Nice view and great pics! I spent an hour in Phoenix traffic today, which may sound bad, but it is impressive how explosively the area is growing. Lots of new stuff and tons of new people probably amount to your property values improving as you age. That's a good result!
Nice view and great pics! I spent an hour in Phoenix traffic today, which may sound bad, but it is impressive how explosively the area is growing. Lots of new stuff and tons of new people probably amount to your property values improving as you age. That's a good result!
We've been out here for just over 2 years now and are still getting used to the hugeness of the area. It's crazy though because even though we are in a metro area with close to 5 million people living here this time of the year, 25 miles away you can get to scenic views and away from it all like above. Truly a special place.
__________________
Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
Last summer during our "off season" I made some significant changes to Barney, adding EFI to the SBC under the hood and making big changes to the rear suspension spring and bar rates. Both changes were meant to make the car not only more competitive on track, but also to make it more street friendly off the track.
It took some dialing in to make everything play nice together, not only a lot of street driving to dial the EFI in but several SCCA autocross events to dial the rear shocks and sway bars in to the new rear setup. I'm very happy with the results, Andrew helped a ton dialing the throttle response in and it is now buttery smooth in all instances and making great power every where. I also have the rear suspension dialed in so well that I have not touched a knob screw or bolt on the car since after the Sept 4th SCCA event.
Since then I drove the car to, raced, and drove home from:
A SCCA event Oct 13 (pax'd 13 out of 126)
A SCCA event Nov 3rd (pax'd 23rd out of 110)
A Good Guys weekend (missed top 32 shootout by .005s of a second)
And a SCCA event Dec 1 (pax'd 15th out of 108)
All with the exact same setup in a 3500# small tire car with 57% of the weight on the front tires. Results like this are attributed to all of those that have helped me learn how to tune as well as learn how to drive over the past bunch of years. This hobby is filled with people that continue to pay it forward and this is what makes it so rewarding for me. I only hope I can continue to pay it forward to others in the same manner. Hopefully this car can be a testament that one can run competitively with purpose built autocross cars in a not so prepped, front heavy, stick axle old muscle car as long as you take the time to dial it (and the driver) in properly and still have a ton of fun in the process.
Here is a video of my fastest run at the last SCCA event. It was a tough course with several painfully slow corners that my locker did NOT agree with...but we still came away with a pretty good result.
__________________
Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
Glad everything seems to be working out for you, both the car and the move, Lance. I know it's been two years, but that's a heck of a change from KCMO.
__________________
Trey
Current rides: 2000 BMW 540i/6 and 86 C10.
Former ride: 1979 Trans Am WS6: LT1/T56, Kore 3 C5/6 brakes, BMW 18in rims
Out of the blue I get an email from him couple days ago.
"I have a new tune for you to try. I completely reworked the fuel table and I changed the fueling strategy from speed density to VE based.
Load it up, drive it around, and let me know how it goes."
Oh My Goodness!!
He'd have to chime in with the mumbo jumbo of how and what he did, I only kind of "halfway" understand it. All I know is when I step on the loud pedal now, it goes MUCH faster!!!
I'd really like to strap this thing on a dyno now just to see not only the peak power it makes but also the curves and when it makes the power and where.
__________________
Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
The Following User Says Thank You to SSLance For This Useful Post:
Last summer during our "off season" I made some significant changes to Barney, adding EFI to the SBC under the hood and making big changes to the rear suspension spring and bar rates. Both changes were meant to make the car not only more competitive on track, but also to make it more street friendly off the track.
If I have been tracking your progression right, you were running a significantly stiffer than stock rear spring with a light rear bar. What did you change and why?
If I have been tracking your progression right, you were running a significantly stiffer than stock rear spring with a light rear bar. What did you change and why?
I ran 600# rear springs and no bar for several years. I went back to 250# rear springs and a fairly light rear bar over the summer on an effort to get more forward grip.
Especially at GGs style first gear courses, the car just spun the rear tires too much.
It now hooks up much better making for faster times and better tire life but I did have to adjust my driving to the loss of lateral grip.
__________________
Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
I ran 600# rear springs and no bar for several years. I went back to 250# rear springs and a fairly light rear bar over the summer on an effort to get more forward grip.
Especially at GGs style first gear courses, the car just spun the rear tires too much.
It now hooks up much better making for faster times and better tire life but I did have to adjust my driving to the loss of lateral grip.
Hmmmm. That's counter intuitive to me, softening the rear to get more front bite. Sounds like you lost overall bite and gained rear traction.
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
Hybrid Mode
