Racing
After 6 months of cruising and Saturday nights at Willowbank, I was starting to get an urge to see what the car was capable of in aspirated form. So, on 2 September 2000, I made my first pass. Running 36 degrees total timing and the new Shell Optimax fuel, the old girl ran 12.4 and 109mph out of the box. Unfortunatley I got carried away with the tune, and after putting another 4 degrees timing in, she leaned out at half track on the second pass, so I got off it and trundled through for a 14.
Download a video of my first pass at Willowbank
21 July 2001
I was very keen to get back to the track for another run and we thought we'd have a look and see just what the car was capable of, as well as get some track data. For the first run I did a short skid just to warm the tyres as the track was quite hot and sticky, no problems here. Tried to build some boost off the line but she just didn't want to. I crept slightly off the line in doing this and decided just to hit it and see what happened. It launched alright and I had 9 pound of boost through first gear. But just after I hit second I lost all boost and the car was making no power. Oil pressure was right and the engine sounded good so I just drove it back to the pits for a look see. I wasn't impressed so I tore up the time slip - mid 13 at 90 odd mile an hour.
Back in the pits I was trying to load up the engine and get some boost but the more I tried the more intense a sound was growing from the front of the engine, couldn't really pinpoint it and after 3 hours of trying decided to put her back on the trailer and go home to check it out the next day. Sunday, pulled the RHS turbo off and observed that the intake impeller had come loose on the shaft and was hitting on the housing, which was sending lots of small alloy shavings into the engine. Time for a tear down.
21 November 2001
Finally going to report on what happened this wednesday in november. We had the car running really good, about as well as we'd ever seen it although it had a slight tendencey to bog down low. I was only able to make two passes as the slicks I had were on their last legs (some nylon was showing through). First pass was not able to make any boost on the line before I left, as the car stated creeping, and ended up with a 2.9 60ft. Car just was not lifting off the line, but as soon as the boost needle hit 4 pound and above, the car was spinning the slicks in each gear the whole way down the track, that is until the car got a bit out of shape and I hit the brakes.
- 2.967 60 ft
- 13.2 1/4
- 106 mph lifting about 3/4 track>
Next pass was a bit better out of the hole but still not that crash hot. Car seemed to grip a lot better with only a bit of wheel spin (probably due to the 10psi of tyre pressure) but again got real out of shape up top some I rolled through in top with only 3000rpm showing on the tacho.
- 2.328 60 ft
-12.6 1/4
-117 mph
Tune was only 9psi of boost and the plugs were still very black. The mile an hour and finish line rpm show the car is starting to do what it is meant to.
August 3 2002
With all the updates to the setup, and the cold weather starting to disappear, I thought I'd better go and see how the car was going. Ended up being a bit of a rush in the attempt to make the new slicks fit, with the rims being moved to a 4.5" rear spacing and some angle grinder work on the car. As such after the first pass we removed the RHS slick to see a deep cut and some serious side-wall rubbing which resulted in a deflated slick. Thus we were not able to make it out again this time but will be back in 2 weeks or so after some serious sledge hammer modifications. Here's how that first pass went :-
- 2.065 60ft (no boost on line, when I nailed it
it just dumped too much fuel in there)
- 11.79 1/4 (very good second half of thhe track, fuel finally
clearing, but still rich due to low boost)
- 127.9 mph !
Tune
-12 psi
- 91 and 105 jets
- 34 degrees timing
The only mechanical drama was the needle valve that I use for boost adjustment played up and only 12psi went in instead of the 20psi that the tune was set for. We feel that the car would have gone even quicker than this with 12psi if it had a lot less fuel in it, and the mph it did shows a lot of promise anyway. A new valve will be installed with a slight decrease in jet before the next meet, and I will be attempting to improve my driving off the line as well.
August 31 2002
One of the most humid nights I've ever seen with 93% humidity on my third and best pass. As we still didn't have a base tune we could not really know how much fuel to pull out to combat the problematic air. As well as this, we uncovered a number of other problems with the carb hat gasket blowing out on each pass and the new u-beaut hose clamps not sealing properly resulting in a loss of boost pressure. Other than that the slicks were great and I'm slowly learning the art of performing a half decent burnout.
First two passes were intended as half-track attempts to improve the launch and observe and set boost levels, but weren't really that crash hot. First pass was a 1.74 with 4psi on the trans-brake with a big dump of fuel just after launch. Second, and the trans-brake didn't engage and when I hit the pedal to stall up, she rolled through the beams = 2.48 60ft.
I had the shits by now and decided to give itshit on the third pass. Still couldn't get more than 11-12psi (later found to be leaking clamps) and decided on the foot brake for stall.
- 1.77 60ft (7psi)
- 7.411 @ 97.78 eighth
- 11.351 @ 126.19 quarter (on 7 cylinderrs after some dick left a
plug lead off.)
Tune
- 11 / 12 psi
- 29 degrees timing
- 88 and 100 jets
Ploblem solving cap back on and then we'll be back...