RACING
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RACING |
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05/26/05We are a few months into the start of the season and still having fun. We recently rented Talladega Gran Prix (aka Little Talladega) along with 5 other cars and spent the day road racing. Faithful employee and machinist Lewis took his 74 Datsun 260Z to the track with a fresh set of slicks and well over 400rwhp (the actual number is a highly kept secret...) and we had a blast. Rain set in around 3pm so we installed the street tires and went out in the rain to practice our amateur wet track drifting.
Little Chris, Lewis and Shannon prepping the car - note the NICE Trans Am car ahead! - Lewis takes a lap. James Mehaffey brought his Limited Late Model down to the shop for some adjustments. It is indeed a very nice car and James has been qualifying very well and finished as good as 3rd after just a few races in the car.
Pro Turd (my 86 Mustang) has only made a few trips down the runway this season. We've been very busy, thanks. The car is still running 8.3's with 60' times in the 1.82-1.84 range now that we have a mini spool in there. Of course I just changed my mind and I am rebuilding the rear end with a full spool, 4.56 gear, c-clip eliminators and Moser 5 lug 31 spline axles. For those who haven't followed along, the car is running a 302 I built with leftover and Ebay parts just to see what we could do that would be reliable and fast on a cheap budget. We have some 1970 302 heads that I put Chevy 1.94 / 1.50 valves in and did a bowl blend, a used set of .030 over TRW flat top pistons I got from a core engine, stock 302 rods with ARP bolts, a stock crank, hydraulic roller cam (218/224 @ .050 on a 110LSA) with some used hyd roller lifters, Crane Energizer roller rockers, an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, and a 650 double pumper carb. With a cheapie B&M 3000 stall converter and a C4 the car made a whopping 203rwhp on my friend's Mustang Dyno. The car weighed in at 3000lbs exactly without the driver on the scales. As a comparison, most late model LS1 Camaros are running 8.5-6's in the 1/8th mile. Just goes to show you that you CAN build a cheap car that will outrun an expensive car.
For the third year in a row the Pro Turd hit the track at the NMRA Finals in Beech Bend, KY. And for the third time in a row we piddled around with it up until the last minute and barely got the car running again the night before the races. In an effort to speed things up a bit, and with an extra Sunday afternoon with nothing to do, we proceeded to rip out the entire interior of the Mustang. This included every inch of of wiring and dash as well. I figure we lost at least 150#. We rewired it with a minimal amount of switches and fuses and installed an aluminum dash and a new set of gauges. After pulling the back seats we also had to install a rear firewall as we had relocated the battery to the trunk. The process was very fulfilling as I was disgusted with the way the previous owner had installed a rats nest of wires tapping in here and there for accessories that were no longer even in the car. While we were at it, we figured we may as well change the gear from a 4.10 to a 4.56. Of course that lead to the inevitable upgrading of the whole rear end. We got a deal from a friend to get his Mark Williams 31 spline axles and welded up rear end housing in exchange for a little work and we also converted it over to a spool and installed C clip eliminators and disk brakes as well. Are you starting to understand now why it took us until the last second to get everything running again? So we continued on. The new axles had the big mammer-jammer 5/8" wheel studs and a 5 bolt pattern which necessitated new wheels. After searching around we found that Center Line had the best deal on wheels and I was tired of looking at the same old Alumastars and ProLites on every other Mustang. For $135 a pop we got 15 x 4's up front and 15 x 8's in back. We immediately chucked them up in the mill to enlarge the stud holes and then they fit perfectly. We didn't have time to convert the front wheels to a 5 bolt pattern before the start of the races the next morning so we ran with a mix matched set of wheels. The car responded very well running a best ever 8.15, 8. 12 and finally breaking out with an 8.05 and clicking off a 1.77 60' time. This was on drag radials by the way. The best time there would convert to roughly a 12.63 in the 1/4 mile. Still not bad for just over 200 RWHP. After the weekend was over we managed to convert the front breaks to 5 luggers using rotors from a Ranger and clearancing the calipers just a little bit. The car is an '86 and as such has the smaller rotors and mounting points so everyone's suggestions for converting the front does not work. '87 was the first year of the larger rotors that all of the conversions are based on. Just a little heads up for you 86 and older fox body guys. 03/7/06We are back at the track again in '06 and having fun. We took 'Pro Turd' out for a little 1/4 mile test and tune last Sunday to see how she would do on the new track surface at Bowling Green. The track is very nice and by the time mid summer rolls around and the track has had a bunch of rubber put down and seasoned it should be one of the best hooking tracks in the southeast.After unloading and warming up the engine, I did my burnout and staged. Yellow - yellow - yellow - green - and we were off! A touch of tire spin got us a 1.955 60' time and we ran 8.18 at 86mph in the 1/8th and 12.80 in the 1/4 mile at 105.89mph. I was pretty pleased to see that the old math standard of 1/8 mile time multiplied by 1.57 to figure 1/4 mile time is fairly accurate. 8.18 x 1.57 = 12.84 estimated time to our actual 12.80. I had Shannon make a second pass and he came up with a similar 12.96. Time for the nitrous. Using a Nitrous Express adjustable plate system we jetted for 150hp and staged the car. I hit the button about 40 feet out and cranked out a 11.89 at 109 letting off the spray at about 1000 feet. The next run Shannon took the seat and layed into it running a 11.67 at 115mph! The poor engine was turning 6600rpm with the 4.56 gears and we had a touch of valve float at the top end and decided to call it a day. We were extremely pleased with the performance of old Pro Turd. We just couldn't believe that she went that fast with a bunch of used junk in there. I guess the next step is just hit it with the 250 shot and see if she holds... 04/17/06We have been working on several turbo motors lately including this Toyota 7MGTE in a Mitsubishi body. We are in the middle of installing a Haltech fuel and ignition control system on this car. Of course the power numbers and license plate number are top secret... (BTW, to our knowledge, this is the most powerful 7MGTE in the country)
We also had a turbo Mustang and Supra that made significant amounts of horsepower.
06/17/06We took the Pro Turd to Union Hill for the Tuesday night street car drags and it ran pretty well. After the last trip down the strip at Bowling Green we decided to drop the timing down as well as taking a little pinion angle out of the rear end and we were rewarded with a 7.23 at 95.5 mph. The 60 foot time was a 1.67 and was the best run of the night. We made 6 passes and the car varied quite a bit due to traction problems but we were happy that the car went fast and didn't break. Always a good thing.10/30/06For what would probably be our last outing of the year, as we have been booked up on weekends, we decided to take both the Pro Turd and Lewy's Chevy powered 260Z to the dragstrip on Sunday. As luck would have it, it turned out to be a beautiful day and every driver within 3 states showed up to Bowling Green. We waited four hours just to get two test passes in and packed in in after that without even waiting for the eliminations to start.The track was hooking and I ran my trusty drag radials while Lewis had installed his road racing slicks in hopes of getting some semblance of traction. With Shannon at the wheel of the Z and me driving the Turd, we lined and let them rip. I tree'd Shannon and ran a 1.75 60 foot to his 1.86 but he came on strong passing me just after half track. I saw him slow down in the last 150 feet (turns out he missed the 5th gear shift) and we cruised through the traps. The Turd ran its best ever 'motor' pass with a 12.491 at 106.64mph (7.91/86.65mph in the 1/8th) and the Z ran a 11.988 at 103.93mph(7.69/94.94mph in the 1/8th). For the next round I strapped in the big blue bottle and with a 200 shot at the ready we lined up again. This time I had Shannon and the Z covered easily. I waited about half a second before hitting the button and then felt the big hit of our old friend nitrous. The small delay in hitting the button cost me my chances of dipping into the 6's but I did run a 7.17 at 97.83mph in the 1/8th and let off about 1000' running an 11.53 at 107.4 in the 1/4 mile. Shannon had some tire spin and slowed to a 12.22 at 111.39 in the 1/4 mile. Besides the all day wait for two passes, we did have fun, ran our best times to date and got to watch a ton of Stockers and Super Stockers which is always cool. I don't know that the Pro Turd will be out again this fall as the tech guy gave me the stink-eye pretty bad for running an 11.5 with no cage. This fall the cage will go in and we will decide the next engine combination. 4/5/07Just a quick note that I'm interjecting to say that we DID make it to the Hot Rod Magazine Top Speed Challenge at the ECTA's Maxton AFB 'race track'. Well, it's really an old airplane strip from WWII but it works so be quiet. We took Lewy's Z car out and had a blast running a tech-limited 144mph.
10/30/07OK, it's been a long time since I've updated the 'racing' page and we have a few things to touch on. First, the Pro Turd is gone! And when I say gone, I don't mean there is some guy driving it down the road now I mean I sold it to a friend who completely removed everything from the car including the firewall, floor, front clip, etc and is making it a full tube chassis car. What is the new powerplant going to be? How about a 565 big block Chevy with mechanical fuel injection running a mix of alcohol and nitromethane! We have acquired the Merlin X aluminum block, CFE CNC ported 385cc runner heads, and a Mathew Dalton injection unit that used to be on one of Jerry Darien's A/Fuel cars. This should be an interesting project to say the least. We are expecting somewhere around 15-1700hp on 50% nitro. In a 2600lb car that should easily run high 4's in the 1/8th mile or low 7's in the 1/4 mile.We have had a great year as far as getting closer to our goal of joining the 200mph club in land speed racing. In March we took Lewis' little 240Z out to Maxton, NC for the Hot Rod Magazine Top Speed Challenge. The way the car was built they only tech'd us to run 135mph in the standing mile but we pushed that a little, running 144mph without getting booted. It gave us a taste for an entirely different kind of racing that we weren't used to. The land speed racing group represents a very diverse bunch of people who, in the end share a real love and comeraderie that is unparalleled.
Later on this summer we spend a good amount of our free time working on our entry for the 2007 Jegs Popular Hot Rodding Engine Masters Challenge. We were fortunate to pe chosen to participate again this year and we had a goal of improving our standing greatly from last year's 20th place finish. Ideally we wanted to finish in the top 10. We built a small block Chevy (that will be featured in a full writeup in Popular Hot Rodding in 2008) with 406 cubic inches. We were limited to 10.5:1 compression and a flat tappet camshaft and as in years past, our score was based on average torque plus average horsepower from 2500-6500rpm but this year it was divided by cubic inches to equalize different cubic inch combinations. We built a great engine. During our tuning pulls we were making 622hp and 559ft-lbs - enough to finish in 7th place. However, during the 3 scored pulls we lost power with each successive pull. We had thought that with our lean tuneup and detonation down low we had popped a head gasket. Upon later inspection we found that a tiny pinhole had opened up in one of the exhaust ports that allowed a small stream of water in the exhaust. Just enough to drop us down to 607hp and 544ft-lbs and our placing dropped to 12th. Disappointing that we lost power but still very pleased that we made a big improvement and finished much better that the previous year.
Two weeks after the Challenge we called upon our friend Chris Henderson to lend us his car for the weekend. We took our Challenge engine and dropped it in his 1959 Jaguar to head back out to Maxton for the final ECTA meet of the year. What a blast! After moving up in licensing, I made a pass at 169.5mph to kill the B/CGALT record by 20mph. Wew changed categoried to run against a larger engine class and my friend Shannon blew out the A/CGALT record by running 179.8mph in the standing mile. All that with the same 10.5:1 flat tappet cam 406 running against engines up to 500cid with solid roller cams and unlimited compression. We are now both B licensed which is good to run up to 200mph and that is our goal for the next year.
This site was last updated 12/26/07 |
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