Looks like you had a good day with the car and man does that look like FUN.
Do you have a roll cage in the car? Any plans for upgrading the seats? Looks like there is a lot of movement with the g's.
Thanks for sharing ..... that's cool to run your car like it was meant to!
Michael
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash68
Sounds like one of those great days Chad.
Doesn't get much better than those numbers.
Agreed. Time for Chad to think about bringing the safety features up to snuff with the performance I'd say.
150mph is no joke...
yeah you guys got me. I've had safety upgrades in mind for over a year but have chased sorting issues instead. I'm also like many who did all the go fast goodies first and then realized I should spend some time and money on safety too..
So plans include:
- 4 point roll bar with possibly door bars. No cage as I will street this thing without a helmet a lot.
- Fixed back seat for track days (leaning towards a containment seat too)
- 5 point harness
- Fire suppression system
I need to figure out what roll bar to go with and/or a shop to do one custom. I once upon a time figured Brett would do it but he has an overfull plate as it is. I want to figure out the bar and shop first and then build the rest around it.
Here is my track day report from Willow Springs Sunday 11/30. Two track days in within 8 days. I could get used to this!!
Because of the Thanksgiving weekend this past event had a lower turnout and the track organizer Extreme Speed Track Events kept a discounted price right through Saturday. After flying home from Thanksgiving I was able to do a tech inspection on the Camaro Saturday afternoon and still sign up afterwards for Sunday.
While still nervous about the need to do some saftey upgrades I have to say I was also excited as this was the first time I was going to be running a track I've run previously with my old V2.0 setup. I have Harry's Lap Timer data from my previous session in 2011 and yesterdays so I could do some fun comparisons beyond just lap times.
I drove the 120 miles from home up to Willow Springs early Sunday morning. Before booking the day I had checked the weather in Rosamond and saw it was going to be clear and didn't think anything else of it. However, on the way up there I drove about 20 miles through some mild rain. Feeling pretty good I jinxed myself twice over by bragging on Facebook that I not only drove my car to the track but drove it through a rainstorm. So of course The first session on track saw the rain start and by session two it was wet enough that after a couple of laps I came back into the pits. 600hp is damn scary on frozen tires that are wet!!! Thankfully I got three dry sessions in during the afternoon. However, the second jinx of bragging about driving in the rain getting there is that on the way home it rained 110 out of 120 miles home and about 80 of that was hardcore downpour in traffic. ugh! Another safety upgrade is in order. Actually install the wiring to my DSE wiper motor...
My previous best lap time at Big Willow was a 1:44 so I was hoping to break into the 1:3X's. I'm glad to report that I improved my time nicely by running several 1:40's but the 1:3X's escaped me. I even ran the 5th session (I usually leave exhausted before then) but it was so late in the day that the sun was blinding me in Turn 1, 2 and 9 (scary place to get blinded) so the 1:3X's will have to wait until next time.
Also, now that the car is capable of sustaining 1+g's in the turns the lack of a secure seat and belts is really starting to show. Not only is it harder to judge handling in a corner but it's plain hard to hang on. I did a mild strain in my lower back and today the list of sore muscles from hanging on and bracing myself include: forearms, neck, lower back, lats on the right side, and thighs (bracing against door and trans tunnel). Now this is partially exasperated by the fact that the left bolster on my seat bottom was broken at the Suspension Challenge a few months back and I need to get the frame re-welded.
Anyhow. for $95 bucks I got to run over 40 timed laps and drove over 120 miles on the road course. Track days are certainly harder on your car than an autocross but for $ per time in the seat it can be a helluva deal!
Here is some video from my fastest session. I made this one longer as it has some fun laps with the lap traffic and several of my 1:40 laps.
Also, Some cool data from my best yesterday with V3.0 and my best lap 3 years ago with the V2.0 setup.
Yesterday's lap.
And my old personal best:
A couple of observations I had:
1) My old setup used a GPS device with a lower update frequency so that is why the G meter bars are different between the two.
2) yellow shading is 0.75+ sustained g's and red is 1.0+ sustained g's
3) The corner speeds are the lowest speed at any point through a corner and are a bit misleading IMO as the average speed through the whole corner was much higher with the V3.0 TCI, Ridetech and larger tires.
4) The red/green lines that follow the track show acceleration/balanced throttle (green) and deceleration/braking (red). You can see with V3.0 that I shortened the deceleration/braking zones significantly in almost every area of the track. And there is a lot more to go!
5) Big Willow is a high HP track and my higher power certainly helped a lot but I was exiting corners with much higher exit speeds too.
I continue to be very impressed with the capabilities of the new suspension. I only had the car push on one corner mid turn. This weekend I realized that I'm a little unsettled by driving a car with no/very little under steer. The lack of under steer combined with a huge improvement in handling has made finding the edge in a corner a lot more scary because it is so much further away now.
I began to experiment more with the car setup this weekend by making some minor shock changes. Overall, in addition to the needed safety upgrades I learned that I have mild pad knock back if I do two or more 1.0+ G corners back to back without braking as well as the fact that I have too much rear brake bias. So a new adapter and likely master cylinder are getting added to the to do list (to help with the bias, no plans for the knock back just yet).
Oh and I'm really glad this happened 20 miles from home instead of at 130+ mph! Two high speed weekends in a row have revealed the shortcomings of this hood latch weld.
Can't wait to get some of the upgrades made and keep going. I jumped on a black Friday deal with Extreme and bought 8 track days good for any track they run at for $400. $50 a day to run at Buttonwillow or Auto Club, hell any SoCal track is a sweet deal!
I've done searches on this forum, google, etc. As no clear winner emerged I wanted to throw my own question out there.
I'm looking for a shop to do a 6/8 point roll bar in my 68 Camaro. Quite honestly I prefer a shop that has significant experience working with cages for race cars. This is because I want someone familiar with sanctioning body requirements and true safety. Ron's thread has inspired me. In fact I got some recommendations from him on NorCal shops if I can't find someone local.
I want a shop that knows about things like annealing chromoly, mocking up a fixed back seat with appropriate attachment points to the roll bar, drivers head spacing, etc.
I've done searches on this forum, google, etc. As no clear winner emerged I wanted to throw my own question out there.
I'm looking for a shop to do a 6/8 point roll bar in my 68 Camaro. Quite honestly I prefer a shop that has significant experience working with cages for race cars. This is because I want someone familiar with sanctioning body requirements and true safety. Ron's thread has inspired me. In fact I got some recommendations from him on NorCal shops if I can't find someone local.
I want a shop that knows about things like annealing chromoly, mocking up a fixed back seat with appropriate attachment points to the roll bar, drivers head spacing, etc.
Please share any recommendations you have.
There is a shop just down the street from us that you should talk with. They do all kinds of metal fabrication but are very good with chromoly cages as well. They just finished a Nova with all of our stuff under it destined to run deep into the 10's in full street trim.
Mouse is the guy you want to talk to. (909)238-9347
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There is a shop just down the street from us that you should talk with. They do all kinds of metal fabrication but are very good with chromoly cages as well. They just finished a Nova with all of our stuff under it destined to run deep into the 10's in full street trim.
Mouse is the guy you want to talk to. (909)238-9347
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
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