Thread: Hello from an old member

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Hey Pel. Good to see your update ( thanks for that) and it sounds great. Can't wait to see it at the track.

wow Nice video!

Pel, that's awesome! Those blue flames looked so cool.....

I have been grabbing the odd hour or two at the shop on my way home from work every few days. The Zoomies are almost ready now. Total cheap home build with me saving a lot of money doing it myself this time around. The stainless steel zoomies on my old Rover V8 ended up costing £600. This time I'm making my own Zoomies in mild steel. So far its only cost £120 all in. I cant wait to hear the engine run with the shorty pipes fitted..

Hey Pel great to hear an update!

More weeks have passed and more has been done
I really enjoyed making the Zoomies. It took 7 hours to make the first set. Then once I had learnt by mistakes, the other side took 2 hours !!
Modified prop shaft now fitted.
Exhaust finished (apart from no Lambda bungs yet) and Zoomie wrapped in heat tape.
Today I spent 2 hours making sure that pedal to the metal = 8 fully open flaps.
I have fitted a external battery kill switch now. We bought a cheap Ebay hydraulic crimping tool to make off the battery cables and its great.
Not sure if I mentioned that I have removed the alternator and will run on batteries only now?
I fitted the Lexan rear screen. I fitted the lexan to the drivers door.
Fuel system in the back is all done and I now have an open ended AN10 line in the engine bay ready to adapt to twin 3/8" card lines.
I know AN10 seems too big. But it will eventually feed a 500hp nitrous system up the front end as well when I'm ready
The list of small jobs left to do is now way bigger than the original engine swap list. !!
So far so good and I'm happy with progress right now. But I have to take a break as i'm off to SF on Friday to see family for a couple of days, then off to Vegas for 5 days and then back to SF for a couple of days before we fly home. Then another 2 weekends of bliss in the workshop on the car while I figure out how to fit the wheelie bars ?
Regards to all. Pel

For some reason I cant post a picture from my laptop.

pel Gallery - Club Hot Rod Photo Gallery

SBC engine - Club Hot Rod Photo Gallery

SBC engine - Club Hot Rod Photo Gallery

That's looking really nice Pel!

WOW!!
Another 2 odd months have passed already.

A Quick (as I can) Update.

I got the engine fired up in the workshop.
I then fired it up several more times before taking it to the track for testing.
2 days on track saw me running the 1/4 but very slowly at 11.9 seconds?
Engine would not rev above 5000rpm on track. A video of these runs made the car sound like a twist N Go scooter despite the fact that I WAS changing gears.

I had another week of evenings in the shop with friends figuring out what I was doing with the MSD programming.
The instruction from MSD seem simple, but after talking to fellow racers who run the Digital 7 it became clear that I needed more training on wiring the MSD and programming it.

I had anoter Saturday at the track and we eventually figured out that the engine was stuck on the LAUNCH rev limiter for some reason. There was another 6 hours of debate with the crew and also a lot of re programming done. The problem seemed to point to the use of the trans brake button and the Launch Retard map.

So we arrived at an executive decision and re programmed the rev limits up to 12,000 rpm except the race rev limit / race retard curve.

I could free rev the engine to 7500. I could burnout at 7500. But when I left the line with a foot brake launch I was stuck again at 5000rpm for the whole pass.

So we then reprogrammed the launch retard map to the same as the race / run retard map. Nothing changed on the strip.

I then used the trans brake with the rpm limit set way high. This way I could hold the button in and then use my foot to bring launch rpm to 2000. When the light went green I let the button go and then planted my foot. This dropped the 11.9 down to 10.4 seconds.

So we now had the engine revving out as far as I wanted it to. I then tried again at 2500 rpm launch on the button. This time 10.3 seconds. The last run of the day was 3000rpm launch rpm and this brought in a 10.2 second pass.

I am slowly building up to a full trans brake launch in time. But I need to fit the wheelie bars asap. The new engine does seem to come alive at higher rpm. The timing tickets show a lazy launch but with speed being gained quickly after the 1/8th mile.

I will experiment with launch rpm and also shift rpm next weekend. The best 10.2 second pass was with 130mph so we are getting somewhere now I think?

More to come after next weekends testing. She is starting to look better on track now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwIt...ature=youtu.be

I think I may have found the source of my steering vibration from watching that video again. When I rolled it out a few weeks back I had severe vibes through the steering. It was enough vibration to worry me. I realised that I had not had the new front runner tyres balanced. On this test day it was less severe, but still something there.
I think I will have them balanced again first. Then check the front dampers. Look at the front wheels after the launch ??

Originally Posted by pel

I think I may have found the source of my steering vibration from watching that video again. When I rolled it out a few weeks back I had severe vibes through the steering. It was enough vibration to worry me. I realised that I had not had the new front runner tyres balanced. On this test day it was less severe, but still something there.
I think I will have them balanced again first. Then check the front dampers. Look at the front wheels after the launch ??

I was just going to ask you if you felt a vibration.. I noticed the right front tire bounce at the 37 second mark in the vid. In any event, it's great to see it on the track again. What happened to the rear bumper?

Lots to tell about last weekend.
But I'm just in from an 18 hour callout and I'm pooped.

Car is off track until next season now. Lots learnt about tuning the SBC at the Mopar Nationals. Lots learnt about how aggressive the trans brake can be even at low rpm launches. Went home with a broken engine mount. And a HUGE list of things to do to the car for next year. I am now confident that this 383 motor on carbs only will give me a sub 9.6 pass next year and better.

My friend the track photographer did what he knows I like. Slo Mo vids from either side and the rear.

See the vids and see what you think?

Pel


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7mvCOKKu04&t=33s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Ny2h_czQw&t=44s

That's my Baby Boy in the Fire suit next to the Race Director on the start line

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F24pI44Zinc&t=4s

There is a real time vid somewhere of the red light pass. I will try to find it.

I recorded this Red Light pass from on my phone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Ke...ature=youtu.be