Winter Builds, Re Builds, Upgrades ?

[sabat]

Thx again gents. Im typing with one hand, guess whats in the other 

[redcatch]

Charles
I am 7 months into the conversion of the 88 Camaro {SCCA/SCCA hill Climb car} . Went to Bonneville last year and  was hooked. Engine will be ready in two weeks and the car is almost ready.  So new headers to fab and then to the Dyno.  Will run B/GALT this next year. Plan is to run all events at Maxton, N.H and one Texas. Set back and look at where we are and head west for Speed week and WOS in 2012. Changing a very competitive roadracer into a LSR was a challenge. I have piles of coolers and ducts and 100s of feet of braided lines that just are not needed. We had also run this puppy in open road races so there was a second seat and lots of navigation gear ,that had to come out. So there is a Petty bar where my Navigator used to sit and the Gurney flap is gone from the spoiler. The heads up display is gone and I would guess the spring rates are a little off. But scales and a tape will fix that once this engine is in. It has also been really interesting at how different a 400 inch road racing motor and a 400 inch LSR motor
are. My fuel cell went from 31 gallons to 3 and we did retain the old cell for a ballast tank. Something I picked up on real quick at the salt last year. I am still fussing with the oil system. I went back and read all the old reports I could find. I noticed that Keith had trouble pumping oil to the top of the motor and was suffering from a lost of pressure at the end of a mile in his 400. We have done some creative oil passage work and I plan on a 8 Quart pan with a 3 quart accumulator. I hope that will do the trick. I want to thank you again for the help on the chute. Bob Stroud was a really big help. I went with the spring launcher. I don't like it. I think the gas launcher would be better. I was trying to apply the KISS principle. I might change that after April. Other than the launcher he built me a chute just the same as yours. Copying is the highest form of flattery.

Bob Cox

[Cajun Kid]

Bob,

sounds like the conversion to LSR is coming along quite well.... You will like the spring launcher for the tracks with long shutdowns like Maxton and Loring (the Salt too) at Texas you may feel like a quicker deployment is needed, but I don't think you will need the air launcher.. Only seat time will tell.

Hope to see you in April,,,, if you need info or need to chat just drop me an email.

Charles

[geezer1]

Hello Bob,
We're running B/BGALT and B/BFALT with a 87 Firebird Bracket car. The aero aspects have been the big learning curve. Sounds like your trip to Utah has given you a leg up on getting ready for Maxton. If there is any additional info that we might help with, please give us a shout.
Have a great Christmas and we'll see you in NC.

Geo Turner

[bharmon77]

It looks like my Hayabusa powered H/FL will be ready for the first or second meet at Maxton in 2011. This is a new car that I have been working on since 2007. So I guess that makes it an old new car? It's different as lakesters go, it is a front engined car with a chopped Legends coupe body. It looks like a 5/8 scale comp. coupe. Stock Busa for now, turbo charged later. By the way I need a wiring harness modified for a car, can anyone help?

bharmon7077@yahoo.com

[Captthundarr]

Let the fun begin. Amy and I started the tear down of the camaro and were pleasantly surprised that there was no rot in the floors of the T-topped car. Shes doing the car while I go through the engine and trans. Racing seat and Roll cage are next to beat up on the wallet.
I would include some pic's ain't got it figured out how to do it on this site.

[Bootleggerjim]

Long ways to go !!

[Seldom Seen Slim]

That is cool-o-matic!  Looks like a fun car just for cruising in town.  But -- change it here and there for the Salt and it'll still be great, I betcha.  Happy Holidays.

[Bootleggerjim]

Thanks, the guys and I are gonna have some fun this year trying to make this thing run.....We really want to see what we can do with a little injected Nitro later on.....should be fun.....

[Dan Stokes]

Well -
The Buzz Bomb is STILL untouched since the engine fire, other than I got it off the trailer.  I'm going to install a fuel cell (it's sitting here in the office) and replumb the fuel system.  I think I have most of the electrical bits gathered up and I need to run the new fuel lines and so on before I'll know what I need for regulators, etc.

But a couple of roadblocks are in the way.  First of all, I'm still going to Florida every third month to take care of Mom.  This is good news, as it means that she's responding to chemo WAY better than anyone (including the docs) could have predicted in their wildest dreams.

Also, David Perris (Rack4U on Bangshift, sometime Maxton volunteer, and owner of the Sharpie Nova) found me a complete mezzanine kit for the shop.  So I've been to Columbus, Ohio in the past week and have a car trailer full of 4,660 lbs. of structural steel.  I REALLY have to get this erected and organize the shop with storage overhead and floor space reassigned to it's original purpose.  The shop has gotten to where it's almost unusable and "cleaning up" amounted to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

So the goal is to get the shop usable and the Buzz Bomb back in it's pre-fire condition, with improvements.  If there's ANY spare time I'll paint the Camaro, too.  Wish me luck!

Dan

[sailingadventure]

I`m in the middle of tearing my car down and getting the body ready for paint. Many parts will still need to be painted, plated, and powder coated and I still haven`t decided on the body colors and how the car will look when finished. A few more mechanical details still need to be worked out, but most of the problems have been solved. I`ve still got to build a trailer, but that shouldn`t be any problem. It just takes time and money, something most of us never seem to have enough of.

http://mccainautomotive.com/December2010.htm

[sabat]

I`m in the middle of tearing my car down and getting the body ready for paint. Many parts will still need to be painted, plated, and powder coated and I still haven`t decided on the body colors and how the car will look when finished. A few more mechanical details still need to be worked out, but most of the problems have been solved. I`ve still got to build a trailer, but that shouldn`t be any problem. It just takes time and money, something most of us never seem to have enough of.

http://mccainautomotive.com/December2010.htm

Beautiful work 

[sailingadventure]

Thanks!

[fastnlo]

Charles my 33 coupe is officially retired from racing after my trip to B'ville Speedweek and the Goodguys drag race at Bowling Green in Oct. (the car was a awarded the most nostalgic race car there!)  I ran 184.383 MPH at B'ville with one closed header valve (it showed open inside the car) and a best of 9.48 @ 138 MPH in the quarter.   It was also on the Gearz tv show this year!

The nice thing is I carried my wife to dinner in it (with the air on) the weekend I got back from B'ville!! I couldn't ask for the car to perform any better.

That said the 540 street motor is coming out (gas mileage is awful even with a 2.47 gear) and going into a model T coupe that I plan on bringing to Maxton to run in the street class. I'll put a hydraulic cammed 427 back in the 33 just to drive on the street and carry it to car shows and what not.

A word about B'ville, the racers are wonderful to help you and the inspectors were great but going there as a rookie with a new homebuilt car is not for the faint of heart, I made so many unessasary trips between all the registration trailers trying to figure out what I needed to do on top of the stress of worrying about the car passing inspection and being 1800 miles from home with a small crew on top of that. I burned a full tank of gas in a salt encrusted rental car pulling the coupe back and forth (changing jets) from the pits to the rookie course and getting signed off for each license that I was totally stressed at the end of each day!! It was a dream come true but sometimes fulfilling dreams can be overwhelming!!

One mistake I made is that my car was street legal and I wanted to drive it into Wendover to the car show on the weekend but I couldn't do that without going through inspection each time and that wasn't an option as that was a several hour ordeal.

Another point to make to B'ville rookies... the salt is SLICK and the wind will blow you around at speed!! (make your passes early if possible) My first pass at speed scared me to death when a gust of wind pushed the car over to the edge of the track in a moment and that's a whole lot less than a second!!  I had to get off the gas, steer the car back to the middle and hit the gas again!! Not fun!! You really have to be ready for anything!!! Luckily I grew up driving on gravel roads and that's what it was it like, driving on a gravel road at 180 MPH! Build big weight boxes in the right places and bring plenty of lead to hold your car down!!

That said about B'ville.... my experience at Maxton was a wonderful one, thank you Joe, Donna, Keith and Tonya for making it that way.  I won't be going back to B'ville.

Charles how fast do you think a model T coupe will go with a 540 in it? ha

Mike Warren
fastnlo

[SPARKY]

You may have had issues other than wind.  You may have had issues other than wind.
 No disrespect, you are one of many, myself included (my cars handling problems were well documented on this site) who find out that a car that handles fine on pavement has issues at B'ville or El M, like scrub radius or chassis flex.