Not sure how I missed this one. Really enjoyed it and nice car
The 72 Demon Follies....
- Thread starter Demonx2
- Start date
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Time for an update....
I finally got around to working on the car after having the one small rust area addressed. Recall that this car is originally from southern Texas so it is very clean underneath. But even so, it had the typical small rust area where the driver side rocker meets the quarter panel. So that got fixed and now it was time to get after the front suspension.
As previously shown, I got the SPC adjustable UCA's for it from member Bergman Autocraft. I worked all day Saturday taking out the old standard arms and installing these. They went in without too much fuss. Of course, getting the upper ball joints to let go of the spindles is never fun but the little spreader tool I have gave it all it had and each side let go with a loud POP when they finally let go! So the old arms were removed and the new ones installed. But since the brake lines had to be removed, I had the joy of having to bleed the front brakes. Never a good time but they actually bled fairly easily...knock on wood!
Then on to the alignment to see if my caster problems could now be resolved. And to test my knowledge to see if I could actually align the thing given all this adjustability!
The first thing was to come up with a good way to be able to discern the 20 deg steering angle in each direction to measure the caster. I made a v-shaped adjustable wooden fixture with a hinge that I used to set up my reference points. Since the front and rear tires are different sizes, I couldn't use the string method to determine exact/perfect 0 deg steering angle but I think what I did came pretty close. I used the fixture to mark tape I put on the floor to get 20 deg in each direction for each front wheel. Then I turned the steering wheel and put a 5' level along the front tire. When the level was parallel to my fixture, I knew I had 20 deg. It probably does not make as much sense on here as it did if you were in the garage with me as it's really just some old-school hotrod/backyard mechanic type of work. Sorta "use watcha got available!" Oh, and I use heavy plastic trash bags folded over multiple times as my front wheel turn plates as they really do slide on each other/allow the wheels to turn quite effortlessly.
Keep in mind that before, the best caster readings I could get were about -0.8 deg on one side and -0.5 deg on the other. Yep that's right, NEGATIVE caster! Scary stuff and sometimes at the track the car did feel like the proverbial shopping cart front wheel wobble!! With these new UCA's, you lengthen/shorten both the front and rear "arms" to get the camber you want and vary front vs rear to get the caster you want. Easy right? Well, like most things...kinda. But after a couple tries to gain a feel for the magnitude of the change available, it actually was relatively easy to set up. I set them where I wanted it and then set the toe-in to 1/8" at static height. I then reconfirmed caster/camber and set off on a 10 mile drive (always a pleasure as there always seems to be some idiot you have to ignore who pulls next to you and thinks you're at the track!), and came back to remeasure/confirm. I wanted to let the bushings "settle in" a bit before finalizing everything. I found one side needed a little tweak. Did that and locked it all down. I still have to decide/measure the toe-in through the front end lift travel and set it to the best compromise but I've done that before and know it ain't great no matter what!
So I'll shake it down a bit more this week and hopefully get to the track soon. I have new rear shoes coming for it this week (M/T 28/10.5-15W slicks) as that is what has been on the car and works. The old ones are shot and time for new! And ouch...expensive!! Probably wider than needed for a low 11-sec car but hey, they work and I sure don't want to guess wrong and get a radial or narrower tire that doesn't hook every time!!
So for alignment, and per my measurements, I have it set at Left/Right:
Camber = -0.3 / -0.3 deg
Caster = +3.2 / +3.0 deg
I went a little more on caster just to be certain I had sufficient POSITIVE caster!! Steering effort was not bad at all.
Out with these:
And in with the new (the jam nuts and bolts were locked down when I was done):
I'll update this when I have some new info. Until then, the Demon follies continue!!
I finally got around to working on the car after having the one small rust area addressed. Recall that this car is originally from southern Texas so it is very clean underneath. But even so, it had the typical small rust area where the driver side rocker meets the quarter panel. So that got fixed and now it was time to get after the front suspension.
As previously shown, I got the SPC adjustable UCA's for it from member Bergman Autocraft. I worked all day Saturday taking out the old standard arms and installing these. They went in without too much fuss. Of course, getting the upper ball joints to let go of the spindles is never fun but the little spreader tool I have gave it all it had and each side let go with a loud POP when they finally let go! So the old arms were removed and the new ones installed. But since the brake lines had to be removed, I had the joy of having to bleed the front brakes. Never a good time but they actually bled fairly easily...knock on wood!
Then on to the alignment to see if my caster problems could now be resolved. And to test my knowledge to see if I could actually align the thing given all this adjustability!
The first thing was to come up with a good way to be able to discern the 20 deg steering angle in each direction to measure the caster. I made a v-shaped adjustable wooden fixture with a hinge that I used to set up my reference points. Since the front and rear tires are different sizes, I couldn't use the string method to determine exact/perfect 0 deg steering angle but I think what I did came pretty close. I used the fixture to mark tape I put on the floor to get 20 deg in each direction for each front wheel. Then I turned the steering wheel and put a 5' level along the front tire. When the level was parallel to my fixture, I knew I had 20 deg. It probably does not make as much sense on here as it did if you were in the garage with me as it's really just some old-school hotrod/backyard mechanic type of work. Sorta "use watcha got available!" Oh, and I use heavy plastic trash bags folded over multiple times as my front wheel turn plates as they really do slide on each other/allow the wheels to turn quite effortlessly.
Keep in mind that before, the best caster readings I could get were about -0.8 deg on one side and -0.5 deg on the other. Yep that's right, NEGATIVE caster! Scary stuff and sometimes at the track the car did feel like the proverbial shopping cart front wheel wobble!! With these new UCA's, you lengthen/shorten both the front and rear "arms" to get the camber you want and vary front vs rear to get the caster you want. Easy right? Well, like most things...kinda. But after a couple tries to gain a feel for the magnitude of the change available, it actually was relatively easy to set up. I set them where I wanted it and then set the toe-in to 1/8" at static height. I then reconfirmed caster/camber and set off on a 10 mile drive (always a pleasure as there always seems to be some idiot you have to ignore who pulls next to you and thinks you're at the track!), and came back to remeasure/confirm. I wanted to let the bushings "settle in" a bit before finalizing everything. I found one side needed a little tweak. Did that and locked it all down. I still have to decide/measure the toe-in through the front end lift travel and set it to the best compromise but I've done that before and know it ain't great no matter what!
So I'll shake it down a bit more this week and hopefully get to the track soon. I have new rear shoes coming for it this week (M/T 28/10.5-15W slicks) as that is what has been on the car and works. The old ones are shot and time for new! And ouch...expensive!! Probably wider than needed for a low 11-sec car but hey, they work and I sure don't want to guess wrong and get a radial or narrower tire that doesn't hook every time!!
So for alignment, and per my measurements, I have it set at Left/Right:
Camber = -0.3 / -0.3 deg
Caster = +3.2 / +3.0 deg
I went a little more on caster just to be certain I had sufficient POSITIVE caster!! Steering effort was not bad at all.
Out with these:
And in with the new (the jam nuts and bolts were locked down when I was done):
I'll update this when I have some new info. Until then, the Demon follies continue!!
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A little update from today's activities. After driving the car to a local show on Friday evening, I got up this morning and put the new slicks on it and dropped the mufflers off it. Loaded it on the trailer and headed to the track. This was a test-n-tune day only but I wanted to shake down the new front suspension parts and alignment, try the new slicks, and knock the winter's rust off me too!!
The weather was perfect - mid to upper 70s and clear so I figured the engine would make good power. I also wanted to play with shift speeds to find the lowest I could go and still make a best number.
Let's start at the line...the track was either prepped better than ever or those new slicks were really biting! Here's an example - hanging the hoops on a little dry hop after the burnout!
The new shoes:
Some more shots of the SPC UCA's:
But the best part was that on every pass made, the car went dead straight! No wandering and certainly none of the violent fishtailing and wanting to swap end for end like previously! Just plain old dead straight like a car with a spool should do!! So mission accomplished getting some positive caster and making a car that is stable. This will hopefully allow me to work on other things!
The car ran within 0.011 of its personal best on the next to last run. It went 11.157 and was within 0.01 mph of its personal best: 118.24 mph. Here's the timeslip since we all know it didn't happen without pics. I was in the left lane (hard to see but timeslips don't print all that great). I was really happy with this as the DA was close to 1700 at about 77 deg (the previous 11.14 best was run in 57-59 deg weather). I shifted it right about 6250 rpm for both gear changes.
I thought I would make one more pass and believed it just might set a new best. But on the last pass, the shiftlight did not go off so I was shifting more by instinct than anything. On the digital replay later, I actually shifted it WAY too high (7000+ rpm!!) and the car slowed to an 11.20.
And like always, we met some new people and made friends! All in all, it was a great day at the track. We proved that physics do work - dialing in positive caster makes a world of difference!! And new slicks make you have to hang on more at the hit!!
Until next time...that was today's follies!
The weather was perfect - mid to upper 70s and clear so I figured the engine would make good power. I also wanted to play with shift speeds to find the lowest I could go and still make a best number.
Let's start at the line...the track was either prepped better than ever or those new slicks were really biting! Here's an example - hanging the hoops on a little dry hop after the burnout!
The new shoes:
Some more shots of the SPC UCA's:
But the best part was that on every pass made, the car went dead straight! No wandering and certainly none of the violent fishtailing and wanting to swap end for end like previously! Just plain old dead straight like a car with a spool should do!! So mission accomplished getting some positive caster and making a car that is stable. This will hopefully allow me to work on other things!
The car ran within 0.011 of its personal best on the next to last run. It went 11.157 and was within 0.01 mph of its personal best: 118.24 mph. Here's the timeslip since we all know it didn't happen without pics. I was in the left lane (hard to see but timeslips don't print all that great). I was really happy with this as the DA was close to 1700 at about 77 deg (the previous 11.14 best was run in 57-59 deg weather). I shifted it right about 6250 rpm for both gear changes.
I thought I would make one more pass and believed it just might set a new best. But on the last pass, the shiftlight did not go off so I was shifting more by instinct than anything. On the digital replay later, I actually shifted it WAY too high (7000+ rpm!!) and the car slowed to an 11.20.
And like always, we met some new people and made friends! All in all, it was a great day at the track. We proved that physics do work - dialing in positive caster makes a world of difference!! And new slicks make you have to hang on more at the hit!!
Until next time...that was today's follies!
B3422w5
Well-Known Member
great job pecking away at it. Car looks great!
Thx Don. Kind of a "junior" version of your car: drove it to a local show Friday evening, drove it home, then took it to the track the next day and had at it.
Just not as fast as yours! My engine is power limited by the mild Eddie RPM heads. If things go well, there may be an 11.0x in this street car yet!
Just not as fast as yours! My engine is power limited by the mild Eddie RPM heads. If things go well, there may be an 11.0x in this street car yet!
B3422w5
Well-Known Member
I don’t remember your exact combo, wish you would post it sometime be fun to spitball with it.
See post #1...a typical 408 build.
Well....time to update my old thread. Lots has happened since my last update in May of 2023. Car stuff, life stuff, and moving south! So let's start with June 2023. This will be less about the cars but hopefully explain what's been happening. Some have asked for an update so here goes. Mostly boring stuff but ....
After the successful installation and front end work on the avatar to get it to go straight, I was excited to be able to just focus on "the race" and tweaking settings/jets/etc to make the car faster and/or more consistent. With only 2 time runs each time out to the track, you can't really make a whole lot of changes/progress while there - I mostly just "run what I brung" for that given outing.
Racing:
6/4: Before we went back to the track on 6/4, I upped the front jets one number. The day was a nice clear day of about 75 degrees (1800 DA). But we had about a 10 mph headwind so I knew the car would be a tad slower. But every car had to face the same headwind so let's have at it! Sure enough, the mph was down about 1.5 to 2 and the et's were off about 0.075. Racing we did! Had to face last year's reigning track champ in the 3rd round and won. But then took a nap at the tree in rd 4 and that was that for the day. Quarter finals so not all that bad.
6/18: We went back to the track 2 weeks later with no changes. The weather was roughly 80 degress but the DA was quite a bit worse than before running right around 2400-2500. After the first pass at that DA, the engine felt sluggish in 3rd gear so I leaned the front jets out 2 numbers. The car picked up just a tad in the mph so it apparenty liked the change. Went to the 4th rd again - this time including beating the current season points leader. But somehow popped a -0.009 red-eye in the 4th rd and that was it for the day. Down to the last 6 cars....
7/9: The next outing was on 7/9 with no changes done to the car. Upper 70's but the DA was way up at around 2600+ all day. We also faced a headwind around 12 mph all day. The car slowed down as expected due to these weather conditions - off by about a tenth from the early June runs. This time I again went to the 4th round. I swear I was ahead at the stripe (scrubbed 5 mph off) but the other guy got the win light. Dang...down to the last 7 cars again! Oh well, it was fun.
Little did we know this would be our last race outing of the 2023 year. Went 4 rounds each time out but couldn't get past it.
Life got a bit in the way but some was self-inflicted. I was fortunate to retire on June 30. Hooray!! We had extended family out of town health issues to tend to and then the big Woodward Dream Cruise came up in August. We took our 71 Demon 340 to a Friday event as well as Saturday for the Woodward cruise. But each evening, we took this 72 Demon out to cruise the streets and see the sights. After all, one never knows when you might need that sudden burst of acceleration. Haha....just kidding! But it IS just such a fun little beast to drive around. It SOUNDS much faster than it is so those of you with 10 second cars...watch out! lol...
And then September arrived. We had been having a new home built in Florida for well over 2 years at this point. Come Labor Day weekend, we flew down to "supervise" the pouring of the concrete for the drive, etc. With roughly 6150 ft2 of concrete, I wanted to be sure it got placed where I wanted it. Good thing we were there as the forms were not quite right upon arrival so we got them addressed just after 6:00am the day of the pour! Then the house was FINALLY done at the end of September so we loaded up the enclosed trailer with the 69 Charger and as much other stuff as could fit and off we went down I-75. Oh the joys of a 1500 gas-engine truck pulling a 24' enclosed trailer at close to 10,000#'s. Like stopping for fuel about every 2 to 2-1/2 hours. But it towed just fine and we got to really liking every Buc-cees we could find for those of you familiar with them! And we learned to sleep in the truck at either a Love's truck stop or a Georgia rest area. What fun!
We arrived and closed on the house. We stayed about 10 days then headed back up I-75 for home (Detroit area) and left the enclosed trailer behind. We stayed in Michigan for roughly 5 days. I built a front "shield" out of some scrap lumber and rubber bed mat for the front of my open trailer. And finally got the stripes added to the avatar Demon - what a difference!! We loaded up the avatar Demon on the open trailer and headed south again. Another night at a Love's truck stop and 1200 miles later and were arrived in Florida again. This time we stayed about a week and then pulled the big enclosed trailer back up north. Had the joy of a nail in one of the tires to boot!
Our last stay in our Michigan home was for about a week as we worked to clean out the house (we were blessed it had sold) and get packed up for our "final" trip moving to Florida. We cleaned out our house and loaded up the 71 Demon 340 in the encloed trailer for the trip. Off we went and, after another night in the truck and 1200 miles, we arrived "home" in Florida on Nov 3. Just in time to escape the Detroit winter that had already started (it had snowed while the movers were loading up our belongings). Movers delivered everything the next day on 11/4 so on Sunday, 11/5, we did what any sane person who just moved would do: we went to the Garlits show in Ocala (a bit under 30 miles away)!! Great time as we met a husband/wife with a petty blue 72 Demon 340 that the wife had owned since new. They hooked us into a local Mopar club and the rest is history. We've met MANY people and one great benefit is these folks have WAY more cars than I do! So my wife now says that our 3 cars really isn't such a big stable after all!! There's a guy with 9 classics, another guy with 11, etc, etc. Amazing! And a whole bunch of racers - 9 sec cars seem to be the norm amongst these guys. My little Demon is a slow turd next to their cars.
Okay - enough of my digression....but I wanted to share how life things happen and sidetrack at least me from my toys.
After driving the 72 around quite a bit on the streets down here - to shows, cruises, whatever - we went to Gainesville Raceway this past Saturday on 1/27. As always, you meet lots of new great folks when you go to a new track where you're not known. People were friendly and helpful showing me around the amenities there. My first impressions are for a track that is owned by the NHRA, I would have thought they would have made the place more of a showcase kind of track. The PA system was marginal at best, the restrooms were sub-par, the pits were paved asphalt (in Florida this must be nice in a couple months?), and they only bracket race 1x/month! 1x/month and you're the organization promoting the sport? Seems odd and was certainly disappointing. "Oh, well, we do it 1x/month but we race on both Saturday and Sunday that 1 weekend as many folks like to spend the night anyway and race the next day since they're already here." Okay...I guess...but???? The wind was quite strange as it was a headwind early in the day followed by a cross breeze that then turned into a tailwind and then back to a cross-breeze. All at between 14-18 mph! The temp was upper 70's with a DA of 2000-ish, very similar to our Detroit weather the prior year. The car ran it's best "1st run off the trailer" carding an 11.16 so I was excited to see what it would do. That was the only time run given so I took a guess and won the first round with a new personal best of 11.10 (timeslip attached). Took a nap at the tree in rd 2 and got sent home. But racing in January? Pinch me!!
So that's the last 7 months and why the avatar really has not had much track time. Got moved and been putting a ton of time in setting up our house and my new shop. It's a detached garage that's 50' wide x 34' deep with 14' ceilings. You would think that is plenty but I can tell you this packrat can find and hang onto more junk than anyone can ever need. So a lot of time has been spent finding places for things and pitching things! More work to do with bulding shelving, etc, but for now, I'm just happy to be here. The car will hopefully get out more living here in Florida but we'll see. It should certainly get even more street use given all the venues that go on on a weekly basis. Stay tuned....
Us on one of our many trips traversing I-75 betwen Detroit and the Ocala, FL area:
One of many times out on the streets at a cruise:
In the Gainesville staging lanes:
Personal best for the car - RH lane #6020:
The new shop - 2 10'x10' doors and 1 18'x12' door:
Oh what the heck - just for good measure, here's the 71 Demon 340 after a day at a show. I call it my "sheep in wolf's clothing" car as it is all stock/original and certainly not fast!!:
After the successful installation and front end work on the avatar to get it to go straight, I was excited to be able to just focus on "the race" and tweaking settings/jets/etc to make the car faster and/or more consistent. With only 2 time runs each time out to the track, you can't really make a whole lot of changes/progress while there - I mostly just "run what I brung" for that given outing.
Racing:
6/4: Before we went back to the track on 6/4, I upped the front jets one number. The day was a nice clear day of about 75 degrees (1800 DA). But we had about a 10 mph headwind so I knew the car would be a tad slower. But every car had to face the same headwind so let's have at it! Sure enough, the mph was down about 1.5 to 2 and the et's were off about 0.075. Racing we did! Had to face last year's reigning track champ in the 3rd round and won. But then took a nap at the tree in rd 4 and that was that for the day. Quarter finals so not all that bad.
6/18: We went back to the track 2 weeks later with no changes. The weather was roughly 80 degress but the DA was quite a bit worse than before running right around 2400-2500. After the first pass at that DA, the engine felt sluggish in 3rd gear so I leaned the front jets out 2 numbers. The car picked up just a tad in the mph so it apparenty liked the change. Went to the 4th rd again - this time including beating the current season points leader. But somehow popped a -0.009 red-eye in the 4th rd and that was it for the day. Down to the last 6 cars....
7/9: The next outing was on 7/9 with no changes done to the car. Upper 70's but the DA was way up at around 2600+ all day. We also faced a headwind around 12 mph all day. The car slowed down as expected due to these weather conditions - off by about a tenth from the early June runs. This time I again went to the 4th round. I swear I was ahead at the stripe (scrubbed 5 mph off) but the other guy got the win light. Dang...down to the last 7 cars again! Oh well, it was fun.
Little did we know this would be our last race outing of the 2023 year. Went 4 rounds each time out but couldn't get past it.
Life got a bit in the way but some was self-inflicted. I was fortunate to retire on June 30. Hooray!! We had extended family out of town health issues to tend to and then the big Woodward Dream Cruise came up in August. We took our 71 Demon 340 to a Friday event as well as Saturday for the Woodward cruise. But each evening, we took this 72 Demon out to cruise the streets and see the sights. After all, one never knows when you might need that sudden burst of acceleration. Haha....just kidding! But it IS just such a fun little beast to drive around. It SOUNDS much faster than it is so those of you with 10 second cars...watch out! lol...
And then September arrived. We had been having a new home built in Florida for well over 2 years at this point. Come Labor Day weekend, we flew down to "supervise" the pouring of the concrete for the drive, etc. With roughly 6150 ft2 of concrete, I wanted to be sure it got placed where I wanted it. Good thing we were there as the forms were not quite right upon arrival so we got them addressed just after 6:00am the day of the pour! Then the house was FINALLY done at the end of September so we loaded up the enclosed trailer with the 69 Charger and as much other stuff as could fit and off we went down I-75. Oh the joys of a 1500 gas-engine truck pulling a 24' enclosed trailer at close to 10,000#'s. Like stopping for fuel about every 2 to 2-1/2 hours. But it towed just fine and we got to really liking every Buc-cees we could find for those of you familiar with them! And we learned to sleep in the truck at either a Love's truck stop or a Georgia rest area. What fun!
We arrived and closed on the house. We stayed about 10 days then headed back up I-75 for home (Detroit area) and left the enclosed trailer behind. We stayed in Michigan for roughly 5 days. I built a front "shield" out of some scrap lumber and rubber bed mat for the front of my open trailer. And finally got the stripes added to the avatar Demon - what a difference!! We loaded up the avatar Demon on the open trailer and headed south again. Another night at a Love's truck stop and 1200 miles later and were arrived in Florida again. This time we stayed about a week and then pulled the big enclosed trailer back up north. Had the joy of a nail in one of the tires to boot!
Our last stay in our Michigan home was for about a week as we worked to clean out the house (we were blessed it had sold) and get packed up for our "final" trip moving to Florida. We cleaned out our house and loaded up the 71 Demon 340 in the encloed trailer for the trip. Off we went and, after another night in the truck and 1200 miles, we arrived "home" in Florida on Nov 3. Just in time to escape the Detroit winter that had already started (it had snowed while the movers were loading up our belongings). Movers delivered everything the next day on 11/4 so on Sunday, 11/5, we did what any sane person who just moved would do: we went to the Garlits show in Ocala (a bit under 30 miles away)!! Great time as we met a husband/wife with a petty blue 72 Demon 340 that the wife had owned since new. They hooked us into a local Mopar club and the rest is history. We've met MANY people and one great benefit is these folks have WAY more cars than I do! So my wife now says that our 3 cars really isn't such a big stable after all!! There's a guy with 9 classics, another guy with 11, etc, etc. Amazing! And a whole bunch of racers - 9 sec cars seem to be the norm amongst these guys. My little Demon is a slow turd next to their cars.
Okay - enough of my digression....but I wanted to share how life things happen and sidetrack at least me from my toys.
After driving the 72 around quite a bit on the streets down here - to shows, cruises, whatever - we went to Gainesville Raceway this past Saturday on 1/27. As always, you meet lots of new great folks when you go to a new track where you're not known. People were friendly and helpful showing me around the amenities there. My first impressions are for a track that is owned by the NHRA, I would have thought they would have made the place more of a showcase kind of track. The PA system was marginal at best, the restrooms were sub-par, the pits were paved asphalt (in Florida this must be nice in a couple months?), and they only bracket race 1x/month! 1x/month and you're the organization promoting the sport? Seems odd and was certainly disappointing. "Oh, well, we do it 1x/month but we race on both Saturday and Sunday that 1 weekend as many folks like to spend the night anyway and race the next day since they're already here." Okay...I guess...but???? The wind was quite strange as it was a headwind early in the day followed by a cross breeze that then turned into a tailwind and then back to a cross-breeze. All at between 14-18 mph! The temp was upper 70's with a DA of 2000-ish, very similar to our Detroit weather the prior year. The car ran it's best "1st run off the trailer" carding an 11.16 so I was excited to see what it would do. That was the only time run given so I took a guess and won the first round with a new personal best of 11.10 (timeslip attached). Took a nap at the tree in rd 2 and got sent home. But racing in January? Pinch me!!
So that's the last 7 months and why the avatar really has not had much track time. Got moved and been putting a ton of time in setting up our house and my new shop. It's a detached garage that's 50' wide x 34' deep with 14' ceilings. You would think that is plenty but I can tell you this packrat can find and hang onto more junk than anyone can ever need. So a lot of time has been spent finding places for things and pitching things! More work to do with bulding shelving, etc, but for now, I'm just happy to be here. The car will hopefully get out more living here in Florida but we'll see. It should certainly get even more street use given all the venues that go on on a weekly basis. Stay tuned....
Us on one of our many trips traversing I-75 betwen Detroit and the Ocala, FL area:
One of many times out on the streets at a cruise:
In the Gainesville staging lanes:
Personal best for the car - RH lane #6020:
The new shop - 2 10'x10' doors and 1 18'x12' door:
Oh what the heck - just for good measure, here's the 71 Demon 340 after a day at a show. I call it my "sheep in wolf's clothing" car as it is all stock/original and certainly not fast!!:
Great story and read! I was wondering when you were going to share the details of your move. Sounds like you are set up to live comfortably and enjoy your new home. look forward to hearing more.
Bill
Bill
Thx Bill - hopefully the follies will continue and I can make it past the 4th round!! Lol
I enjoy your reads tremendously too. Keep'm coming. That's one bad Duster you have for sure!
I enjoy your reads tremendously too. Keep'm coming. That's one bad Duster you have for sure!
dartindanno
Well-Known Member
Great update!! Thanks for catching us up
Are you anywhere near that new track that is going to open in Florida
No I'm not. The North Florida Motorplex is about 240 miles away and the just announced Callahan track (north of Jacksonville) is about 130 miles.
I'm sw of Ocala about 30 miles. 65 miles to Gainesville, Raceway, 105 miles to Orlando Speedworld, and 134 miles to Bradenton Motorsports Park. Not ideal but Gainesville is a very easy drive.
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I started my drag racing 'career' at Gainesville back in the late 70s while stationed at NAS Jacksonville with the Navy. Also raced at the old 1/8th mile track at Jax Raceway just north of Jacksonville on Pecan Park Road. Long gone now.
Well, a few more months have gone by so I thought it time for a brief update.
There was no racing in February at Gainesville due to the GatorNats and some other races.
In March, we took the car up for the monthly brackets. Got there on time, unloaded, tech'd, waiting by the trailer for the call to staging. The call never came! Absolute silence from 9:00 until we threw in the towel at 2:00 as it now looked like rain was coming. Nothing ever came across th PA system! We convinced them to give us a raincheck and we left. The rains came which added additional delays and they stopped racing after midnight only to pick it back up on Sunday. Glad we left!!
In April, we took the car again. Made it to round 3 and lost on a breakout. Went 11.162 on an 11.17 dial. Dang!! Even tried the Pro bracket that day. Dialed a 7.01 (Pro runs 1/8 mile) and went 7.012. But had a red-eye -0.047. Darn driver!
Our last outing was yesterday, 5/19. The weather has obviously gotten hotter as the DA started around 1900 and went to 2750 later in the day on our last run (was 87 degrees). The car was notably slower all day - running 11.20@117+. The 60', 1/8, and quarter were all noticeably slower. Spoke to several others and confirmed they were also off about the same amount. I keep a linear regression of all of this car's runs and it shows it slows down about 0.065 seconds/1000 DA. So much of the ET can be attributed to the higher DA.
There are lots of sharks in the Sportsman class here. Talked to one guy and learned he went racing 37 times last year, was in the finals 17 times, and won it 11 times. Another guy has either won or been in the finals every time since we've been here. Tough sledding for sure! Interestingly enough, both of these guys deep stage with the 2nd guy trying to rush you by doing no burnout and immediately staging as soon as they give the signal to start your burnout. I don't change my process when I've raced him a couple times (and lost
) but I find it an interesting tactic. So we went 3 rounds yesterday and lost on a surprise -0.076 red-eye. Where did that come from??? Don't know where it came from but I know where we went with it: into the trailer! Ran it out and the car went 11.214 on an 11.20 dial so ole dummy here cost the race!
Had a good run in round 2 (rh lane, #6020) - see timeslip below (tapped the brakes at the end but not sure it slowed it down any). 60' is usually 1.52-ish and 1/8 is usually 7.01-7.02-ish so you can see how much slower it was. And BTW...that .003 light did not get me the bye run in the next round. Someone else had a .002! Remember, these are all footbrake cars! Sharks!
Here are a couple pics from the track.
One other thing...my wife has found the joy of driving this car on the street! So when we take it somewhere to a show or cruise, guess who is the passenger??? Or she tells me to go drive the 71 Demon!
There was no racing in February at Gainesville due to the GatorNats and some other races.
In March, we took the car up for the monthly brackets. Got there on time, unloaded, tech'd, waiting by the trailer for the call to staging. The call never came! Absolute silence from 9:00 until we threw in the towel at 2:00 as it now looked like rain was coming. Nothing ever came across th PA system! We convinced them to give us a raincheck and we left. The rains came which added additional delays and they stopped racing after midnight only to pick it back up on Sunday. Glad we left!!
In April, we took the car again. Made it to round 3 and lost on a breakout. Went 11.162 on an 11.17 dial. Dang!! Even tried the Pro bracket that day. Dialed a 7.01 (Pro runs 1/8 mile) and went 7.012. But had a red-eye -0.047. Darn driver!
Our last outing was yesterday, 5/19. The weather has obviously gotten hotter as the DA started around 1900 and went to 2750 later in the day on our last run (was 87 degrees). The car was notably slower all day - running 11.20@117+. The 60', 1/8, and quarter were all noticeably slower. Spoke to several others and confirmed they were also off about the same amount. I keep a linear regression of all of this car's runs and it shows it slows down about 0.065 seconds/1000 DA. So much of the ET can be attributed to the higher DA.
There are lots of sharks in the Sportsman class here. Talked to one guy and learned he went racing 37 times last year, was in the finals 17 times, and won it 11 times. Another guy has either won or been in the finals every time since we've been here. Tough sledding for sure! Interestingly enough, both of these guys deep stage with the 2nd guy trying to rush you by doing no burnout and immediately staging as soon as they give the signal to start your burnout. I don't change my process when I've raced him a couple times (and lost
) but I find it an interesting tactic. So we went 3 rounds yesterday and lost on a surprise -0.076 red-eye. Where did that come from??? Don't know where it came from but I know where we went with it: into the trailer! Ran it out and the car went 11.214 on an 11.20 dial so ole dummy here cost the race! Had a good run in round 2 (rh lane, #6020) - see timeslip below (tapped the brakes at the end but not sure it slowed it down any). 60' is usually 1.52-ish and 1/8 is usually 7.01-7.02-ish so you can see how much slower it was. And BTW...that .003 light did not get me the bye run in the next round. Someone else had a .002! Remember, these are all footbrake cars! Sharks!
Here are a couple pics from the track.
One other thing...my wife has found the joy of driving this car on the street! So when we take it somewhere to a show or cruise, guess who is the passenger??? Or she tells me to go drive the 71 Demon!
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B3422w5
Well-Known Member
Sweet. Super sharp car
ValiantS
Well-Known Member
It's gotta be fun having a dual-purpose car? Thanks for the updates!
Time for an update....here in Florida, the mid-June to early September timeframe is the "down time" for racing. Good time to catch your breath, and do those jobs on the car you've put off because you didn't want to have it down and miss some event.
So I've taken some time to update the instrument panel gauge set - or more accurately just move the gauges where I want them and get rid of the spaghetti harness the PO must have made. The gauge panel connects via a 12-pin connector so other than having to drop the steering column, it's relatively simple to remove it and work on it on the bench.
I moved the smaller gauges around to what I thought are more intuitive. Trans temp on far left, voltage next (that gauge is somewhat blocked by the steering wheel), and then the coolant gauge. I put the oil pressure gauge over on the far right where it's easy to see. The tach was never hooked up as I'm not a fan of having to look down at a tach if the loud pedal is in heavy use! (I have a mid-size tach up on top of the dash but even that is mostly useless at the track as I have a programmable shift light that stares at me and tells me when to shift.) And the speedo has never been hooked up and shall remain that way. Keep in mind this gauge panel and all the Autometer Sport-Comp gauges in it came with the car when I bought it as a roller in 2019. But after learning the MSD box can power both tachs, I went ahead and hooked up the dash tach.
Then I got rid of some of the indicator lights (they were all red) and their tacky white labels. Since there were 5 holes in the panel for them, I went ahead and got new LEDs for them (diff colors) and put back what I thought were somewhat useful ones (like Line-Lock, fan on, etc). Some are duplicate to my switch panel but I did add a coolant switch and wiring underhood to run a "coolant hot" idiot light. That way, if my eye isn't paying attention to the temp gauge, ole dummy here will hopefully get a light to remind him to turn on the fan(s)! (I switch the fans manually so they're only on when I want them on.) Lastly, I got some black lettering to label the idiot lights. The letters were bigger than I expected/wanted but, after paying for them, by golly they got used!
Here's the wiring for the panel at the start. I liked the lamp cord powering some of the various gauges/lights: Nope, that had to go! Before:
After:
It's a LOT of wires! 6 gauges, so + and - for their lights, their power, and then the signal wires for each. Then add the 5 indicator lights which get a signal coming in and a ground. Just lots of wires in a small space!
The finished product facing the driver:
Ok, so what else to do? I'd like to hook up the vacuum advance on the dist for street driving. Maybe improve the fuel economy and generally make the motor happier. But the can that's in there adds too much spark so I'll have to either weld up a slot, change the can, or otherwise tame it down. We shall see...
One thing that has proven to be pleasant is that, so far, this car cools very well with its low-budget Champion radiator and dual electric puller fans. Florida 95-98F days and it can be driven wherever whenever. I wish my show pony 71 Demon 340 cooled like this (it doesn't!) but we'll have to see if a new Glen-Ray rad for that one will be the ticket. But I'll save that for a different thread!
So I've taken some time to update the instrument panel gauge set - or more accurately just move the gauges where I want them and get rid of the spaghetti harness the PO must have made. The gauge panel connects via a 12-pin connector so other than having to drop the steering column, it's relatively simple to remove it and work on it on the bench.
I moved the smaller gauges around to what I thought are more intuitive. Trans temp on far left, voltage next (that gauge is somewhat blocked by the steering wheel), and then the coolant gauge. I put the oil pressure gauge over on the far right where it's easy to see. The tach was never hooked up as I'm not a fan of having to look down at a tach if the loud pedal is in heavy use! (I have a mid-size tach up on top of the dash but even that is mostly useless at the track as I have a programmable shift light that stares at me and tells me when to shift.) And the speedo has never been hooked up and shall remain that way. Keep in mind this gauge panel and all the Autometer Sport-Comp gauges in it came with the car when I bought it as a roller in 2019. But after learning the MSD box can power both tachs, I went ahead and hooked up the dash tach.
Then I got rid of some of the indicator lights (they were all red) and their tacky white labels. Since there were 5 holes in the panel for them, I went ahead and got new LEDs for them (diff colors) and put back what I thought were somewhat useful ones (like Line-Lock, fan on, etc). Some are duplicate to my switch panel but I did add a coolant switch and wiring underhood to run a "coolant hot" idiot light. That way, if my eye isn't paying attention to the temp gauge, ole dummy here will hopefully get a light to remind him to turn on the fan(s)! (I switch the fans manually so they're only on when I want them on.) Lastly, I got some black lettering to label the idiot lights. The letters were bigger than I expected/wanted but, after paying for them, by golly they got used!
Here's the wiring for the panel at the start. I liked the lamp cord powering some of the various gauges/lights: Nope, that had to go! Before:
After:
It's a LOT of wires! 6 gauges, so + and - for their lights, their power, and then the signal wires for each. Then add the 5 indicator lights which get a signal coming in and a ground. Just lots of wires in a small space!
The finished product facing the driver:
Ok, so what else to do? I'd like to hook up the vacuum advance on the dist for street driving. Maybe improve the fuel economy and generally make the motor happier. But the can that's in there adds too much spark so I'll have to either weld up a slot, change the can, or otherwise tame it down. We shall see...
One thing that has proven to be pleasant is that, so far, this car cools very well with its low-budget Champion radiator and dual electric puller fans. Florida 95-98F days and it can be driven wherever whenever. I wish my show pony 71 Demon 340 cooled like this (it doesn't!) but we'll have to see if a new Glen-Ray rad for that one will be the ticket. But I'll save that for a different thread!
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Awesome work Dave!!
bjkadron
Well-Known Member
Looks like a sweet ride! I've always liked the look of the demons. They are a lot harder to find then the Dusters.
Very nice job, I have absolutely no idea about wiring, for some reason I haven't learned that yet.
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....
Took it back there again on Oct 19 (the next and ONLY bracket race until 2025!). The track photographer snapped this pic.
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!
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:
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!):
After:
With the street tires:
Before:
After:
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....!!
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....
Took it back there again on Oct 19 (the next and ONLY bracket race until 2025!). The track photographer snapped this pic.
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!
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:
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!):
After:
With the street tires:
Before:
After:
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....!!
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Looks bad *** nowHow 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....
Took it back there again on Oct 19 (the next and ONLY bracket race until 2025!). The track photographer snapped this pic.
View attachment 1716339366
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!
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:
View attachment 1716339430
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!):
View attachment 1716339385
After:
View attachment 1716339386
With the street tires:
Before:
View attachment 1716339387
After:
View attachment 1716339389
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....!!
bjkadron
Well-Known Member
Just curious, What the fender lip to ground measurement currently in the back?
Roughly 29-1/4" to 29-5/8". I say roughly as it seems to vary a bit depending on what day I measure it and how the car was last stopped (ie. hard brake apply or not).
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