My plan is to do a 4 point roll bar made out of 1.75" chromoly, the main bar base plates welded to the body bracing at the bottom of the B pillar, straight down bars to the area above the rear axle with plates welded to the floor again right above body bracing, a diagonal support bar through the main bar and harness bar intersecting that diagonal bar.
See the passenger side seat and armrest on the door in this picture?
The armrest is only an inch or so away from the side of the seat so if there are any door bars put in, they'll have to go below the armrest on the door panel and up the rocker a ways. that is a sturdy place on the body to weld too, but I'm not sure if the effort to put that bar in will be worthy in the long run.
This is still going to be a street car, I'm not pulling the door panels out to get door bars in that I'll have to crawl over to enter and exit the car. It is hard enough just crawling out of these seats to exit the car.
The bar, seats and harnesses will be built enough to let the car compete in any time trial, track day, solo trial and the rest of the events I plan on running. Only thing it won't be legal for is actual door to door racing which I don't plan on doing with it anyway.
__________________
Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
Lol! -Getting out of the seats is hard enough...
I once "climbed" into a friend's 84 Corvette that was getting set up for drag racing. Ugh. Getting out was a real challenge. The only way I'd do a cage like that is with slide out side bars.
I never really paid much attention to the tach when making spirited runs since the engine was so slow to accelerate from 4000-6000 RPM... Now I must pay much closer attention...
This morning I tidying up a few more things under the hood, marked the balancer and timing tab better and set the distributor at 32 degrees advanced and locked it down. I then hooked the vacuum gauge and laptop up and started messing with the timing retard curve. I was able to get it pretty dialed in I believe for now. I have to say, being able to grab a dot with my mouse, drag it across the screen and watch the engine change idle to the new setting is pretty effing cool. With it at 7 degrees advance, it idles at about 850 RPM and pulls 20 inches of vacuum.
The timing advance makes a linear line from 1000 RPM to 3000 RPM, 7 degrees at 1,000 to 32 degrees at 3,000 RPM. I believe it would like a little more timing as I could not get it to ping anywhere, anyhow during my test runs. My issue is, it appears that the box won't accept a timing retard curve of more than 25 degrees and I think it would like just a little bit less timing at idle. It's pretty dang good like it is though.
The carb is nuts on, Bob did a FANTASTIC job setting it up and dialing it in. I haven't touched a screw on it and it drives out perfectly. No nozzle drip, idles perfect, not a hint of a stumble anywhere, it just flat out runs.
I've taken the wideband back off for now because I haven't hard wired it in yet and I don't want the guys at the fab shop to worry about waiting for the O2 sensor to warm up each time they move the car around. Once I get it back I'll put the wideband back in and finish fine tuning both the carb and the timing, but it's plenty driveable as it sits now. Check it out.
I tilted the driver seat back one more notch and I like it. I think before I was trying to force myself back into the seat too much, if I just sit in it naturally, it feels pretty dang good. Even works real good with my factory 3 point belt.
Sorry Aaron...
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Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
Not right now Greg...It couldn't have felt more racecarish than it did yesterday...
I haven't touched a screw on the carb yet. I couldn't run any smoother than it does right now. I'd like it to idle just a bit lower still and would like to try a bit more timing on the top end, my guess is I'll have to start tweaking on the carb to get the idle down with the timing advanced at idle.
It runs so freaking good right now though I almost hate to mess with it. Can't believe a guy 1500 miles away built this carb for me basically from scratch and it runs this well straight out of the box with no tuning.
__________________
Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
Well, the roll bar builder put me off until this week, and then informed me that it'll take him up to two weeks to get it done once he starts on it...so I rearranged some things and got back onto tuning a bit more on the car.
I won't bore everyone with everything I've been through, but lets just say I now understand, timing advance, vacuum advance, and air fuel ratios MUCH better now and the car is working fantastic. Every change I've made to the car has only improved it more.
It's now idling at 9* advance and has a steady curve up until a total of 34* at 2800 RPM. The idle air bleeds in the carb are a little large so it's idling at 950 RPM which doesn't really affect anything although I'd like it to idle slower. Bob will fix that up as soon as I get a chance to ship the carb back to him for some fine tuning. For now though, it's golden. Air fuels are low to high 14s at cruise and idle and high 11s to low 12s at WOT. I really think it'll take even more timing as I have yet to hear it ping.
The power increase it has over before is tremendous, especially between 3000-6000 RPM and the driveability hasn't been affected whatsoever. I wouldn't be afraid to let my wife get in it and drive it anywhere.
Being able to time and tune it by watching gauges and computers and making adjustments with a flick of the mouse is COOL! When the car had a stumble at low RPM cruise, one glance at the AFR and vacuum gauge told me it was loading up with fuel. Adding just a bit of timing at that RPM range cleared it right up.
Can't wait to get this thing back on a dyno now to see just how much more it makes, might happen this Tuesday if all goes well.
__________________
Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
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