A Racing Dog

Here’s a copy of what one of the split reports from myLaps looks like. Good stuff and worth the price of owning a transponder for the info.  Right click on the pic and choose “view image” and you’ll be able to see it full size and easier to read.

With the 4th round of the NASCAR Whelan All American Series for the LVMS Bullring Bombers is in the books.  Opps, race 4.  Sorry to go all road race on you.  Things are coming together, slowly but surely.  (Don’t call me Shirley)  It’s the first outing where I wasn’t chasing problems or run out of gas.   Except for my transponder.  It may be a mounting issue but it’s not being picked up at the stripe on every lap.  It’s time to have it checked but based on my former dealings with AMB I’d rather have a root canal.  Without anesthetic.

I should have been 10th though I’m scored as 12th.  A solid run and a a good fight for 9th but around lap 17 the 18 car was lapping us and hit me upsetting the car and that was enough the 10 car got by.  I just couldn’t catch him after that.  I’d developed a wicked snap lose on exit that really upsets the balance of the car.  As I exit and hit the straight there is so much bind (and squeal) in the tires that when it unloads it fidgets violently.  I’d used up my brakes and tires and that’s all there was.

At the beginning of the stints I can hit low to mid 21s.  That’s still about  a sec and a half from the pointy end of the grid but it’s an improvement.  It appears I’ve sorted my tire pressures but other handling elements need lots of work.  As does the horsepower.    But at least it’s to the point where the reliability is not a factor in finishing races.  I’m over driving the car a bunch and it’s more luck than skill that I haven’t stuffed it into the wall or another car.  At the end of the stint 20 laps or so it feels like a handful and much slower, but in reality only the consistency is gone.  Some of the times are still within a 10th or so but not consisently.  It’s bad enough at 20 laps or so that I wouldn’t let a suicide bomber drive it.

The next outing for the #60 Bomber will be race after next, June 19th.  No test on that date and missing June 5th race.  Then the break.  I need to get the rear end tamed and sort out the out of kilter front.  Feels better but need more.

Back to the week before the race.  I took most of the last few weeks off to work ion the house, relax and think about what I was going to do with the program for the rest of the season.  The start of the season, well the last two seasons have been harsh.  The season seemed to start off strong but a series of somewhat costly mistakes on the equipment took a toll on not only the budget but my patience.  My initial thought was to retreat back to the shop and do all the work on the car I think I need then to come back out at the start of the second half of the season.  I ran that by Amber and she thought that since I budgeted to race and test a certain amount of days, that’s what I should do even with the wedding and all rapidly approaching.  She’s the best.

The best thing about being a MyLaps member is that you can compare your lap times with those in the race.  It’s not as cool as telemetry, which I’ve become addicted to over the last decade but it’s better than a score sheet or stopwatch alone.   I’ve got the potential in the car right now to run mid pack if I can keep it consistent and work on my starts and restarts.  They’re awful.  I’m losing a couple of seconds on them.  That’s the big place for improvement.  With the next four cars up or so I can run as fast, sometimes faster but the starts are killing me.  I’m still a couple of seconds from the pointy end of the grid.  Armed with that data I decided that rather than equipment that seat time was more important.  In 14 month I don’t think I’ve done 100 laps.  Pathetic.  It’s not the time to build cars, it’s time to drive them even if they aren’t quite what I’d like.

First up replacing the exhaust that was torn off last time we loaded for the track.   A trip to pickup some tubing and fittings and we were off.

The cat was still on the car though it had been gutted.  I had to cut the cat from the down tube and weld a new adapter.  I then got the lengths I needed, It’s a bitch to find anything over a few feet long.

With all that in place in a half  hour or so I was good to go.  The aluminized tubing needs to have the aluminum ground off on the outside and honed off on the inside for the best welds.  then on the car, a bit of a bracket fab and we’re good to go.

The hot start issue is one that has been plaguing me since last year.  It’s well known in the GMs with crossover exhausts.  I remote mounted the solenoid and that help and got a high power jump box and that helped but I was still having some problems.  I added a ground wire, AWG #2 to the lug nearest the starter and we’ll see if that helps.  I was going to re route the exhaust on that side but that will require some floor pan mods that I don’t want to do right now.

The brakes have been the biggest bitch so far.  The rears need constant attention and will require a rebuilt in the near future.  I’ve replaced a few more leaky fittings and need to come up with a fix for a leaky proportioning valve over the weekend.  I’m likely to replace the fittings and line as that GM OEM proportioning valve is no longer available.  The fronts are air tight but the stock pads are less than desirable.  I had Hawk Blacks in then we had an issue with a caliper that wasn’t caught in time.  The caliper some how spit out a pad.  With the near grand in mistakes and over runs so far another set of Hawks isn’t quite doable yet and keep in budget.  The stock pads just get punished and can’t take the heat.  Castrol LMA which is usually a good alternative to racing brake fluid (and a bit difficult to source here in the valley) is still boiling.

A shake down around Bristol Park this afternoon proved fruitful if nothing else to know the issues with the trans seemed to be solved.  It appears a vacuum leak was causing late, hard up shifts.  In a TH350 the kickdown doesn’t control the modulator like on the 200 or 700.    In fact I could run without if need be.

There are still several projects/improvements I want to make but right now it’s time for butt in the seat.