#anyway I got a total of zero tops during the comp

[little-alien-duck]

competed in a bouldering competition a couple of days ago and the thing about this comp style is that you have to wait your turn on a problem and it can take 20 mins if the comp is crowded and you only have three hours to climb so like if you get on the wall and realize you've made a mistake you have to fix it without getting off the wall bc this is your one shot and there's just something about frantically puzzle solving your way through a problem with the pressing time limit of "until your strength gives out" that is just utterly unique and incredible

[bestworstcase]

What are your opinions on the whole Rapunzel-Varian drama in S1 post Queen For A Day, especially with the whole "Rapunzel should've checked on Varian after the snowstorm" or whose fault it was for their conflict?

tbh… if i had to pick one single representative example of the tts fandom’s general inability to handle nuance in fictional conflict, it’d be the QFAD discourse™

because! while this isn’t to rag on anyone, if you pick a random person with an opinion on this question, chances are they will fall into one of two camps. either: 1) corona’s treatment of varian was horrifically unjust and everyone involved except him is a terrible person, or 2) rapunzel did what she had to do and varian’s anger is irrational, unfounded, and fundamentally unfair.

people in camp #1 tend to believe that rapunzel was simply being selfish and acting like a sulky child when she failed to check up on varian after the storm. people in camp #2 tend to point out that rapunzel was traumatized by the events of QFAD too, and believe that this justifies her failure to check up on varian.

but the thing is imo the conflict in QFAD + the rest of s1 is just as complex and messy as the argument cassandra and rapunzel have in RATGT, in that there is no One True Right Answer and no person who is one hundred percent “at fault.” the question of blame is… honestly sort of beside the point if you ask me. to break this down:

#1: rapunzel is a sheltered teenager with minimal social skills dealing with a national emergency halfway through her first unsupervised couple days on the job.

the girl has had like eight months tops of training for the monumental task of ruling a country. she grew up in a situation where the only choice available to her was how she would wile away her free time inside her tower; gothel exerted total control over every other facet of her life. and while she has a little more wiggle room now that she’s out of the tower, she is still basically living her life with all the big, consequential choices made for her.

QFAD was intended to be her first taste of true authority, while still being ultimately inconsequential. if all had gone according to plan, corona would have ticked along more or less on autopilot—just as frederic left it—while rapunzel got in a little practice making judgment calls about minor, unimportant things, like mediating small interpersonal disputes between her subjects.

nobody expected, and rapunzel was absolutely not prepared for, a legitimate national crisis to explode in her face out of nowhere. this was supposed to be pedaling by herself for the first time with training wheels and what she got instead is careening down the freeway on a motorbike at 95mph with zero warning. it is a miracle that she held things together as well as she did.

#2: varian is a child with an emotionally distant, unsupportive father who sets him up for failure.

he’s smart but he’s also fourteen. he has little if any formal training in alchemy, he’s figuring stuff out by trial and error, and he has zero adult supervision. his efforts have caused significant levels of destruction twice in only a few months—the exploding boilers in WTH, and his invention going haywire (with a little help from st. croix) in GE—and it’s implied that this is a fairly regular occurrence with him.

and yet quirin does nothing. he shouts at varian, shuts him down, and at several points orders him point blank to stop messing with alchemy… but he makes no effort to connect with his son or understand where he’s coming from; he doesn’t try to impose reasonable restrictions (like “don’t mess with volatile chemicals unless i’m there to help”) that would allow varian to pursue his passion while minimizing the danger; and he doesn’t create an environment where varian feels able to turn to his father for help. and then with the black rocks, he lets varian come along to see the king, but refuses to explain why he “lied” (/spoke in code) to the king, destroying any credibility he had in varian’s eyes and making varian panicky and desperate because it seemed like no one else cared.

so the end result is that varian feels like he has no choice but to sneak around behind quirin’s back. he can’t rely on his dad for help if anything goes wrong, but the situation is so dire that doing nothing also isn’t an option. he tries his best to be careful (before quirin barges in on him, varian is attempting to put just one drop of the amber serum on the rock) but even if quirin hadn’t startled him, a terrible accident was bound to happen sooner or later, and the responsibility for that lays just as much if not more on quirin’s shoulders—the adult in this situation—as on varian’s. the kid is FOURTEEN.

(i think a neat argument could be made for varian as a deconstruction of the teen/YA fantasy trope of the hyper-competent teenager with absentee parents whose absence allows the teen to get on with the important work of the high-stakes fantasy plot; but that’s a whole different post)

#3: rapunzel did the right thing, but lost control over the situation due to lack of experience.

it would have been wrong to abandon everybody in corona to run off into the blizzard with varian, and frankly it wouldn’t have helped quirin anyway. he was already encased in amber by the time varian got back to old corona, and rapunzel couldn’t have done anything in the moment had she been with varian then. the only benefit to her presence would have been to comfort varian—which is not a small thing, obviously, but it’s not in any way a reasonable exchange for the hundreds or thousands of lives that would have been lost if she left corona completely without a leader in the middle of a crisis. so broadly speaking, staying in corona was the right call.

however.

rapunzel was not in control during that scene in the palace. varian bursts in, panicking, explains his situation and begs for her help—and rapunzel just says, basically, “i can’t help you, there’s an emergency.” then nigel comes in and reinforces that, which makes varian freak out; he grabs rapunzel and shakes her, nigel signals for the guards in response, and varian gets dragged out of the palace while rapunzel pleads with the guards not to hurt him.

(sidebar: the hate nigel gets for describing varian as “attacking” rapunzel is unfounded. varian grabs her and shakes her roughly back and forth and that is, in fact, assault. nigel is not wrong to describe it as such.)

anyway, notice two the things that DON’T happen here:

1) rapunzel doesn’t offer up any alternative solutions. a more experienced or better prepared leader could have responded to varian’s plea with a plan of action, like: i need to stay in corona to oversee the evacuation, so we can’t leave right this minute, but cassandra will take you to ask xavier for advice right now and the minute it’s safe to leave we’ll go together to help your father. or whatever—the point is to engage proactively with varian’s problem, make him feel heard, and give him something productive to do so he isn’t just sitting around fretting in the palace or struggling back home by himself in the middle of a blizzard.

2) raps doesn’t challenge nigel’s decision when he summons the guards to throw varian out of the palace, which is something she absolutely could have done. she could have said no, i can’t go to old corona right this minute to help him, but we are not throwing him out into the storm again, he stays here with me. this is, again, a sign of her inexperience; she’s not used to being an authority, she’s never been in a situation like this before, and she’s under a ton of pressure—so when an older adult whom she sees as an authority (he’s her father’s advisor!) makes a judgment call, it probably doesn’t even occur to her that she can challenge it.

this is why i say that rapunzel lost control over the situation—because even though she made the Right Decision, she got a kind of awful outcome, ie varian being tossed out into the blizzard to struggle home by himself to deal with his problem without any support, and rapunzel inadvertently breaking her promise from earlier.

#4: rapunzel doesn’t immediately go to check on varian after the storm because she’s traumatized, busy, and trusts her father.

painter’s block is all about how the trauma rapunzel feels as a direct result of her decisions during the storm destroys her ability to choose anything. she feels so debilitated by the fear that she will make the wrong choice—because she worries that she chose wrong when she allowed varian to be sent away—that she can’t do anything at all, let alone find the emotional strength to go to old corona and confront her mistakes. and while she tries to process and move past this trauma, mrs sugarby exploits it in an attempt to force her to free zhan tiri.

the next episode, not in the mood, involves rapunzel being put under enormous pressure to entertain an irascible ally of corona’s while he and her father negotiate a trade deal with the threat of a war breaking out if they fail. NITM is a silly episode, but it has the highest non-magical stakes of any episode in the entire series. this isn’t an event rapunzel could have reasonably skipped out on for the sake of one person, no matter how much she cares. she’s slammed. she’s still being forced to prioritize just like she was in QFAD.

and in the third episode after QFAD, rapunzel is tormented by nightmares about varian and what happened to his father, so she presses frederic for information about the rocks and varian’s safety. and frederic assures her that everything is fine. he lies to her face about the rocks having been removed, and rapunzel has no reason to doubt him, so she relaxes… until varian contacts her directly, and she immediately jumps to help him.

#5: at the same time, varian has been forced into hiding because frederic is attempting to cover up the rock problem.

what happens to varian after QFAD is plainly unfair and unjust. his father is trapped in amber, the rocks have completely destroyed old corona, most of the villagers have presumably moved to the new land frederic set aside for them, and frederic’s secret police are crawling all over the village trying to suppress information about the rocks (and fred’s role in creating them). the blame for this lies squarely at frederic’s feet, and varian is right to be angry.

i believe that varian interprets rapunzel’s absence as a sign that she’s complicit in what frederic is doing, making his anger at her justified as well. he doesn’t have access to the information we do about why rapunzel doesn’t seek varian out immediately—he doesn’t see how distraught and shattered she is after the storm, or the high-stakes political nonsense she has to deal with, and he certainly doesn’t see her trying to pursue the matter of the rocks and varian’s safety with her father and being flatly lied to to convince her to stay put in corona. all he knows is that rapunzel kicked him out and now she’s ignoring him and her father’s agents keep chasing him away from his home, and he draws the conclusion that makes the most sense to him, ie rapunzel must be okay with all of this because otherwise she would be here.

and once he has that idea in his head, the fact that rapunzel immediately jumps to help him when he contacts her isn’t enough to dislodge it. he’s a scared, lonely fourteen year old boy looking at this situation through a purely interpersonal lens while rapunzel is an overwhelmed eighteen year old doing the best she can while juggling about a million things at once and putting varian low on her priority list because she’s been told by a trusted source that varian is fine.

they both make mistakes, they’re both missing important contextual information, and neither of them handles this situation in the best possible way. but neither of them is “at fault” in the sense of being purely in the wrong, and—imo—frederic and quirin hold the lion’s share of the blame here, because they had all the information, and they refused and refused and refused to deal with the black rock problem until it overwhelmed them both. varian and rapunzel are both just kids scrambling to deal with something that should not be their problem to solve, and both of them fuck up! (and even then—the best fred and quirin could’ve done was just be honest and upfront about what the problem was. neither of them had the means to fix anything, and neither of them was responsible for the very unfortunate timing of the blizzard. so it’s not as clear cut as everything bad in s1 happens because fred and quirin stuck their heads in the sand. a lot of it honestly was just sheer bad luck.)

a n y w a y, i think by s3 and after a lot of introspection, varian has figured a lot of this out, and that’s why he’s so quick to let go of his lingering grudge against rapunzel. he’s realized that at the end of the day, rapunzel was just as unprepared and lost in that situation as he was, that she’s not responsible for (and wasn’t complicit in) her father’s decisions, etc, etc.

[survivor-tierradelfuego]

Ep. 6: “I hate this slow death” - Pedro

Pedro A

im ready for revenge

Ryan

Everything about that tribal was... not great. I am not a fan of my new tribe, Amy betrayed me and Alan's mullet is starting to annoy me lmao. Might have to go with the hanuha peeps

Najwah

I was looking forward to a tribe swap because I was on the outs of my last tribe but this is literally my worst nightmare. We are outnumbered. So automatically if we went to tribal either James or I would be voted out. Also, the ONE person on my old tribe that I've never spoken to. James. I have zero relationship with him at all. In fact, I don't trust him at all. So this is going to be difficult. Best I can do is get to know the other people. Awesome plus is that two other members are from other parts of the world too so I can talk to people during day hours. Haha. Urgh hopefully we win our next challenge and the ones after that. James isn't really a good team player. He's very technical and I suspect he has the jewelery box. So yeah, let's se how this goes. I only have one goal right now and that is to make it to merge. That's it. Pedro A

i honestly will tell all the alliences kalle has..if we lose the challenge

Alan B

I lost all my friends in the swap!!! Im so scared 

James Hayden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOoHPa38woQ&feature=youtu.be

James Hayden

Ryan messaged Naj and I saying he and Amy had a falling out, but reconnected with her and is iffy about Alan. Based on old Maola’s round 5 tribal, it appears that Alan is on the outs. Amy messaged Naj saying that she’s happy someone from Africa is also on the tribe. If Naj can pull in Amy and I can pull Ryan then we have a 4-1 over Alan. But I don’t know if that’s the best move. If we vote Alan out, then Palena consists of 2 original Hanuha and 2 original Maola. If we go back to tribal, then we probably deadlock and I’m NOT letting a challenge decide my fate in this game. If we bring in Alan, then we have their vote the three of us can vote out Amy and Ryan, have the numbers on the tribe, and go into the merge three strong. I can offer Alan a spot in F6 w/ Jess or they can be voted out pre-merge because it seems that Ryan, and maybe Amy, are willing to vote them out. In the words of Rory Freeman," I think I found my little crack.” I just need to talk to Naj and see what she thinks about this. 

Ryan

I’m bitter as hell. I really wanna make my teammates regret not getting rid of me over John 

Zack M

oop- i should have confessed earlier but like i decided to drink and watch the strangers with my roommates because we don't have a challenge tomorrow. love a night off. but i remembered just now so let me try to recap what happened today..... WE SWITCHED TRIBES. thank god i stepped up as the hanuha (i never know if i'm spelling that correctly and i'm too lazy to check) leader. yes, i volunteered but let's be honest i was the leader regardless. maddison from the other tribe and i did a school yard pick for new tribes. i was really hoping that maddison was going to be available because najwah was hardcore online stalking the other tribe and found out she is a big katy perry fan. i happened to have met katy at a party and she took my phone to take a photo of us. i was totally going to lie and say she was one of my artists and i would get maddison a personalized signed record of her upcoming album if she kept me safe. soooooooooooo if maddison sticks around keep an eye out for that move. putting it in my back pocket for now. no one is safe with me. lol. anyways, this couldn't have worked out better for me. i got ben and cody which are each my final 2 but also we're in a final 3 together. what? i know! i needed this good luck. i feel bad because i don't have sarah and james but i couldn't get everyone from my top 5 alliance. i also feel bad because i had a really great conversation with najwah today and i absolutely love her. however, she was ready to work with new people so i hope she finds peace with the new tribe she is on. i also hope she works with james and doesn't fuck him over so we can all be reunited at the merge. praying for you james because i know she is ready to switch it up. i chose pedro and kalle from the other tribes for specific reasons. pedro beat me at the flag challenge. i felt like this would give us common ground to create a relationship. i also chose kalle because she was the one that ben was talking to last night when we struck a deal with the immunity challenge. RELATIONSHIPS. i'm playing a very social game so i want to make sure i'm in everyone's head. side note: can i say how happy i am that john was voted off tonight. i know he wasn't on my tribe but that bio / the way he acted last night when i was trying to strike a deal was so cocky. he would have been my #1 target if we moved into this round with him. like i was debating getting him on my team and purposefully losing to vote him out and get the numbers up for my original tribe. kind of bummed when i didn't see his name on the list. sorry dude ... but not really. easier for me. things at the new hanuha are weird. obviously ben, cody, and i are close. as far as i know none of us have messaged the others individually and none of them have messaged us. again, cody is a wild card. i love him but i just do not trust that kid. hopefully everyone is telling the truth. i want to reach out to pedro but i don't want to come off too strong yet. not making the same mistakes as you john. my goal this entire time (well since i decided this was a legit game and i would stick around) was just to make it to the merge and now i see the finish line. i don't know if i'm going to have the ability to stay after. i'm a huge threat. let's be honest. i don't know the other tribe but if they are playing the quiet game that i think they are then i'm the last person in this game SO FAR who has made big moves and gotten away with it. i think it is obvious to everyone. pedro even mentioned neil tonight which was HELLA strange. like did neil reach out to him? were they close before? WTF IS NEILS REACH?! this is why i will not allow another pisces in this game. if they have the numbers at the merge and they don't vote me out then they are really playing the worst game possible. im READY to really play and i'm sooooooo ready to stop playing a game for the tribe and start playing the game for me. HERE FOR SOLO IMMUNITY CHALLENGES. i've shown that i'm a comp beast ... once i understand the rules. but our tribe has been quiet tonight. i'm not sure what to do to spark conversation with the newbies. one day at a time. i would suggest throwing this challenge to get one of them out but ben is in school for tv / film and feels confident in his editing skills. i would like him to have a moment to shine and i would never take that away from him. i do have to say out of everyone i've met in this game so far that i appreciate ben the most. he is definitely stiff competition and if one person is going to beat me then he absolutely deserves it! everyone else i've met is floating in my opinion. that's all she wrote.

Pedro A

im honestly sooo doneeeeee.....first John......now im on the bottom.....im honestly so done....if the idol hunt doesnt work, ...idk what will happen

Pedro A

the 3 people that are in the tribe with me and kalle are inseparable...there is no cracks what so ever..lets just hope we win every challenge

Pedro A

honestly im just gonna try to be nº4 on this tribe...and hope we just lose once

Pedro A

guess what bitchessss.....my unlucky ass got nothing in the idol search....WE LOVE TO SEE IT..........honestly not suprised..luck hasnt been on my side...i hate this slow death

Pedro A

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like Nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes Does it almost feel like You've been here before? How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

Pedro A

okay so im creating a graphic ..that explains the routes in the idol search...that me and kalle have done..so we can know where not to go. I also completed it with the info that john once told...rip john....lets hope we find something

Ryan

Ultimately, I am very sad hearing about what Alan is going through. But I am only slightly thankful for them making this decision, as it means I wouldn't have had to blindside Amy next time we go to tribal

Sarah

This new Maola tribe is like night and day difference compared to my old Hanuha tribe. This tribe is so quiet! I’m not used to not having over 100 unread messages in a day... Aimee and I are definitely down in numbers on this tribe and I get the feeling that the three former Maola tribe members are pretty tight so I am hoping we win this immunity! Ideally, if we did go to tribal I would want to work with Aimee and pull someone else in but if that won’t work then I could vote out Aimee since ya know she wrote my name down. But Aimee really is a great human and I would be down to work with her. 

James Hayden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbm4Ei7thuo&feature=youtu.be

AMY A

Tribe swap! I was unfortunately put in the tribe of people no one chose and that bummed me out for a few hot seconds but I also realized that out of a tribe of five, there's three internationals and one gender non-conforming person so maybe its just that people just cannot relate with us as well as  with Americans. That asiude, this tribe seems to be the right mix. I feel like this challenge was MADE for us cos we can totally milk the culture thing. If Najwah is able to put the videos together well, there is no way we wouldn't win outright. In the event of us losing, Alan has already suggested wanting to get out for mental health reasons so that would be an easy vote. All in all, I feel safe (knock on wood) for this round.

Ryan

I feel like I'm really settling into my groove in this new tribe. We really get on and we really all try our best (my last tribe did too but this one's just kinda special idk)

Zack M

i can't remember if i've confessed or not. i wish there was a way that i could read what i previously wrote. well i'm on a team with cody and ben with pedro and kalle from the other tribe. pedro is a little hard to read but i like him. kalle says he is hardcore searching for the idol though. she also shared that she believe grae and alan have the idol from the other tribe. so if they haven't used it by merge, they will be my #1 targets. i don't really have much to say. we made a video for the music video challenge. i sent a few notes to ben. hopefully he listens and corrects them because i don't know how tough the judges are going to be but there were definitely moments that could be cleaned up / better footage that could have been used. look it's hard for me to put my game in someone else's hands and that's what i feel like i'm doing right now. i wish i would have volunteered to edit but this is what he wanted to do so i'm going to respect that. i did get a reward because i was chosen as team leader. i was able to talk to past players who drafted me. i was honestly so stoked to chat with them and tell them what's been going on in my game. however, it seemed to be an inside joke reunion for them and i didn't really get anything out of it to be honest. it's like cool, you've sat on Skype for a crazy amount of time as well. love that for you. NOW HELP ME. but whatever. if i lose, they lose also. i guess i'll probably update again when i find out if we won the music video challenge or not. party.

Pedro A

Omg I hope we win this challenge.....I'm so scared...chilllleee..if we lose ..I already lost my one life lol

Ryan

We are not mad at Alan sending themself home. It'll be sad to see them gone, but it means I can get rid of them without having to worry about souring my relationships with old Maora

Olivia A

I feel really good about this new tribe and am really glad that we were able to keep 3/4 of my original alliance (Maddison, Grae, and me). Since we didn’t lose this challenge I think the 3 (and hopefully 4 if Kalle doesn’t get voted out) of us can stay strong to the merge and through the rest of the game. :) 

Maddison

Tribe swap played out as well as I could have hoped. I hope my original alliance members stay strong and we can make the merge as a strong three.

Aimee

Oh! I am having so much fun with my new Maola tribe! I think we vibe really well together. 😘🌈💜

Zack M

WE WON. omg thank god. the other videos were cute. reality: all three videos were tragic in my opinion but i'm a perfectionist. it's a win i'll gladly take. the scores were all positive except from ellie. ellie is really not a fan of the music video challenge and it shows from the bio / scores. we were better than 6 7 8 and 9s. shout out to the person that gave us straight 10s. WHAT WE DESERVED. tribal has also happened. super sad to see that alan asked to leave the game. i do find it wild because kalle shared that she believed alan had the immunity idol. this gives james and najwah a chance to continue on though and i'm so happy for them! low key hope they lose again because i feel like it would be easier for them to convince one person to vote with them. idk. also, i just think james has the idol so i don't mind him taking a hit if he can come back from it. we are currently waiting on a new challenge. not excited. was ready for a night off! but LETS GO.

James Hayden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsBK4PSENrQ

Najwah

Soooo last time I did this I don't think I was aware, that the tribe swap was a school yard pick. Dunno can't remember. Tbh I am re-annoyed that when Jay asked who volunteers, I was busy typing, but Zack once again took it. Do I feel bad about not being chosen by Zack when he was decompressing with me for a whole half an hour before it all happened? He was venting and anxious. He probably had his reasons. Well done for choosing a videograoher on his team too. Does it feel weird being part of the leftovers? Sure. As a POC it's difficult not to see that the non white people, person who stutters and young guy were not chosen by the leaders. I'm not sure why Alan wasn't chosen, probably because they were the hosts sibling? But yes, the innate racism, ableism and ageism was definitely apparent. Personally, I think a randomizer should be used. And people would call this exaggeration or trying to play the victim/being salty but if you're a POC and have experienced this kind of thing for 30+ years, you just see things for what they are. Anyway, on the plus side being on a group of misfits means that no one has alliances. Everyone is just genuinely nice. Wow. What a breeze. I started bonding with James more. I like this tribe. I feel less stressed on this tribe. Perhaps it's that we are all on different timezones so we all talk at different times, which I like. Perhaps it's because there are way less people lol. Do I feel discouraged though? Yes. I don't think we will win immunity. We are all too out of sync. 

Najwah

The music video challenge was fun. Not the best song choice tbh. I wanted to do Journeys don't stop believing because we were a bunch of misfits and I've been binge rewatching Glee again after Naya's death. Being a POC bi woman, that death affected me a lot last week. And Mr Shue is right. Journey is great. Anyway. I loved all the snippets and how much effort everyone put into the videos. It took me a long time. Like 8 hours to edit all of THAT, coz I did it in Vegas Pro instead of TikTok or a phone app like we should have done ugh why am I stupid. so I was sad when we didn't even place, but also Alan gifted me an immunity idol before they left and I was so overwhelmed I literally CRIED.  I miss Cody. I miss Leanne. People I could actually talk to about these things lollll. I guess we just have to try our best to win tonight. Our team is so out of sync though I don't see that happening. But we will try our best I guess. Last time we won an immunity challenge I prayed to God that we win. I think i will do that again. I think God likes survivor. 

Najwah

I need to make a disclaimer. I'm not unhappy about anything. I'm not salty about anything. I'm not upset or being complain-y. I'm just making observations. I am still really happy about this game, being able to play in it and being able to get to know people I wouldn't have crossed paths with in my wildest dreams.

[itsworn]

HOT ROD Rescue: A 4,000-Lb, 383 Chevy Rat-Rod Won’t Burnout

The Combo

J.B. Bracken needed a tow vehicle for his three LSR bikes. His NOS’d 1972 Harley-Davidson shovelhead has gone 160 mph on the salt flats.

Bracken’s answer: Build a Rat rod based on a 1935 Ford truck cab. Motive force is provided by a 700-R4-shifted, 8-71-blown 383 small-block.

When J.B. Bracken needed a tow vehicle to haul his awesome land-speed-racing (LSR) bikes back from the 2-mile traps at the Bonneville salt flats, he wanted to do so in style—namely, with a supercharged rat rod. Also on his wish list was a real driver, an all-purpose highway cruiser, and a rod that wouldn’t embarrass itself at the local burnout contests. Bracken’s solution: Modify an old Ford truck cab, set it on a 2×4-inch square tubing frame, and drop in a 383 small-block Chevy purchased on eBay. The 8.1:1 motor has a forged Scat crank with Eagle rods, topped by Patriot aluminum heads fed by a Dyer 8-71 supercharger and two Quick Fuel 750-cfm, double-pumper carbs. MSD’s ready-to-run distributor lights the fire, and Sanderson street-rod headers exhaust the mixture. A 700-R4 automatic overdrive (OD) works with a 2,700-rpm-stall converter to transfer torque back to a 1979 Ford 1-ton truck Dana 70 rearend with 4.10:1 gears, a limited-slip diff, and dualie wheels and tires.

The Problem

The truck couldn’t do burnouts. Its 550-pound, 1-ton truck Dana 70 rearend, dual wheels, and giant brake rotors acted like a giant flywheel.

The truck proved a good highway cruiser (2,200 rpm at 77 to 80 mph in OD), but despite the big blower, it couldn’t break the tires loose off the line. That big Dana rearend, gigantic rear truck brake rotors, and 245/70R19.5 truck tires weighed in at 550 pounds, with total vehicle weight in the neighborhood of 4,000 pounds. All that weight and tire inertia acted like two big energy-storing flywheels. The truck also continually ran rich, was a finicky starter, and fouled spark plugs. Bracken lived with the problem for four years, trying several cams, and always playing with the ignition, timing, and carbs. “I finally ran out of patience,” he says. “It just didn’t have enough low-end. As a racer, I always want more!”

So it was off to Chicago-area rescue shop, Norm Brandes’ Westech Automotive in southern Wisconsin.

More low-end torque was needed, so Brian Ferguson and the rest of Westech Automotive’s crew dived in to give the truck more grunt. The primary initial fixes would include carb/ignition tuning, a 20-percent overdriven blower, a new cam, and better springs. But (to put it mildly) the crew would encounter setbacks along the way.

The Diagnosis and Initial Tuning

With 555 hp, the 8-71-blown 383 small-block should’ve had more than enough juice to get the job done. But the truck couldn’t lay rubber. Westech rejiggered the combo, and in the end, the motor generated so much boost and torque a piston broke. The red-number callouts and list below correspond to the numbered photos throughout the rest of this article.

01–03] Tune Quick Fuel carbs

04–06] Fix valve-float damage

07] Set MSD rev limiter

08] Howards Cams hydraulic-roller cam

09] Comp Cams beehive springs

10] Fel-Pro gaskets

11] Overdrive supercharger

12–13] Dead cylinders, broken pistons

After initial inspection and a test-drive, Brandes reported, “The truck didn’t run well. I had a hard time doing a wide-open-throttle [WOT] blast. Hit the throttle, get the rpm up, and it would cough and backfire through the blower because the [spark] plugs were so fouled! Off-idle it wouldn’t even chirp the tires! Bracken told me he was only getting 8 to 9 mpg. The carbs were set up without power valves [PVs], so the idle and main circuits were running at a 12.5:1 air/fuel [A/F] ratio all the time, which made it way too rich when not under boost. Back in the day, the PV could blow out if there was a backfire through the blower. Modern Quick Fuel carbs have PV blowout protection, so that concern is no longer valid.

01] As received, the truck was running way rich at idle and when not under boost. Originally purchased with the blower as a package, the dual Quick Fuel 750-cfm double-pumpers had been hacked using old-school methods to try to make them work better with a supercharged engine. Today, there are dedicated models available specifically intended for use with superchargers.

“We started [the diagnosis] with a compression test to make sure the engine was fundamentally sound. The low-compression engine cranked at 145 psi on average. That’s lower than you want to see on a hot rod, normally aspirated motor, but not bad for a low-compression blower motor.

“We replaced the fouled plugs with new NGK plugs gapped at 0.035 to 0.040 inch and tried cleaning the engine out on the dyno. We initially tried an 8.5 PV, which let us lean-out the primary jets about eight numbers, then dialed in 36 degrees total ignition advance. We weren’t making full-throttle passes yet—just trying to have an initially crisp response. But the truck was still breaking up. At about 3,800 to 4,000 rpm, it would start crapping out way too early! But the new plugs were clean. There were no ‘codes’ to be found [laughs], so we had to do our diagnostics the old-fashioned way: with the old eye balls.”

02] Brandes discovered “blank” PV block-offs installed in the primary metering blocks. PVs may behave erratically when conventional Holley-type carbs are mounted above a positive-displacement blower because their internal PV signal passages in the main body can’t sense true engine load under boost conditions, but not having one makes for terrible cruising.

03] Unusually, a big 50cc accelerator pump had been installed on the carbs’ primary side, with a 30cc pump used on the secondaries—the opposite of usual practice. This was probably an attempt to cover up a stumble during transition, part of the penalty of not having a PV.

The Fix: Valvesprings

Brandes pulled the rocker covers to check for a valvetrain problem. Everything looked OK visually, but after pulling several valvesprings and testing their pressures, Brandes says, “We found the original springs were only 90 pounds at their 1.800-inch installed height. That wasn’t enough tension for Bracken’s flat-tappet hydraulic cam on even a normally aspirated engine, so we installed new Crane springs, retainers, and locks that developed 130 pounds on the seat. Valvespring pocket locators were installed under the springs for greater stability and to keep them from chewing up the softer aluminum heads. The thicker locators required plus-0.050-inch locks to get the correct installed height.

“These changes got the truck to where it could at least make a power run. With the brakes locked, the truck would actually push the front wheels and slide forward, but the rear tires still wouldn’t spin! We had to pour a lot of water under the tires to get any tire-smoke at all.”

The burnout trials were done out in front of Westech’s shop. Toward the end of the initial trials, the shifter lever got knocked out of Drive into Neutral and the engine zoomed to 6,500 rpm. “That’s how we found out the rev limiter inside the MSD ready-to-run distributor had never been set,” Brandes says.

04] This is what happens when the shifter accidentally gets shoved into Neutral when trying to do a burnout. Note the shattered retainer, cracked locks, bent valve, and gouged piston. It occurred early on after the initial valvespring upgrade. Turns out, the rev limiter on MSD’s ready-to-run distributor was still on the factory default setting: 10,000 rpm! (Photo: Marlan Davis)

05] When the valvetrain derails, it can be a shattering experience. That retainer’s definitely not a keeper.

“[Valve float] lofted the valves down,” he continues. “On the No. 5 intake valve, the retainer violently hit the top of the spring and shattered. This launched the intake valve down into the piston, leaving a deep gouge. Material spalled off the piston deck and beat up the ring land area. Of course, the valve also got bent in the process.” Close inspection revealed beat-up lock grooves on some of the other valves as well. Brandes replaced all the valves with Speed-Pro stainless steel valves, touching up the three-angle valve job in the process. One new SRP piston plus a light clean-up hone was needed, and the 383 was back in business.

06] Although none of the other 15 valves had failed completely, inspection revealed most had beat-up retainer-lock grooves. Here, for example, the middle of the groove has mushroomed out to 0.3435 inch. Brandes says it should have been at 0.3415. To be fair, the grooves may have already been going away due to the truck’s original 90-pound-weakling seat pressures.

07] How to set MSD’s built-in rev limiter: Run the engine at half the desired max rpm (here, about 3,000 rpm for a 6,000-rpm limit). Short the gray tach wire to Ground for about 1 second. The tach will zero-out, then display the programmed rev limit amount for 2 seconds. If this value does not register on the tach, repeat the procedure using a different Ground source.

The original plan was to perform any further changes incrementally until the truck could finally do a big burnout, but now the heads had to come off anyway, so Brandes went for broke, installing a hydraulic-roller cam, then overdriving the blower.

The Fix: Cam

08] Bracken’s hydraulic flat-tappet cam (right) had too much overlap for a supercharged street engine, which wastes boost potential because the incoming air/fuel charge blows through the chamber and out the exhaust. Brandes and Howards Cams devised a custom-tailored hydraulic roller profile (left) with more lift but less duration and overlap.

With lots of overlap, Bracken’s flat-tappet hydraulic cam wasn’t the best match for a blown motor. Working with Howards Cams, Brandes came up with a custom-tailored hydraulic roller grind. Howard’s Ben Herheim explains, “You don’t need overlap with a supercharger, especially for a street car, but you still need enough duration to fill the cylinder. With a hydraulic roller, we can take overlap out of the cam to make the fill more efficient and waste less fuel. The roller lifters let us put more lift into the cam to make up for decreased duration. We also retarded the intake centerline from 106 to 113 degrees [ATDC]. Less duration and a wide lobe-separation angle [LSA] result in significantly less overlap.

“Howards offers a full line of supercharger cams in our Boost series, but the one we did for Norm isn’t one of them. He likes to tailor the specific exhaust opening point because he wants them to sound a certain way—like a Top Fueler but with driveability. Early exhaust opening makes that good sound, but it can’t be too early with a blower or you start generating excessive blow-through on overlap again. Basically, Norm wants the exhaust to start opening about 4 degrees earlier off the seat than is standard on our Boost series.”

The new roller cam is ground on a selectively austempered ductile-iron (SADI) billet, so it’s compatible with a standard distributor gear. The rear-mounted distributor tries to push a roller cam’s nontapered lobes forward, mandating a thrust button be used on the timing chain’s cam sprocket. Brandes shoots for 0.002- to 0.005-inch thrust clearance, grinding the rear of the button as needed.

Taking no chances with the new cam, Brandes upgraded the springs to Comp Cams’ high-tech beehive design. Their unique profile required different locators, retainers, and (to achieve the correct installed height) standard, nonoffset, 7-degree valve locks. Bracken was already running durable Comp full-roller rockers.

09] Brandes had to upgrade the original flat-tappet, weakling springs to Crane PN 99893 conventional dual springs. Later, after the roller cam upgrade, he installed the most modern available spring tech, Comp Cams’ PN 26918 beehive springs and retainers (shown). Compared to traditional springs, they’re more stable at high rpm and reduce valvetrain weight.

10] The good folks at Fel-Pro supplied premium performance-series gaskets to button the motor back up, including stout steel-core laminate head gaskets (PN 1003) that feature a steel-wire combustion ring and silicone sealing beads on the coolant transfer ports. (Photo: Fel-Pro)

The Fix: Boost

As received, the 8-71 made just 6 pounds of boost. “We talked to SRP,” Brandes says, “and they said their pistons in the motor were safe to 20 pounds [of boost].” It was off to the races: Brandes reversed the drive pulleys going from 20-percent underdrive to 20-percent over. Max boost level more than tripled, but critically for Bracken’s burnout dreams, it made a lot more boost a lot quicker and a lot lower.

11] The blower was 20-percent underdriven—the smaller pulley was on the crank, the larger on the blower. Swapping them to place the smaller on the snout and the larger on the crank generates 20-percent overdrive. The bolt patterns are the same—just invert the pulleys when changing positions. Reusing the same pulleys allowed retaining the same-length drivebelt.

“At this point,” Brandes continues, “it was the usual, meticulous, test-and-tune on my Mustang chassis dyno; working with the five-gas analyzer, we granularly fine-tuned the carburetors on every level, getting the internal calibration a lot closer. We ended up with 10.5 PVs up front and richer secondary jets out back.

“There was also too much timing in the distributor; the [centrifugal] advance was too quick, all in by 2,800 rpm. Bracken had it set at 25 degrees base with 36 total. He had to run so much initial timing because it was so rich. We pulled the base timing back to 16 with 32 degrees total and no vacuum advance. On 93-octane pump gas, there’s no detonation on this bad boy, as proven by oxides of nitrogen readings with the five-gas analyzer on the dyno.”

The Results

Brandes got the truck to the point where the A/F ratio, ignition timing, and five-gas readouts all looked nominal. But how was the burnout potential coming along? The trick was trying to get Brandes’ Mustang chassis dyno to replicate the standing-start, mash-the-throttle conditions observed in the parking lot.

“Outside, we could now start to do a burnout, mashing the throttle at idle,” Brandes says. “But on the dyno, from a standing start, the dyno’s rotors are stationary and the coefficient of friction and inertia factors—especially with a heavy vehicle—are very different than on real-world pavement.” Under these on-dyno conditions, starting from a standing start, the boost suddenly jumped up to 24 psi and smoke was observed coming out of the breathers.

Oops. A leakdown test showed several dead cylinders. Pulling the heads revealed four pistons had broken ring lands. “It wasn’t detonation,” Brandes says. “We’d simply exceeded the pressure capability of the piston material. We need stronger pistons to keep up with the blower!”

12] Victims of our own success: Well, that 8-71 is definitely dialed in now. On the chassis dyno, at one point the blower ran away and momentarily hit 24 psi of boost. Farewell, No. 1 cylinder. We’ll be back when that bottom-end is bulletproofed.

13] Well, more than a few. Bracken had so much low-end boost and torque that the existing pistons couldn’t take the heat. We’ll be back.

Lessons (So Far)

It takes a lot of torque to turn a big dualie rearend below 2,700 rpm (the torque converter’s stall speed). Make sure your MSD stand-alone distributor’s built-in rev limiter is activated. If you’re going to make a lot of boost, make sure your pistons don’t buckle under pressure. We’ll be back shortly with new, boost-proof pistons, a better block, other material enhancements, additional fine-tuning, and some real-world power numbers once we get this thing sorted out for good.

Contacts

Comp Cams Memphis, TN 800.999.0853 or 901.795.2400 CompCams.com

Competition Products (CP) Oshkosh, WI 800.233.0199 or 920.233.2023 CompetitionProducts.com

Crane Cams Daytona Beach, FL 866.388.5120 or 386.310.4875 CraneCams.com

Fel-Pro—Speed-Pro (Federal-Mogul Corp.) Southfield, MI 800.325.8886 FelPro-Only.com or FMe-cat.com

Howards Cams & Racing Components Oshkosh, WI 920.233.5228 HowardsCams.com

JE Pistons—SRP Pistons Cypress, CA 714.898.9763 (main office) or 714.898.9764 (sales/tech assistance) JEpistons.com or SRP.com

Moroso Performance Products Guilford, CT 203.453.6571 (sales) or 203.458.0542 (tech) Moroso.com

NGK Spark Plugs (U.S.A.) Inc. Wixom, MI 877.473.6767 NGKsparkPlugs.com

Prestone Products Corp. Danbury, CT 888.269.0750 Prestone.com

RockAuto LLC Madison, WI RockAuto.com

Summit Racing Equipment Akron, OH 800.230.3030 (orders) or 330.630.0240 (tech) SummitRacing.com

Valvoline LLC Lexington, KY 800.TEAM.VAL Valvoline.com

Walmart Stores Inc. entonville, AR 800.WALMART Walmart.com

Westech Automotive Silver Lake, WI 262.889.4349 WestechAuto.com

Need Junk Fixed? If your car has a gremlin that just won’t quit, you could be chosen for Hot Rod to the Rescue. Email us at pitstop@HotRod.com and put “Rescue” in the subject line. Include a description of your problem, a photo, your location, and a daytime phone number.

  The post HOT ROD Rescue: A 4,000-Lb, 383 Chevy Rat-Rod Won’t Burnout appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/hot-rod-rescue-4000-lb-383-chevy-rat-rod-wont-burnout/ via IFTTT