How about another update? Not a whole lot to tell but here goes for those that care to read it. I share simply so others who may deal with similar things can see the antics I go through while I enjoy the heck out of this car.
The car was back to the Gainesville track on September 7. Every so often on that day, a VERY few sprinkles would fall. Not enough to hardly see on your windshield but you could feel them. They were dry and gone by the time you blinked. This led to ENDLESS delays with no communication from the tower as to what they were doing. At 4:45 pm, they announced a driver's meeting for 5:00. Jodi, who runs the track for the NHRA, said they had been concerned about safety all day and just decided not to run anything. Really? For an almost imperceptible amount of moisture? I'm not buying it! So they gave out refunds. So we had left the house at 7:30a and got home around 7:00p and never made a pass. Just marvelous.... :realcrazy:
Took it back there again on Oct 19 (the next and ONLY bracket race until 2025!). The track photographer snapped this pic.
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It was around 80F to start with a 15-20 mph wind coming at you at 30 degrees. By later in the day, the temp fell to around 66F. So about 1450DA to start and a 680DA at the end. My RT's were NOT good. It's either me or the car but an .068 was my best and a .119 my worst. Lost in the 2nd round with the .119 (got what I deserved as his RT was .006). Tried to push him out the back door and get on the brakes late and went a new PB et (barely) at 11.102 (11.13 dial). I had scrubbed about 7-8 mph off it in the first round to prevent a breakout so I'm guessing I took off maybe 3-4 mph on this one. No timeslip to show it but I suspect it would have been an 11.0x. Better luck next time! But given all the street driving and putt-putting around all summer, I was glad to see the car come back and post a new best. Exciting to me! :D
So something that has bothered me since I got this rolling chassis in 2019 was the rear-end sits too high for my liking. It looks OK with the slicks on it but with the P295/55R15 MT street tires, it looks jacked up in the back. The car has a Caltrack rear suspension setup with split mono springs. The proper way to lower the rear would be to change out the rear leaf spring halves. But the p/n of what is on there has long worn off so I wouldn't know what to order. But...the car has a front spring hanger bracket with an upper and lower hole, about 1-1/4" apart. Since the front eye bolt was using the lower hole, making the car sit higher, I thought I'd try to lower it just by moving the front spring eye bolt to the upper hole. But that got me to thinking about the pinion angle and not wanting to screw it up. And I have to add that the boss says "Why mess with it? The car hooks and leaves without issue now so who cares if it sits too high!" Well...I just better not screw this up!!
So I measured up the angles and found the car to have less than 1.5 degrees of offset from the trans to the pinion. That assumes a 2 degree pinion rise on the hit. Since less than 2 degrees offset is the target, I figure the car is pretty good. The math says that moving that spring eye would put me well outside of this 2 degree target. So I talked to John Calvert about what I was doing and if adding some shims was the right thing to do. He agreed so I got some of his 2 degree shims and had at it. Well, when you add shims, the center bolt is no longer long enough to go up into the perch so I had to disassemble the leaves and put in the longer center bolt. And if course while you're at it, you can't just put it back together but instead, you have to clean and paint up the parts you're working on! So a small job turned into something quite a bit more involved.
After all this, I put it all back together and made 3 hits in the driveway (not sure the neighbors saw the humor in that!). I wanted to be sure the slicks still had plenty of clearance and the U-bolts were well seated and not going to move. So the boss video'd it and I found no issue with clearance or bolt torques or anything. The whole thing dropped the rear of the car 1-1/2" as measured at the rear wheel center from the ground to the quarter panel. I did all the angle measurements again and lo and behold, the pinion angle is now between 0 - 0.1 degree off! I didn't expect it to be that good but I'll certainly take it!! It can't hurt! Here is a pic of the axle with the shims installed:
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So I put the street tires on it so we can drive it around to cruises and whatnot until I prep it for the track again in January.
I think it looks much better but the REAL question is will the car still hook up and leave at the track as before? Time will tell when we're back at the track come January.
Here's some before and after pics. I don't have any perfect A versus B shots but these will somewhat show the results.
With the slicks:
Before (and before the stripes were added too!):
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After:
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With the street tires:
Before:
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After:
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So there you have it...will it hook like before or will I have a serving of crow and be back under the car moving that spring eye back where it was? We shall see....!!