Pretty fun day at the track even though I didn't get the W. Mike brought his A game for sure.

https://solo-timing-api.herokuapp.com/results/live

Still beat quite a few good Vettes and P-cars though which makes me smile.



Data showed I struggled turning right, several times in earlier runs the car would push hard late in the two right hand sweepers. Not sure what I could have done differently except add a passenger which would be breaking covid protocols. **rolls eyes**

New parts get here today!!

"New" parts??

Yessssss.... :D

So you're saying you are going to leave us hanging?

Big brown truck was out in front of my house for a couple minutes today, then it started back up and drove off...

Package due last Friday is now rescheduled for Tuesday...

It must be something big then if they couldn't get it off the truck! Looking forward to the surprise...

LONG time coming for this...hoping it's the last one I'll ever put in this car...

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._143504-X2.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._144002-X2.jpg

I'll try to get it in the car in the next day or so...

Lance, refresh my memory.
Is this a gear change or are you finally getting rid of the locker?

Yes... :D

3.50 gear and locker to a 3.70 REM polished gear and a TruTrac in an all new case.

So I have about 250 miles on the new diff and I still love it. Smooth as butter and whisper quiet. The 3.70s seem just about perfect, 80 mph in 6th is 2,000 RPM and 15% throttle...just right.

I've been street driving it a bunch and still need to do some more, so I decided it was time to tune the AC up a bit. It's been leaking AC oil out of a connection near the Accumulator for over 5 years, but was still blowing pretty cold. Thought we could just change out the O-ring, recharge it and send it...but that was not the case. Turns out the leak was at the hose connection, where the hose meets the fitting...so a decision to redo the hoses was made and in a case of whileImatititis...morphed into this...

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._143703-X2.jpg

That's a new style condenser that should fit right into the factory mounts with maybe a bit of shimming of some sorts. The in and out ports will go on the pass side, the 180 degree fitting will head back across the front of the condenser to the compressor on the driver side and the bottom fitting will head up to the evaporator.

There is also new fittings for the Accumulator to compressor line which will go from accumulator, down to in front of the condenser across and back to the compressor. I finally get to get rid of that OEM line that has been stretched across my engine for over 10 years!!!

Lastly I picked up a threaded port style manifold that will attach the hoses to the back of the sanden compressor with 90 degree fittings which should let me point them toward the fender then run up to alongside the driver side of condenser.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._143357-X2.jpg

Thankful for a good friend with an AC service machine in his home shop along with crimping tools and the knowledge to make this all happen. Wish us luck...this upgrade has been a LONG time coming...

Nice. Where was the condenser sourced from?

A place called AAPAK here in Phoenix. Stood at the counter and piece by piece picked all the parts you see out.

Looks like that is going to be a very clean setup!

My car originally came with the compressor on the driver's side with similar hoses going all the way across the engine bay. I went through the painful process of piecing together a later 89-92 serpentine setup that moves the compressor to the passenger side, all in the name of engine bay cleanliness.

I can see why so many people delete their AC systems... lots of parts under the hood you can eliminate! I kept mine though because no matter how many track days I think I'm going to do, this is a street car at the end of the day and I will put way more miles on it in the summer if I have working AC. And isn't that the end goal? (And I'm also not a good enough driver to tell the difference of removing 20 or so pounds of the front end and the extra 2-3 hp!)

Can't wait to see the final product!

New AC setup is installed and functional... Install was pretty painless, I had to notch out a hole in the lower passenger side of the core support to give room for the 90* fitting coming out of the bottom of the new condenser and we had to reconfigure the upper condenser mounts a bit, but other than that...it all went in as planned.

Love the new look, no more 36 year old hoses stretched across the engine.

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-...9LCHFmS-X2.jpg

Took 2# 11oz of freon to get it evened out and cooling down to about 45 degrees.

Bring on that Phoenix summer heat baby, we are ready for it now!!

New hose routing is much better. I dislike that on my g-body as well.

Any updates on the EFI set-up? How much more tuning has been required?

We haven't touched it or messed with it in a while, it's pretty much spot on.

The learn table shows a few areas with a little more than 5% correction on it after an autocross race or two and then a few different areas of more than 5% correction after a bunch of easy street driving, but overall, there are zero issues anywhere and I think it's pretty darn good now.

Here was my best run of last weekend at Good Guys, I made about 15 passes and the engine responded just like it did in this pass every single time. Love the new 3.70 gear and TruTrac diff as well. Car was as planted and jumped as hard forward as it ever has and turn in is more precise as well. Finished 5th in class and 16th overall out of almost 60 cars and even made round one of the shootout.

1985 Monte Carlo
 

Lance,
Good to hear the engine, gearing and Efi are working well and together
Also sounds like the Driver is doing great... not sure how
you drive that big car on the tight Good Guys tracks
I can really tell the difference from my firebird to the Pantera

Well done... keep having fun

Bob

Thanks Bob... The event was a great cap off for my racing season. Seems like all of my friends around the country are just now getting back into the swing of racing again and we are done for the summer unless I travel.

A friend was taking pictures of us on track and i put this gif together from some of his pics. It shows just how hard I could be on the skinny pedal yet the car stayed under me without getting all out of shape. It was a blast...

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont...put_7c13Uo.gif

A good friend of mine just sent me this video of one of my early runs taken from the sidelines at GoodGuys Spring Nats in Scottsdale.

Thought I'd share a bit different perspective of the car on track with the class...

A good friend of mine is very curious...and has a podcast relating to her curiosities... She followed me around during the Good Guys show a couple of weeks ago filming her adventure.

Here is the link to the video she made about her day.

Thanks for posting....I enjoyed watching it! Barney is amazing!:star:

So, yesterday started out awesome. Didn't hit one red light on the way to the track then I got this nifty umbrella as an award for winning CAM T last Spring.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._085904-X2.jpg

First run was a hot mess, knocked 5 months of rust off though and was ready to show them how it was done on 2nd run.

Then this happened...

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._144331-X2.jpg

Pretty non-eventful on course but it did complicate the rest of my day...



All is good now though, car is on the lift and a plan is being assembled for an upgrade\repair.

Glad to see it was mostly non eventful, coulda been ugly.

Ouch! Yeah, glad it wasn't worse.

amazing the amount of force put on individual components.

So I think I know why I had the part failure Sunday.

This is the good one from the passenger side...that hadn't broken...yet...

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._100012-X2.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._095945-X2.jpg

And this is the one that broke...

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._093925-X2.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._094016-X2.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._092756-X2.jpg

Frankly, I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did all things considered. These Baer Bump Stop posts have been in these Speedtech Steering arms for 4 years...with just the top half of the taper making contact letting the bottom half move back and forth just slightly.

There are a TON of people that have broken these tapered studs apparently but I'm curious if they know exactly WHY they are breaking??? I do now...

So an update with a correction here... It seems that I had forgotten that I removed my Baer Bumpsteer pins when I installed the ATS spindles and steering arms and put in their place a Secret Sauce Allstar ALL56280 bump steer kit.

The details of the Allstar part are in the pic below, it clearly shows it has a Ford taper, not a GM taper. I guess we can just add this to an increasingly growing longer list of RSRT supplied part failures...

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont...LL56280-X2.jpg

Thanks for the correction Lance. :thumbsup:

I've wondered if that RSRT working relationship weathered the times.

Getting tired of getting my tail kicked by cars that corner exit better than mine, plans are in motion...

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._172824-X2.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._172817-X2.jpg

More updates to come soon...

I never took you for a Miata guy, but hey. :lol:

3-link?

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right? :D


Yup... With Panhard Bar setup.

Nice upgrade! I'll be keeping track...

UMI supposedly has an A/G-body 3-link in the 'skunk-works' but not much info released yet.

I've been hoping someone like Speedtech would do a Torque Arm set-up for the A/G body cars. Seems their set-up w/the right front mount could be made to work & have minimal impact on the floor-pans & clearances.

Looking forward to what you come-up with.

One of the issues the aftermarket companies are up against in creating 3 link kits for these cars is in most cases the weak OEM 10 bolt has been replaced with something stronger, and most all of those stronger options are different from each other. The kit I'm using is designed as a bolt in for the 10 bolt, hence the custom bracket we are designing for the axle side of the upper link for my QP 9".

Care to share what 'kit' you're starting with? I have the 10bolt GN 8.5 so that's somewhat appealing.

Also.... I reached out to UMI last week to see if they had any updates & apparently they're just bench-racing @ this point. They indicated no design work has even begun.

Right now it is still in the testing phase, I'll share more as it develops and becomes available. I think you'll like it though. ;)

Fair enough.

Once upon a time on another site we had a discussion going on about different rear set-ups vs. the GM C4L that's under g-bodys from the factory. It also included aftermarket frame suspension options using similar 'Triangulated' 4-bar set-ups & what would possibly work better. Lots of guys felt the GNX style 3-link idea would be great but the limited length & how it anchors seemed great for a drag race set-up but not so much an 'all-around' set-up.

Thanks for continuing to share your journey w/Barney.