Leese Racing » garage

Racepak Success!

Leroy — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:05:15 +0000

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.

Racepak Install … winter time blues

Leroy — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:58:51 +0000

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.