Here is a short video of one of my launches. I overdid the wheelspin a bit but the people at the start line really loved it.
Here is a short video of one of my launches. I overdid the wheelspin a bit but the people at the start line really loved it.
In reply to KevinGale:
That looks like a bunch of fun. 
I can't tell how much of it is the car vs. your driving, but it looks way more planted & neutral than I'd expect from something so light, with so much power, on a bumpy surface like that.
petegossett wrote: In reply to KevinGale: That looks like a bunch of fun.
Probably not my driving. The top of Ascutney is very rough. It beats cars to death. The car is very at home on bumpy surfaces. I believe part of it is the tires. The mod slicks are big balloons. They have almost no sidewall stiffness and they hold a lot of low pressure air, so they absorb a lot of hits. The tires also stick really well to rough pavement.
The digressive shocks play a major part also. That is their claim to fame. Digressive shocks deal with big bumps better. Ascutney has bumps and raised places in the pavement that are high enough that I'm afraid the car is going to bottom out going over them on the way down. There are places a few feet across that are just raised 2-3" above the base pavement. So it's like hitting a speed bump at 90 mph. Digressive valving allows the suspension to move quickly with hard hits using less force so the car is upset less.
Ascutney damage. The rear subframe ripped out of a friend's Subaru. Another person who does Rally commented that he thinks that New England Forest Rally is smoother than Ascutney. :-)
In reply to KevinGale:
Interesting comment on the transmission. Do you still blip when you downshift?
Isn't Butch King the S10 Blazer God? Did he rebuild it? Love your car, thanks for the updates!
MattW wrote: Interesting comment on the transmission. Do you still blip when you downshift?
In theory I should be but I am not. Just push and it goes in. Bliping makes it go in like butter but I just don't have the reflex to blip the throttle while keeping it in neutral for a fraction of a second. I do lift when shifting up or down. Of course it is pretty much a given that you will be lifting when downshifting anyway. I also have avoided trying to shift while braking. It might be OK but braking will load up the drive train just like being on the power. So I figured shifting without the clutch is best done without a big load on the drivetrain.
So when I do downshift going into a corner I tend to shift just after I'm done braking. So it is brake hard and just as that is done shove the transmission into the lower gear. It's not text book but it works great.
4Msfam wrote: Isn't Butch King the S10 Blazer God? Did he rebuild it? Love your car, thanks for the updates!
Yes that's Butch. The Blazer is no more. It was at least a couple years ago. I think a crash took it out. He now has a truck stock car. It is basically a stock car with a truck body. It has a huge 440 cubic inch small block. I keep telling him we need to swap it into my car so I can try it. :-)
Sam Moultroup got a few nice shots at Ascutney.
In the first picture above you can see the car just before the bridge at Ascutney.
This picture of Luke Moultroup's car shows what it looks like landing after the car gets launched up in the air. Luke's car is bottoming out and the rear tire looks like it is going roll off the wheel. Burke and Okemo don't have these kinds of problems.
Looked into my fuel problem tonight.
At the race I thought it was a problem with the fuel pickup in the cell. The pump pulled from a can of fuel but not when connected to the cell.
Tonight I first tried the can of fuel again and it worked as expected. Then I reconnected the pump to the fuel cell and that worked also. Just to prove everything was OK inside the cell I pumped it dry all 15 gallons that were in it.
So it can't be the pickup. So it must be the fuel pump being marginal. Sometimes working and sometimes not. There is a rebuild kit for the pump but I just rebuilt it less than two seasons ago. I decided not to mess around and just ordered a new Holly Blue pump. That is what I am replacing and it should drop right in without any problems. I'm hoping that will solve the problem.
After some thought I also realized that most of my symptoms could also be caused but something weird happening with the fuel pressure regulator. I thought it was most likely the pump and didn't want to spend the $100 on a new fuel pressure regulator but my wife said I'm an idiot (actually she was nicer than that). She said "Just spend the $100, You don't know for sure what the problem is and you'll ruin your Okemo race if it fails again."
I love my wife!
So now one of these is on order.
A wise woman Kelley is.
In reply to sachilles:
I'm a lucky man.
The new fuel pump is here. The design has changed slightly but it still looks like it will drop right in place. I probably won't do it until next week when the new pressure regulator also arrives.
Edit: The design really hasn't changed at all. The new pump is shown upside-down compared to the old one. Once I reversed the clamp I realized they are identical but the paint and stickers.
Got the new fuel pump and pressure regulator installed tonight.
The fuel pressure is now rock solid at 5.75 lbs and it doesn't jump up and down when the carb is calling or not calling for fuel. That is a noticeable improvement over the old pump and regulator. With those even when everything was working fine the pressure would jump around. It wouldn't go too high but it wasn't really stable either.
I'm hoping my problem is fixed. I'm still not sure if it was the pump or pressure regulator (or both). It was a pretty easy job since I was replacing with exactly what I had. None of the usual surprises like not having the right fitting or hoses that are too short.
And here is the pressure regulator. The new one is prettier than the old one. This picture is while the car was running and you can see the pressure at about 5.75 lbs.
Just got done checking nuts and bolts on all the suspension and drivetrain. In theory I should do this after every race but in practice I do it twice a year after each Ascutney. Ascutney pretty much always loosens something up. And twice when I have forgotten to check things after Ascutney I have broken things at the next event. In both cases it was bolts on the torque arm coming loose. This time I found two bolts on the torque arm a little loose. I probably should loctite them but they only come loose for Ascutney and I should check these things anyway.
I'm also about to put in the 3.93 gears for Okemo and I changed the oil in the new transmission. Not much metal on the magnetic drain plug which I'm taking as a good sign.
5.04 gears out draining and the 3.93's in. The car is pretty much ready for Okemo next weekend.
In reply to KevinGale:
Those look like snow tires?
petegossett wrote: In reply to KevinGale: Those look like snow tires?
The are snows, Nokians. My trailer tires are snows. My thought at the time was that I could run them in the rain. The snows are fairly soft. But in practice I mostly just don't run in the rain.
KevinGale wrote:petegossett wrote: In reply to KevinGale: Those look like snow tires?The are snows, Nokians. My trailer tires are snows. My thought at the time was that I could run them in the rain. The snows are fairly soft. But in practice I mostly just don't run in the rain.
Ah, ok. I was really confused, because I know your slicks are about as wide as they are tall. Do you run 2x snow tires per-rim to get enough width? 
In reply to petegossett:
Lol, The really funny part is when I bought the car I needed trailer tires. I hauled it home with the tires hanging over the edge of the trailer but that wasn't going to work as a general rule. I needed some narrow wheels for loading the car on the trailer. Usually people have some old wheels and junk tires to use as trailer tires. But I didn't have anything and no one I knew did. So thinking I might be able to use them as rains I bought 4 new wide 5, 8" wide wheels and 4 new Nokian snows. I even had them balanced. So these are brand new wheels and tires that only see use getting the car on and off the trailer. Lots of people have commented about the amount of money I spent on trailer wheels and tires. I just laugh. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
That decision may yet benefit you, if only to get your car off the hill at the end of a cold Mt Philo weekend.
sachilles wrote: That decision may yet benefit you, if only to get your car off the hill at the end of a cold Mt Philo weekend.
Absolutely! Snow has been known to happen at Philo. And snows are probably a good idea on cold wet leaf slime often on the road.
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