Tom Dicktakes Top Fuel Test and Tune Report

Or, It Takes the Patience of Job to Fund, Engineer, and Run a Home Built Top Fueler

By Dean Seavers

Here's a report for those interested. Tom was supposed to test his quad cam digger a few weeks ago, but a couple of days before Tom called and told me that he'd have to postpone it because of all the rain we'd been getting. So, he rescheduled for April 16 and asked if I could still make it to help out. I couldn't think of a better pick me up after tax day than to hang out in the pits of an experimental fuel dragster and possibly help out in some small way.

The John Shoemaker chassis had just been updated and recerted over the winter, the block had some recent machine work done on it as well, and Tommy had just put a Racepack computer setup on the car and had just gotten everything back together.

It's one of those deals where you look at the car and it's impossible to see where he could find space to add one more thing, but then the next time you see it there's something else crammed between the frame rails or on the engine.

Fellow Nitrogeezer Jim Butler came out as well and hung out and helped with the car. As always, it was nice to see Jim again. I didn't catch the other crew person's last name, but his first name is Jody and he is the voice of experience in terms of the normal procedures for prepping a fueler. Tom fills in the blanks on the stuff that is specific to his deal and I'm the pit monkey, willing to do stuff that doesn't involve the potential to screw anything up.

Test and tune was from noon-4 p.m. Tommy and Jody had gotten there at 9:30, and I had to take care of something before I could make it, but I showed up around 11 to see the car unloaded and the front end up on jacks. It was probably 1 o'clock before the car was completely together. Seemingly simple things took forever to accomplish- putting the slicks on the car, bolting the wing on, putting oil and fuel in.

In fact, putting the fuel in uncovered the bugaboo of the day. Tommy had recently taught himself how to tig weld, and with all the other new crud put on the car, he had to modify the fuel tank to make room and then "find" the lost capacity again. He had tested the welds for leaks at home with water, which thanks to Jim's brief, but adroit explanation to me about differing surface tension of liquids explained why there was a steady drip under the car when the fuel tank was filled. At first, we all thought it was a loose fitting, since the car had only recently been reassembled. The correct wrench was located and the fittings tightened, but to no avail. There were a couple of pinholes in the fresh welds that allowed a small, but noticeable amount of fuel to steadily drip from the tank.

Nuts. It was then that the clear difference between Tom and I came to light, and it further illuminated why Tom has been able to spend 40 years developing a quad cam hemi in his garage and I have yet to make a pass in any kind of drag car down the track. My first thought was "we're screwed for the day, darn." Meanwhile Tom was completely unruffled. He said, "Hey I have some Air Force- type epoxy putty that's made for this kind of thing. It'll stop it until I can get the tank fixed."

"Okay," I think, "let's try it." Tom further expounds: "It's at home, I'll go home and get it." Tom's home is in Sacramento, but it's on the other side of Sacramento, about 25 miles away. It's now about 1:30 or 2, and we're staring down at least an hour of down time and there's only 2 hours left on the session. I'm thinking, "we're done." Jody wants to think "we're done" but he's hung out with Tommy long enough to know not to think that, at least, not just yet.

However, Tom isn't remotely stressed. He gets in the truck and trundles off to fetch the space age putty as if he were going to take a walk on the beach.

After a cursory wandering of the pits and watching a couple of passes I return back to our pit area and next thing I know, Tom pulls up just as he left, completely nonplussed and we start pulling the Air Force taffy and sculpting it onto the sides of the fuel tank in an attempt to stop the annoying leak. At first, this just seems to move the exit point of the leak around. I continue to apply the putty, although I'm really starting to wonder if we should just pack it in for the day and try again in a few weeks.

After 20 minutes of this, the leak has actually stopped and it's back to the checklist. Tom knows that I use a computer in my personal life, so he assigns me to man the Racepack in the quest for making sure it picks up the signal from the magnetos via an LED on the box, and reads the cylinder temps on the hand held readout via the thermo couplers in the headers. It's amazing that Tom has installed the unit, seeing as he's not a computer guy at all. He approached it just like any other wiring or plumbing job.

Remember how I was saying that it's a miracle that Tom manages to find more space to install more parts on the car? As Tom and Jody are going through the starting sequence with the mags and the various fuel levers, I'm figuring out my end of the deal... as I'm doing my dry runs, it's dawning on me that because Tom has installed the box right above the clutch can with the leads and cables facing towards the back of the engine, the only way I will be able to see the mag light is to have my face positioned right over left bank of headers.

This should be interesting. I'm sort of thinking, "Damn, I should've filled out that living will."

I also realize that the hand readout plugged into the back of the box only has a 2-foot cable, so even though I'll only get a snootful of alky while checking the mag light on the box, I'll be in the same basic place while I'm reading temps and the car is running on nitro.

While I'm sorting out my order of operations, Jody and Tom are debating the best starting procedure- and I must say that while Tom is the kind of guy that knows what he's talking about, sometimes it takes him a few tries to make the idea clear.

In the mean time while all of this is going on, the small crowd of mostly old timers that have been milling around the pit are following the conversation between Tom and Jody. We're almost to countdown for firing the motor off. I'm only sort of aware of what Jody and Tom are going over because I'm double checking my deal, alternating between trying to figure out where to put my head so I can see the light and hopefully be between the headers and the blower (yeah, GREAT option on an experimental motor that has no real baseline yet.) and figuring out how to get to the switch in the cockpit to turn the box on while holding the handheld with a 2 foot cord and make sure I'm on the correct bank so I'm getting numbers that mean something, hoping that I don't screw this up and let Tom down.

Occasionally I glance up, usually to tune into the Jody/Tom conversation so I'm not caught out on the procedure. While I do this, I notice that the pit crowd standing behind Jody, which used to be 5 feet away, is now about 15 feet away. The conversation drags on as procedures are debated and clarified, and every time I look up the pit crowd have taken another four paces away from the car. Niiiice...

The moment of truth comes, Tom puts the starter on the blower, and Jody mans the primer bottle and the valves on the hat and the alky tank. Mags on and crank. Engine fires for a second and then gets shut off. I never caught what the issue was, but Jody has to "bar" the motor to clear the cylinders. A couple of minutes later and we're ready to go again. Engine primed, fires and the alky courses through its veins. It sounds stout, but Jim notices an oil leak and it gets shut down again. Loose coupler on the hose to the filters.

Fortunately, only a quart was lost, and there were three quarts in the overflow tank (I'm not coming up with the technical term for this at the moment, sorry) so after barring the engine to clean out the cylinders, cleaning the oil mess and tightening the fittings, we're ready to go again. The good part is that during the brief run on alky I was able to check out the mag light on the box, so now all I have to worry about this time is making sure the computer is on the correct bank and continuing to cycle through the temps on each cylinder and remembering the general range to see if anything is out of whack.

Whir, whir, whir, thump, thump, thump, thump which shortly turns to cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle. The thing sound really stout and I glance up to see most of the pit crowd are grinning like cocker spaniels in heat at the glorious cacophony filling the area.

"Wait! The temps are all goofy. Nuts! What am I doing wrong?!" I look up to see Jody realize the fuel valve for the hat hadn't been turned on. He cranks it open and the noise goes from ungodly to otherworldly.

The cylinder temps at the pipe are hanging in around 850-875, except for the number one cylinder, which is spiking between 1000 and 1100. Degrees. Cycle through them all again. Same thing. Tom and Jody shut 'er down, pretty satisfied. Tom asks me what I saw and I tell him, still not entirely confident that I was doing it correctly, but he was pleased with the info, even though puzzled about the number one cylinder. I'm convinced that I made an error, but Jody and Tom tell me that they have always been plagued with overheating problems in number one and number three. Number three looked good, so now all they have to do is figure out a solution for number one. There was talk about jetting and such, but I largely missed the conversation. Test and tune was over and it was time to pack up.

Rex Hutchinson happened to be at the track and he came by and Tom and he were talking about the motor, but I didn't hear any of it, while I proceeded to undo all the things that I had done a couple of hours earlier.

I could say that I was bummed that Tom didn't get to make a checkout pass, but I'm not. It was probably the most fun I've ever had at the digs, and I gained a new perspective on just how much is involved and all the details that need to be attended to in order to run a fuel car. My hat is off to anyone who pursues the endeavor.

So now, I'm waiting for Tom to call to let me know when we'll try it again with the goal of making it on the track this time. Since he's operating on virtually no budget, it may be a few months, between tracking down the deal with the number one cylinder and saving up to take it to another test and tune day. But I can hardly wait!

Dean Seavers

Read Dean's earlier piece on Tom Dicktakes' unique machine HERE.