1985 Monte Carlo SS known as Barney

[DavidBoren]

The tapered bearing sounds like the best choice. However, if the tapered bearing does not fix the problem, are they just as easy and economical to replace? Can you convert back to the non-tapered bearing if you need or want to? The full floater and associated brake upgrades would be awesome and all, but it would also be awesome to just change to bearings that do not leak and break.

[Ron Sutton]

The floater rear end itself isn't expensive. A complete new Speedway Engineering 9" Ford floater rear end with bubs, bearings, axles, etc is $1295.

if someone is building from scratch, it is a no brainer. But Lance ... you'd need to get new suspension brackets to weld on or have Speedway weld them on ... and new rear brakes. So it starts to add up.

You still have some "credit" on the books ... so let me know ...

[Mizzouri]

Indeed it was an awesome weekend! Most of which I spent chasing your times.

Those new seats of yours are far far more comfortable than I could have guessed from the pictures. I could easily make those daily drivers. I really wish I had one in the TA.

I am really curious how Keith rebounds after getting his wheel bearing fixed and the new 1LE shocks thrown in before Topeka. Another 3 way fight...sounds like pure win to me!

Originally Posted by SSLance

This weekend all of the off season prep was put to the test. It's where the rubber meets the road as they say. Our local SCCA test n tune was Saturday, and our Event 1 was Sunday. Weather was perfect for Saturday, couldn't have been any better...Sunday...not so much. Huge thunderstorms and rain all morning long, we finally got our first car off a little after noon and the track dried pretty well, but was still cool and damp and the conditions made us have to improvise on the course making it much more choppy and technical with no high speed zones at all. But hey...it was still racing and that's better than not racing.

Here's my best run from yesterday taken from the GoPro behind the seats.



And here's the same run showing how well the new Recaro seats and Simpson belts are holding the driver in place.


Had a great weekend, car did great, driver did okay once the rust was shook off... Had a half second lead in class through 4 runs yesterday and on the 5th run Patrick picked up 7 tenths which is huge...and clipped me by a tenth for the class win.

We were about a tenth apart on Saturday as well at the test n tune. So much fun racing with someone right at the same speed you are...had a blast.

Here are a couple of runs from the test n tune on Saturday, was a much more open course...got well into the 5,000 RPM range where the new power kicked in several times during a run.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Great videos. Sounds like the car ran as usual.

That's cool that you had someone close to you that you could compare to.

I went racing Saturday too and the closest cars I had to compare to were 4 late model Mustangs and a C5 and a C6 corvette. The rest were little imports. Wish there were more PT cars in the Vegas area that would actually use their cars.

Bummer about the bearings, but it sounds like you've got it under control for now.

[SSLance]

Originally Posted by Mizzouri

Indeed it was an awesome weekend! Most of which I spent chasing your times.

I need to learn to quit giving you tips in grid between runs!!

Originally Posted by Ben@SpeedTech

Great videos. Sounds like the car ran as usual.

That's cool that you had someone close to you that you could compare to.

I went racing Saturday too and the closest cars I had to compare to were 4 late model Mustangs and a C5 and a C6 corvette. The rest were little imports. Wish there were more PT cars in the Vegas area that would actually use their cars.

Bummer about the bearings, but it sounds like you've got it under control for now.

Nothing wrong with comparing yourself to the little imports, I love beating them too...

Sunday's Event 1 raw time results

http://www.kcrscca.org/results/solo/...event1_raw.htm

And by class showing each individual run time

http://www.kcrscca.org/results/solo/...event1_fin.htm

Ordered the new axles with tapered bearing setup yesterday, hopefully get them in and installed before the next event. I'd probably race on these one more time, but our next event is in Topeka and it's an 80 mile drive each way and a two day event...they won't last that whole weekend for sure.

[fleetus macmullitz]

Lance,

Very cool to see these new updates and how far your SS has come since you started tastin' that Sutton secret sauce.

[SSLance]

Thanks...it's been one heck of a journey. The car is SO much fun to drive...everyone seems to love riding in it also.

[SSLance]

Okay, lets hope these do the trick...







They aren't exactly as I pictured them to be in my mind...but I think they should just slide into place exactly as the radial bearings did. We'll find out tonight. I'm glad to see the Timken stamp on them for sure.

[DavidBoren]

One would think that a tapered bearing would handle/distribute lateral stresses better, and the Moser/Timken combination hopefully will take the abuse.

I really hope that fixes it.

[SSLance]

5 point harnesses... #becauseracecar




Carpet... #becausestreetcar



Even fixed the horn button too.

I'm calling my offseason projects complete, and successful.