1971 Firebird Build ("The Other Woman", a.k.a. Project "T.O.W.")

[carbuff]

Originally Posted by GregWeld

An unofficial "quote" --- "I ate at The Salt Lick last night... and man am I smokin' fast today!"

Love you man!

Actually, I ate at Babe's Fried Chicken that night, and dang it was good stuff! You have 2 choices: fried chicken or fried steak. Sides are family style, and good stuff! That place is always busy when the GG events come to town, so thankfully I got there early.

Originally Posted by GregWeld

SM Bryan Cope 71 Pontiac Firebird 72.474

Such a fun event, but I'm still a bit frustrated that I had 2 runs better than that which didn't count. My 70.8 was the blown stop, and the 71.6 was after the 3:30 cutoff for times on Saturday. Not sure why they stopped counting times after letting part of the group run, but it wouldn't matter as that wasn't quite enough to bump me up a spot anyway. That little Maverick was just a bit faster than me that day.

On a related note, I found out that the local Autocross group held a run at the Harris Hill raceway last weekend, the one that RTTA was held at. Looks like they were running the full course, but with cone obstacles set up to keep the speeds in check and a few slaloms as well. I'll definitely be hitting that event next time they do it!

[RussMurco]

Great job!!!
Was this your first event with this car?

[carbuff]

Thanx! Yes, it was my first show/competition/etc. I left home with about 400 miles on her and came back with about 850.

[RussMurco]

Fresh car, driver new to autocross AND the fresh car, barely broken in and still get's into the top ten in an event? That's a WIN all day long!

[68LS1]

Originally Posted by carbuff

Thanx! Yes, it was my first show/competition/etc. I left home with about 400 miles on her and came back with about 850.

Great job all round mate, got to be very happy.

[joerob727]

[QUOTE=carbuff;509264]

Actually, I ate at Babe's Fried Chicken that night, and dang it was good stuff! You have 2 choices: fried chicken or fried steak. Sides are family style, and good stuff! That place is always busy when the GG events come to town, so thankfully I got there early.

[QUOTE]

Little known secret (not after this post I'm afraid) Babe's does take out! We call in a big a$$ order and then draw straws to see who makes the run (helps if straws are drawn B-4 cold beverages are passed out). Then hang out in the RV campground and dine by the romantic glow of tail lights.

It was great meeting you and checking out T.O.W. this weekend. Missed you on Sunday but it was great watching you run Friday and Saturday. Not sure what I enjoyed more watching you run or checking your car out in the paddock. I fully expect to see you at or near the top of the leader board next year as you two get better acquainted.

Good luck at Harris Hill road, I'll have to keep an eye out for you at local events.

Joe

[carbuff]

Originally Posted by joerob727

Little known secret (not after this post I'm afraid) Babe's does take out! We call in a big a$$ order and then draw straws to see who makes the run (helps if straws are drawn B-4 cold beverages are passed out). Then hang out in the RV campground and dine by the romantic glow of tail lights.

Funny you say that. As I was waiting, I was noticing the people leaving with the big plastic bags full of food! Thankfully as a party of 1 my wait was short. Good stuff though!

Originally Posted by joerob727

It was great meeting you and checking out T.O.W. this weekend. Missed you on Sunday but it was great watching you run Friday and Saturday. Not sure what I enjoyed more watching you run or checking your car out in the paddock. I fully expect to see you at or near the top of the leader board next year as you two get better acquainted.

Good luck at Harris Hill road, I'll have to keep an eye out for you at local events.

Joe

Thanx! Good to meet you as well... I ended up hitting the road early Sunday morning to get back to Austin before the traffic on 35 got busy, so I didn't get to the track. With the leaking PS rack, I didn't want to take any chances, but I hated not to come back out!

Turns out that Spokes, the local auto-cross club, was running one of there 2 annual events at H2R while we were in Fort Worth. Looks like it was a good course, so I definitely want to do that in the future.

Look forward to catching up again in FW next year!

[carbuff]

Thanx to Ridetech, TOW was weighed this weekend. Here are the results. Pretty well balanced for setting the ride height with a tape measure! Credit goes to Eric for the setup, I just sat in the car while he did the measuring.

[carbuff]

TOW got a new steering rack yesterday. I took her over to Eric's shop and dropped the pan under the spoiler/rack. We scratched our heads for a while because I had added RedLine synthetic PS fluid when we put everything together, but the fluid on the pan was green. It looked like motor oil, but there was none to be found coming from the engine.

Then I pulled a boot off of one end of the rack. After almost being doused by fluid, it was then obvious that the rack was the problem. As best we could tell, the rack comes prefilled with a green fluid, and apparently there is a ton of it in there. I mean a TON! We must have dumped a gallon of the stuff on the floor during the swap. Everytime we thought we were done, out came more.

The swap went smoothly for the most part (fluid spills notwithstanding). To get the rack out on the JRS subframe you have to remove the front LCA support, which just adds some extra time. And it's a bit harder to get to the steering u-joints with the front sheetmetal in place. But I got it done. This job took about 2x as long as I expected, so we were in a bit of a hurry to get the toe set, but we got it close enough and I drove her home. I'll get her to a shop for an alignment this week, and we should be good to drive for a while.

It's still a bit of a mystery why/how this rack failed. I did add some turn restrictors to the rack to keep the wheels from hitting the LCA's, but I cannot see why that would have caused any issues. It looks like they just bottom out against a solid metal flange. Hopefully this won't happen again in the near future! If so, I'll have to look at the PS pump. I do have a volume restrictor in there (from Wegner), so it is supposed to be balanced to the rack I'm using.

Most everything else looks pretty good under the car. We may have a small leak on the rear end housing, but it was hard to tell if it was fluid that blew back from the PS rack or not. I cleaned it all up and will check it again after a few more miles.

[glassman]

Thought so. Most likely a defective/poorly installed seal from the factory. Just another gremlin in our 2nd gens. I heard they dont have these problems on 1st gen's lol.....

Seriously though, glad you got it takin care of and just the loss of a 1/2 day or so and shes up and runnin.

Now go drive that baby the way she wants too!!!! Till the next thing breaks,

I plan on breakin sh$t for the next couple of years and just weedin out the bad stuff....

What was the inch of your steering wheel? 14 or 15?

Mike