Well. I went at it again on Wednesday even though I don't have wheels for the 28x10.5 slicks I picked up. Drove down from home (Bellingham, WA) two hours to where the car is (Renton, WA), met up with my buddy and hopped in to make the 30 minute drive from there to Kent, WA where the track is. Decided since the car was filthy to take it to a drive through car wash along the way. Car wash ripped my battery disconnect switch off . Bypassed the switch and drove to a parts house to get a new one. Found and purchased switch, installed in parking lot, back on the road. Got about halfway there, heard a tiny clunk and saw the temperature gauge do an impression of a tachometer. Shut it down and pulled over, hopped out and popped the hood to find my water pump pulley laying on the crossmember didn't even scuff the belt. Well all but the center of it that bolts to the pump. That was still securely bolted on. No luck at Napa, two repair shops, or Carquest. Ended up at a wrecking yard that was getting ready to shut down for the night. I told them how screwed I was and they begrudgingly let me look through their pile of core motors. Found one on a cleveland that looked pretty close and went up to talk to the yard guy, half expecting him to tell me to just go ahead and take it. The son of a gun charged me $25.00!! I figure about $22.00 of it was a desperation fee. Got back to car, installed pulley, back on the road. Somehow I managed to handle all of this fast enough to only make me an hour late to the track. 6pm. Got there, teched in, first pass: 12.98. Three rows back in line for pass number two and a Nova blows up and oils down the track really badly. An hour later they start running us again. Second pass: 12.56. Get back to the lanes and learn another Nova has oiled down the track! Not as bad this time. 20 minutes and we're back in business. Third pass: 12.43. Back in line and some dang kid sprays coolant out of his Honda all the way down the track Things aren't looking good for any more passes, but they get it cleaned up in time to attempt to run everybody one more time. Pass number four was my good news. A new best of 12.163@113.08 Still no slicks, still no bottle. I love my little car.
gettin scary. put some slicks on it and you'll definitely be in the 11's. what's the altitude there? do you have a roll bar and fire jacket. i think you'll need them if your quicker than 12.0.
I think it's pretty close to sea level. Is a fire jacket required for 11s? damn! I haven't built a cage for it yet. I'm sort of struggling with that decision since I went to all the trouble of putting an interior in the car finally http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=6109&highlight=finally I'm pretty sure I can get into the top of the 11s without slicks or nitrous. I haven't so much as changed the jets in the carburetor yet. I've just been learning how to drive it. I'm probably going to try out the nitrous next time I go down with or without slicks. all I need is a button to wire in and attatch to my shifter. I'd be pretty excited to be able to say I built a car that can drive around in town with no real problems and runn elevens without so much as changing the tires.
you only need a roll bar from 11.00 to 11.99. roll cage is only necessary if your quicker than 10.99. a 3 inch driver restraint system meeting SFI Spec 16.1 is mandatory on any car running 11.99 or quicker. by the way, the seat belts have to be replaced or updated every 2 years. from 10 to 11.99 a jacket meeting SFI Spec 3.2A/1 mandatory. also, in any car where a roll bar is installed, a padded head protector must be provided at the back of the drivers head. the faster you go the more $ it costs. in az., when you test and tune, they put the number on the rear window that you can legally run. if you run faster they may ask you to leave until your legal. i have a 2003 copy of the nhra rule book that if you e mail me your name & address i'll send it to you. i have the 2004 but they don't change too much. i'm going to the track tonight. hope to run 12.20's at 1250 ft. altitude. i ran 12.55 at the last race in tucson. there altitude is 3075 so we usually run about .3 slower there.
Sounds like you have a pretty quick car Don. nice job. Email sent. Thanks. Dennis- I only wish I could make it to the round up, bu that's a bit far for me.
Wow. Tires are definetley going to make the difference - then comes the 6 point and other safety equipment for sure. WTG
ray, sorry, my fault, but the profile had the wrong e-mail address. i've changed it there but, it is " ford@c2i2.com " sorry about the confusion. please send me your address again and i'll mail it out tomorrow. i ran last night at firebird in phoenix. first run off the trailer was a 12.20 at 113.35. fastest run of the night was a 12.147 at 113.40. the corrected altitude was 4146 ft. the temp for the first run was 111. the 12.14 was 100 degrees. my class limit is 12.0 so if the air gets any better i too may get into the 11's. may have to add a little weight to the car as the et finals this year are in bakersfield, california in october.
Nice Don! That's one quick machine. I think my 12.16 run was at about 70 degrees. Your car would scream here! Email re-sent. Rick- Thanks man! Can't wait to hear how your monster does! How's it coming anyway?
I'm not sure this has anything to do with it - but from your description of the night you just need to wait around for some more novas or hondas to blow up to get into the 11's. Seriously - do you think the track guys did a good job cleaning up? Maybe the track was biting better after the clean up job. Cleaver
go for it dan. once you do it your hooked. ray, got your address. the book will go out in tomorrows mail.
While on the subject of crappy racedays...Today kind of sucked. I made the first time trail, ran 8.55/116. Ran respectable, but with the toilet on alky, I felt that it should have been better. I left it alone, ran the 2nd time trial and ran .6 slow and 7 mph slower. Came back to the pit, pulled plugs....#5 was burned off and #1 was blistered. I found some old Autolites (I have been running Motorcraft AGSP32C) that are considerably colder, put those in, pulled the lines, nozzles, and re-set the barrel valve. Car then went 8.51. Apparently, it "liked" a little more fuel, so I dropped pill sizes from 96 down to 84, the "jump" was because it was the first pill I picked up and said screwit and lets see what it'll do. Re-set the barrell valve, this time by ear & nose, drew a 9.89 car in the first round. I left the line, knew the car was going to run a bit better. I was off the throttle and hard on the brakes, still ran 8.45/117...but the dial in was 8.52. I broke out big-time. I came back to the pit again, figured since it liked a bit more fuel, lets put some more to it. Changed pill from 84 down to 76, 2nd round I dialed 8.40. I drew a 9.62 big-block powered Monza. As soon as I hit the throttle in the burnout box I knew it was going to be a good run. It shot up to 7000 instantly (love that instant throttle response!). Anyway, after I left the line, the motor came up in the revs quickly...quicker than normal and I shifted a little late. I had to chase the other car down, and I had already caught him by the 1/8 mile and I said heck with it, I'm gonna see what this thing'll do. Ran 8.31/121 mph...6.41/107 1/8 mile. Of course I broke out again, but at least I know what it's capable of...bad part is I had bought back first round and I was done for the day. I didn't feel real well all day (worked my butt off yesterday at work and at the sat. test & tune after work) and got about 3 hrs. sleep, so I wasn't the greatest all day. The heat wasn't helping either. At least I am starting to figure out this injection. Win or lose, the important thing is that I know what the car is capable of (maybe mid 6.20's with more tuning). I will say that this toilet is much simpler than a carb...though I'm new to alky and haven't figured out it's properties yet as far as running lean or rich on a V8. I will say that it is MUCH easier to achieve good reaction times because the throttle response is instantaneous with absolutely no delay. As soon as you hit the pedal, whether it be 1/4 throttle or WOT, it is there, no if's and's or but's. Everyone said milking the oil would be a problem, well...I'm on the 4th race day with the same oil, and it's still as clean as the day I put it in. The only downside I see is that it's a bit harder to start, but once you figure out what your car likes, it's not a big deal and you'll use about 2 gallons per run, give or take. With a 3 gallon fuel cell, sometimes getting behind a slow driver in the return road is interesting. Anyway, sorry to bore ya'll. I guess it was one of those things, I'd liked to have made a few rounds and perhaps gotten some money, but breaking outby nearly a full tenth was probably the only time I'll ever be excited about losing by going too fast.
Geez! That is fast! Just wait 'till you get it dialed in! One question though since I haven't been involved with cars running your kind of times. Is this a 100ft track you run at or a full 1/4?
