The day has finally come, to take the Omega out to the drag racing track in Gimli and see what she can do now, with all the new changes made in the past year. Been planning to attend a 'Test & Tune' day at the track since it's opening May long weekend, but it seemed something ALWAYS came up and we were unable to go.

A couple of days before going, I spend a few hours going over things on the car, double checking, triple checking some thing. I can't wait !!

So we had out again to Gimli on the September long weekend, to run the car after a few minor changes.

While going through the car after our first outting, I noticed the metal fuel line looked a little collapsed toward the top end at a few of the bends in the line. Having some spare lines around, I just replaced it. I also added a Accel SuperCoil to the distributor, and set the timing based on where I had it set on my nova when it had the 350 with a similar cam.

It was much cooler this time, and the car was running constant 14.7/14.8's. Inbetween runs, I noticed my throttle cable bracket was bent. So I straighten it and went down again. After that pass, it was bent again. With some help from my dad, he depressed the pedal all the way as I watched under the hood at the cable. Turns out the detent/kickdown cable from the transmission was preventing FULL throttle and bending the bracket at the same time. Disconnected the kickdown cable, the Omega broke into the 14.5 and lower.

My dad took the car for a few passes, and beat the previous best of 14.58 with 14.4199. After I surpassed him again with a time of 14.4179, things started to get personal.

Realizing we could never compete with the big boys at the track ... it's become abit of a Father/Son battle, friendly of course. Dad shattered my best of 14.4179 with a 14.21. I came as close as 14.27, but I could not catch the old man, and he is sure enjoying being the 'big dog'. I am now refered to as 'No.2' and our conversations usually start with 'hey loser' ... LOL - harmless fun!

The tear-down of the 355 begins right away. By the weekend, the motor was ready to pull and at Justin's request, we waited until he had time to come by and find out why the motor failed. Upon removing the oil pan, you could see bits of bearing material ALL OVER the place. Pulling off the valve covers and intake also revealed alot of debris. In one of the heads, we found a piece of what looked like some kind of spring material. There was more of this 'spring' material in the oil pan and even some wedge in the oil pickup. Turned out the spring material was the spring inside the 1-piece rear main and it somehow came out of the seal and ended up inside the motor.

Pulling off the main caps revealed alot of bearing wear. I believed the motor was starved of oil, as it had a high-volume oil pump and it probably sucked the pan dry at the high rpms while I was racing. Justin had some ideas of what might of lead to the failure too. One factor that was discussed was that I was running 10W30 oil, and I've been told by many others that that probably didn't help. I was told I should of been running 15W40.

In NO WAY is the engine failure a result of Justin's build or how it was built. I ran this motor hard and beated on this car without mercy for a GOOD year before it failed. It's just one of those things that happens, shit breaks!.

Upon further inspection of the block, Justin discovered that the block wasn't machine properly and one side of the block was higher then the other side. We pulled out the frost plugs, cam bearings and sent the bare block in for inspection, cleaning and some machining.

Justin was kind enough to price out some parts and builds for me. Just over a week later, Justin returned with the block, freshly cleaned and painted. Justin had some ideas on how we should rebuild this motor. Being that I have limited knowledge and going on from past experiences, I hesitated on some of the purposed builds/ideas. As the snow began to fall, the rebuild would be put on hold over the winter, to give me some time to think and do some research. I needed to figure out how I wanted to build the new motor and maybe save up some money to pay for it!

As Spring 2011 was fast approaching, I started to get the itch to get the car going. I set out to talk to some friends for advice and what my options are. Dan Klim, a good friend of mine who has helped me time and time again with my Nova and Glenn Evans, the man & brains behind Project: MEANGREEN! (73 Nova). After some research and discussions, I decided on what I wanted and spoke with Dan. Dan came up with a list of what to get, what I would need to get this motor built. I had some parts already, thanks to Justin who before breaking for the winter, ordered a Scat Crank, rod & cam bearings and some piston rings.

While everything was apart, I figured now would be a good time to do some upgrading. One thing I was wanting to do even before the breakdown was go with a bigger cam. With my list of parts in hand, I went out over to Motion Performance where my buddy Shawn & Chris hooked me up. Ordered a CompCam Xtreme Energy Cam (XE274), CompCam hydrualic lifter set, CompCam Cam button, CompCam Double Roller Timing Chain and a Meiling Standard Volume Oil pump.

As we were approaching the end of May, it was time to call up Dan and see what his schedule was like to assemble/build the motor. My dining room table was consumed by a growing number of new parts, waiting for the build. Took a week off work, hid in my garage and helped Dan and put this motor together. Watching Dan assemble the engine is an art. Granted I can slap parts together and bolt everything, but Dan knows how to assemble and just know by the way it's going or how parts are going in ... if theres any problems or not.

The motor went together beautifully, Dan did a REAL nice job getting things together!

Over the next few days, and with some help of my parents (hahaha, yeah .. even my mom came to help!), we bolted the motor and transmission in together and lowered it into the car. This time around, we're installing some headers (kindly given to me, thanks to Glenn Alexis!!). Glenn gave the set to me when we first put the 355 into the Omega back in 2009, however while trying to save some cost, I never installed them as I didn't have the money to change the exhaust hookups.

Had some issues again with lining up the motor mounts and it just so happens my friend Glenn Alexis was stopping by. When he arrived, we put him to work helping to get things lined up. After a few hours, the engine/transmission was in and bolted, now for the accessories!

Slowly but surely, we get everything together and set the stage to call Dan again and arrange the Cam BreakIn gathering. Monday rolls around and everything is ready to go.

As Dan watches on, I start the car or try too. Ended up wasting some time trying to get the car going due to starter & dead battery problems. Had to make a few trips to Piston Ring and Canadian Tire for parts. After getting the problems sorting out, we attempt it again.

Ok, another quick check the engine and we're ready to go!

VVRRRROOOOOOOOOOOMM, 'Slomega' roars to life, in the garage with open headers ........ hahahaha - YES!! Dan controls the idle from the outside as I read out the rpms and watch the time. After 15 minutes, we shut things down (Carb popped and it stalled). I'm told the next stage of the game is to let to engine COMPLETELY cool down.

Few days later, I head out to DUALS EXHAUST to get the headers hooked up to the pipes. I take the back roads to avoid any attention, but wouldn't you know it ... speed trap ahead. I sped up alittle to check out to a hydro service truck and drive along side it to avoid being seen. WORKED!

Arrived at Duals, and after a brief wait ... the Omega is on the hoist, pipes are welded. I can't wait for this next part, what will the Omega sound like now.

The Omega is sounding SEXY!, bit of a lumpy cam sounding to it. I am overwhelm with excitement, I can't wait to hit the streets and take the Omega for a drive.

Over the next few days, I changed out the Q-Jets for a NEW Holley 650 Double-Pumper, as well as the stock GM distributor for an MSD StreetFire HEI distributor. I wanted to wait till after we got things running, cause atleast I know the carb and distributor were setup for the engine and wouldn't have to worry about new stuff failing during the cam break-in. The upgrades are done with ease.

On our next outing in July, Dad wanted to try making a few passes in 'DRIVE', as he has some issues with the column shifter. He wonder if he drove in DRIVE, how constant would the car be. Dad was hoping he could be constant enough to par-take in the 'Gamblers Race'. While he made the passes in drive, the car still runs high-13s, low-14s times.

In the morning, under the hot sun and the muggy-hot air, the car wasn't running so good. Times were off abit, but my MPH was still constant. The car ran better later on in the day, with a mild breeze helping to cool down the car to the 180 area. Now we're back into the mid-13s and 100 MPH range.

We took the rest of July & August off, and didn't made it out again in September when I decided to take the Nova out for a lashing.

After having some success with some parts used in the Omega upgrade, I upgraded the distributor and carb with the same MSD Streetfire Distribtor and Holley 650 Double Pumper. I noticed an immediate difference, and secondly ... my 'messing' problem seemed to have disappeared. BONUS!! (Only been fighting with that for 8-some years).

On my second pass with the Nova, I passed the Omega BEST ET, but by only .03 seconds on street trim. Once I switched to the drag radials, the Omega couldn't touch the Nova.

The Omega had some GREAT outings, Dad & I had ALOT of fun and we finished the season strong. Most importantly, the car is still running :)

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