wow, I didn't realize HOW offset that chassis really is. How well does it turn right?
wow, I didn't realize HOW offset that chassis really is. How well does it turn right?
In reply to tpwalsh: It turns right just fine. Well enough to win races in hillclimbs which have lots of right hand turns. The suspension is actually symmetrical just the body is offset. In practical terms that means it has a bit more left side weight but once the fuel cell, battery and dry sump tank are moved to the right side the difference is probably less than some production cars that people don't think of as being offset. In theory because of the weight difference it should turn left better than right but I honestly don't notice a difference.
Ironically the old front clip looked better but was worse. It had less offset but because it had less offset the left front suspension was a little shorter (As I recall the left lower control arm was more than an inch shorter than the right). This front clip has more offset which allows the suspension to use the same length arms on both sides. The wheel ends up in the same place for both.
KevinGale wrote: Polishing the crank and back in. That's my friend John Reed doing the engine work. This was all to address the issue where we found lot of copper from #1 rod bearing in the Oberg oil filter.
What is the diameter on that radiator inlet/t-stat housing? It looks much bigger than stock and I hate my hodgepodge mixed tube setup on my truck right now going from the diesel radiator to the SBC.
In reply to fidelity101: I think it is just an optical illusion in the picture. It takes a standard thermostat so that opening is the same.
In reply to KevinGale:
dang :(
Well I did get the Troyer together in time for the Okemo hillclimb. So it races again!
There were still a thousand little things to do to get the car completely back together. I made it but just barely. I actually worked all night on Thursday and loaded the car on the trailer late Friday afternoon. So no sleep at all that night. The week before also had a lot of late nights. I was pretty exhausted and had to take a nap on Saturday. But it was all worth it.
I won the event with a 2:17. Special thanks to Paul Tinguad for not showing up with his Super Chicken.
The time was a bit slow for me I've run as good as a 2:11 in the past but I had a power steering problem. I had a leaking hose which caused the power steering to respond with jerks. That made steering bit challenging at speed. In fact I only took one of the three available runs on Sunday because it was so scary on the high speed part of the course. I thought I was going to leave the road at more than 110 mph on the first run and that was enough.
I should have a in car video of the run to post later.
Good job!
Still working on the video from Okemo it might be a bit after all. But here is an old video from Ascutney last year. It is one my fiend Vanessa at Cloudview Motorsports made. The sound track makes me smile each time I watch it.
Here is the Okemo vid https://www.youtube.com/embed/i-A1CXR3yXY
A good part of my childhood was spent watching these things race in a circle.That was exciting, Thanks for sharing!
Sweet! What sounds like a machine gun around 3:07 though and whenever you get on the throttle?
Think I need to try a remote mic setup at some point. The GoPro gets more wind noise than engine noise. But it's low on the priority list.
My new favorite picture of the car courtesy of Len Emery Photography
KevinGale wrote: Here is the Okemo vid Okemo I
Looks like an absolute blast! What gauges do you run on the dash? I can make out the RPM on the right, but can't make out the rest.
In reply to CGLockRacer:
Not sure what sound you mean. What you can hear most of the time is gear whine. The quick change in the back makes lots of gear noise and the car has a gear drive for the cam. Between the two they are louder than the engine noise when I let off the throttle and still pretty loud at full throttle.
In reply to edwardh80: Left to right they are Voltage, Oil Temp, Water Temp, Oil Pressure and Tach
Quick Change Gears for Mt Washington have arrived. I will be running these nice 5.04 gears in the quick change.
Made it back from Mt Washington.
Catching the car in front of me in practice
Racing on dirt was a new experience!
I overall pretty happy. I was able to run the whole hill in high gear like I hoped and had enough acceleration to make it into the 100 mph club in the speed trap. Which was really cool.
Not everything went as planned however.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/71O81JWtODo
https://www.youtube.com/embed/3qYw3dNjYlQ
Here are the damages. Not too bad really.
Bah, that sucks. Love this build/blog.
Glad you're ok, but what happened? Rear brake lock up on one side only? Seems like the car just rotated into the hill by itself.
Pretty much driver error. I was just going too fast for that place on the course. Probably showing off for the crowd too much. :-)
There is a section of pavement there that seems to upset two wheel drive cars a bit more than the all wheel drive cars but it's still my job to take that into account.
I was going pretty fast into the corner. Under hard braking I was also trying to turn left slightly for the kink before the right hand corner. Hard braking and turning are not a good combination. It wasn't much turning but the pavement is a bit uneven. What I think happened is when I was turning left slightly the backend broke free which caused the pull to the left you can see. Then I automatically counter steered to the right. That automatic reaction killed me. The front wheels had lots of traction and they went right but the back end had no traction and it didn't follow the front and instead went left hard turning me hard right into the bank.
Or I could just say the bull bucked me off. I often say driving this car is like riding a bull. It wants to throw me off and then stomp on me.
Which in some ways isn't really fair to the car. The mod has very high limits and you can go pretty fast without pushing those limits. But when you do find the limits you tend to be going at speeds where things go wrong very quickly and my talent or lack of it isn't always up to the task.
Another indication that this crash wasn't that bad. The lower bumper is from this last crash at Washington. The upper bumper is from the crash at Ascutney last year. The nice bow shape matches the big tree I hit.
Working on a new lower radiator mount. The old one did it's job and protected the radiator. This one is even stronger. In this case it's about protecting it from me. I found that the radiator mount is a convenient spot to jack the front of the car. But since there was only sheet metal between the angle iron I had to be careful of the jack placement. Now I have 1/8" steel spanning the gap and that should be enough to protect the radiator if I don't place the jack perfectly.
This is all adding some weight but this piece really needs to be strong. When we have big bumps in the road or the pits this is what hits. When it is in the car it also has a piece of 1" round tubing in front of it.
What about adding some speed holes in the lower flat piece? Leave the middle solid for a jack point. I.e. 4 large holes along the length but solid where the center hole would be? OO-OO. Kind of like that.
The road is shaped for drainage there and you were riding both sides of the hump. I'm fairly certain that contributed. It was good to see the damage was light given your pace.
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