1985 Monte Carlo SS known as Barney

[SSLance]

Originally Posted by Ron Sutton

I take from the sailor language you hit a cone?

You looked good in the video, but your steering column looked like it was flexing quite a bit. When you get your good seats & belts in the car ... that hold you in place better ... that should go away.

Was it a pretty fast lap ?

Yeah, it was a real fast lap, about a half second faster than my previous run which was good enough for the class win that day. That cone cost 2 seconds negating the run. Worst part was, it wasn't even really necessary to be that close to it, I was just concentrating on setting up for the sweeper and misjudged how close I was to it.

[SSLance]

When I mentioned above that the car is still more capable than the driver, this is what I struggle with most...and it ties into pissing the tires off during a run.

My worst habit used to be overdriving into the corner,standing on the brakes too hard and entering the turn in part of the corner too hard on the brakes with the back end jacked up into the air and causing the car to be loose on turn in and roll thru. The millisecond that you start sliding the car is the moment you start loosing time until it stops sliding. I am much better at not doing this now, it is a rare problem.

What is more common is I'll enter the corner a bit on the easy side and brake a little too long and then mid-way through the roll thru zone my right foot says "GOING TO SLOW" and it'll hit the gas...which is wrong wrong wrong.

One of two things will result, either the car will take weight off the front tires where it is still needed and the car will push or it will spin the rear tires before the weight gets transferred back to them resulting in loose. Either way...huge amounts of time are lost waiting for the grip to come back and now my tires are pissed for the rest of the run.

I read driving books all of the time and generally the cornering advice is geared towards road courses, where you have 10 laps of practice during a 20 minute session to pick out your braking points, memorize visual cues, and practice the 10 or so important corners on the 2 minute lap track. All before your actual racing starts.

In autocross, especially SCCA autocross, you have 3 runs on a course you've never driven before, with 10-15 important corners during a 60 second lap to set your best time...and you are done. THIS IS HARD.

There is no time to set braking points, memorize visual cues, much less practice. You have to drive by feel and instinct. You have to know what your car is going to do before you dive into that corner and how it is going to come out the other side. Contrary to road racing, you generally do NOT make up time on the straights in autocross, you make up time carrying as much speed as you can through the corners. And the second you start sliding a tire is the second you start loosing time.

This is especially hard when for larger part of the 30+ years you've been driving...coming out of a corner with the rear tires spinning in a spirited powerslide was considered FUN!!!

[OLDFLM]

^^^ Great Post!!! ^^^

[GrabberGT]

Originally Posted by SSLance

....
This is especially hard when for larger part of the 30+ years you've been driving...coming out of a corner with the rear tires spinning in a spirited powerslide was considered FUN!!!

Now just hold on there one second... Are you saying I've been doing it wrong all this time and this is NOT fun?!?!

Good post.

[Ron Sutton]

Originally Posted by SSLance

My worst habit used to be overdriving into the corner,standing on the brakes too hard and entering the turn in part of the corner too hard on the brakes with the back end jacked up into the air and causing the car to be loose on turn in and roll thru. The millisecond that you start sliding the car is the moment you start loosing time until it stops sliding. I am much better at not doing this now, it is a rare problem.

What is more common is I'll enter the corner a bit on the easy side and brake a little too long and then mid-way through the roll thru zone my right foot says "GOING TO SLOW" and it'll hit the gas...which is wrong wrong wrong.
Yup yup yup ... it is wrong, wrong, wrong. But a VERY Common mistake by developing drivers.

One of two things will result, either the car will take weight off the front tires where it is still needed and the car will push or it will spin the rear tires before the weight gets transferred back to them resulting in loose. Either way...huge amounts of time are lost waiting for the grip to come back and now my tires are pissed for the rest of the run.

You have this figured out. Now you just need more practice driving in a little deeper, using a little less brake, letting her roll ... and repetition getting consistent at it. That is the fun part. Don't beat yourself up, just work on improving.

When I was developing young drivers climbing the ranks of the racing ladder, we never focused on results. Never. We never focused on winning or getting a top 3, etc. Never. We always focused on learning, improving & applying what they learned. And these kids won a ton of races against long time veteran racing adults.

The great part is you KNOW what to do. So this year just have fun focusing on improving & applying what you know. That's my 2¢.

[SSLance]

Took care of some little odds and ends this weekend on the car, some that had been needing attention for quite a while.

First up, ever since I switched to the Sick Speed Monte clutch pedal, I've had a gaping hole in my firewall...the initial hole for the John B pedal and then the adjustment to it for the Bernie Built pedal. I covered them up Sunday with a clutch rod boot that had been on my shelf for almost 2 years.



I then had to work on my pedals a bit. The powdercoat on the clutch pedal made it a bit sticky if the bolt was tightened down too tight, so by leaving the bolt a tad loose it let the brake pedal swing over and just kiss the clutch pedal sometimes if not pushed straight down. I shortened the head of the bolt that holds the clutch master rod to the pedal and then sanded on the clutch pedal swivel to make it fit the inner sleeve better allowing the bolt to be fully tightened down. This tightened up both the clutch and brake pedal and botho move smoothly now without touching each other. I then hung the pedals back in place.


Next up was the bracket to mount the coil in this position under the dash.



Wasn't a big deal and I think it turned out fine. No pics of finished bracket yet though.

My friend John also helped make up a couple of coil wires to help finish up the coil install before he started on the brackets to mount the new seats.


Packaging the seats in place is proving to be a challenge. We've got a good start on them and have a plan in place, we just need to raise the back mounts up another inch and then adjust everything once again for driver comfort. I'm super glad that I decided to have the tilt column rebuilt (which turned out beautiful BTW) as it looks like I'll need the steering wheel adjustability to get the driver comfort dialed in.

Mainly I'm running out of room for my left elbow with the seat in "racing position". The side bolster of the seat and armrest on the door panel leave little room for my elbow so we had to raise the front of the seat bottom, tilting the seat back back...allowing my feet to be closer to the pedals but leaving more room for my arms to flail about during spirited driving. With the seat in this position, I have to tilt the wheel down for a comfortable grip and tilting it up for entering and exiting the seat will be necessary.

This is still a work in progress but at least I've sat in the seats bolted to the car and I know they fit within the area allowed. Fortunately the Recaro sliders allow for a TON of adjustability for and aft on both sides and we should be able to get things mounted in a permanent position on both sides that serves the intended purpose and will allow different size drivers and passengers to make themselves pretty comfortable.

Now I have to tackle the MSD box wiring once again to rearrange things since the coil was moved inside as well as bolt the carb back down and tidy up under the hood. I've ordered a new electric fan harness from Harnessworx to clean up that area as my homebuilt harness had some issues. Figured now is as good of a time to clean that up. Some other little odds and ends need accomplished as well, like making this throttle cable bracket play nice with my intake manifold.



Just little time consuming things... To be continued...

[SSLance]

Pretty good progress this weekend, lotta little things tidied up.

Here's the seats, sorry for the crappy pics.







Man, the camera really shows how dirty the carpet is right now...

I'm pretty happy with the location and fit so far. Still have room to tweak the position around a bit if needed, might tilt the driver's back a bit more...we'll see once I drive it.

Modified throttle cable bracket works...



My new harness for the electric fans gets delivered today. Installing it along with wiring up the MSD box and put the passenger inner fender back in with battery and should be close to test firing it.

[65_LS1_T56]

Lance, sorry the seats don't fit. I guess you'll have to send them to me after all. You need my address?



, looks great. Nice job!

[SSLance]

You are first on the list if I decide I can't make them work Aaron.

They are okay, not as bad as a lot of the seats I sat in at PRI but not quite as good shoulder wise for me as the large Cobra seats that were my pick as I left PRI. They might end up being okay once I get harnesses and get used to them.

[WSSix]

Congrats on the good progress, Lance.