Jim and Sean McKean

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 03-14-2008

Okay...we're on the way to Corsicana for the historic test session. Hope we don't encounter storms, I want to have some pictures to post here. Joe Flow and Val left Colorado yesterday. I guess Al Davis and Denny Henderson will come in today. Besides Jim and Sean, I'm not sure who else is coming yet. Maybe we will get to see Deanie Montgomery. Denny says the water is real cold and I don't have waders.

. Maybe I might forget my tennis shoes so I have to stay on the bank and only take pictures.

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 03-16-2008

....we left the pits yesterday a couple hours after the sun set with a leaky fuel tank and a stuck motor. (two different rigs). We saw some things however, that were extremely positive for the Vapor Trail Racing products. We had one good run that yielded some valuable info. We are still digesting the tests from Saturday, and I left before they replaced a piston today, so I don't know yet what happened. Jim McKean is taking Joe Flow to A J Foyt's shop tommorrow where Joe will work with Foyt's guys on where to install one of his valves, then off to Houston Intercontinental for a flight back to Colorado. I would have loved to tour the Foyt shop, but had to get back.

We are all very upbeat about the test from Saturday. Before I add more info and pics, I will check with Joe Flow to see if they were able to get in any more runs and more data. After that I will post pics and results.

Composite Specialties · 03-17-2008

Wayne, are they testing this on the Kilo boat or the competition boat?

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 03-17-2008

Uhhhh.....! I don't know. It was 13-6 I think and was the older boat. It turned good. I couldn't tell by looking that there was a difference between the two other than cosmetic. They actually ran both boats. The new one had the new 240 hp VRP on it. There was an air leak in the fuel tank on that one. The one with the Yamato 500 equipped with the Vapor Trail Racing "Hotfoot" and "chill Tube" was on the old boat.

Composite Specialties · 03-17-2008

Ok, just wondered. The Kilo boat is 15'6" long and has rear removable pads on the back. I am making new pads for Jim and will be installing them at Inverness on the Kilo boat. Just wondered which boat you guys were testing.

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 03-17-2008

This is the boat Marc. They rigged the stuff up on the backup motor...a 500cc Yamato that was 10 years old. Sean has won many races with this motor and it still remains competitive.

Joe Flow and Denny Henderson bench tested a Makuni (sp?) diaphragm pump at Denny's some time back before Oroville. The single pump put out 1 gallon per minute. Two Makuni's were installed for the test. The "chiller" was installed in front of the fuel tank. The Makuni's had two discharge outlets and one outlet from each pump went into a Y feeding each of the intake inlets of the block. If one pump went down, each half of the block would still be receiving the cooling oil.

Joe had a digital temp gauge that among other things would measure oil temp going in, oil temp going out and the highest recorded temperature during a test. First thing tested was on the bank to check out flow rates and oil temp out. We fired up the motor and ran it for about a minute and a half. There was practically no flow. The flow meter didn't move so Joe unhooked the return line and fed the oil into a measuring cup. It was maybe one gallon per every two hours. We swapped hoses around thinking maybe the plumbing hook up was causing the pumps to buck each other. Still the same flow rate. We were all scratching our heads. We got a spare pump and ran it by itself. Still the same. We did notice during these tests however, that the flow rate was 5 or 6 times greater at idle than at higher RPM's. We finally concluded that with the viscosity of the oil, the pump could not move fast enough to work with the higher motor output, and thus the balls barely moved back and forth....something like valve float at high RPM's.

Denny went to town and bought an electric fuel pump. It wasn't a big as we needed, but it was the only one they had. It pumped only about a quart or less per minute. We had 10W 30 Mobil 1. Denny bought some 5 W 30 and we thought we might have to thin it with diesel.

After rigging up the battery and fuel pump, we fired up the motor on the trailer. The ambient temperature was 74. After about two minutes the oil out temp went up to 79. The block was warm to the touch, but not hot. We continued running on the beach several times and finally extended the test to close to five minutes. The highest temp at that time was only 90 degrees F. So we decided to put it in the water to get a load on it. After all the different replumbing work that was done, we never put hose clamps back on. The hose fit very secure and the pump rate was very low so we didn't feel compelled to worry about them blowing off. A costly mistake.

I better post this before I time out. To be continued........

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 03-17-2008

We put the boat in the water for a run, but no one tightened the fuel cap. After getting on a plane and completing one third of a lap, the motor went dead. It sounded as if it had run out of fuel. Sure enough it did. Having towed it in however, we also discovered that the hot oil return line on the right side of the engine had come off. It was a lucky thing that the motor had run out of fuel. After the hose clamps were put on the brass discharge nipples from the motor, we went for a second run. Sean was instructed not to run wide open....just get some good speed and make three laps. When he came in we found one of the hot oil return lines had come loose at the Y and dumped some oil. This had to be right as he came in because not much was lost. Lucky again. It was impossible to pull the plastic tubing from those plastic Y's with the barbs, but this hose was proving not to be the universal chemical resistant hose it was claimed to be. The heat and the oil itself had softened the line and it came off easily. Especially after it expanded and the oil provided lubrication along the length of the nipple.

The hot oil return lines to the Y were swapped out with nylon braided hoses and the rest of the return lines were clamped at all junctions. On the next run a cold oil in line came off at a Y even though the pump rate was very slow and the oil was not hot. The boat had made only half a lap. Three of the four plugs were loose and a couple of the electrodes were eaten away. The motor sounded like it was loading up. It may have taken some oil in it. New plugs were put in and away Sean went. This time Joe told him to make 4 laps.

The motor sounded good out of the pits and Sean made a strong run down the backstraight, bent the turn hard and just as he was completing the first lap, the top right piston stuck. When Denny and Billy got him back to the pits we found the suction line to the pump had come off. This did not make sense. The pump was still running and the suction itself should have kept the lines together. It must have been the weight of the approximate 2 foot line itself bouncing up and down full of oil that did it. But that ended the test session for the Vapor Trail Racing system Saturday. Denny, Sean and Joe started rebuilding the motor Sunday morning for more testing. I haven't heard result yet.

Here's what we found on the one three lap run. Max temp on the beach with no load was 90 degrees in and out....no water being circulated. After three laps hot oil out was 127 degrees F and hot oil in was 69 degrees. I don't recall anyone getting the water temp, but I'm guessing it was in the low 60's. The chill tube and hot foot setup was working, but temps were on the low side. It needed to reach 145 to open the Gearzmo, but Sean never made any "hot" laps. We all felt very confident that we are on the right course, but more testing needs to be done. For one, a pump with more output would speed up the oil flow. The slow pump rate was probably the cause of the low operating temperatures because of retention time in the chill tube. A faster rate would also get the heat stripped oil back to the engine quicker in case wide open running boosts the temp up faster.

It was a good start though, and as is often the case when it comes to racing and highly tuned motors, something cheap and simple can bring down the whole program.

A few more pics. I'll post more later with names added.

BTW The hot foot and chill tube are patent pending, and Joe Flow is working with an F1 team (the open wheel cars-not boats) for chill tube applications.

Composite Specialties · 03-17-2008

Yes Wayne, that is the competition boat that I built them back in 1997. It is the light one of the two Sean has...... still has much more life in that boat.

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 03-17-2008

Well, it's so full of oil now Marc, that Sean can't stand up in it.

I talked to both Denny and Joe a little earlier and the hose blowing problem was figured out. The reason we didn't hose clamp some of the connections earlier for the run was that you could not pull them loose to swap around. The ones on the plastic Y's had to be cut off. However, if you pressure the hose up, it blows up like a balloon then it will come off easy.

After Denny rebuilt the engine it was late in the day Sunday. They fired it up and before the engine even had time to warm up, it started blowing oil out of the air vent. It blew a lot of oil before they could shut down. Joe said the only way that could happen was if the cylinder heads leaked. They disconnected the return line on one cylinder and fired up the motor. It blew oil out. So when we were testing earlier, everytime clamps were put on hoses, the pressure would find the next weakest point to attack. After the rebuild, all hoses had clamps so it blew oil out at the air vent.

The plan is for Denny to install the system on his 250 which has O ring seals on the heads. Since a different oil pump will be used now rather than the Makuni diapragm pumps, the air vent is not needed and it will not have to be vertical. May be ready to test again in April.