Ford 2 3L Race Truck Engine Build

From The Junkyard - To A Race Engine

When our dirt circle track truck decided to fail, we decided to go super budget with a new engine.
YES - I know - the more we spent the faster we could be going.
BUT - we can't dial in the rest of the truck until we can at least go forward.

So this was the first dirt track truck I jumped in, and when it would get hot, it would loose power.
here's the story.

I have a buddy with Team Hicks Motorsports who not only built himself an AWESOME truck, but went one step further and built this spare truck with the other parts. Such as - he needed a specific transmission and found it in a truck in the weeds, he'd buy the truck so he could get the parts usable on his truck.
Eventually he had enough spare parts to build a spare truck, and starting letting his friend race it with him FOR FREE.
That's what I call a great guy.

So with our in depth knowledge of motorsports and racing, he gives me a call and says "my buddy says there's something wrong, but he doesn't understand mechanics and can't pinpoint the issue, I can't race 2 trucks at once, so can you run it this weekend and help me pinpoint the issues"

HELLS YEAH BOYS - WE'RE GOING RACING

Honestly, he'd been trying to get me to come out and race with him, or to build a truck, but I'm not a fan of circle tracks. I'm more the stage rally, asphalt hill climb kinda guy. I even went to ‪@unoh_edu‬ or UNOH for High Performance and Racing Technologies (and a few other degrees) where they own their own dirt track, and a lot of the courses focus on dirt track racing. I still live near the college, so if you go there, shoot me a message.

So I get the truck the night before, go through and tune the carb more precisely, and get it ready. Testing around my yard it was SNAPPY and QUICK.

So we get out to the track, I get a buddy I went to college with to come out and help as a pit crew, and we go over the truck pre race, and it seems good.
Get out for hot laps and it feels great, green hits and 2 laps in it falls on its face.
HMM
Get it back to the pits and it's making a loud tick similar to a piston slap or loud valve tick. Actually, I was really confident it wasn't a valve tick, maybe a stuck valve.
Regardless, we decide to tear the valve cover off, and do a bit of diag to see if we can find some wear, or slop, or something. Before I can even strip my suit off my buddy is getting stuff unbolted. I walk back to pull the cover and WOW it's hot.
REAL HOT
Like I can't crab the valve cover with my bare hands hot.

So finally I get it off and find no wear, no slop, no sticking valves, nothing.

So we ask Team Hicks what they want to do, it's there truck, and he says since I qualified for the Main Event, take it out and let her rip even if I'm at the back of the pack.

Get over there and I'm lined up, but the guys on the inside just aren't tightening up. Like COME ON.
As we come around for the green I feel the truck loose power. So when it get's hot, it looses power. Good to know.

We get a lap and a half in and the truck shuts down.
UH OH
So she won't fire back up, whatever, I get the best view at the track to watch the race, inside the grass just out of turn 4.

Get it back to the pits and get it to fire and it's just knocking and slapping and sounds like someone shaking a bucket of bolts.

So I tell him look, I can drop it off, or I can leave it in the trailer and when I get time comb through everything.
He says go for it.

While it's in the trailer, my wife and my friend are both whispering in my ear, we really just need to buy the truck, between the 3 of us we have probably 50 years of racing and custom auto experience, we can make a great lil truck.
So I get the head off and piston 4 simply pushes down. NOT GOOD.

So the next day I get a call from Team Hicks, the conversation is simple, it's his spare parts truck he had for friends to play with, he's not seeing the benefit of paying for an engine.
I'm honest. I'll build an engine, but if I do I'm going to want to buy the truck, because I won't build an engine for someone else to blow up.

He agrees that's completely reasonable, and says he'll get me a price.

In this time I am deeply researching the 2.3. specifically the 2.3l Lima engine. I understand the basics of creating performance with an inline 4, and decide while I could spend a LOT of money in building an engine, the requirements for a carb and distributor are super limiting. So let's get a cheap build done for now, and come at it later if I still see the benefit down the road.

During this time, a friend of Team Hicks offer to let me drive their truck, a completely stock 2.3 ranger, I also blew that truck up (not my fault, blown head gasket) but it made me realize I could hang with the pack on a stock setup.

So a junkyard and a LOT of effort later and we have what I'd say is the best looking 2.3 in the dirt truck series, NOW IF IT WOULD RUN. ‪@ford‬