Looking forward to another race with the outlaw pontiacs this fall. Should be a good time – decent speeds and good ET. Excited to compete again!
With the weather looking average, and no real plans for the weekend (other than catching up on work and cleaning up for Jr’s arrival) we decided to go racing. It was a real blast! We got to make 2 time trials and one full pass for eliminations. My opponent red-lighted so we had a free pass to the 2nd round. But then the rain came. It was rainy enough to cancel the evening. And we were given our entry fee back as our “winnings”. Not complaining – we basically got to make 3 passes for free.
Had a bit of a scare on the first run, the hood wasn’t fastened by 2 zeus fasteners so at around 100 it started lifting and buckling. Unwilling to have it fly off just during time runs, I lifted and coasted through the traps. Considering I had lost the brakes at this track in my last race there, it was a little unnerving to have a new problem on my first run back. But after we got past that, we were back in the saddle.
We are trying to figure out what is going on with the transmission these days. It doesn’t leak anymore, but instead we have shifting problems. It appears that we are hitting the rev-limiter on every 1-2 shift. It didn’t used to do this, but has been doing it since the first run of the season. Not sure what is going on – but definitely considering getting the trans temp hooked up to the racepak so we can see if there is any correlation. We are theorizing that it could be something related to pressure – perhaps the pump.
We lost 1st round 
That’s the summary.
Nah, it doesn’t need to be so glum. Here is the real deal.
We had pretty good lights all day (between .030 and .070) and we had super consistent 60′ times (between 1.52 and 1.53). We also were able to get the Racepak to record a full pass. So that data will be interesting to look at. One bummer was that we had some shifting problems. I watched the tach get up to 7200 on a 1-2 shift during time trials. That cause for pause. We put some new weights in the governor and on the next pass it shifted pretty low (so low that I didn’t get a chance to look down and see where it was). Anyway, we struggled with that.
For first round, faced an amazingly fast car, 9.37 was the dial-in. Compared to our 11.09, it was as if we were tied to a tree. I was getting close the finish line and didn’t think my opponent was going to get there so I let off the gas and … whoops, he went by me. Scrubbed too much off and gave up the win. Turns out we were both safe by .05 and the MOV was the same as the difference in reaction (0.02) which equates to 4 feet. My competitor was able to win the whole race so it was just his day. But I sure would enjoy winning a few more rounds so that my friends and family that join us are able to have some fun cheering us on.
I’ll blog about more of my experience with the Racepak as we get more into analyzing the data.
Shiny stuff. Every drag racer tries to “keep the shiny side up”. Yeah, its kinda sick because no racer wants to roll their car. Those pro-mod guys come the closest every time they get in the car – I mean, full body cars going that fast? Crazy. Anyway – we like the shiny side of our hot rod. And because of that, we like to make it as shiny as possible. So I have been using some Meguiars polish and wax on the finish and WOW. It looks great. People usually commented on the finish of our car, so it probably will go unnoticed in a few days when we take it out. But I can really tell that it has a luster that it hasn’t had in a while.
Also, I got out the Mothers Mag and Aluminum polish for our Front Weld Wheels and ZOW! They are really clean, very sharp, very shiny. looks awesome. I also have a new set of valve covers that are aluminum and I started polishing them with it last night. They are coming up VERY nicely. Very bright finish. The valve covers are great because they are slightly taller, have no lip and are wider allowing more room on the valve area for our stud girdles. I am also cutting custom oil breather holes in them so they match on each side. Its going to look very sharp under the hood.
Finally – we have alot of stuff going on in our personal lives and many things we have planned around being able to race this Sunday. As is the case with drag racing, though, we have zero control of the weather. And this is a big deal because the weather report right now bookends Sunday with rain. Sunday is just supposed to be overcast. Overcast is good for racing, but you rarely see overcast with low humidity.
So here is to hoping that we get to take our shiny Firebird out in the spring air on Sunday with minimal delay and trouble. We’ll let you know.
With the manifold temp, water temp, driveshaft rpm, engine rpm and other internal sensors all wired up and fired up, we hit the record button on the new racepak system while the car was in the garage. Unfortunately, I had failed to put the terminator cap on the VNet line and so we saw nothing. Once we got that installed and after about an hour of playing around with the software, and transferring the memory chip back and forth, we finally were able to do a live-telemetry session.
Success!
Turning on the car and watching the live data come in, especially when we put the car in gear, was awesome. It was so great to see all the sensors working and pulling in data while it ran in the garage. In two weeks, we’ll put it on the trailer and head over to mason dixon dragway where we’ll actually capture this data during real runs. Looking forward to getting some insight into the car’s performance.
We are probably going to record everything that happens with the run from the time I turn it on in the staging lanes, until I return down the return road. It will be interesting to see driveshaft RPM during the burnout and watch how temperatures change during the course of the run from the time it starts until we go through the traps.
We’ll keep you posted on how it all goes.
Tags: data acquisition, garage
Just got in a whole batch of parts from Jegs! We’re stoked! Things like fuel regulators, carb gaskets, fuel jug and lots of other little goodies. Its really cool. If it wasn’t scheduled to be in the 40′s all weekend, I’d surely be out there working. I might do some valve cover drilling and other stuff that doesn’t require me to be on the floor.
Pretty excited to be getting closer to race day. Looks like we have just about 3 weeks until that day. I guess I better start practicing on my tree. 
Had a fun weekend working on the car. Didn’t get a ton done, but got closer. Installed the water temp sensor for Racepak. Got a new trans coolant line replaced and installed. Customized the bracket for the Racepak driveshaft sensor – so that part is getting closer to done. Lets talk about that:
With the collar mounted on the driveshaft and the bracket ready for install on the transmission, seems like we are really close. What’s left? Well, we need to find a way to attach the bracket to the tranny. I’m thinking hose clamps that have a rubber “insole” that is, lined with some rubber. This should give us the ability to tighten and have some “give”. Also – the customizing of the bracket was to Gorilla Glue a nut to the underside and give it enough height to be above the collar. So it sticks out far enough, and it is high enough to be within the limits of detecting the magnets go around on the collar. This is good. The next step is to find a safe place for the wiring. I’m thinking about putting a hole in the floorboard and on each side of it, putting wire tie mounts. this way, I can be sure to keep all my wires clear of moving parts and also not have any eye sores because we use the same hole on each side of the floorboard.
I have installed the racepak unit, given it power and a toggle switch to set. that toggle will get hit when I toggle the recording option on the tach. Different button, but an easy process to make sure both buttons get hit before i light the bulbs.
So what is left? Besides finishing the driveshaft sensor and finishing wiring up the front of the car racepak cabling, i will still need to figure out the EGT sensor install and the manifold air temp install. I am willing to take the car out with just the driveshaft sensor, tach, accelerometers and water temp setup. We can add the other pieces in the 6 weeks between races. I also need to replace the fuel regulators and then do some clean up on the car. I had intentions of installing a light inside the car because of how dark it is/was during eliminations. We’ll see if we get that far. Might not be necessary if we are going to be plugging into the racepak and therefore have a lit computer screen between rounds. We’ll see.
Since our most recent dwelling doesn’t have an attached garage, it is very difficult to warm the building and/or work in the building during the winter. With the “storm of the century” bearing down on us, I’d have to leave all my heaters on for two days to get it comfortable enough that my back wouldn’t seize up as soon as I get under the car.
That said, I did do some work on installing the unit in the car and got together a plan for installing the driveshaft sensor and the EGT sensor. We already have one EGT in the #2 cylinder (it is a separate unit) and I am going to install without a bung, the racepak EGT in the #1 Cylinder. I decided to go with a non-bung install and instead use a hose clamp / set screw collar combination to save time and possible damage to the headers. Its also easier to move the EGT to another cylinder and simply cover the existing hole with a piece of tin and another hose clamp. We have done this on other sets of headers so I know it can be done without any leaks (although I wouldn’t have believed it if we hadn’t done it before)
So we are getting closer to the first event and I need to spend probably another 30 hours in the garage to get all the things ready that I want to be ready for race 1. It should be a very nice spring.
Tags: data acquisition, garage
Having just moved from FL, I had no idea it would be so cold, for so long. No wonder people are so excited about the summer time.
Where I was at before – it was racing all year long. It was still too cold to really think about risking breaking car parts – but you could go to the track in January and see some streeters running. Here? No way. Wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) even consider it.
Anyway, I’m in the middle of a Racepak install and can’t finish it because I would spend $100 just heating up the garage to spend a Saturday getting it done. I’ll wait for a warm day and git ‘er dun.
Crazy, but I just bought foam from a craft store and it cost $26. Couldn’t believe how much it was considering it was only 18 inches long and 4 inches thick. It should be plenty to put on the bottom of the racecar hood so that we can set the hood on the roof without worrying about scratching, but who knew that foam would be so expensive. $56 / yard is quite an investment.
Tags: hood