The competition is still about two weeks away, but I wanted to get a head start on some of the maintenance and problems with my car. A few weeks ago, Steve from SR Motorcars (http://www.srmotorcars.com/) was kind enought o take a look at my tune, touch it up a bit, and actually gave it a few more ponies and also extended the power band another 500 rpm. Thanks Steve!
This weekend I decided to tackle a missing bolt I saw that usually is there to help secure the alternator bracket. I had a problem with this in the past, and I'd say this is what I get for not thoroughly going over the car at least once a month. Anyhow upon closer inspection, I found out that the alternator bracket was only being held on by one bolt.
I got some replacement bolts from Alex V, but ran into some other odd problems. First, there was an older broken bolt stuck in there which I managed to get out once I removed the entire bracket assembly. Then I noticed that a different bolt was broken and stuck inside the block. I figured it wouldn't be too much of a problem if all 3 edges of the bracket were bolted down. Since the broken bolt was in the center, I wasn't too worried. The problem came however when I tried to tighten down the far ouside bolt. It simply wouldn't thread down all the way to touch the bracket. Once it gets to a certain spot, it just keeps spinning.
After Alex making fun of me for not using my inspection mirror to take a look at the bolt hole, I also found that one of the bolts that holds the motor mount bracket to the block was also missing.
The moral of the story is, if you take your engine to 9,000 rpm often, you should probably check to make sure all the bolts are there. I can only image what would have happened if I just went to the competition like this.
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