I've gathered up parts to make steel lines from the adapter to out past the headers. I'm having Rob from PCH Rods try and bend it up for me, hopefully next week. Its super tight so until we bend up the line I'm not 100% there is room to fit hard lines. I'm having to step down to -8 to do it too as the -10 bender has to large of a bend radius to work.

No cage in the car. I've got a 4 point in mind for a future upgrade.

Couple of fun updates.

Super Chevy published some inital info on the 2014 Super Chevy Handling Challenge. My car was their reprsenting TCI enginnering's front Camaro subframe and rear 12bolt based torque arm.

http://image.superchevy.com/f/785384...lenge-cars.jpg

http://www.superchevy.com/events/150...back-on-track/

I'm looking forward to the full articles. And I can't wait to go abuse my car on a full road course again. I'm eyeing the Extreme speed event at SOWS 11/15-16 if I can get my oil lines redone this weekend.

I also attended the NMCA West Hotchkis Autocross event this past weekend. this is first time I've had to really try out the car. My previous trips to Adam's have been rushed and mostly in the dark.

What a blast!! This car is so freeking fun to drive compared to my old setup! I now have to relearn the car because it can do things in a corner I've only been able to dream about before. I can't wait to learn more behind the wheel and also about shock tuning. It really helps that I can piggy back off of years of development Sal has put into his car.

Speaking of Sal. It made the event really fun to have both of our Torch Red 68 Camaros TCI equiped fighting it out. I've got more power but he's got more seat time and I think bigger cajones.

http://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.ne...448a53d3b36fdb

Sal set a faster lap time than me both Saturday and Sunday but I closed the gap Sunday :) and lost by only a tenth. I ran in a session before Sal so he knew the time he had to beat so it was a lot of fun watching him drive his ass off to make sure he beat me including a spectacular spin on his last run.

Here is another shot of my car in action.

EDIT: Need to resize this one.

In the classic Muscle class I finished 3rd Saturday and 4th Sunday.

Sunday had a better turn out in that class too. It was great catching up with and watching some of the other Lat-G members drive too. The format of the event using run groups with multiple laps per run group instead of cycling through all cars in order was awesome. Gave you time to make changes to the car, relax, chat with folks, etc.

So while the overall number of laps was lower than I liked (8 Saturday, 7 Sunday) I really enjoyed the event.

I didn't get great video as this was my first time using HLT at an autocross but will try and post some up later.

Great seeing you yesterday Chad. Your car looked awesome out there! That doughnut course was a stinker :pee-eww:

:cheers:

Thanks Ron. If you didn't give a damn about your rear tires the donut box could be fun but otherwise it did kinda suck. Overall still a fun autocross course. I liked that it had two "sweeper" type higher speed turns even if both were decreasing radius ones.

Forgot that I also have an engine coolant temp update.

I ended up talking with Tuff Stuff Performance who makes the waterpump for the Vintage Air Frontrunner kit. They suggested that my issue might be related to an air pocket but when I explained the steps I took to try and bleed air out of the sytem they didn't have any suggestions for trying something different.

So I shipped the waterpump to them to have it double checked. It of course was fine but did have a waterline suggesting an air pocket did exist. Having drained and refilled the coolant system on this car many times for a variety of reasons it was antibody's guess if that was still true. Tuffstuff shipped the pump back and suggested I drill and tap a vent line into the top of the pump which I can't do with the DBW throttle body.

So Friday night before the Hotchkis Autocross I filled the radiator and did everything I could to bleed air out of the system. Including jacking the front of the car off the ground several feet and letting the thermostat cycle several times with the cap off.

TL,DR = It was an air pocket in the waterpump. If anything the car now almost runs too cold at freeway cruise in 6th gear. Its gone from 210-214 to about 180*

One more sorting issue/gremlin fixed!

Congrats on the coverage and getting the coolant issue resolved, Chad. The car looked great out there.

Nice... Good to see that issue is fixed and that shes back on the road and you are able to enjoy it again. Long time coming.

Glad to hear you got the cooling issue fixed. Congratulation's on the ink the car looks great.

So great to see you out enjoying again Chad..... :thumbsup:

SOW 2015 sometime for a rematch? :idea:

Thanks for all the positive vibes everyone!!

They paid off today. I posted this on my auto club thread but figured I'd throw the after action report in here too.

Here is my quick after action report:

Whew!!! What a great day! Its been a while since I've had this much fun. Its been a while since I've been this nervous/scared out of mind ha ha. The Auto Club Sports Car course (aka Roval) is one intense track!

I ended up being the only Pro-touring / classic muscle at the track today. Its a bummer no other PT cars showed but it was kind of neat being the sole outlier too. I did see Jake running his daily driver Mustang in the time attack competition. Good stuff.

This was a real test for me and the car as this is the first track day I've done since getting the TCI Engineering subframe and torque arm installed along with the 427" LS3 motor. After many setbacks it was awesome to have a 99.9% trouble free day. I only had two gremlins. 1) My license plat didn't like 150mph and was hanging by one bolt after the 1st session. 2) My ignition relay melted down after the first session (not sure what to make of that yet). Otherwise the coolant temps were 195-200 the whole time and oil temps hovered a hair under 250*

By the numbers:
- 33 Laps driven
- 25 timed
- Over 1 hour of seat time (left early too)
- 6.6mpg on track
- Over 100 miles driven on track
- Fastest lap time 1:59 (ran at least one 1:59 lap in every session so at least I was consistent).
- Highest top speed 151mph

I didn't push the car nearly as hard on the brakes and corners as its capable of but the Auto Club is so damn fast I wanted to still drive home. Yeah I didn't trailer the car!

Here is some data from my fastest lap:
https://scontent-b-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/...49&oe=551A30C7

And a video of my highest top speed and some passes.


Overall the car felt great and though I had some pretty conservative brake zones and g's in the corners I was far from the edge. Its so much more fun to drive a balanced car than my old push monster!

I might do some more video and pics but for now I'm off to bed!