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All great info. Blake and I were talking about some of these exact things earlier. What a great opportunity we have today to be involved in this industry when the technology and engineering advancements have gone way beyond what we were trying maybe 10-15 years ago.
Blake was also busting on me a little, he says my car won't roll any more than it does because of the crappy 300+ tread wear NT555s I have can't grip well enough to allow the car to lean that much, lol! In that video I was near the edge of going from turning to understeer on the large sweeper. I'm sure tires are a factor as well as some more suspension tuning. The way you explained it Ron it really clicked what you're after with Lance's car. Thanks for sharing, good stuff for everyone to consider. |
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Bigger front sway bar is now installed along with matching rear springs, but I went a step further and also installed a new chassis mounted rear sway bar to replace the LCA mounted bar the car had on it. Static camber has been dialed back to -1.2 degrees both sides and caster bumped up to +9.6 degrees both sides. The ride height has been corrected to balance the car out with the driver only in the driver seat. New ride heights at the fender are 25 7/8s" front, 26 7/8s" rear. Front is about 1/4" lower, rear is about 1/2" lower than with the stage 2 setup. I haven't scaled the car yet but I'm betting from past experience it's pretty close to as good as it'll get without moving weight around. Still working on a way to get some new tires though... Here are some pics. Front MuscleBar installed https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-s...172926_124.jpg https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-J...172944_135.jpg https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-N...172848_104.jpg https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Y...172822_117.jpg Rear bar installed https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-l...130922_014.jpg https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-O...130857_523.jpg https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--...130839_124.jpg To say the car corners flatter is an understatement...it is unbelievable how much less the car rolls now. I did the front bar and rear springs first, then did some testing with the car. It's like a different car...what I notice the most is the outside front fender doesn't dip down on turn in anywhere near as much as it used to. The balance is neutral, the driver can make the car a bit tight or loose just by making subtle changes. It felt VERY good, should be much faster on the course. I then put the new rear bar in starting with the end links on the middle of the three adjustment holes and test drove it. The car rolls EVEN LESS now...huge difference. That setting made the car loose halfway through the roll through zone and was a bit sketchy. It was rolling a lot less and changed the handle on the car. Yesterday I was able to move the end links to the forward hole and drive it on the street a bit more and it's closer to neutral again. It felt more stable and enjoyable to drive spiritedly. The next plan of attack is to schedule some parking lot shock tuning time and dial in my shock settings to match the new bars and springs. I have to leave town for a week so I won't be able to get on that until next week...but I can't wait. We've wanted less roll out of the car for a long time and now I finally have it...I'm stoked to see how it races next time out. |
Nice job Lance.
Engaging Mister Ron Sutton is what I keep encouraging people to do... BUY from him -- or PAY him a fee for advice and numbers - whatever works.... The man knows his stuff!! His advice is priceless. A little of this and a little of that and your car will be so improved it's amazing. The funny part I find with working with him - he's not about just throwing parts at the car and hoping it works out... he's got the info that goes along with the parts that is what makes the parts work with everything else you have. |
Good News! Looking forward to hearing track results!
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Probably not going to see any air under the inside rear now are you? :whistling:
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Man the bottom of that car is dirty!! I remember not that long ago when I could eaten off the bottom side of the car...
I like it better this way! :lol: Shows that it's being driven, not just looked at. Thanks guys, I never could have gotten it this far on my own and knowing that I have a guiding light showing me the way and being there for backup if I screw something up makes all the difference in the world. The new rear bar wasn't really in the plan, but the opportunity to pick it up happened and I knew that Ron would help me through making the transition with it. In the end I think it's going to work out great and be a big plus. |
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:lol: I don't think that illusion will happen again unless something goes horribly wrong... |
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Nice parts, Lance. Glad it's working out for you. Now go beat on it!
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I spent time last week fine tuning the installation of the Chassis mounted sway bar and got some road testing in last Friday night. We decided to try the stiffest bar setting and my softest springs I had on hand, 162# springs. The car felt fine on the spirited road driving but all of my parking lots had cars in them so I couldn't do any simulated autocross turns. It was just a touch tight if anything on the road, so Saturday morning I swapped in my 185# springs and went back out. I found a parking lot and made quite a few runs while adjusting on the shocks. I got the car "okay" but I had a weird hopping issue on the rear that made me loose when it happened. I couldn't place exactly what was happening but remember the whole setup is new to me. What I found when I got back to the shop is the end links on the rear sway bar had pushed on the axle mounts and rotated them back far enough for the endlinks to go up top over center and jam the sway bar ends pointing up. Thinking that this was causing binding which was causing my hopping issue I proceeded to have my friend John make me some 3/4" spacers to lower the axle brackets so I could rotate them forward enough to get the end links pointing straight down and keep the bar off the diff. Then I came in the house and reviewed the videos I took...and found the REAL PROBLEM... The inside rear tire was lifting off the ground on hard autocross type turns. I went back out Sunday morning and tried it again wondering if the new spacers and repositioned bar would fix this issue, it didn't. I could tell right away now that I recognize the feeling when the inside tire lifts. I then put the bar on the middle setting and tried again, no help. So I tried the softest setting...a bit better maybe, but still no good. No way can I autocross the car like this. It drives FANTASTIC on the street, on and off ramps are a hoot...car is balanced, secure, and just fun to drive...until I try to make a hard simulated autocross type turn...where it lifts the inside tire, the rear hops a bit...then slides loose. I decided to punt and pulled the bar and put my LCA mounted bar back on as I know I can race with it and I have several big races coming up next weekend. At the same time I put the 250# pound springs back in that were matched to the LCA bar and new front sway bar. Except...I noticed a difference and upon further review found one of them to be a 200# spring instead of a 250#, wrong one came in the box. FML!! So I put a set of 200# springs I had in so they'd match and test drove it. Here is the video that shows the inside rear tire with the chassis mounted bar on all three settings and then the LCA bar...all taken Sunday in similar type conditions. My conclusion... While the chassis mounted bar really helped the street manners, it was too much sway bar to use for autocross. There may be other adjustments that can be made to other parts of the setup to help it all work together, but right now I just don't have the time to be trying to find them. Maybe I'll give it a shot again in the off season. For now I'm going with what I know works. I got the correct 250# spring in yesterday and after a quick install I made a trip to my favorite parking lot and could tell in just one turn that it was better...WAY better. It's back to being balanced in the turn like it has been since stage 2 was installed and the hoppity hop is gone. I then put the car on the scales, set the ride height properly with the driver's weight in the seat and adjusted the springs until the cross and left side weight equaled 100% and locked it down. It's full of gas, just needs a quick bath, loaded on the trailer, rest of the gear loaded up and I'm heading to the SCCA Nationals in Lincoln Nebraska first thing Saturday morning. I was invited to participate in the CAM Pro Solo Invitational on Sunday which I'm really stoked about and then I'll be racing in the new CAM Contemporary Class at the Solo Nats on Tuesday and Wednesday. |
Hey Lance,
It's not necessarily accurate that the rear sway bar to too stiff for Autocross. But it is too stiff relative to your front sway bar & spring set-up. What the video is showing is "too much diagonal roll angle." I cover diagonal roll angle quite a bit in my chassis threads on here. When I calculated your set-up using the new Ridetech Muscle bar with .250" wall thickness ... to keep the FLLD/RLLD correct with your trailing arm mounted rear sway bar... required 250# rear springs. Obviously, as the video shows ... when you tested the new chassis mounted sway bar ... it is simply too stiff for the rest of your set-up. That means you're not allowing the car to roll on correctly front & rear. You could say it's rolling too much in the front or too little in the rear ... but in reality ... it's simply the front to rear roll angle difference that is too much. Diagonal roll onto the outside front tire is critical for proper handling. All cars need to roll over onto the outside front tire "to a certain degree." There is an optimum amount, which I find to be about .35-.4° degree more roll angle in the front when compared to the rear. But the set-up in the video is creating too much diagonal roll. So the front end is rolling over onto the outside front tire "too much". This can happen from too much rear spring rate or too much rear sway bar rate. The results differ. Too much sway bar rate lifts the inside rear wheel. Too much rear sporing rate does not lift the inside rear wheel. To everyone following along, Lance & I worked out his set-up with the trailing arm mounted sway bar & it handles correctly. Lance got this different rear sway bar to test ... and obviously ... it is too stiff. So going back to the set-up we worked out with the original rear sway bar is the correct path ... for now. If ... if you ever go to a stiffer front sway bar than you have now ... like a .375" thick wall version of the sway bar you have now ... then you will need either a stiffer rear sway bar or stiffer rear springs to keep the FLLD/RLLD balanced ... which is what makes your car handle so balanced & neutral now. :Cheers: |
I suppose an update is in order here to catch everyone up on things I have done with the car. Since my last post the car has competed at the SCCA CAM Invitational and also at the SCCA Solo Nationals both in Lincoln Nebraska. When I got to Lincoln on Saturday, we had an hour of test sessions on the practice course in which I got to make 4 runs on my first autocross course on a concrete surface. I've learned that no matter how you practice in a parking lot, nothing really resembles actual on track performance. The car was loose, I spent some time adjusting on the shocks to try to tame the looseness and thought that I had it okay. There were a lot of different factors involved (new surface, new front sway bar and new rear springs) and with only 4 runs to dial it in, I did the best I could. Mental note to myself for future reference, don't make major setup changes to your car right before big National type events!!!
Early Sunday morning we lined up for 4 practice runs on the Pro Solo courses we'd be racing on later that day, two on left course, two on right course...all consecutively with no chance for adjustments other than tire pressures between runs (I never even got out of the car). The car was still a bit loose, enough so that I actually spun it near the start of my 4th run. I was trying to figure out if it was the tires and the new surface not playing nice, driving style, shock adjustments, basically I was at a loss and had no time to make any changes nor did I know exactly what to change to fix it before the challenge round. In the challenge round, after it rained, I spun the car again near the start of my first round effectively ending my day. Here's the video of my 4 practice runs and 2 challenge runs. I did some soul searching that afternoon as well as talking to some of the regulars that run high horsepower rear wheel drive cars up at Lincoln regularly and came to the conclusion that I needed a softer spring in the rear. For some weird reason, I had stuck the 200# springs I had in my truck before heading North. I texted Ron Sutton to make sure he agreed and when he did I took the 250# springs out and put the 200# springs in. Thankfully with the Ridetech setup this is about a 15 minute project total start to finish in the paddock parking lot. I had an hour of practice time scheduled for Monday morning at 8 am to finish dialing the car in before the Solo Nationals races started on Tuesday morning. Before the start of the practice runs, I put my GoPro under the car again pointing at the inside of the driver's rear so I could see exactly what the rear was doing in between runs and adjust on things accordingly. On my first run I could tell immediately that the car felt better. It was still a bit loose in the roll through zone but not edgy, I could still put power down and it would slide, but not enough that it would just step out and spin like before. Ever since this setup was put in and initial shock adjustments were made, it was always a bit loose at times in the roll through zone. I'd tell Ron this and he'd make a comment like "Really?" like there was no way it should be loose. I then watched the GoPro video of my first run...and noticed right away the inside rear tire was STILL lifting off the course a bit mid turn. I'm convinced now this has been going on all year long. You can't tell from the driver's seat, you can't even tell from the videos I ran with the GoPro on the fender looking down at the rear tire, but when you run the camera looking at the inside of the rear tire during an actual run, it becomes clear as day what is going on. I had 3 more practice runs to fix this, so I started taking rebound out of the rear shocks. It was the only way I could figure to keep the body of the car from lifting the inside rear tire mid corner. It started working...-2 clicks, tire just barely lifts. -2 more clicks...tire appears to stay on the ground, just the bulge at the bottom of the tire stretches out. The handle starts to change a bit also though so the next run I add two click of compression on the front. This caused the car to push just a bit so I decided to take the compression back out of the front and take 2 more clicks of rebound out of the rear and race it like that. I was out of test runs so there was no way to be sure if it was going to be perfect or not, but I knew that with the lighter springs in the rear and the adjusted shocks...it was going to be WAY easier to drive than it was in the Challenge on Sunday. Here are the 4 practice runs taken while I was adjusting on the shocks. |
Tuesday was race day... Man, what a spectacle this place is...200 acres of concrete, 1200 racers, two courses, all running like a well oiled machine. It is impressive what the SCCA does to put this event on and if anyone ever gets the chance to go, I highly recommend it. My class is working heat 1, running heat 3...which is perfect for me, feels just like home. I do my work stint on the East course then I have an hour or so to warm the car up and get it to grid before heat 3 starts. I'm feeling pretty good, have walked the course for the 4th or 5th time earlier that morning and when the starter tells me it's time to go, I'm ready. I take it pretty easy remembering how many times I've spun since being up there. First run was pretty clean, set a decent time and most importantly the car felt very settled. It was back to being my old car that I love to drive. So for the second run I decided I needed to get after it...and on the second element it got a bit loose sliding the rear out the exit of the turn. But it stayed in control and I kept after it. On the back slalom there is what I called a "gotcha" cone, it sneaks up on you if you aren't ready for it and on this run...I wasn't ready. I had to make an abrupt move to get past it and this abrupt move upset the rear of the car (probably lifting the inside rear tire once again) and I had to save it two or three times before settling the car down again while at the same time costing me a lot of time. The good news is, I could drive the car again, even with it upset like that I was still able to hang on to it and gather it back up again. On my third run, I scaled it back and trail braked a ton trying to keep the car settled yet maintain my speed. I think I picked up a half second over the second run but was still slower than my first run which ended up being my fastest on the East course. We were then done for the day even though I thought and really wanted a 4th run, apparently you only get 3 runs at Nationals...
On Wednesday the schedule was the same only we were running on the West Course which was more tight and technical whereas the East course was more open and flowing. I felt that tight and technical fit more into my wheelhouse and was ready to make up some time. I was sitting in 3rd place of 9 drivers in my Class and had been informed by Chris in 4th that he was coming for me. :D That didn't bother me though as I was gunning for 2nd place. The car felt GREAT on my first run, I hadn't changed a thing on it since the practice course on Monday but it just did everything I wanted it to do. Maybe the driver was finally figuring the concrete out, maybe the surface was better over there...or maybe it was just my day...who knows but the run felt great. On my second run I really let it all hang out and I picked up almost 2 seconds...I was starting to feel it. We were all calculating between runs where everyone was and Mike in 2nd place had just eeked by Keith in first and I was still in 3rd with a decent lead on 4th. As I was rolling off the course after my 3rd run I heard on the radio that Keith had picked up 3 tenths and secured the class win, I had picked up a couple more tenths and felt pretty good that I'd finish 3rd which was the last trophy spot...which I did. I brought home a trophy on my first trip to Solo Nationals...how about that?!?! Better than that though was my car was back and better than ever. Watching the videos and pictures back, it now corners much flatter with the new Ridetech MuscleBar up front and really sticks to the track letting me wheel the wee out of it while still maintaining control. My cousins drove down from Edmonton, Alberta to watch and my business partner came up from Florida as well and it was cool having them there during all of this. Jim even took my camera and got some great sideline videos of me running the car on course. This is my second run from both the East course and the West course. And here are my in car videos of all 3 runs from both days. This picture was taken during my Challenge run on Sunday, probably right before I spun https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-R...99263131_n.jpg These were taken early Sunday morning our practice runs before the Challenge http://action.zenfolio.com/img/s5/v132/p714582326-4.jpg http://action.zenfolio.com/img/s2/v70/p684763579-4.jpg http://action.zenfolio.com/img/s6/v150/p634776340-4.jpg http://action.zenfolio.com/img/s7/v167/p794119003-4.jpg This is me lined up against Robbie Unser in the Speedway Motors prepped Nova for my second run in the Challenge http://action.zenfolio.com/img/s12/v...10157284-4.jpg http://action.zenfolio.com/img/s6/v141/p252253529-4.jpg To sum it...it was an awesome adventure that I'll remember forever. I can't wait to go back and do it again and next I'll be better prepared for what to expect and will be in a better position to finish even higher. |
After we were done racing on Wednesday, I booked an hour of practice time on the practice course again and took my partner and cousins for some fun runs...
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That's awesome Lance! Congrats on the podium :cheers:
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That is awesome Lance! Especially in light of how stock your 3600# grocery getter is.
Did you have the air conditioner blowing & a soda in the cup holder? :cheers: |
Congrats on placing!!!
So I made a bunch of changes to my suspension that put it a little closer to the parts you have, including a frame mounted rear sway bar, and was experiencing the same deal at my SCCA event, the back end wanted to come around. Being the first race on an entirely new suspension I didn't want to make a lot of changes all at once, so for this race I focused only on shock compression and was able to tone it down by bringing the rear compression down and the front compression up. By the end of 9 runs I dropped 3 seconds and could keep the back end right on the edge of staying put and sliding out. There's a lot of room (and need) for further adjustment and reading your experience and results is great. Thanks for all the details. Just to recap- For this race you finalized with- 600 lb front springs 200 lb rear springs arm mounted rear bar (Size again?) 1.5" dia front bar a little soft on the rear rebound and a little harder on the front compression? How about rear compression and front rebound? Do you think you'll stick with the arm mounted rear bar or try to step up to get the frame mounted bar to play nice? At the track I compensated with more front shock compression. I ended with rear compression adjustment at 6 of 19 and front 11 of 19 and 10 of 19 all around on rebound. On the way home it rode pretty rough, too much for even me. I can't imagine what it would ride like if I keep adding more front compression. On 4 compression on the rear it felt very loose and like being in a boat on the waves so I think 5-6 is the max I want to drop to. I'm running 550 lb front and 200 lb rear springs. My rear bar is on the lightest setting. So (chime in here too Ron) what's the best generic way to better match front parts to the frame mounted rear bar to keep the rear half of the car following the front? Bigger front bar ? More coil spring rate? ...? I was thinking of starting with swapping to 600 lb front springs like I had before... |
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Yep, along with a 24 Pak of Bud Select on ice in the trunk and some classic rock blaring on the stereo!!! Couldn't have done it without all of your help Ron. Thanks. Quote:
I put the 1" solid LCA mounted bar back in place and it'll stay there for a while or at least until I get the front roll stiffness a lot firmer. I wasn't soft on the rear rebound by any means. I don't have my notes in front of me, but I think I started out my shock tuning on Monday with the rear rebound at -2 clicks out of 24...almost totally stiff (I start at full stiff and count clicks as I soften, so -2 is 2 clicks counter clockwise from full stiff). I think they ended up at -8 and I might try going just a bit softer with them next time out as I think they are still picking up the inside rear tire under hard abrupt maneuvers. I've always run the front rebound between -6 and -8, just little changes there make a big difference. If I need front grip for a bit longer, say for a long sweeping turn on an autocross course, 2 clicks firmer will fix that right up. 1 more click though and I'll start loosing rear grip on exit. It's a fine balance. Front and rear low speed compression are both at -15 I believe, on the soft side of the middle, same with high speed compression. Only thing I do to drive on the street is soften the rear rebound all the way up, the rest stays the same and it rides great. Ron will probably explain this better than me, but I think the saying goes "increasing rebound adds grip and increasing compression takes grip away" or something like that. What do I know, I'm just the driver (and owner). :underchair: As you know, the hardest part with this is replicating the track like conditions for testing and tuning. Just 4 runs during an event is NOT enough time to tune on shocks properly. |
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So, on the morning of the last day of racing in Lincoln, I heard a familiar noise when the clutch pedal was pushed all the way in...the old clutch fork against the pressure plate grinding.
Everything still worked though and I made it through my 3 runs plus 4 fun runs after, but after the last fun run it was getting to the point where the clutch wouldn't disengage before the fork hit the PP. I had a pretty good idea of what was happening but all I wanted to do was get the car on the trailer and get home. Once back on the lift and after a few days rest, I pulled the slave cylinder off and my suspicions were confirmed. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-V...105119_876.jpg This is the bolt that holds the Tee-block that the cluck fork pivots on. It had worked loose allowing the clutch fork to travel further forward eventually hitting the pressure plate when the clutch pedal was depressed. Problem is, one has to remove the transmission to tighten the bolt. :censored: Exhaust, drive shaft, inspection plate, starter, crossmember, and eventually the trans have to come out to get to the bolt head. So I did all of this, soaked the bolt real good in blue lock-tite and reinstalled everything. Right before I put the slave cylinder back on I snapped this picture and started banging my head against the rack... https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0...140852_114.jpg It appears that the reason the bolt came loose is because after I shortened the Tee-Block to keep the fork off of the PP the first time, the bolt now bottoms out before the Tee-block is tight against the trans housing. I let it sit like that for about a week before deciding to go ahead and button it the rest of the way up and drive it like it is until it starts to happen again. If it comes loose again I'll pull it all apart once more and shorten the bolt. Aren't cars fun... |
My question would be --- WHY didn't you take the time and shorten it (the bolt) THIS TIME...
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Well, I was ten minutes away from rolling the car off the lift when I found that...and it's another 2-3 hours to remove and replace the trans one more time not counting the time to shorten the bolt.
Trust me, I took a week off to think about it...but decided I'd give the locktite a shot. It's not catastrophic if it comes loose again so there's no real risk and there's a chance (albeit it a small one) that it won't come loose again. There's also a chance that once I shorten the bolt, the Tee block will too short screwing up the geometry of the clutch fork causing me a whole 'nuther set of problems... |
Dang! car looked real good in the videos! I keep forgetting your only a few hours north of me, i can't believe how many cool cars it looked like were at the event.
In your videos aimed at the rear suspension it looks like your really close to bottoming out the shock.... or am i not looking at it right? |
Thanks Scott. It was cool to watch all of the Muscle cars going at it at the Invitational. Hopefully that event will only get better in years to come.
That black spring cup that holds the bottom of the spring is probably a bit over an inch deep and the bottom of the shaft is at the bottom of it. There is a bump stop on the shaft and I regularly check it to see if the shock body has bottomed that bump stop out and while it does get close, it never has pushed it all the way down. It does push it down into the spring cup to make it appear as if it's bottoming out though for sure. With the recent changes we've made to the car up to and including putting the 200# springs back in the rear and lowering the rear stance just a bit, watching those bump stops is a great tool to make sure we have enough ride height in the car to keep it from bottoming out. I've had the rear hitting the bump stops before and it is NOT fun, nor is it fast that way. You should come watch us race in Topeka in October, we are doing a two day event Oct 18-19th in the large lot of the South end of the infield at Heartland Park Topeka. You never know, I might have room for a ride along even if you show up. |
So, the 2014 racing season is over for me. As I sit and watch updates from all of my friends heading to Vegas for SEMA and OUSCI I'm reflecting on this last season and making plans for next year. This year exceeded my expectations big time, but my plans for next year are even greater.
The event this past Sunday was great, I was able to hold off the rest in my class and take a win in CAM. The car just loved that particular course and all of the learning I did over the year as a driver helped as well. Here are some pictures taken of Barney on the course at Event 13 by David Peterlin of Peterlin Photography. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-6...19356923-6.jpg and no, I did NOT hit that cone. :D https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-b...90377884-6.jpg Took 4 first timers for rides...they all loved it. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T...50352458-6.jpg https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-p...30554516-6.jpg https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-5...38847957-6.jpg Even let a fellow competitor run a heat in my car to measure myself up against him. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7...78004425-6.jpg https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-A...04812114-6.jpg Stay tuned for the new plans for the off season. Updating safety equipment is job one, updating the rear axle bearings is another...and we'll have to see how much is left over in the kitty after that to see if there are to be any other upgrades made. |
Lance, besides autox, are you planning on tracking it at all?
Congrats on a successful season :thumbsup: |
Congratulation's Lance,:cheers: and here's to even more success next year!
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nice work lance, loud forward to seeing updates.
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or is it "hear, hear"? :) |
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Congrats, nice way to wrap up the season! Looking forward to seeing changes for next year.
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The off season work on Barney has begun with earnest.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-m...122714_745.jpg https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-I...122733_043.jpg I've ran the stock CCC carb, distributor, and ECM on my car for the whole 7 years that I've had this 383 in the car and it has ran great. It's got many wins in it's class with the SCCA autocross, a Street Modified championship, a third place trophy in it's debut at the SCCA Solo Nationals, and several very successful track day events where it surprised a lot of people over the past couple of years. During the later part of this season though, at our autox events held on larger more open courses...the car kept getting beat by the newer LS powered cars in my class. I wasn't sure what to do about it until the last event of the season which was held on our local tight technical course where I won over those same cars by over a second. I was getting beat by an upper RPM horsepower deficiency. It was time for a change... This engine has always built fantastic torque down low, but the ECM would pick up noise from the knock sensor and start pulling timing out up around 4250 RPM which would kill the upper end horsepower. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-g...03-13-2013.jpg I researched putting a MPFI setup on this engine but ultimately decided I could swap in a LS1 cheaper than to put EFI on this engine correctly...and I'm not really interested in doing that at least right now. So I started researching ignition boxes and found this super cool MSD unit #6530 for sale locally at a good price, so I picked it up. A friend had a re-man quadajet left over from his car he didn't need anymore and I picked up a new MSD #85551 distributor and started the swap to pull the CCC out and put the MSD ignition box in. My heater core sprung a leak last fall so it needed to be replaced as well, seemed like a good time to do it all at once. My goal is to get the complete CCC harness out in one piece, put the ignition box somewhere under the dash and use the CCC grommet to run the MSD harness back to the engine. The distributor has had the mechanical advance locked out and is set back in place with the rotor pointed at the #1 spark plug wire and a basic tune has been loaded into the programmable MSD box. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-d...102754_147.jpg https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...102818_165.jpg I sent the carb off to a friend to have him make sure it is 100% ready to run so that when it's bolted on and the ignition box is fired off, my ignition problems should be solved and hopefully I can realize the true potential of this engine. |
Keep up the improvements !
:cheers: . |
Sounds fun, Lance. Glad you're staying 383. Good luck with the change over.
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I recently went to PRI in Indy to try on Race seats in preparation for major safety upgrades for the interior of Barney. I wanted to run a HANS device on any future track days and this meant I also needed to add harnesses, which meant new seats as well as a place to attach the shoulder harnesses too. After all of the groundwork was laid, seat style picked out, roll bar installation design and quote...I got cold feet and had pretty much decided to not go through with it. It was going to take a rear seat delete modification to make it work properly and still look good and I also couldn't find the exact seats I wanted...
That was until a week ago Friday. This is when I stumbled across a garage sale ad that had a perfect pair of seats in it at a fantastic price. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-o.../profi-spg.jpg These seats come with a winning pedigree already, they were in Mark Stielow's 1967 Camaro Mayhem when it won the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge in 2012. Hope I can do them justice in Barney as well. Saturday I took the GTO front seats and rear seats out of the car and Sunday delivered them to their new owner. Once the new seats get here I'll get them mocked into place...then once I get the car running again it's off to the fab shop for the roll bar and rear seat delete sheet metal to be put into place. Then I'll cover the sheet metal with sound deadener and eventually carpet that matches the maroon carpet up front for hopefully a very nice finished look on my now two seat street car. It's a big change, but I'm certain I'll be much safer in the car plus I'll be more secure which should help the driving and the added bonus will be the roll bar structure will significantly stiffen up the body which will also help with the car's performance. The getting the car running again bit entails a new carburetor, distributor, and ignition system. I've pulled the 1985 factory CCC computer system and am working on a new mechanical Quadrajet, MSD programmable ignition box\distributor and a wideband 02 meter install which should help me tune some more power into the upper RPM range to help me beat that Poncho and Camaro in this coming season on the bigger courses. I also pulled the steering column and sent it out to be completely rebuilt and modified to more match the new features of the car. It'll be locked in park, the linkage arm removed, and the steering wheel lock disabled as well as the very worn tilt mechanism rebuilt and improved upon over the factory version and have a nice satin black paint finish applied before it's sent back. Right now the car is in hundreds of pieces and I'm in parts jail waiting for everything to come back before I can reinstall. Hopefully everything will come in in the next week or so and once I get back from my trip to FL next week I can resume on the off season upgrade projects. |
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Sounds like some good plans. Being strapped in tight and not pinching your larger cheeks to stay seated is one less thing for your brain to process and allows more focus on driving. The roll bar will also give you a better sense of safety, again one less thing to worry about, particularity on the road course.
I like the trip to FL part too. I grew up on the south east coast in a suburb of West Palm Beach. I miss the weather this time of year. Enjoy! |
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https://lateral-g.net/forums/forumdisplay.php4?f=88 I'd drop him a line and ask, if it can be done I'm sure he can. I used a reverse light harness from a manual mid 80s GM truck. I got a plug to match the reverse light connector on my T56, then ran the wires from it to this harness and plugged it into the connector that used to plug into my steering column to get my reverse lights to work. |
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Thanks Ben. I'm actually excited about the plan again now after being a bit cool on it for a while. Figuring out a way to finish the back area off nicely and still have the interior look like a street car, not a race car was important to me. Unfortunately my trip to FL is not a pleasure trip, more of a MIL duty trip...but that's okay. Plus, I can't complain about the weather we've had here in the Midwest so far this winter. 50s and 60s the last 5 days or so and on into the long range forecast as well. |
The Quadrajet Carburetor has a bad reputation...mainly because a lot of people don't know how to make that particular carb work well on their engine (me included). I've driven a car with a well tuned Q-jet for a while now though and can attest to how well they perform once tuned properly. Switching from an electronically controlled Q-jet to a mechanical Q-jet is a big step and I wanted to make sure it was done properly...so I enlisted the help of a friend that is an expert at them.
The first trick with a Q-jet is to get the idle and cruise Air Fuel ratios right, at idle you want the primary throttle blades closed with just the proper amount of air and fuel going through the bypasses and enough adjustability in the idle air screws to fine tune per the engine. Same with cruise AFRs... How much vacuum the engine makes (largely cam relative) combined with cubic inches figure in to this equation. The carb I acquired for this project is a 1977 small block passenger car carb that had a Holley reman sticker on it. It was in good overall shape but once disassembled we found idle passages epoxied shut and some "unusual" jets and bypass sizing. My friend Bob contacted Cliff Ruggles who is one of the few real Q-jet gurus and between the two of them they developed a plan of action to make this carb work correctly with my engine. Bob is in Pennsylvania but has an engine in his car similar to my build. His is a 427 ci vs my 383 ci but has a similar cam that builds tons of vacuum and tons of low end torque. Once he got the basics on the carb done, he's been running it on his car to fine tune. He got it close enough and it has lots of idle screw adjustability each direction for me to fine tune it once on my engine. Here is the initial build sheet on the changes he made to the carb... https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Q...o/IMG_2799.JPG The carbs spread out on his bench... https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-3...o/IMG_2743.JPG All put back together... https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6...o/IMG_2795.JPG I think he's had the carb on and off his engine at least 10 times trying to get it right. Here's how he described the tuning to me via email on Monday... Quote:
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This is just a little look into the science of a Q-jet Carb. They are VERY engine dependant for idle and cruise characteristics and if you don't get them right, they just won't be happy on the street. Once right though, they'll give you great street characteristics, 18-20 MPG in my car, and a full 800 CFM of flow with the proper Air Fuel ratios for those full throttle blasts on the track. I'm happy and fortunate to a have such a capable friend willing to help with this project and I can't wait to get it back running again with this new setup. My steering column will get here tomorrow so on Saturday I can reinstall it in the car and begin fabbing up the seat mounts to get the new Recaro seats in the correct position. Then when the carb gets here next week I'll finish up wiring the MSD, bolt the carb on and see if she makes heat once again. Then it's off to the fab shop for the roll bar install. |
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