adam525i said:That's a pretty nice looking floor, definitely worth the time to get out the mop.
Probably doesn't help the car go faster but it makes working in the garage more pleasant.
adam525i said:That's a pretty nice looking floor, definitely worth the time to get out the mop.
Probably doesn't help the car go faster but it makes working in the garage more pleasant.
In reply to KevinGale :
People might scoff at mopping the floor until they slip and fall on some wheel bearing grease while carrying a large assembly.
Jerry From LA said:In reply to KevinGale :
People might scoff at mopping the floor until they slip and fall on some wheel bearing grease while carrying a large assembly.
That's a really good point. I have slipped on a greasy spot on the floor and I certainly wouldn't want to do that while I was carrying my transmission. I'd either end up hurt when transmission landed on me or I'd chuck it away and I might end up with a broken floor and transmission.
759NRNG said:Just keep it off those 'big ' stones ......how soon is Mt. Wash???
August 13-15
Non race car stuff today. Changing the oil on Karen's truck. I so love this lift. I feel like a magician who can make a truck levitate!
What are your ceiling heights?
759NRNG said:What are your ceiling heights?
I think it's a little over 12 feet. The lift only needs 11'10"
ATL sent me a gift which I am sure has nothing to do with the bunch of money I gave them.
I might even be able to get this new fuel cell bladder in place this weekend. The old one has leak. A very very small leak but it is annoying to have it dripping fuel even if it is just a few drips per hour. I'm also worried it could cause me to fail tech.
22 gallon fuel cell bladder in all it's glory.
Good thing I only had to remove some of the body rivets or I would need a longer drill bit.
Got the back end body off so I can remove the fuel cell bladder. Also pumped the cell dry.
Got the new fuel cell bladder in place.
The hole in the foam is where the dipstick goes to measure the fuel level
Last night and the first part of tonight was replacing the out of date belts with new versions. Doing belts always sucks. Trying to get at the bolts behind the seat while pretty much standing on your head is so much fun. I have to run SFI belts which have to be replaced every two years. FIA belts are good for 5 years but as far as I know they only come in cam-lock versions. I refuse to use a cam-lock because I have and open car with open wheels. That means I'm constantly being pelted with little rocks while driving through the pits (or just about anywhere I am driving slow). The little rocks and bits of sand get inside the cam-lock mechanism and then it doesn't work. I have real issues with such a basic part of my safety not working. With the latch and link style I can see that it is all fine and sand won't bother it.
At Burke I had problems with the car jumping out of fourth gear twice. Tonight I checked the shift linkage. I found the jam nuts on the 3-4 shifter had come completely loose. I'm pretty sure I found the problem! I had to adjust a bit to get things centered again and this time I used a set of vice grips on the rod to make sure I could tighten the jam nuts enough. I'll llive with the tooth marks in the aluminum tube if it means it doesn't happen again.
Maybe some blue loctite on the jan nut?
jfryjfry said:Maybe some blue loctite on the jam nut?
If it happens again for sure. I haven't had much trouble in the past with them coming loose. I suspect I didn't tighten it well the last time it was apart. Still in general loctite might be a good plan. Once these things are adjusted correctly they really should never move again. Maybe next time the transmission is out of the car I will setup the shifter and linkage and then use locktite. It is really easy to get everything perfectly adjusted when it is out of the car.
the green wicking loctite works well
dave215 said:the green wicking loctite works well
I'd never heard of it. Just looked it up. So you can add this loctite to things that are already assembled. That is neat idea. I've had more than a few things with lock nuts or set screws that this would be great for.
Prepping for Mt Washington this weekend. Yesterday I got fuel and tires. The tires are in case I need to groove a set of tires for rains. I mounted them on spare wheels. I was going to groove them before I left for Washington but right now the forecast doesn't look bad. I think I will just bring them as slicks and I can groove them there if needed. If I don't have to groove them then I have a new set of slicks for NEHA to use next season. Even if I do groove them I will probably run them for NEHA events next year but I'd rather run them as slicks.
I got new tires to groove because I wasn't sure used tires would have enough meat left on them to groove. It's not like the mod tires have all that much rubber on them to begin with. But testing the groover out on some old used slicks it seemed I could create 1/8" deep grooves without any problems. So maybe I didn't need to buy tires. But again they won't go to waste and will just save me from buying tires next spring.
I also adjusted valve lash and timing. The lash was overall a little loose and I tightened up a number of valves. That was nothing to worry about. The timing on the other hand was more advanced that I expected. It was 37-38 degrees total. I set it back to my normal 34-35 degrees.
Sorry but I've been watchin' 'North Woods Law' lately...a lot...the episodes involving the Mt. W are truly daunting. When you run this it's pretty much "clear".....uh no weather drama?
There was a comparison video about air cleaners and one of the takeaways is that air flowing down made more power. Iirc, a filter lid and taped up/solid sides made more power than a solid lid and filter on the sides
jfryjfry said:There was a comparison video about air cleaners and one of the takeaways is that air flowing down made more power. Iirc, a filter lid and taped up/solid sides made more power than a solid lid and filter on the sides
I certainly haven't tried the solid sides. I have a one of the filter lid/tops. It's not on the car right now since I don't really trust it in the rain. It probably isn't an issue but I have visions of rain going through the carb and getting into the engine. But on good days I run it.
KevinGale said:jfryjfry said:There was a comparison video about air cleaners and one of the takeaways is that air flowing down made more power. Iirc, a filter lid and taped up/solid sides made more power than a solid lid and filter on the sides
I certainly haven't tried the solid sides. I have a one of the filter lid/tops. It's not on the car right now since I don't really trust it in the rain. It probably isn't an issue but I have visions of rain going through the carb and getting into the engine. But on good days I run it.
A little water injection won't hurt at all. It'll help keep the carbon build-up down in your cylinders. We run water injection in turbo applications all the time to reduce IAT and it's certainly better atomized than rain water will be, but unless you're driving in a monsoon I wouldn't worry about a little rain down the intake.
I survived Mt Washington!
Survival is what it felt like. I don't know if it was because I crashed at Mt Washington when I last ran it or because I was worried about hurting the car but I didn't really feel like driving the whole time I was at Washington. I wanted to bring the car home in one piece so it would be ready for Mt Ascutney in Sept. I have a good shot at winning NEHA championship (King of the Hill) if I have a good run at Ascutney.
Anyway some combination of the two things was making me totally unwilling to push at Washington. I was slow in practice on Friday on the top part of the hill. Saturday practice on the bottom part of the hill saw rain, so I skipped the first run. The road was pretty dry for the second practice run but I just wasn't in the right headspace to jump in the car for that run. So I didn't run at all on Saturday.
Sunday (race day) was sunny and dry. I made two runs to the top and I was just so relieved when I finished the second one. I didn't go very fast on either run. A ton of drivers I am normally ahead of in NEHA events finished ahead of me at Washington. I don't care, I'm just glad I didn't crash this time and the car is in one piece.
One major thing working against me at Washington is I just don't know the course. I've only raced it once before (in 2014) and I only got one full run up the hill then. I should have probably watched a thousand video runs and spent a day or two driving up and down the course all day before the event but I didn't. So I was just driving from corner to corner and not very aggressively at that.
I wish we could run Mt Washington more often and get more runs. Then I might feel it is worth investing more in it.
......a thousand words.....
A bright light flashed down and a voice proclaimed. "King of the Hill"
Of course the voice was mine. And light is probably just some cosmic warning light indicating something is wrong with the right front.
Happy to win NEHA King of the Hill again on the 10th anniversary of the first time I won it. Weird short season this year which worked in my favor. Chris Rielly and Justin Taylor kept me honest and made me get at least one good run in to keep them at bay.
The car was great all weekend. Never gave a bit of problem and the motor was always willing to turn on warp speed at the twitch of my right foot. On Saturday the road was damp all day. I was slow but with the damp road and my wanting to make sure I got a run on Sunday I wasn't pushing things.
Sunday dawned bright and sunny and the road was dry. I needed one good run to lock up King of the Hill. I was at the line waiting for the signal to go on my first run when instead I got the signal to cut my engine. Justin Taylor had gone off at turn 29. Pretty much the same spot I went off in the spring but he went in much deeper. He got launched by some rocks, flew 20ft though the air and impacted a tree. They pulled me to the side. I got to watch as rescue brought Justin down. An ambulance met them at the bottom of the hill. They loaded Justin into the ambulance and then signaled they were ready for my run. I remember thinking "This didn't work out so well for the last guy that went up". But I drove to the start line. (Justin was fine.)
I was intending to take it a bit easy on this first run but that went out the window when I charged too fast into the first corner. I was running different gears than I normally run at Ascutney. I thought the higher gears that I ran at Washington might help me out at Ascutney. But on Saturday I kind of found they didn't. I kept running 3rd gear up to near redline and not shifting up to 4th. Some part of me feeling that with the engine screaming I must be going fast enough. So Sunday I decided I wanted to get to 4th gear before the first corner and then run most of the hill in 4th. I was pretty sure that would be faster for me. I intended to short shift into 4th but habit caused me to run 3rd up to redline before shifting to 4th. That left me going into the corner really fast! I had to brake long and hard and the backend twitched out wide because I was still braking as I started turning. That created a weird line that put the inside wheels mostly off the pavement on the inside of the corner.
In spite of the strange line into the corner the car felt rock solid. It wasn't even slightly bothered by the strange line or most of the inside wheels being off the pavement. I took that as a good sign and put my foot down and decided to go for it on this first run. So I charged up the hill pushing the edges of control a bit but not too hard. I didn't scare myself anywhere. I finished with a 2:49 which is a respectable time even if off my best by 7 seconds or so.
Justin with his crash, was of course out of King of the Hill contention. Chris Rielly ran a 2:51 his first run. So I had two seconds on him and because of my points lead he needed about another 2 seconds to catch me. With a 4 second buffer I felt pretty good and elected not to roll the dice on another run to see if I could go faster. Chris didn't catch me the next run and again I elected to not run. Part of me really wanted to run again. I'm pretty sure I could have gone faster but a bigger part of me just wanted to close out the season with a decent run in the books and a points win. So I waited. Chris never went faster and it all worked out.
You are a huge inspiration to me Kevin, I saw a article in Speedway Illustrated about you and your car several years ago. I liked the look of the car so much I cut the photo out and put it in my wallet! Now almost 4 years later I am going to pick up a Troyer chassis.
Speedy_Fitz said:You are a huge inspiration to me Kevin, I saw a article in Speedway Illustrated about you and your car several years ago. I liked the look of the car so much I cut the photo out and put it in my wallet! Now almost 4 years later I am going to pick up a Troyer chassis.
Nice! Wish you fewer crashes than I have had. :-)
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