The CAM Challenges are a fun event, aren't they? Looks like you got the most out of your time there.

That course was wicked long and very fun looking!

Happy to spread the word on how to not be overly fast but have a ton of fun in the process :lol:

Understatements on both fronts. I determined that a normal run is caffeine compared to the heroin of a challenge round. Lining up knowing it's win or go home is unlike anything else. Wish we would have had enough to make a 16-car class!

And yes, Mineral Wells courses are usually not for the timid. We're extremely fortunate to have it.

Ups and Downs.

Peaks and Valleys.

A class win, a few fast laps, and then boom.


Been a bit of a roller coaster month. After the Texas CAM Challenge, we decided to throw the kitchen sink at the car in an effort to get back on the same page as the other guys around here and hopefully have a prayer of being competitive at Optima in August.

Suspension Updates

Eibach 850 lb springs came in, along with 3.5" spacers to get things up on the right level. Dropped the front nearly an inch, requiring a full redo of the alignment and confirming that the camber curve of our front uppers is SILLY.


Lowering the car jacked the camber through the roof, allowing us to crank some more caster in while getting it back to our desired camber number. Look good, feel good: Check.

More Sticky!

Next up, our tired set of Falkens. We knew we were at a disadvantage last year once the Rival S arrived, and the time finally came to see what it was all about.


Night and day. Just unbelievable. Changing so many other things at the same time wasn't ideal, but time is running short and you do what you have to do.

The increased spring rate calmed down the front substantially under acceleration, braking, and in transition, combining with the stickier tires to take a car that was knife-edge loose at all times to give us a nice neutral happy car.


I did the long haul to Mineral Wells to test things out, and was happy to pull of a class win over a stock Z06 and Viper.


Next up: road course testing

With everything happy, our schedule was perfect (for once) to catch June's Open Track Day at Eagles Canyon Raceway last weekend. I've run there twice before in the Z, and knew it would be an excellent test of our new brake setup.


Fellow CAM-T'er and Optima COTA registrant Feras came out in the Nova as well, and we drew a good amount of attention as the only two cars besides a couple of Porsche 944s that were more than 5 years old.

Spent the morning feeling things out, consistently taking off chunks of time through each session and managing cool down laps to keep the water temp under 220 (our other concern for the day).


After the lunch break, the 3rd session went swimmingly, and I was even able to make the whole thing with the temp gauge sitting at 220-224, cooling on the straights consistently for 4 hot laps.

Then it came time for the last session..

(continued next post)

Open Track Day Session 4


It felt like our dog died. It still does. We put this motor together in 2007-2008, and have run the living snot out of it ever since. It's been freshened up a few times, but other than the valve springs it's all the same assembly we put together then. And just like that..


About a second and 3 mph away from my braking point on the big back straight, a rod reached what is commonly referred to as 'End of Life'.

Got towed back in (it hit me when the truck pulled up that we never put a tow hook on the front). Fortunately no oil was down on the track. We loaded up and headed home scratching our heads at what had happened, but knowing pretty well that the little 377 had screamed its last scream.

Happy Father's Day

Sunday brought Father's Day lunch, but Dad and I both were itching to get back home and tear into it. Pulling the spark plugs had us encouraged, as none showed damage. Pulling the drain plug was a different story, when around a gallon of water ran out before any oil did.


With the timeline until August on our minds, we started pulling parts off and within a few hours had the engine and trans out (a bit slower than our record time, but not a bad thing to get out of the habit of). Gotta love racecars.


With some persuasion from a hammer and chisel, we were able to get the pan bolts out and see what had taken place. All tolled, 3 broken rods, but 3 in tact pistons that protected the heads from the chaos below.


This thing has always been exceptionally good to us. It's given us warning signs when things have been a little off, and taken good care of us through way more than it's share of abuse. Between 450 and 500 passes at the drag strip, and more time above 6000 rpm in the last two years at autocrosses and track events than should be legal.

Its final act of kindness was blowing up now instead of day 1 in Austin, and sparing the heads which are the one thing we were missing for the new build.

The Thrash Begins

Good news is that we were already assembling the pieces for a bigger, meatier small block. The plan was to pull the 377 and mothball it as a spare..best laid plans.

And yes, I said small block. We've weighed the LS swap over and over, but for us it just makes more sense to stick with what we know. We have built too many of them to count, plus it's fun being 'those guys' still playing with the oddball junk nobody wants anymore.

This one will come out to 420 ci and hopefully provide a good amount more torque through the middle, while still screaming like a banshee at 7,000+.

But more on that later. I'll leave this post with the fast lap of the day from the 3rd session. Godspeed, little mouse motor.

Oh man!!! RIP mouse... That oil pan though!! Looks like it did a great job containing all of the flying pieces.

Good luck with the new build. Hope you get it in with plenty of time to shake it down before the big event in August. And I hear ya on staying with the SBC!!

Well, that stinks, Duston. You got a lot of life out of that motor though. I hope the 420 motor does just as well for you. Good luck getting it back in and ready for Austin.

Dustin,

That sucks!Starting to get the car dialed in and this happens.After lowering it have you experience any tire rub and brake pad knock back with the bigger brakes?

Mike,

Thats way cool not cool!!!, The pics are awesome and how much you beat that thing is even more awesome!!!! Wasn't gonna last forever at that....

Nothing wrong with a mouse motor, in my opinion, the 2nd best engine ever build, with the LS being #1 imo. Pound for pound dollar for dollar, you'll get the best outa the mouse....one helluva an airpump...

Hopefully, what, couple of weeks, back and running? nothing else hurt? future fire retardant upgrades?

Well that just sucks. But the plans for a big cube hi rpm sbc sounds awesome. Plenty of engine build picks please!

Thanks for the encouraging words, guys. Been a frantic few weeks, but we're hoping to have it back up and running this weekend.

We ended up pulling the front fenders a little more but everything was pretty good already overall.

It is getting a little bit of knockback in certain situations when there's successive left and right corners without braking. I'm afraid the amount of tire and the increased diameter of the rotor is exposing some weakness in the stock spindles at this point.

Unfortunately we didn't manage many pics of the build, it went together in a marathon session on the 4th.

Update incoming shortly..