We would like to hear some opinions from you car guys on Hooley's car that we ran last year. Due to oiling problems we only got to make four runs on the car, so Hooley (driver/owner/builder) didn't get a lot of seat time to really feel the car out.
He made three licensing passes of 127, 173 and 191. The first two passes he said were a piece of cake. On the 191 run he felt the car move aroung a little, but didn't really have to correct at all. On the second and 3rd passes we lost oil pressure at the end of the runs due to the fact we were pumping it all up top and it was returning fast enough. Hopefully we have that problem fixed for next year.
Because of the oiling problem we decided on the 4th run (on the long course) to just run through the 3rd mile and shut it off. He ran a 198 in the first 1/4 of the third mile and averaged 207.485 for the whole 3rd mile and I figure his exit speed was about 218-219. Again on this run the car hunted a little, but didn't really require any steering input to keep it straight. Hooley did say that something seemed a little strange in the back, maybe like it was getting a little light. The problem was he was at speed for such a short period of time and this was the first time he ever went this fast so a lot was going on for him to take it all in. If we wouldn't of had the oiling problem and could of run through the 4th and 5th miles I think we would know more.
First some facts. The car with driver scales at only 2800 lbs. (pretty close to 50/50)and we see so many people adding ballast to their cars and wonder if we should, or if we only should if we run into a problem?
The car didn't have a belly pan, but he is now installing one and almost done. We don't know if this could make matters worst, better, or stay the same.
He has ladder bars and coilovers in the back. We are adding chains to the rear axle to limit how much the body can lift before it also has to lift the axle. Good idea or bad idea? Our feeling is that the coilovers are pushing up on the body and providing assistance to the air, which might also be creating a lifting effect to the body.
I put this picture in to kind of give you an idea of the car and how it sits from the side view for comparison to the rake of the car in the next picture.
This is about the only picture we have of the car at speed except for some video that isn't that good. To me it looks like the car is lifting some in the rear in comparison to the picture before this one. We belive this picture was taken on the 2nd run and the car was running about 175 if that was the case. Also if that was the case we still had our big 28 inch tires on the front at that point and our small 24 inch tires on the back, which should have made the back lower yet.
Here is a picture of the back spoiler. We have it raised a little and it has some adjustment, but we really don't know what we are doing with it and what we should be looking for.
So even though the car ran fast and stable we hope to run in the 235 to 240 mph range next year and want to do everything we can to make the car as safe and stable as possible.
So any comments on ballast, chaining the rear, belly pan, rear spoiler and anything else you could help us with would be greatly appreciated.
You can read more about the runs and see more pictures to compare on the link below.
Thanks in advace for any help,
Sum
207 mph with Hooley