[DeTomaso] What caused the Dawg's engine failure at Silver State???

[Mad Dog Antenucci]

Drum roll please.......In 2004 it was a the MSD billet distributor's .15 cent broken sheer pin that stopped the Pantera at mile 7 of the 7th ORR of the season.
   
  Last weekend it was a $1.29 shredded fan belt that stopped the Pantera at mile 18 in the first ORR of the season....;-]   So the slowly dropping oil pressure was definately indicative of a "overheated engine after the BELT BROKE"....
   
  I remember looking at the the Auto Meter water temp gauge the first time I noticed the oil pressure starting to drop and it was okay reading170-180F...obviously there is either a bad or faulty sender (in block) problem or the temp went up so quick AFTER the belt shredded it just didn't register.  I just don't know at this point.
   
  I had bought a thermo laser gun a few weeks ago to check operating water temps with the new radiator and cooling system and everything looked good.
   
  We checked temps at the radiator, heads, block and tank. I had a bunch of road test miles on the new cooling system which was showing 170-180F which confirmed the thermo gun readouts pretty closely...............
   
  We pulled the plugs and #1, 2 and 6 cyl had a little oil on them but not much........ which would explain the blow by we did notice 2 weeks before the ORR.    The rest of the plugs looked good but had a "red/orange" color which I haven't seen before. I was running half a tank of leaded 103 octane race gas. Anyone have any idea there on the plug color?
   
  The oil also looked good....no water at all in the oil, no oil or other water leaks either. Will deliver the engine to Russ next week to find out the rest of the story.
   
  Mad Dawg Antenucci, 33 ORR's & 1 broken sheer pin in 2004 and 1 broken fan belt in 2006 later.....
  Team Pantera Racing