Last autumn (back in '25), when the Supernova's engine gave up at the Motopark final, we were still in good spirits. We knew Tomi's points lead was enough for the championship.
Back home, once the engine was opened up, the truth came out. The cylinder 7 liner had started to spin and dropped about 50 mm down. The cylinder 8 liner had started spinning too, but hadn't settled yet. The cylinder 3 liner was split, and the block had cracked between several cylinders anyway. The aluminium rods, pistons included, had taken a beating.
At this point I figured this game was over for my part. With the family's support and pressure, though, I landed on giving it one more go. These parting words got me thinking:
"You've talked for years about wanting to run your first six-second pass in Top Street."
"You're close, but it's not a six yet."
"You'll regret it for the rest of your life if you quit now."
So we gritted our teeth, drew up the plans and put together the order list for new parts. New block, connecting rods, pistons, timing set and other odds and ends. And since the first delivery estimates were such that I'd get the goods in December, the engine would make it ready before the racing season.
The truth was once again stranger than fiction: the parts didn't arrive until early March. The word was that once the block arrives, it still has to go for machining and precision measurements. So that meant a trip towards Sotkamo, but now that my own delivery had already been pushed back several times, it wasn't easy to fit my block into the queue. In the end it worked out reasonably well.
Once the block got home, it meant heavy block milling to get all the rotating parts to fit and turn inside the block. Then just careful assembly and measuring. Working away from home cuts the engine assembly time down to a minimum, when you only make it to the shop on weekends. The word was there's no way we'd make the first races in May, but the second June races came too soon as well, and those had to be skipped too.
Last weekend, on Saturday June 20th, we got the Supernova lit up for the first time. The engine sang beautifully, and yeah, it was a winner's feeling with a smile coming easy.
Then on Saturday evening, once the engine had cooled down, we started taking the top end apart for the re-torque of the heads. Since the Big Chief heads have a couple of bolts to torque upside down in the lifter valley per head, the intake manifold had to come off too. Good thing it did, because once again surprises were waiting.
In the lifter valley there were metal chips a few millimetres in size. Damn, this really chewed a man up, fucking hell I tell you.
Well, once we looked into it, the fault did turn up: the offset lifters. The new pushrods were apparently a touch too thick, and when the cam lift was at full, the pushrod angle changed just enough to chip pieces off the edge of the lifters.
Luckily the shop had replacement lifters (from Tomi), and now we got back to assembling the engine. The dyno is booked for July 3rd and of course expectations are high. And if and when everything goes well, we'll be at the SM 3 race in Kauhava.
