Fantastic Bryan!!!



We're all proud of you!! The thrash and a dash for the cash... Just awesome!

Oil fire in the engine compartment? that sh!t is scarry!!! Hope it was minor and your drive home is "boring".....Cheers to your sucess on one step closer!!!

Unfortunately yes, oil fire. But let me back up a second...

Friday morning I started the day with some power steering troubles. Specifically I was having low-speed problems with low-assist. As everyone was setting up, I saw Kyle Tucker over near his car, so I walked over to see if he had any suggestions (I have one of their pumps on my car). He suggested we look over the car and see if he could see any issues. We did and didn't find anything. He said to drive it one run and see how it felt, and he would check in with me.

So I ran my first run, and the assist felt "notchy". By that I mean, it would kick in and out mid-turn. Quite disconcerting! True to his word, Kyle checked in with me after the run, and I told him what I experienced. He asked if he could drive it to see what it was doing, so he did. He agreed something was wrong. He recommended I drive it one more run and then replace the flow control valve if it was still happening. It was, so he went and got one for me, pulled out his tools and helped me replace it. The one we pulled out was smaller than the one we replaced it with, meaning we increased the flow. Sure enough, it was much better! It's awesome how someone like Kyle would jump in and help me as he did, otherwise it would have been a much different weekend.

So next up, my third run. With a functional PS again, I made a much better pass, clocking a 56.218 second run. That left me with a full second buffer over the rest of the SM class. But when I returned to my pit, I had smoke billowing out from under the hood. When we opened it, I had oil on the frame and smoking off the headers. Not good... Once things cooled down, I could see the problem:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psrot3q6ic.jpg

If you look under the valve covers, you can see I have 1" spacers. Those spacers have a stock style o-ring on the bottom which is in a groove. It seems that the driver's side spacer wasn't positioned well. What you can't see is that there is a lip of metal behind the o-ring which determines how much 'crush' you get on the gasket. I worked with it to try and reposition the spacer as well as I could, tightened everything back up and ran the motor. I didn't see any more leaks. Apparently I didn't try hard enough to make one.

On the next run, Chris rode with me. When we finished the run (not a good one), the GG tech guy told me I was smoking badly and he didn't want me using the course as a testbed. I totall don't blame him and told him I wouldn't run again if I couldn't fix it. When I got back to my pit, someone walked up and said he saw flames under the hood. I jumped out and grabbed my extinguisher, popped the hood, and sure enough: flames! I hit it once with the extinguisher, gave it a minute, they popped back up and I hit it again and put them out...

When I built TOW, I installed a clamp and a Halon extinguisher right behind my driver's seat. I'm really, REALLY glad I did! If you don't carry one in your car, go spend the $150. Now! (I'm thinking about installing a second one on the other side of the roll bar as a secondary if I ever needed it)

With the fire out, I waited for things to cool off while I tried to collect myself as well. I had quite the crowd at this point around the car. A lot of thoughts went through my head, and I realized I was pretty lucky that I didn't have a much bigger problem on my hands. I had rushed my fix in an effort to get back on course. Really bad call...

I pulled the valve cover and spacer back off. Steve and I looked it over, and he convinced me to walk over to the vendor area of the show and see if someone had anything we could grind the lip down with. I was skeptical, but I didn't have any better ideas. We found a Makita dealer who happened to have a grinder stand setup. We asked the guy if we could use it, and he begrudgingly agreed. I held it, Steve ground it. We took a good bit off to allow it to compress the gasket better. We also picked up a fine file from another vendor to clean up the grind.

After lunch, we reinstalled the spacer and cover. We spent a lot of time making sure it was centered as well as it could be and the gasket was crushing correctly. After a few tries, we were satisfied it was as good as it was going to get. I ran it for a while, and all looked ok. I drove out of the track and found a parking lot to drive in for a while. Some high speed turns, left and right, high engine speed, and everything still looked ok. I decided it was good.

I went back in and found the tech guy and discussed it with him, He came over and I walked him through what we did, and the testing I did, and he was satisfied. He did comment that he would have his own extinguisher on hand, just in case.

I only missed 1 round while doing all of this, and I managed to get 4 more runs during the rest of the day. Honestly, my head wasn't really focused on getting good runs, I just wanted to make sure the car was ok. It did fine for the rest of the day, although I never improved my time. But my 56.2 managed to keep my at the top, if only by 0.014 second at the end of the day (56.218 vs 56.232).

Thankfully, Saturday was much less eventful, at least mechanically. I had a total of 8 runs I think, maybe 9. On the 4th run, I was in line and the second place car managed to run a 56.1 second run. I was 2 cars behind him, so I was pretty amped up to beat it. I did, with a 56.086. I really wanted that first 55 second run, but just missed it.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to keep up the pace in the next run though. The other car ran a 55.5 while I didn't improve. Then he hit a 55.2, and again, I didn't improve. Then Mr. Sutton arrived on the scene. After discussing what was going on, we decided I needed some more rear grip, so we settled on a small shock change and a roll center change. When I crawled under the car to adjust the shocks, I discovered that they were not set where I thought that they were. Hmm, that wasn't helping me any for sure! I'm still scratching my head how that happened, but it didn't matter. I set them to where they should be, and off I went.

Next run, I got my 55. It was only a 55.9, but it was an improvement and the car felt better. Ron and I discussed it some more, and we decided to put my adjustable Watt's Pivot to work. I crawled under the car again and dropped the pivot about 1/4". We were almost at the end of the day, so we weren't sure if we were going to get another run or not. Turns out we did, but it was getting hot and a bit slick. Yet I managed to set my best time of the weekend: 55.56. It wasn't quite enough to get me into 1st, but I could tell a difference in how the car felt.

Ron's recommendations really helped me out! In addition to the suspension suggestions, he gave some great advice to several of us on adjusting our lines through the course. There is a lot going on during a run as I'm sure most of you know, so it's hard to apply it all at once, but some of his tips really helped. I have work to do to improve myself as a driver, but I have a car that felt really good under me at the end of the day. Specifically, I need to be more aggressive getting onto the throttle coming off the turns. I'm losing time there...

As I drove home today and processed a lot of what happened this weekend, I realize that I'm going to have to 'relearn' the car to some extent. When we had the high-rate rear springs in the car, it would get really loose on exit sometimes. That definitely has me a little gun shy when it comes to corner exit. I need to get over that. I also need to get better at modulating my brakes. When I go over the limit, I don't generally recover very well and it usually causes me to end up off course. Threshold braking is on my list to focus on...

My drive home went perfectly today. It was a gorgeous day, cool, sunny, and low traffic. I have a lot of work to do to better tune the engine after the changes. I'll work on that in the coming weeks.

I'm on the hunt for a better solution to get rid of the valve cover spacers. I don't want to relocate the coils, so I'm trying to decide which of the covers that allow coils to be mounted I'll go with. Between the brake booster and the shaker base, there's not a lot of room on the driver's side. I'll find something though...

Quite an experience, the thrash and trip and runs and trip home. I was so close to that win, I could smell it and wanted it pretty badly. In my head I know it was an awesome performance with a car that had so many changes. And being 'in the hunt' was a lot of fun at the end! It just makes me look forward to the next event even more...

Phew, sorry for the ramble post, but a lot happened in the last few days! :)

Bryan, way to stay focused and hang in there during the oil experience. Most folks would throw in the towel right about there. Sounds like the car works well, and runs out nice. I'm looking forward to running my car in the spring. Great job!

Great post Bryan :thumbsup:

Sound like you're closing in on the car's sweet spot.

Regarding another extinguisher.......this is what you can end up with when your only extinguisher is depleted:
https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-...-4jPV45M-L.jpg
Rural road, late in the day......without the incredible luck of a couple passer byes, one with extra towels willing to jump in and assist smothering flames, and another with a flat of bottled water who was saturating out towels......I was literally within seconds of have to sit and watch the car burn out.

Get the other extinguisher.

Sieg,

I remember that happening, and trust me, when I saw flames, I had fears. Thankfully I was at the track where I had facilities that could have helped if needed.

When I installed that extinguisher, it was something I never expected to use. But wow am I glad it was there.

BTW, does anyone know if you can have the small Halon units refilled? I need to do some research into that, but I need to have this one done now.

Yes - they are rechargable.

Thanx Greg. I need to find somewhere local that does it then. Any suggestions of types of place that do it?

http://longhornfireandsafety.com

I have a fire extinguisher in my car but after this experience, have decided that due to how I have it mounted, its all but useless. After seeing how easily accessible your is, I'll be making some changes. I looked all over for it not knowing you had grabbed it already. Therefore... I'll also be adding a second F-E in my car so that the passenger can join in on the fun if needed.

Congrats on your second place. TOW performed very well both on and off the track and looked awesome doing it.

On your exhaust v band clamps what brand did you use? are they interlocking?

I debated installing it there originally, as it wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing solution. Looking back, that was a dumb thought on my part. Second one in my cart from Summit along with another mount and clamps... :)

Thanx again, and I'm glad you got to ride with me. I'm also glad you were able to repair and make it back out Saturday! Have a good road trip this week...

As I recall, they are Summit brand pieces:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-694300/overview/

Define interlocking? When these are assembled, but not completely tightened, we can rotate the 2 pipes to get the angles just right. So there isn't anything to 'lock' them in rotation if that is what you were wondering. We have often needed the ability to rotate them just a little to help with clearances as things go back together.

Hope that helps...

Here is the fastest run which I captured on my Garmin Virb. It was my 56.086 run, which I bested later in the day, but I was pretty excited to get this one as you can tell at the end... :)



It's interesting as I watch this, listening to the engine, thinking "man I could have accelerated harder here or there". In the car you think you are pushing as hard as you can, but then after it's easy to be an armchair quarterback. :headspin:

The same thoughts went through my mind while watching sideline video of my runs. Add to that, "I could have turned in a lot earlier there... I thought I was closer to those cones"

We should hire a cameraman and setup a replay viewing station NFL style. I think seeing what you are really doing vs what you think you are doing will really help.

From what I recall talking with you and Eric while it was being built, Eric did slide the clamp so one side has a tube sticking out while the other has it recessed so they do interlock in that way. This may be what is being asked. Correct me if I am wrong here since it is your car.

Overall your car looked really really good out there. You need to ride with Robby Unser to figure out what aggressive really is even though you were obviously more aggressive than me this weekend. I rode with Robby and have concluded I'm a complete pansy with a ton to learn. I do have to say we had a good conversation with Robby about car setup while waiting in line, he's a really nice guy as well as a crazy driver.

While not in the same league as you guys I've felt the same way- I have always felt like I was on the very limit of grip only to watch the video from the safety of my chair and think "why didn't I brake later and harder, or turn in earlier or get closer to that cone"....

I had Dusold ride with me once and his suggestion afterwards was that I drive deeper before braking and then brake harder for a shorter period of time. He also told me that I could carry more speed through the hairpin by the start line. He was right.

I had a lot of fun talking with all you guys and look forward to doing it again!

Bryan- I loved seeing TOW back out there and I thought it sounded great!

Mike basically told me the same thing after he rode with me. I was not charging the corner hard enough and pretty much waiting for it. Also said I need to trust the car more. Using the brakes I should be on the verge of sliding every corner so I'm getting the most out of it. Sounds easy enough in discussion but I have a lot of practice needed

As I recall, you are correct, although I'm not certain he did that on all of them. When we were reassembling the over-the-axle pipes last week, I don't remember those having that. But I think the main pipes do.

Watching him is unreal. That car looks like it's out of control all the time. I think for the first time, I got just a little taste of that in my last couple of runs on Sunday as I started to push myself more. That's hard to do when you've already had 3 runs in which you've slid off the course. As evidenced by:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps8zmki9kp.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...pslj0iszu5.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psaxpdiito.jpg

I have to admit, that fence was coming towards my windshield awfully fast!

More throttle; Longer throttle; More brake; Later brake; More faith in steering. :G-Dub:

Nice to see you really getting to enjoy this thing Bryan.

:thumbsup:

71 Firebird
 

Bryan,
In the Team Pantera world you earned an Iron Man award
for all your efforts last weekend... great job staying after it
and doing as well as you did... I understand the effect all the
problems have on your driving and you did great

A little history:
Madawg our Team Pantera fearless leader was running one
of his first Silverstates (he has been running them for years)
and at over 160 plus was near the finish line and the car caught
on fire... he really wanted to finish and kept going blowing thru
the finish line but also had no brakes so could not stop for the
fire truck etc.... The car burned to the ground..(many utube videos
if you want to look) Car was towed to his house and then all
the donations from fellow Pantera owners and vendors started pouring
in.... the car was rebuilt and he still runs it today.. Will be at Willow
Springs in a couple of weeks...

PS he now has a fire suppression system in the car and it has
been on fire two times since... they call the car the Phoenix

Bob

Bryan nice job! I got a kick out of you at the end of the video. It sounds like you had a good time.
Interesting story Bob. That had to be a rush!!

Holy Fireballs! Phoenix is right!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fyqDIh2KIw

"This is one of the hottest Panteras around."

Wow... Thankfully my problems weren't nearly that bad! Even though it was a small issue, it's really got me thinking about what I'm doing with the car and, more importantly, what I plan to continue to do with the car. My goal has never been to turn this into a full-on racecar, but at the same time, I want to enjoy the various events which I do, AND feel safe doing them. It's easy to be blissfully ignorant until you've had an actual problem...

Absolutely! And yes, I was a little excited at the end of that run. My first 55.x second run was about the same. ;)

Painful to watch... :\

Great video of your run Bryan. Your enthusiasm and excitement is contagious. Makes me want to go out and run an auto-x right NOW!

Th course set up was much different than previous years as well. Looked and sounded like a good time.

That video was painful to watch. I'm glad you had nothing like that happen.

Sorry for bringing this back but an extinguisher is there to be use to give you enough time to get out of the car, not to put a car fire out. If you want to save the car you will need a 2 fire bottle system with 6 nozzles, as much steel fuel lines as you can stand, kevlar hose if you need flex, fuel and power shut off. Sure, you may get lucky with the extingisher but when it comes to fire lucky isn't a factor.

Relying on track fire support you don't always burn close to the fire crew. they have to see the problem, load up and get to you. When Dale Jr burnt up at Sonoma it took fire trucks 4 mins to get to him. Thankfully the corner workers were there to pull him to safety. Always plan for the worst.

So far at least two of us on here have caught fire, i think its something we HAVE to prepare for

Lots of good advice, speciallly your comment Vince

How the eff do you fix up the Pantera after that burn? wow....

Anyways, cheers Bryan.

They took some of the "technicality" out of the course: opened up some of the turns, removed a couple of turns, shortened the course overall. I really liked it. :)

I had just lost the lead for the first time right before that run, and I managed to take it right back which was pretty awesome for me. Thus my enthusiasm. ;)

Sorry you two couldn't be there! Hopefully we'll end up at an event together again...

Oof, me too!

Even with such a 'small' fire, it definitely has me thinking about my use of the car and what I want/need to go doing forward. I love driving this car, but I have no interest in watching it burn to the ground... :\

It's similar to the discussions that have taken place here about the USCA events. Thankfully, there haven't been any bad accidents (that I'm aware of), but the possibility of one happening always exists.

71 firebird
 

Vince is right an on board system
Is the best. I had my Pantera on fire last
Year and was lucky I was going slow and able
to get out and use a hand held extinguisher

Bird has been on fire several times due to no
air filter and backfires. Most of the time you could
suck it back into the motor. Now I have a filter and
no backfires

Need to look at the on board systems. Seems like
making them run fast always is the priority

Bob

Here are a couple of videos from this weekend's autocross. We had FIVE cars in the CAM-T class! Pretty exciting to have more similar cars... There were issues that crept up with a couple of them, but it was still fun to have them there.

Unfortunately we ran in the first group of the day, and the course was DIRTY to say the least. I think we were still throwing up dust after our 5th and final runs...

The first video was my best run of the day (according to the Garmin), but there was a timing issue so I had to rerun it. The second video is of the rerun, and you can see I was a lot more squirrelly in that run, to the point I spun. Oh well, it was fun!

Some recent updates on TOW...

After my little incident at the Fort Worth Good Guys autocross, I decided I was replacing the factory valve covers with an aftermarket piece which wouldn't require the spacers. There were 2 problems with this plan. First, I needed something which would clear the rockers for certain. And second, I needed a coil mounting arrangement which would clear the shaker. I didn't want to deal with remote mounting them elsewhere in the engine compartment...

I've always liked the Katech valve covers, but I was concerned about both issues above. I didn't find anyone who used them with the Crower shaft rockers, and they looked like they would be tight over the valve springs. Additionally, with the coil relo kit they have, the coils were going to be right up against my shaker base, meaning it was going to be a tight fit as well.

I decided to bite the bullet anyway and purchased a set of them as-cast since they didn't have any which were already powder coated in stock. Eric got them coated for me, then it took me a couple of weeks to have time to install them. I figured I could resell them if I had to as they are a popular option in the C6 world.

So off with the old, on with the new. Everything went smoothly until I installed the coils. I knew this was going to be tight, and sure enough 7 out of 8 fit great. Just that one last one........

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psyjpezgz4.jpg

It's hard to see, but the plug socket on the coil is under the shaker, and it was just hitting (like 1/8" hitting). Here is the same location on the passenger side:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psba6css6u.jpg

That one clears since the coils are reversed, and the mounting bolt has more space.

I debated a few options, and went turned to Google. I was running a 1/2" aluminum carb spacer to raise up the shaker when I changed the seal a few weeks ago. After looking it over, I convinced myself that I could add another 1/4" to the spacer and everything would still work while giving me clearance. The trick was finding a 3/4" spacer. There aren't a lot of those around. I did find one though, and it's a wooden one which is a benefit for me (my throttle body tends to heat soak, and just enough to cause movement of the very sensitive blade set screw affecting idle). So I ordered it up, and waited for its arrival to finish up the install....

A few days later, spacer in hand, I finished putting it all together. And as if it was meant to be this way all along, it fit perfectly. :) So here are some shots of the final assembly:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psqz7h1coq.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psjz05i8sx.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...pskm8sacgk.jpg

The aesthetics are an added benefit (really cleaned up the engine), but I have a well sealed top-end of the engine again. No more oil worries for me!

With that out of the way, the next thing I've been wanting to do was to re-dyno the car after the summer cam swap. I expected to be making more power, but I was really curious how the curves may have changed, and I also needed to do some tuning work as my vacuum levels changed a lot.

Yesterday I drove to (coincidentally) Bryan, Tx to the same dyno I was at after the engine rebuild earlier this year. We has almost identical weather conditions, so it was a good comparison opportunity. The drive there was easy, no problems, but getting on the dyno was another story. It seems that my reason suspension balancing must have ended up with lowering the rear suspension, just enough that one of the exhaust flanges was touching the dyno roller. Hmm...

Thanx to some creative engineering work (ie: block of wood), we were able to prop up the exhaust enough after strapping the car down to be able to make runs. Disaster averted! :)

We did about 8 or 9 runs in total, and here are the results:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psjmsyqydv.gif

We actually hit 578.9 / 505.6 on one run, but somehow didn't include that one in the printout. For comparison, here is my run from earlier this year:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psmgyeknvp.gif

+39 rwhp from a cam/lifter/rocker/spring swap isn't too shaby. :) It's strange to me that the torque peak was almost identical, but as expected, I did lose some down low. This setup carries the power nicely in the upper RPM though, and that will help on those 1st gear GG autocross runs (as it did this past October).

After the dyno session, we went for a drive to make sure everything was good in the typical driving ranges. The car felt great, and it was again a smooth drive home.

So she's all buttoned up just in time for the winter. :\ That gives me time to think about more projects though. :lostmarbles: I'm trying to determine if it would be possible for me to fit a 315 tire on the front without any major work. I've added a 1/4" spacer to my front wheels and have been driving with no issues. I have a set of 1/2" spacers arriving this week that I will try next. If I can run with those, the next step is to find a way to either modify or rebuild the LCA's on my front suspension to add clearance, as that is the first point of contact. I could easily raise the car 1/4" or so and realign to gain a little clearance if needed. I think this would be worthwhile, but of course I need to consult Guru Sutton to confirm.

I have a few other small ideas in the works as well, and one or two not so small ones. :stirthepot:

WTF you talkin about willis? a wood carb spacer? i've only had half a glass of wine, did i read that right or should i stop drinking lol?

Well, if true, first i've ever heard/read about that....please tell me it was for mock up?

Anyways, nice to see some progress pics, i've got some coming up soon as well....see ya in Texas next year. Better yet, you should do this frickin tour with us in 2016!!

Yep, wood carb spacer. :) One of the advantages is that it doesn't translate the heat from the intake manifold into the throttle body or carb like a metal spacer would. And while I didn't open it up to match the plenum opening (yet), it should be easier to do with wood than with aluminum. :)

http://static.summitracing.com/globa...dl-8719_ml.jpg

I've ran carb spacers made from phenolic, which looks and feel like wood, but is actually a material made from layers of glass sheet, or paper sheet, mixed with synthetic resin. I actually have one hanging on the wall in the shop. More than likely, this is what Bryan is using, although it could be actual wood I guess. Phenolic does not have soak properties, meaning liquids can't penetrate the material, to an extant. Wood on the other hand, would tend to allow fuel to soak somewhat, and mixing that with heat, and God forbid, a backfire...well you get the point.

Love the new valve covers! Those look killer!