engines in many aspects replaced the Cummins N14 engines in 2001, due to the EPA tier regulations.

The first Cummins ISX engine rolled off the production line in 1998.

Until 2010, this engine was a dual overhead cam design with one cam actuating the injectors and the other the valve train.

Beginning in 2013, Cummins ISX engines were equipped with on-board diagnostics which monitor emissions output and maximizes engine efficiency.

This Cummins ISX model was also completed one year ahead of production schedule to meet the EPA Department of Transportation Regulations.

The “ISX” in Cummins ISX stands for “Interact System” which is the on-highway fuel system Cummins developed to vastly improve performance. Cummins ISX engines are very popular for on-highway and commercial trucking applications since they have the ability to pull between 430hp – 620hp at 2050 ft./lbs. Consequently, the brother of the Cummins ISX is the Cummins QSX which is part of the “Quantum” series. The Cummins QSX engine is the primary workhorse for off-highway, industrial, marine, heavy equipment and oil & gas applications.

The Cummins QSX delivers between 365hp – 665hp at 1875 ft./lbs. of torque. Blake’s Remanufacturing has the ability to do both Cummins ISX and Cummins QSX engine rebuilds.

Cummins Cooling

The Cummins 15L ISX is the latest engine in the ISX family which ­debuted in 2013.

With the ISX 15 the fuel efficiency is increased 10 percent + over previous models. The foundation of the ISX 15L is the reduction of the size of the radiator and multiple cooling panels.

This reduction in size of the cooling system without the loss of cooling power mean overall better aerodynamics within the engine. The new Cummins ISX engine cooling system allows for losses from the engine’s alternator and various other water pumps to be mitigated. The new technology also allows for more open room which creates cooled air for the engine.

The new cooling technology will likely save around 2,000 gallons of fuel per year for a class 8 truck which also means less particulate emissions. In addition to improved efficiency of the cooling system Cummins has also refined the combustion chamber to provide fewer active re-generations of the after treatment system.

Focus on Fuel Efficiency

The Cummins 15L ISX engine is also the newest engine with the improved fuel system. Up until 2010 the traditional Cummins ISX engine featured the antiquated dual overhead camshaft design.

One of the camshafts activated the injectors and the other camshaft activated the valve train.

This type of injection system is called high pressure injection and operates to create injection pressure by the camshaft actuation.

The dual cam design uses an integrated fuel system model (IFSM) which contains pressure regulators, gear pump, lift pump, metering and timing actuators and shutoff valve to accurately deliver diesel fuel directly to the injectors.

The IFSM typically has a one section valve cover that is either plastic or chrome plated on older models of the Cummins ISX.

The latest versions of the Cummins ISX 15 engine keep getting more fuel-efficient as the technology keeps advancing. Cummins has stated that the newest ISX 15 can deliver up to 2 percent better fuel economy than previously reported. The newest Cummins ISX 15 operational efficiency actually delivers more horsepower than in older ISX engine models.

Engine builders at Blake’s performing line boring on an engine block.

The ratings on the ISX 15 range from 400-600 hp (298-447 kW) with 2050 lb.-ft. of peak torque.

The SmartTorque system Cummins developed adds roughly 200 lb.-ft. of extra torque to the top two gears of the engine.

This means that Class 8 trucks can drive up steeper grades with much fewer downshifts making the ride that much smoother and less strenuous on the engine.

For other models of the Cummins ISX engine, the additional torque from the SmartTorque system is applied to the lower gears where it is needed the most.

Blake’s Remanufacturing reports that it can provide a remanufactured Cummins ISX 15 for half the cost of a new model, with no loss of efficiency or horsepower.

Cummins ISX Fuel Efficiency Physics

The fuel efficiency technology of the Cummins ISX engine uses the power of steam.

Harnessing the power of steam for propulsion purposes has been around for almost 2,000 years. The steam engine was first patented in 1606 by Spanish inventor Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont. It was in 1698 that Thomas Savery patented a steam pump which condensed steam to create a vacuum to draw water into the chamber, then applied the pressurized steam to further a piston.

The same basic steam technology is used today in the Cummins ISX. This scientific process is called the Organic Rankine Cycle.

Applying the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) to the diesel engine is quite a different process. Heat in a standard reciprocating engine if often looked as something to be avoided at all costs, but with new technology it is utilized to aid in better fuel efficiency. The technology is called Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) which turns excess heat from a major problem into the key to improved efficiency. In the Cummins ISX engine the heat comes out of the engine and travels directly to a superheater system. The superheater increases the temperature of the wet steam from the boiler into an extremely dry superheated steam.

Engine builder Brad Millers prepping the engine block for assembly.

This concept of “dry steam” is steam that is heated beyond boiling. The dry steam contains a lot of energy which then turns a turbine in power plant systems. The turbine then turns a generator which converts waste heat into electricity. In the Cummins ISX engine the electricity is used to power a small electric motor built into the crankshaft. After the superheated dry steam’s energy is transferred into the turbine it later is sent to a recuperator then to a condenser where it is condensed and routed back into the boiler producing a closed loop system. This is quite a revolutionary concept for the Cummins ISX having both the internal and external combustion in one engine.

The extra energy that is recovered comes from four different sources: 6 percent increase in energy will come from the EGR, 2 percent will come from exhaust energy, and 2 percent will come from other accessories that used to drain additional power. All of this additional energy adds up to about 10 percent increase in overall fuel efficiency for the Cummins ISX 15.

The basic premise of the Cummins ISX engine’s fuel efficiency is recovering waste energy.

Waste energy can be described as energy that is not used for any practical purposes. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It is stored in the form of kinetic energy (in motion) or potential energy (stored energy).

When studying energy within the Cummins ISX engine we can ascertain that most of the energy is stored in the diesel fuel as potential energy. When that diesel fuel is burned in the combustion engine it changes form to kinetic energy, which then drives the pistons. However, most of the diesel fuel’s energy is lost as heat.

One gallon of diesel fuel contains about 139,000 Btu (British Thermal Unit) of potential energy.

One Btu is defined as the amount of heat required to increase one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. The goal with any engine is to achieve peak thermal efficiency where as peak thermal efficiency is described as the work you get divided by the energy you put in.

For example, a gas powered car engine is roughly 25 percent efficient and a heavy-duty diesel powered Cummins ISX engine is roughly 40 percent efficient.

What that means is that if a vehicle used 10 gallons of gas only 4 gallons would go to towards propelling the tires forward; the other 6 gallons are wasted. The Organic Rankine Cycle technology in the Cummins ISX 15 aims to recovery as much energy as possible through heat recovery. Across the board, only roughly 33 percent of energy is used towards moving the motor.

Blake’s also offers new and remanufactured crankshafts, camshafts, lifters, connecting rods, cylinder heads, cylinder blocks and rocker assemblies for all the major diesel manufacturers, including ­Caterpillar, Detroit Diesel, ­Waukesha, John Deere, Mack, Perkins, International/Navistar, Alco, EMD and Komatsu.

An example of waste energy in relation to trucks is when heat escapes from the engine to the outdoors.

The heat sources on a Cummins vehicle that help warm you up on a cold day include the Cummins ISX engine itself, the radiator, transfer case, transmission, differentials, U-Joints, brakes, cooling units, and your heater. Noise is also a heat source and is mostly a waste energy by product.

The second kind of energy is work energy. Work energy is harnessed energy being directed where you want it to go. However, there are always going to be other hindrances to 100 percent thermal efficiency.

Gravity, inertia, laws of aerodynamics and drag will always be barriers to overcome to capturing 100 percent of an energy source.

The second law of thermodynamics states that achieving 100 percent thermal efficiency can’t be accomplished.

ISX Emissions ­History

Cummins has always been on the forefront of emissions reduction and the development of technology that improves emissions output.

The first technology Cummins introduced to help reduce particulate emissions was cooled exhaust gas recirculation or EGR system. This system was introduced in the Cummins ISX CM870 model in 2002 and works by taking exhaust gas and re-circulates it back into the engine intake.

This process radically lowers the combustion chamber temperatures in the Cummins ISX engine thus reducing the creation of Nitrogen Oxide. NOx and NOy (NOx plus other compounds that are created during the oxidation process of NOx) are the common causes of air pollution, smog and acid rain.

Another big change in emissions reduction rolled out in 2008 when Cummins introduced Diesel Particulate Filter technology for the Cummins ISX CM871 model. Diesel Particulate Filter technology or DPF is a filtration system designed to trap particulate NOx matter created by the Cummins ISX engine. The second step of the system is the Diesel Oxidation Catalyst which further breaks down the particulate matter via oxidation of the ash. The ash of the diesel particulate is oftentimes called soot.

Then again in 2010 the Cummins ISX engine made another upgrade to its emissions technology with the ISX 15 CM2250 model.

All Blake’s remanufactured exchange engines are dyno tested prior to shipping.

The Cummins ISX 15 CM2250 features the improved Exhaust Gas Recirculation in addition to Selective Catalytic Reduction for diesel particulate matter. These new guidelines further confined to EPA regulations also known as Urea Injection Reduction. The selective catalytic reduction system contains a diesel exhaust fluid composed of urea and water, controller, holding tank, pump, injector and the catalyst brick.

The system works by heating up the diesel exhaust fluid which is then pumped and injected into a decomposition area which then chemically reacts with the diesel exhaust in the Selective Catalytic Reduction chamber to reduce the level of NOx.

The Cummins ISX 15 uses one camshaft compared to previous versions which used two. This single camshaft design in the Cummins ISX engine is due to the introduction of the common rail fueling system in which diesel fuel is pressurized from already high pressure.

The fuel is stored in multiple piston pumps and transferred through tubes to a rail where the diesel fuel is stored under extremely high pressures up to but not including 35,000 psi.

For more information on the Cummins ISX engine or the Cummins QSX engine, contact Blake’s Remanufacturing at www.blakesreman.com.

Rebuilding Tips on the ISX

1. Pay special attention to the spring loaded cam gear.

2. Need to use a puller for front and back seal. a. Special puller tool to pull off the crankshaft. b. Kent-Moore Tool.

3. Back off the spring loaded tension before unloading it.

4. Totally non interchangeable between ISX and QSX. Use all specified parts.

5. Difference between ISX engine blocks. a. Some have EGRs and others do not. b. You can use both types of engine blocks if need be: The water fittings just need to be fitted with frost plugs.

6. Everything on ISX and QSX is heavy-duty. These engines use heavy-duty cams.

7. Make sure to set the idol gear properly. ISX has floating gears as they are on a floating hub. a. The gears float because of the backlash. b. There must be backlash on the gears. c. There also must be torque between all of the gears. d. The timing must be set properly between the gears. e. In a running engine the gears must be unloaded. Only the Detroit 60 Series has similar floating gears.

8. Pay special attention to the dual overhead cams: one for the valves and injectors and the other for the Jake Brakes.

9. Overall, strictly follow the service manual. Stick to OEM specifications and tolerances as this engine is a very precise piece of equipment and has little room for error. From the staff at Blake’s Remanufacturing Services, LLC, Denver, CO

Street Smarts Sidebar

In 2009, Cummins Inc. unveiled its on-highway engine lineup ready to meet the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations for the North American market recently. Among the products introduced was the new Cummins ISX11.9 engine, a compact and lightweight medium-bore engine the company said was suitable for vocational trucks, day cabs, emergency vehicles and motor coach applications. Sharing common cooled EGR, VGT Turbocharger, XPI fuel system, electronic controls and aftertreatment system with the ISX15, the ISX11.9 was offered with ratings from 310-425 HP (231-317 kW) and torque from 1,150 to 1,650 lb.-ft. (1,559 – 2,237 N•m). The ISX11.9 was offered with an optional engine compression brake. All of Cummins 2010 on-highway MidRange and Heavy-Duty engines are compatible with long-life coolants and biodiesel blends up to B20.

The post Generating Strength – The Cummins ISX Engine appeared first on Engine Builder Magazine.

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For engine builders, and enthusiasts with ambitions in hot rod engine assembly, Jon Kaase has introduced the Boss Nine in a new kit form.

Among the kit’s more prominent components, Kaase includes his noted semi-hemi cylinder heads with accompanying pistons, pins and rings as well as pushrods, shaft-mounted rockers and induction system. Everything to complete the full assembly is supplied.

Though power production may vary from 500 to 1,000hp in naturally aspirated form and up to 1,500hp under forced induction, it is the engine’s evocative appearance and heritage that heightens its universal appeal. Predictably, options abound and powder-coated cast valve covers are available in silver, red and black. Indeed, in any color that can be indentified by a paint code. In addition fabricated sheet metal covers are offered in natural aluminum finish.

In performance the Boss Nine’s magic is ignited by increasing its stroke length from the original late-nineteen-sixties specification of 3.590in. “Those big-port heads,” contends Kaase, “don’t like stroke lengths shorter than 4in., and respond enthusiastically to 4.150in, 4.300in or 4.500in, all of which we use.”

Because the longer 4.500in stroke causes the piston to protrude from the cylinder at bottom dead center, Kaase recommends a Race block or a “79” block, which has a 0.250in longer cylinder wall. Produced from 1979 to the mid-‘90s these can be identified by the nomenclature D9 on the block’s external surface. “They’re robust,” declares Kaase, “and we have one at the shop. It is 0.030in over-bored with 2-bolt main bearing caps and has taken the abuses of fourteen years of dyno testing. It usually generates between 900 to 1,000hp and we’ve used it on all Boss Nine and P-51 tests—it’s still going strong.”

First flush of life in 2008, forty years after the original Boss 429 Mustang
To appreciate the full measure of the Boss Nine it is helpful to return to its origins. “I never planned on building a Boss 429 head,” says Kaase, “until driving back from the Engine Masters Challenge in 2007. Though virtually everything we’d built at my shop had been a derivative of that engine, I knew if we used stock parts in an EMC contender it would fall apart. So we decided to build it with new, revised components. This approach allows anyone to build the engine using the popular passenger car 385-series block. It seemed a commonsense approach, but we wouldn’t have started the venture if not for the EMC. And six months later we would have dismissed the entire project because the banks were failing and everyone worried if they’d still have a job!”

Despite the racing successes of the original Boss 429 Mustang the semi-hemi cylinder heads were weak. The combustion chambers cracked and their thin decks leaked around the O-ring head gaskets. Also the original intake valves suffered premature wear as the unusually short rockers with poor operating geometry caused them to hammer the seats.

“Most of the revisions applied to the Boss Nine,” explains Kaase, “were incorporated to make it stronger and easier to work on.” The deck thickness of the cylinder heads (about 0.625in) is greater than the original and though the valves reside in the same place, the rocker arms attach to the head in a more simplified manner, making the assemblies less expensive.

Also, the exhaust rockers are a little longer, which moves the pushrod away from the deck. This revision improves pushrod clearance and eliminates grinding the block close to the water ports. Moreover, the Boss Nine combustion chambers are a little more efficient.

For enthusiasts looking forward to a romp through the springtime landscape, 429/460 BBF engines are readily available and inexpensive ($100) and the Boss Nine now flourishes in kit form.

For more information, visit: JonKaaseracingengines.com

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In earlier articles, I mentioned filling dedicated, drag racing iron blocks to keep cylinders round and keep them from cracking. Many drag racers still practice that modification.

Today, racers have the luxury of a low-cost block filler called Hard Blok, provided by Joel Bayless.

Back in my early Pro Stock days, when I was racing Cleveland small blocks, we had to use a very expensive Devcon aluminum epoxy.

It was easy to use and it poured like cake batter.

It bonded to anything, had nil shrinkage or expansion when hardened and weighed slightly less than the water it displaced. But, it was very expensive.

Today, the cost of that epoxy needed to do a small block would be about $500. On the other hand, a tub of Hard Blok is about $85 for a short fill and $92 for the larger tub.

Hard Blok is not quite as easy to use as the aluminum liquid epoxy, but the $400 saved to safely do the same thing is well worth the slight extra effort, in my opinion.

I did have a couple 427 aluminum Cleveland blocks that had 4.125 ID Ramsco steel sleeves. The sleeves might bend a bit, but never break. So I did not fill those blocks.

A big thing to consider before filling blocks to the deck or even 1.5″ below, as I did, is that block is then dedicated to short term cooling. There is no release for block fillers that I know of.

Plus, I am not sure about cooling even for some bracket racing.

At RT 66 Drag Strip in Joliet, they go “round robin” by the semis. For Pro Stock, it was OK. We towed back and had at least an hour between rounds.

Before Hard Blok, many racers and engine builders experimented filling blocks with various substances. Many had some very shocking and ill effects.

Way back about 1982, I had a customer’s block someone filled with some sort of industrial equipment, concrete type grout. Like concrete, the substance had been mixed with water.

I chased little dots of rust, not only on the outside of the block, but also on the nice cylinder bores I had torque honed. I had to wait weeks to assemble that engine before that block quit bleeding those tiny rust spots.

In the early ‘80s, another negative block filling result I experienced was when my good 427 aluminum block was hurt. In desperation I acquired a Cleveland block from some joker in Indy that had talked me into trying it in my own racecar.

He had sleeved every cylinder and filled it 3/4 of the way under the deck with fiberglass resin and hardener. The block was then bored and honed to 4.125. I put it together using new special order BRC 4.125 pistons and Brooks windage rods. For a crank I borrowed my 3.625 stroke crank from my 370″ engine. With 4.125 bore and 3.625 crank I created 388 CI. It had great rod ratio.

This was the AHRA Nitrous Small Block Pro Stock era. My next race was the AHRA Summer Nationals at Kansas City.

First run with the 388 – wow!! That combo felt as strong as my aluminum 427. Suddenly, half into the run, my Zephyr nosed over and my car filled with oil smoke. No burnt aluminum smell? Just oil. Oil was everywhere.

We switched engines to my back up, the 409″ iron, Devcon filled Cleveland, and got through the weekend with a semi-final finish.

When I got back to my shop in Lacon, IL., I pulled that hurt 388” engine apart. The sleeved bores were wacked out of round so bad the pistons were scored above the ring package from rubbing the extremely distorted cylinder walls.

Apparently that sleeved, bored to .125 over, and resin filler method was a failure. Hard Blok was not on the market till 1986, so it was back to the high dollar Devcon liquid aluminum epoxy.

When I switched to Mammoth motors in ‘84, those 4.625 bore cylinders in the A/R aluminum blocks maintained integrity pretty well, until we started using nitrous in those engines.

By ‘87, I started running as an Outlaw Pro Stock, using nitrous with my 672″ A/R Ford Boss Hemi we named the “Monolith.” The block, like my next four mammoth engines, was an aluminum Allen Root design with 11.2 deck. When using nitrous, the inboard cylinders 2 & 3 and 6 & 7 would go out of round .003” to even .005”. The problem was the thin aluminum between those center cylinders would crack. In some cases the cracks would eventually travel the radius to the main saddle bosses. Then a welding repair was in order, including reinforcement between the cylinder sleeves.

When only “freshening up” the still useable engine with out of round cylinders, I would hone with a deck plate using a course stone with light pressure so the stones would trim the high spots.

Too much pressure and too fine stone, the hone would just follow the irregularity and make matters worse. It was tricky. With patience I could get the distortion to just under .001 and still keep useable piston clearance. Once that was reached then a light as possible plateau hone.

When ordering pistons for nitrous or power adder engines, I always ordered several extra pistons in progressive sizes to counter future excessive piston to wall clearance.

Another too loose clearance fix was to knurl the pistons on my trusty Perfect Circle piston knurling machine. Knurling does work. Even on race engines.

Those sleeves used in the A/R blocks were not prone to cracking. Like the Ramsco sleeves in my earlier aluminum Cleveland blocks, they would bend, but not break.

However, somehow I managed to crack one of those sleeves. I had five A/R Boss Hemi’s since 1984. So one cracked liner in all that time is not too bad.

While starting on a routine freshen, intending to install new aluminum rods, I discovered #2 cylinder with a small crack. The cylinder with the crack, when leaked down, tested the same as the rest for cranking compression. All were 190/195. The engine had been running fine. Plugs looked perfect.

The perpendicular crack started just below the top lip and went about .500 down.

I had put my recently freshened 666″ engine “Damien” in the Zephyr for two USSC contracted bookings.

I wanted to take the Monolith for backup. We were running out of time.

I reasoned that engine was running ok with that crack. No telling how long it had been that way. It had not been apart for 30 runs. If we need it for a few runs it should be OK.

No time to fix it, the rods have only 30 runs, so I put the heads and intake back on and got it ready to load in the travel crate.

Another problem arose. Zeke, my racecar, was still on the stands. I had started Damien earlier. I still needed to tweak the NOS/Animal nitrous fogger system.

In doing so I warmed the engine up again, cranked the throttle enough to burst the nitrous. Whooom! After I did, smoke started pouring out the driver side header big time. Oh man! I had hurt a piston.

Later, I found when I burst the nitrous # 6 had cracked the ring land above # 2 ring groove. I found several like that with nitrous engines during my many years. The land cracks behind and away from the piston. You cannot see it. To check, use a small screw driver in the upper and lower ring grooves, and carefully apply pressure up and down. If that land is cracked behind there, it will move.

We needed to get wrapped up and on the road to Englishtown, NJ, nearly 1,000 miles away. No time to fix Damien. My regular crew help that was to go East with me, and a friend, were already here at my shop. We changed engines, putting the Monolith with the cracked sleeve liner back in, started the engine and it ran fine. (I refrained from bursting the nitrous!)

We got to Englishtown in the nick of time for the Wednesday “Night of Fire” and ran the best times and MPH ever with that old Zephyr and the Monolith with a cracked cylinder. We looked at plugs every run. They were storybook examples. All exactly perfect readings.

On Saturday night, our USSC Circuit was booked at Atco, NJ. We had time when we got there and pulled the passenger side head off.

I measured the crack with a machinist 6-inch ruler. The crack had moved about .060” further down. We had made four full hard runs. I determined the crack must have moved .015” a run. We put the Monolith back together. We ran our USSC Chicago style program and got in the finals. We ran well, but not as well as Walter Henry.

We went back home and checked the crack. It had moved down .060” more. We had made four more runs at Atco.

Cranking compression was still even at 190+.

We had a UDRA finals at Great Lakes that coming weekend and I capped the UDRA championship for the second year in a row, winning Outlaw Pro Stock with the Monolith and the cracked cylinder.

When I later removed the passenger side head at my shop, I measured the crack. You guessed it. The crack had moved down another .060”.

We had made four more great runs at Great Lakes.

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Union tactics apparently translate across borders, as Canada’s Unifor may take inspiration from the United Auto Workers’ recent move at the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, TN, and establish a local for the Toyota factories in Cambridge and Woodstock.

Unifor last attempted to organize the workers at the two factories, which are responsible for production of the Toyota Corolla (above), RAV4 and Lexus RX back in April, but that vote was eventually delayed. According to that report, 3,000 of the two plants’ 7,500 employees signed union cards, but that apparently wasn’t enough for Unifor to force a vote.

Because of this, the union is looking at the local approach, like what the UAW is attempting with VW.

“We have union halls in Woodstock and Kitchener-Waterloo; they could elect an executive and run monthly membership meetings,” union president Jerry Dias told The Windsor Star. Dias added that the union “continues to sign up new members on a regular basis.”

So what would the benefit to employees be if they sign up with the local? According to The Star, while Unifor couldn’t act as a bargaining agent for the workers, employees would still be able to take part in other union activities. It’s not entirely clear what these include, though, and as the primary mission of a union is to act as a bargaining agent for employees, the idea of a local would appear to leave something on the table.

As for when this plan could come to fruition, Dias says a final decision isn’t expected until fall.

Unifor may establish local union for Toyota’s Canadian plants

Unifor may establish local union for Toyota’s Canadian plants originally appeared on Autoblog Canada on Thu, 24 Jul 2014 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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