Thread: Hello from an old member

Tweet

RESULT!

I have found a tuner only 80 miles from home who will be happy to put the car on his Hub Dyno with Zoomies fitted. ??

That will be very helpful for next year when the car is ready to roll again.

I am quite happy with the tune I already have in the engine but the tune is best guessing at this time. Being able to have the engine dyno tuned will be great.

I am backed up with work 7 days a week until the end of October now so I will leave some gaps for November from now on. This guy isn't cheap at around $800 per day. But he is willing to tune me nasp on pump gas and then re tune with another map for 116 octane race fuel. I think this will save me many weekends of self testing on track next year and will give me a jump on time for 2020 to make sure I can be back out as soon as possible next season?

2 thoughts... 800 bucks? OUCH! If saving the time/days is a better value for you, go for it! But think of the many passes you'll miss! LOL...

My other thought is you better get some wheelie bars under her! From the videos I've seen you're going to crush the front end in short order. my point oh two/ imho, fwiw... ymmv! LOL.

Nice to see you making progress with it out on the track. Yeah, wheelie bars or wheels on the roof are in order. Have you checked the wheels for run out? Maybe the tires are just out of round for setting for so long? I've had several bias ply tires do that to me when they sat for long periods of time with weight on them and no movement.

Hi Guys!!
The wheelie bars and the Chute have been in the workshop for nearly 2 years I think

The tyres seem to have settled down now. The red light pass was the last of I think 12 test passes over 3 weeks. Although the runs weren't as quick as they used to be. Everyone was around 125-130mph with hard braking. As I had fitted new brakes I was on and off the pedal to slow down to bed them in. I cant see any obvious run out on the tyres or rims. But when it comes back into the shop I will put the fronts on the wheel balancer to check properly. I'm lucky to have got away with just a little damage to the engine mount.
Pel

Yo!!
New engine mounts now fitted after many delays

Side block mounts now hold / secure the engine to the chassis rails. I am also fitting a mount from the (UK) drivers side head to the chassis. I already have front and rear steady bars from the (UK) passenger side head to the bulkhead and front inner fender. Gearbox tail has been raised 20mm as well.

It has certainly been interesting to get these side motor mounts made and fitted in situ I must say. Very little room to work with from above and below. They are not very pretty. But they are strong and will work just fine. I will get some pics on Sunday hopefully.

Regards to all

Pel

Good to see you Pel. Motor Mounts you say???? On the side you say???? yes, pics will be required! LOL.

Hi Folks!

By side engine mounts, I mean that I have used the three lugs on the side of the block where the stock mounts should be!

I could not remove the engine because I would have no idea where to fit the new mounts to the chassis. So I lifted the engine a little and put timber under the oil pan so the engine would be supported on the crossmember. Then I had to slowly measure up and fettle metal to make the mounts before final fitting. I stole the main triangular plates from my friends Volvo / SBC conversion that is sitting in the back lot behind the shop. I'm sure he wont notice until next year !!

Then I made up a base plate to weld on top of the original chassis rail. Then I made up all of the other parts by measuring and filing and grinding until stuff seemed to fit. Then I tacked it up for many trial fitting sessions until I got it all to fit. It was difficult as I had to work above and below, so the 4 post lift was up and down many, many times over several weeks when I had time to work on the car.

Eventually I got to fully weld all the parts in place. Its not very pretty, but it will do the job for sure.

Wheelie bar fitting now under way!

Happy New Year to all!
I don't normally say HNY after January. But you guys are a special case

I got the wheelie bars fitted after some fettling. I made sure I levelled the ramp and that the floor behind was level. Before I fitted the bars I made changes to the slapper bar rubbers. The videos I have seen show the bars rolling upwards quite a lot. I have now made perches for the rubbers to sit on so they are 2" higher at rest. When the car is on the floor, the rubbers are slightly compressed now. The rear end can be bounced up and down on the springs so it still has suspension. I can also use the safety hoops over the springs to add more tension as required.
These are the hoops / large U bolts that I fitted to limit downward travel of the slapper bars so they could not hit the ground if such a condition occurred. This has also reduced the pinion angle between drive shaft and differential when the car is on the floor under its own weight.

I will say now that I have scanned the internet for any info I can find with regards to wheelie bars on leaf spring rear ends. I wasn't able to find much that was specific to my application, but I did gather enough info to help me on my way.

So I pre tensioned the slapper bars to try and simulate axle wind up on launch and then fitted the wheelie bars set to their lowest setting re wheel height after first raising the front of the car until the front suspension had unloaded with around 4" of air under the front tyres in an attempt to simulate launch conditions before the wheelie bars wheels touch down.
I'm sorry this is going on a little Guys! Please bear with me. I'm finding this part of the work very interesting for sure.

SO! with the wheelie bars now welded to the axle tube I set my rear tyre pressure at 15spi which is my race setting. I slowly lowered the car and noted that the bar wheels touched the ground at the same time as the rear slicks. As I lowered the car another inch or two I saw the rear and settle under the weight of the car and as the rear axle / leaf springs settled under the weight of the car the wheelie bar wheels lifted to 4" off the ground. So I think I now have a starting point to work from when I take it to the track over the next few weeks.

During the course of this work I re inspected the front suspension and found that the hard landings had caused a little damage. The inner wishbone mounts had touched down as I could see graze marks on the bush housings. The damage was not anything to worry about. But I then noticed that the front anti roll bar drop links had been damaged. One of them had the top clamp bent and the other top clamp had snapped the weld. I bought new links and added some tack welds to the top links. I then decided to test my welding of the wheelie bars mounts the only way I could think of ! I placed 10" wooden blocks under the wheelie bar wheels and lowered the 2 post lift onto the blocks. The lift dropped to ground level and the rear of the car was off the ground with front suspension fully loaded. Myself and a friend then sat in the boot and bounced up and down as best we could for several minutes. The wheelie bar springs took some of the load until they locked up. Nothing broke. So I guess the welds should be ok?

I guess I will find out on 23rd Feb IF its not raining at the track. I then have 1st March as the next test day.

I will report back when I have done some testing

Regards to all

Pel

Hello Pel. Thanks for the update. Interesting that you kept the anti roll bar in the car. That would be one of the first things I'd be tossing out!

Hi folks!
2020 testing did not go well ?

The first test day this year got rained off.
The second test day got postponed because I was at the hospital with the family to say hello to my second Grand Child. A healthy 8lb 6oz boy who is named Albie. He is a lovely content little boy who was born on March 1st. AND, just as with Faith when she was born, Albie and his parents live with us.

We got out for a test day just before our UK full lockdown. It was a good day for gathering data, but the car was slow and I fried the transmission. The fried tranny was my fault for connecting the remote filter and cooler lines the wrong way round as I was using the tranny brake to its full potential. I can get the transmission rebuilt when I am off Furlough leave IF I have a job to go back to after lockdown. The rebuild will be in the region of £1200 I think.

We played with tyre pressures, ign maps and launch rpm's. I had a strange vibration on each launch. We could not even get into the 9's and the 60 foot times were slow at 1.6 seconds?

I will attach some real time vids and some Slo Mo vids. The Slow Motion videos tell the whole story, and I now know what I need to do next before we take her back on track.

Stay safe you guys

Regards
Pel


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twSTQ46BPug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91KG3BKv_00&t=14s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvWq38zZ9tw&t=32s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIfsXpAp3Bc

The tranny deal sucks but.. you got another Grand Child! That's great. Congrats to you all.

videos are always appreciated! Thanks for them.

I am not an old member but I have always been a fan of old cars. Back when I was young I used to help my father in modifying his truck.