Dennis Clan Shenanigans

Been a while! Here's what's been going on! After the push to get the Dart done for CTTC last year, I needed a change of pace and started working on some other projects.

Got a new shortblock for the STI and got that running again a few months ago. Big thanks to The Subaru Shop and Perry Tuning in Tiverton, RI for their help with the engine and tuning! I've run it now at an autocross at ADSI for a shakedown, and the first hillclimb of the year at Mt Ascutney. The car has been flawless so far this year (though the driver needs some work). 

(thanks Sam Harrington for the photo!)

Ascutney was a pretty rainy weekend, with 10 runs over the two days, and 3 of them being dry. This was my first time running the STI at a hillclimb, and playing with AWD in the rain was a lot of fun! The wet conditions slowed down a bunch of 2WD cars that would normally have beat me, and I ended up taking 2nd in class and 4th overall, my best overall finish at a hillclimb! 

Here's my video from my best run of the weekend:

In the meantime, I bought the SRT4 I had caged a couple years ago from my uncle, and I've been prepping that for some stage rally. Last weekend I got the sunroof opening sealed up, and added some FIA-required bits to the cage to bring it up to spec. A couple more gussets and it will be ready for a logbook!

Congrats on the 4th overall.  Nice Job!

Got a bunch done this weekend. Josh and Sebbie came to help out on the Neon (ya know, since they're driving it next weekend at Okemo to shake it down). Ended up getting all of the "need to do" items crossed off, and had extra time for the "nice to do" list! The car is ready for logbooking, and ready to race at the Okemo hillclimb next weekend. Should be a pretty good time for the 50th anniversary of the event, and I'm the co-chair! As long as nothing goes wrong this weekend (hahaha), there is a very short list of things to finish up before a Team O rallysprint in July.

Before:

After:

In reply to DennisMotorsports :

Looks pretty nice now.  Are you sure Dennis clan members are allowed to drive that?  I was kind of liking the tube look.  :-)

So I'm a week behind with this post, but Okemo was pretty successful. The STi made it through with very few issues, and was comfortably fast. I had to swap out a faulty O2 sensor, and replace a shredded AC/PS belt (thanks again to the random WRX in the parking lot that loaned me one!), but otherwise, the car was perfect. I'm outclassed in the NEHA events when I'm running the STi, because I want to be able to run the Dart in the same class later in the year. So I'm running a caged street car against full tube frame cars this year. This takes the pressure off, as I'm not really competing for class standings, so I've been able to get comfortable in the car, and ended up beating my personal best at Okemo (in any car) by 5 seconds! Ended up 3rd in class, and 11th overall.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/VwpH3tE68A4

The Neon got a thorough shakedown, with 2 drivers. The car did great, only 1 second behind me in the STI! The day ended early on Sunday though, with a broken clutch master cylinder. The first driver was my cousin, here is his fastest in car video:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Jskek9rfZk

The other driver was my best friend of 20 years. I was very happy to give him the opportunity to run his first hillclimb, and his son got to help out with the awards ceremony!

This was also the 50th Anniversary of the Okemo Hillclimb. I was humbled to be a part of the event, and as a co-chair wanted to do something special to commemorate it. I proposed a pot luck dinner on Saturday night, and I was overwhelmed with the response. Good food, games, and fun was had by all late into the night! I even brewed some special hillclimb beer for the occasion!

I don't drink beer and I just noticed that one of those bottles bears more than a passing resemblance to my car.   

It was a great event even if I lost my clutch and spun on what probably would have been an FTD run.

In reply to KevinGale :

I think Sam may have taken some visual cues from your car on that one! Haha. The fastest runs are always the ones where things go wrong!

DennisMotorsports said:

The fastest runs are always the ones where things go wrong!

Yeah one of the rules of hillclimbing.  When everything is going right beware!  Every driver that crashes will tell you they were doing their fastest run right before things went wrong!

KevinGale said:

DennisMotorsports said:

The fastest runs are always the ones where things go wrong!

 

Yeah one of the rules of hillclimbing.  When everything is going right beware!  Every driver that crashes will tell you they were doing their fastest run right before things went wrong!

THE OLDER I GET THE FASTER I WAS

The weeks since Okemo sure were busy ones. We left Okemo with a long list of things to touch up on the Neon. The list included adding a skid plate, replacing front wheel bearings, and flushing the brake fluid, which was far beyond it's useful life:

The list for the STI was a little shorter. Oil change and seat adjustment essentially covered it.

This was all done so that I could bring BOTH cars the the SCCA rally sprint at Team Oneil last weekend. I'd be driving the STI with Dan (of Dart fender creation fame) codriving, and my buddy Ike in the SRT4 with Alex (of Daewoo challenge fame to hillclimbers) in the silly seat. I felt real fancy loading two cars onto one trailer.

I had some nerves worked up in the morning, as this would be the most gruelling event the STI would see since the most recent engine rebuild, and I had a 2/2 DNF rate at the rally sprints, and I hadn't driven on gravel in 3 years. Needless to say, we took it easy:

Ike hadn't driven FWD in quite a few years, and had never driven on gravel, so he took it easy too:

It was quite dry and dusty up in NH, which made for terrible visibility at times, but made for excellent photos

Between the two of us, we each had one "oops" on the day:

Overall, a great weekend with a great group of people. Both cars finished 3rd in class. Key word being FINISHED, which is a win in my books. Also, this is what happens when tech is in the Walmart parking lot and you're there an hour before your car. You buy team T-Shirts:

Thanks to Daggerslade Media and Nemesis Photo for some great photos. Links to the full photo albums here:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Nemesis-Photo-65157601331/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10155723057136332

https://www.facebook.com/pg/DaggerSLADEmedia/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1395399613893613

Videos coming soon

Sure looks like you had fun.

In reply to KevinGale :

Absolutely!

Still working on in car from the Neon, but here is my horribly edited video from the STI:

https://youtu.be/LcTF_T5Fs_4

Been a very busy few weeks. Went to the New England Forest Rally to crew for a bunch of NER SCCA Rallycrossers who have moved up to stage rally over the last couple years. I ended up helping out with at least 6 cars over the weekend. Highlights included driving an Astro Van towing a VW Golf on a trailer, flat towing a BMW E30, and a one hour engine swap in a grass field.

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On Monday, I decided that I'd be leaving the two running race cars in my driveway at home, and bringing the Dart, which has been sitting broken in my garage for a year to the Burke Mountain Hillclimb the following weekend. Because, why not.

Rebuilt the quick change rear end on Monday (quite a few beers and youtube videos were required). Tuesday night pulled the transmission out. Wednesday night put the new clutch in, put trans back in, installed rear end. Thursday was all the finishing touches like filling fluids etc. Friday was a burnout in the driveway to make sure things were working, and then load up and head to Vermont!

Weekend started off kind of rocky. I made my fam run and first run without issue. On my second run Saturday, the band clamp on the exhaust loosened up enough that the exhaust separated from the header, and started bouncing around under the car, hanging on by one hanger. Relatively easy fix. Next run, I put the steering wheel on, and gave it a tug to make sure the quick release was properly locked, and almost hit myself in the face with the wheel. Apparently I had lost a set screw at some point, and the coupler pulled off the steering rack. Glad that was at the start line and not halfway up the hill. Another relatively easy fix, and I spent a few extra minutes looking for anything else that might have loosened up, before making the last run for the day.

Sunday was flawless. Made every run, and the only tool I touched was a tire pressure gauge. By the end of the day, I had shaved my time down to a 2:26, 18 seconds faster than I ran at Burke with the same car before the engine swap and suspension rebuilt. I'll take it! I had one exciting moment at check 6 on my last run, because I came in carrying a lot more speed than I had before, and the rear end locked up when I downshifted (one of the downsides to running a spool is that things like that happen easily). Video link below (if someone could explain how to get youtube to embed properly again, I'd be grateful):

https://youtu.be/MVWkoUGs86I

And if this links properly, I made the "burnout contest" highlight reel! 

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After Burke 1, I had a couple weeks to re-prep the car for Burke 2. Re-prep included changing rear spring rates, bumping up a bit to help with stability at higher speeds, swapping a new radiator in to battle high temps I was experiencing at Burke 1, and adding a seat back into the passenger side of the car for fam runs. All went well, and car was ready to go Friday.

Saturday had a late start due to severe overnight thunderstorms that trailed off in the morning. We started off around 11:30. I made my fam run and decided I was going to park the car for a while. With no windshield, I can deal with rain OR fog, but not both. Visibility was terrible, the road was slippery, and it didn't make sense to risk an off on Saturday. But after a couple runs, word on the mountain was it was clearing up at the top. I decided to take a slow pass to see what the new springs felt like. Visibility had improved, but boy was it still slippery!

https://youtu.be/L6oMkpaze2w

By Saturday night, things had cleared up. We celebrated a fellow racer and his wife's wedding anniversary with a margarita party! Sherm and Michele are both a big part of why the KSCC and NEHA events are so successful.

Sunday morning was cool and sunny. The road was still damp, but would continue to improve all day. I ended up making a 2:24.65 run after lunch. It was my personal best time at Burke, and good enough to be the fastest Dennis for the weekend! It was also gave me 4th in class and 17th overall.

https://youtu.be/5cr_lDweoQc

Here are a couple videos from the start line:

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Lol the only time I took the tarp off the car Saturday was to go to tech.   But Sunday was great.

And yes Sherm and Michele make everything happen with KSCC.  Those two run the whole club.

So I got a chance to help out a few fellow local racers a couple weeks ago. Downey Dirty Racing was headed to Canada for Rallye Defi, and had no crew! Well I happened to have the week off from work, and volunteered to go with them. The week turned out pretty great. Dan and codriver Kevin went off on Thursday to run recce, and I set about with setting up a service area, familiarizing myself with the car a BMW E30, and fixing a list of little issues that Dan had with the car. I ended up getting to ride with them for the last couple stages of recce, including the Super Special stage through a gravel pit.

Friday morning, the car passed tech with no issues. Racing started at 2 PM. We filled up on Poutine and POGOs for lunch, and Dan and Kevin were off.

Aside with some issues with wheels and tires, there wasn't a whole lot of work for me to do in service. One bent wheel and one broken wheel caused tires to not hold air, and then one more tire ripped totally apart. The only other issues was a small puncture to the fuel tank. There were some big rocks that gave the tank a beating, and it developed a pinhole at a crease. Some quiksteel and aluminum tape, and it was good to go again.

After two days of bouncing down Canadian gravel roads, Downey Dirty Racing took 3rd in National 2WD! Was very cool to be a part of an international race team on the podium

Oh, and it's not every day you get to see a drag race at the end of a 10km rally stage between an Open class STI and an old BMW

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On to this past weekend, I spent Saturday putting new motor mounts in Kevin's Neon, and then took it to ADSI to shake it down for a track day coming up. Well, things didn't go so well. The new motor mounts changed the pitch angle of the engine just enough that the shifter cables were resting on the header. After a few hot laps, I noticed some smoke coming out from under the hood. I popped it open and the smoldering turned into open flames! I fumbled for a minute and then got to use a fire extinguisher for the first time on an actual fire.

With the Neon out of commission, I got to take a couple runs in Kevin's FRS, and Allan's new to him Toyota WSR. The WSR was something else. Imagine you're in a go-kart with 4 wheel disk brakes, 8" wide slicks, and give it 110hp. Having never sat in the car before, I jumped in and immediately went a second faster than my best lap ever at ADSI

https://youtu.be/O-ttprjO14Q

It's been longer than I thought since I updated this here. I'll try to go in chronological order to catch up.

I missed the Ascutney 2 hillclimb, making it my one allowed event drop for the season points. That meant I had to make the 6 hour trek up to Mt Philo to be eligible for my class championship. This was possibly going to be the last Philo hillclimb ever- pressure from locals to keep "outsiders" off "their" mountain was making it difficult to secure dates for any future events (luckily we have since made changes to the schedule and we do have a future with Philo). That said, I wasn't going to miss the event either way.

The forecast said it was going to be COLD, so I opted for my race car that has windows and heat. The STI performed great all weekend, as it had all year. I dropped 11 seconds off my personal best at Philo (pretty significant for a 1 mile course) and took 3rd in P1, and wrapped up the season championship!

Roadside clip from Philo:

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After Philo, we went to the last ADSI event of the season. Being close to home, I brought all three race cars! This was the first time I brought the Dart to ADSI since Mt Washington. We figured out that the rear suspension is a bit too soft for autocross. The thing drove like a stadium super truck!

The STI didn't put on quite as spectacular of a showing, but it was lifting tires too:

Sebbie and Amanda drove the SRT4. Things were going well until the 3-4 shift fork broke (common problem in these cars). Josh took it for a couple more runs anyway, and ended up doing a bit more damage to the transmission

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Meanwhile, I've started my new project. It's a new-to-me 1976 Dodge W200. The chassis is nearly mint condition. It has a newer '79-80 cab on it. 318 4 barrel powering Dana 60 front and rear axles. Should be much better for winter driving than my current 2WD truck. I've been going through it the last couple weeks, and hoping it can make it's debut towing a car to the Stafford Springs rallycross the last weekend in January. I've been slacking at taking pictures as I go, but I'll get some more photos tonight.

Oh, and it has pretty low miles 

So I haven't had a chance to get more pictures uploaded but I should have more stuff on the truck soon. In the meantime, my first race of the season was a few weeks ago. NER SCCA had a RallySprint at Team O'Neil rally school the first weekend in February. Conditions were perfect, ~3" of snow on top of a SOLID ice base. I ran the STI with studded tires and it was a BLAST! 

The start/finish volunteers told us more than once that we seemed like we were having the best time out of everyone at the event. Having fun must have worked, because we ended up taking first overall by just under two minutes! I put together a bit of a blooper reel from the event:

We also stopped by to chat with our friends over at Driven Daily to talk about what a rallysprint is all about. They started a new series called Drivers Meeting, and this was episode 1!

It's been a while, but I've been busy. With hillclimb season starting this weekend, I've been making a mad dash to get all the cars ready. I said I wasn't going to hillclimb much this year, but my dad wants to run, so I'm running too. So I've got to get the SRT-4 ready for us to drive.

But before that, Kevin asked me to freshen up the Neon. No pictures to show, but the car is getting a new header that will hopefully prevent the shifter cables from igniting, I had a friend weld up a crack in the aluminum oil pan, new DSS hubs- both front hubs failed last year, not surprising after 10(?) years of constant abuse, and a general tune up. 

But before I started that, Allan's Toyota WSR he purchased from a fellow hillclimber last year needed some upgrades. The car had a fiberglass body that had been cut and trimmed to fit around the cage, and was cracked and broken at most of the mounting points. First on the list was a beefier cage that was easier to get in and out of, and provided some more side impact protection. The new cage was going to require more cutting and trimming, and the body was already in tough shape, so I convinced Allan to ditch the fiberglass.

Before:

New cage:

I fit some new aluminum body panels over the side bars

The wiring was a bit messy, so to avoid issues going forward, I created a new harness from scratch, including a watertight fuse/relay block

Added a bumper for extra footwell protection, and some downforce (maybe) since the original aero is gone.

Last touches were to install an FIA fire supression system 

Been a while since updating here, but I'll keep it short.

Philo was in the spring for the first time since 1975 or so, and was a great weekend back in May. Fantastic weather and a bunch of runs. Dad and I brought the SRT4, and it was his first time driving at a hillclimb in 4 years. Was great to get him back behind the wheel. Of course there was some last minute thrashing before the event. I've been having power steering issues with the car that I couldn't pinpoint for the last two years. I'd replaced everything but the rack, and so decided to try that. Thursday night, I pulled a running parts car into the garage, pulled the rack, and then swapped it into the SRT-4. Aside from some very stuck bolts on the parts car, the swap went pretty easy. I don't think the problem is 100% fixed, but it seems to be better anyway.

I skipped Ascutney to make sure the STI was ready for Okemo. I knew the rear diff was in rough shape but I didn't know how rough.

So I sourced a new, used diff to install. I also rebuilt the front brakes, as one of the calipers was sticking, and removed the 34mm rally restrictor from the turbo. A new tune from Jay Perry got me 300WHP (up from 250 with the restrictor), not bad for a stock turbo with a conservative tune, and more importantly, an extra 1500 usable RPM.

Okemo was a tough event as chairperson. Communication issues slowed things down on Saturday, and ended up only getting 3 runs in. Sunday was forecast for rain all day, but it held off long enough for everyone to get a "dry" run (the road was damp from an overnight shower, and fog was bad in some areas) before the rain started coming down. My new powerband combined with AWD helped me manage 2nd in class and 5th overall, as well as a personal best time on Saturday. Evidence below of the new diff working, as the car tries to lift the front tires off the ground:

My girlfriend, Sarah, is a saint for putting up with all the time I spend working in the garage, and racing, and talking about working in the garage, and talking about racing. She is a Saab nut herself (didn't think I'd ever date someone who was more of a glutton for punishment than myself, a fan of turbo Subaru and Chrysler products), so when this came across my radar, I knew we had to pick it up. Welcome to the fleet this 1973 V4 Saab 96!

Purchased on a limb (and at a steep discount) without hearing the engine run, we were anxious to get it started. The starter wasn't engaging the flywheel and the car didn't have a key. I pulled the starter, made sure it worked on the bench and reinstalled. Jumping the excite wire, it now engaged! I turned the engine over a bit with the starter to get oil flowing, then hot wired the ignition switch and voila! It runs amazing, and sounds good too. No knocks or ticks, and revs up happily!

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I know nothing at all about old Saabs but I like it.