Asphalt_Gundam - G body that turns

After 3 trips to the parts store I finally figured out which u joint I needed and the car drives again!!! Turned out it was the one had already but .030 narrower.... because why standardize that kinda stuff....

Murphy was about when addressing the coolant leak became a stripped hole. Lucky me it could be tapped larger no problem. Then the jack decides that it will go up and then back down with every pump. So fill up the fluid and the the plug is missing 20seconds later. Find it after ten minutes...fell into the jack and got caught on the springs. Pull the car out if the garage and there's just a grinding sound....E36 M3. turns out I made the brake duct/air catch too long. The decision was made that those can self clearance.

I took her up the road to a very long, wide section of flat country road to bed the brakes in. Had a mild scare when the wheel momentarily jerked to the right and debris was seen in the rearview. Stopping to inspect turned up nothing  and car seemed good to go. 

While putting 50 miles on I drove back past the brake incident and here there was a chunk of pavement freshly ripped out where I was on the brakes hard.......well that explains the jerk to the right.

Upon return to the house I but and bolted the suspension and brakes. No leaks found, cooling system is working awesome as cruise temps were 175 tops and it has a 190 thermostat in it. 

She's dirty and most of the aero isn't on but I am one very happy person right now.

It doesn't look so big sitting there by itself.

Good luck. Hopefully your cam/distro gear issues are behind you.

I had lost track of this thread, so I started over and read through it again. There's so much to like about this car and you do a great job of documenting it. 
 

I'm looking forward to the track update. 

Trackday Picnic recap:
Pros:
Didn't destroy the splitter on the first lap
Brakes work very well
Tried out the Garmin catalyst and first impression is good
The Holley Terminator X Stealth is going to be a good upgrade over the sniper.
The aero works and seemed to be in a useable balance range
The rear steer geometry help the car change direction quickly and with purpose without risk of a snap oversteer
Cooling system working excellent
See friends and do track things!!!!
The rooftop tent worked great and it's very comfortable to sleep in. Huge win!

Cons: session 1 cool down lap the car started running poor. After realizing that I forgot to pack a few thing I needed while working on the car I pulled a valve cover to discover two stuck exhaust valves. Apparently going to a posi seal with the spring removed was not letting enough oil in. I wanted away from umbrella type as the were falling apart last year. Not a fix right now thing...even for me. Going to need a couple pushrods and lifters I think. Hopefully the valves can get freed up and just run it without exh seals. Will find out tomorrow. GridLife Spring kickoff is coming up in a week and a half and I plan to have the car ready to go again.

Still had a blast of a weekend though. @iambmw85 borrowed me his car for a session. I was surprised how quickly I got comfortable in his car as it's much much different than mine. Was fun to compare the two and for similar lap times how different they were in accomplishing it.

My always hauling tools and spares paid off when Adam needed a fitting and while I didn't have the exact one I was able to drill and tap one of the 3/8npt plugs I had and make the adaptor he needed.

The picnic potluck was great. Our big bowls of grilled potatoes and carrots got scraped clean and all the food was great!

Despite my breakdown it was a great weekend. Blackhawk Farms is a cool track with a great facility and workers. I will absolutely be looking forward to more events there.

First time all the aero was on at once and outside.

At Blackhawk Farms

The BMW I also took out for a session. They are very different and yet I got comfortable and settled into a good pace after 2 laps. The two were capable of similar lap times but they did it very differently. Cutlass is on last year's BFG Sport comps...which sat outside all winter and the BMW is on pilot sports and also has Fortune Auto coilovers.

In the BMW there just felt like so much more lateral grip (for obvious tire reasons) but the brakes were long travel before they really bit in. Once the brakes grabbed the decel rate felt very similar to the Cutlass...but then again I was kept being way too early in the brakes in the Cutlass because they were good...real good. In the long corner where the BMW had the grip confidence the Cutlass was at the edge of the tire. I could feel the aero working with ever so slight a slip in the rear. It felt slower but maybe it was just the feel of at the limit in that corner. Where the Cutlass really shined was the exit of 3 through 6. 3 into 3A is an abrubt right to left at speed and the Cutlass handled that with absolute confidence and quickness. BMW was good here too but 3A was where the BMW began to struggle. Gearing and a narrow power band really held me back as 5 to 7 it pulled hard but was meh everywhere else. The Cutlass on the other hand I didn't even bother downshift and let the torque get it going out of that real tight turn. Then a split second lift before going into 4. Then power down all the way through 5, brake hard for 6, then back on throttle all the way to 6A. BMW didn't really get going again until mid 5 and was ok into 6. It was better through 7 using all the run off. Cutlass was close.

Overall the BMW was more at easy to drive. Better grip and it just did what you asked when you expected it to. Very natural feel. The Cutlass needed more thought and planning put into the execution. It wasn't twitchy but it would change direction very fast which caused me a few too early turn ins. Some of it was untested car cautiousness but I kept braking way too early. The brakes are right at the top of the pedal and initial bike is really good. Had to be easy on the pressure to not lockup. Off corner was better than the BMW in slow corners where the torque could power through. Also being at the limit of the tires had to considered during the high speed corners. 

More time in the BMW and I could find the limits and figure out better gear selection...it's the faster car today. Gaining faith in the Cutlass would have seen big improvement and been very close in lap time.

Prognosis is as suspected. Valves got hot and stuck due to the seals being too good. Over a 20min session of hard use they dried out. Once off the engine they closed with a light mallet tap but they just barely kissed the pistons and are bent a hair. Pistons and bottom end look ok. Two valves, two pushrods, two rockers and the cam are junk though. Getting heads transported tomorrow, parts are already ordered and will be in before the end of the week. Going to pull the pan and clean it out as I know at least one chunk of lifter is in there.
I did verify oil flow to and through all the lifters and pushrods are clear. This was the side with a slight oil leak which I saw had oil at all rockers after a few minutes of running.

I'm kicking around the idea of adding oilers to the valve covers and tee them off from the pressure sensor. I'll see what the oil supply to the top looks like with new cam/lifters first.

R&R Performance did me a solid last week. Met me part way to get heads and had them turned around with new valves, touched up the seats, a couple guides, and ready to go by Friday morning. Cousin of mine was able to pick them up and they were on the bench at home by the time I got off work. I had already pulled the pan and pump to clean out, replaced the cam and put in the new lifters Thursday evening. Installed the heads and rockers and start priming the oil system to check flow....and one is pissing oil everywhere out the rocker. Had to be 20x more oil than the other 15 (of which had more oil than the previous set of lifters). So I swap to one of the old lifters in place of the too much oil one and then I have barely any oil out of that one....Guess that confirms the lifter hypothesis. I decide to disassemble a good lifter and the too much oil then see this

That's the previous set lifter on the right and new lifter on the left. Same cam kit number for both. Somebody put the wrong lifters in the kit back at the manufacturer is what caused the too little oil condition.

So I took apart the new lifter with too much oil and find a little plate in there that's jammed crooked. Free it and reassemble, test again, and now oil flow is same as the others. Ok that's fixed!

Finish engine assembly and it fires right up. Sounds good, revs nice, I'm confident that the bottom end is okay.

Saturday morning I get some idle tuning worked out and just go over everything to make sure I didn't miss anything that will become a problem later. The rest of the day was taken up modifying the front splitter so that I could raise it. The new tires are shorter and I was already all over the skid pucks in the brake zones. Had to move the rear mounts up into the cross member and lots of trimming to make it fit around the chassis braces. Then all the mounts needed modification and cut the air dam shorter. I should have a net gain of a half inch and a half to 1 degree of angle.

Sunday I cleaned all the vehicles. Cutlass, my truck and the daily. Truck and daily get neglected cleaning and really needed it. Cutlass got wash, wax, wheels scrubbed, and then touch-up wax. I polished the Wang which matches nicely with the chrome trim on the car.

Sunday morning I got the new Falken RT660 tires put on and got the Wang uprights back from the powder coater.

So now I'm partially packed up and ready for GridLife Spring kickoff at Gingerman this coming weekend. I did discover a leaky brake caliper Saturday and someone actually answered the phone, lucky me, and seals are getting overnight shipped today so as long as they show up tomorrow the car will be at 100 percent going into this weekend. It'll be my first try at Time Attack too. Running in the Street Mod class for the season with GridLife is the plan.

asphalt_gundam said:

wawazat said:

I absolutely love your car.  The chrome grille on a track car is just perfect. 

I like the looks too but it will probably have to eventually go in the name of speed, aero, and downforce.

I keep thinking a Hood Ornament Track Club would be neat but membership would be pretty dang low....

If chrome won't get you home... might not get you a podium either.

BigIron said:

It's possible your block is worn enough to allow the cam to walk which is eating the distro gear. Rocket racing has parts for this but I'd talk to John first before throwing parts at it. Here's the page on their site with shims and button. https://shop.rocketracingshop.com/Camshaft-Accessories_c20.htm

 

While it's cool to see a Cutlass winging around the track the fact it is Olds powered is even better. Had a '70 W30 for 20+ years so I'm definitely partial to the Rocket power. Got to say I'm amazed you found three diesel blocks as I was under the impression they are rather hand to find anymore. Definitely a good base to build on but probably overkill. Not that that is a bad thing.

 

I read through the thread the other day but don't recall if you have posted if you have dynoed the motor? Mid to low 2:40's is pretty good at Road America so apparently it has some steam under the hood as G's are not light.

 

Good luck on the motor and look forward to seeing what the car can do in the future.

I always wondered what power a 350 diesel could make if you converted it back to gas. They should run higher compression. Add regular 350 components and remove unneccesary diesel ones.

In reply to JaxRhapsody :

They were never gas engines in the first place so that would be difficult.

JaxRhapsody said:

BigIron said:

It's possible your block is worn enough to allow the cam to walk which is eating the distro gear. Rocket racing has parts for this but I'd talk to John first before throwing parts at it. Here's the page on their site with shims and button. https://shop.rocketracingshop.com/Camshaft-Accessories_c20.htm

 

While it's cool to see a Cutlass winging around the track the fact it is Olds powered is even better. Had a '70 W30 for 20+ years so I'm definitely partial to the Rocket power. Got to say I'm amazed you found three diesel blocks as I was under the impression they are rather hand to find anymore. Definitely a good base to build on but probably overkill. Not that that is a bad thing.

 

I read through the thread the other day but don't recall if you have posted if you have dynoed the motor? Mid to low 2:40's is pretty good at Road America so apparently it has some steam under the hood as G's are not light.

 

Good luck on the motor and look forward to seeing what the car can do in the future.

I always wondered what power a 350 diesel could make if you converted it back to gas. They should run higher compression. Add regular 350 components and remove unneccesary diesel ones.

There was a guy with lemons that ran one of the 350 diesels in a c4 corvette for 1 day of the 2 day race and converted it to gas for the 2nd day.

Apparently, it sucked at both.

I'm not sure which part of gm that particular 350 diesel was from.  I believe oldsmobile.

buzzboy said:

In reply to JaxRhapsody :

They were never gas engines in the first place so that would be difficult.

With Oldsmobile the critical dimensions for bolt patterns and locations are all the same...Small block, Big block, diesel. The differences being that the small block is 9.330 deck height and 2.500 mains , big block 10.625 with 3.000 mains, diesel is 9.330 deck with 3.000 mains and much much heavier duty block with thick cylinder walls and more main support than any gas block. Conversion to gas at the simplest level is swapping heads, intake, add a carb, and plug the oil supply to where the injection pump was. Stock diesel pistons are flat tops with 2 valve reliefs so compression comes out pretty good but the bottom end rotating weight is heavy and the cam tiny in stock form. But grind the crank for chevy rods, custom pistons, ported big block heads and modified small block intake (so the ports line up), big cam and a few other support mods then it becomes a very stout power plant as the diesel block is basically the equivalent of an aftermarket block for a chevy or ford. 

GridLife Spring Kickoff at Gingerman Raceway Recap

Things are busy at work so despite those overnight shipped brake caliper seals showing up by 11am I was at work till just after 3:30. Went home and swapped out the leaky seal, bled the brakes and loaded car on the trailer only to run into problems getting the splitter fitted up with some bolt interference that I didn't have when the car was on jack stands. Some cussing and grinder modification later it went on and we could get on the road. 3hrs out we stop and pick up 2 more friends and continue on another 3 hr drive to another friends house to stay the night, getting in around 12:30am. We visit for Thursday morning and head out after having lunch with a few more friends. Chicago strikes and it ends up taking over 2hrs longer to get to Gingerman than it should have and we arrive just before dark. Camp gets set up and the car unloaded. I make another once over of the car in the dark...good think I packed that light baton. Friday I don't have a session until after 5pm so I drive the car into town for a supply run and to get glue for the rear view mirror because it decided to fall off on the trip over...This is now the only test miles it got since the top end re-due. I decide changing the oil is worth while after the short trip as the cam should have broken in and might as well get that done. Around lunch I go to registration and get all my cool Time Attack stickers and a transponder which gives us something to do for a little while getting them all on the car. We spend a few hours driving around town and checking out garage sales. I pick up a portable air tank for $25

5pm rolls around and I grab a spot in group B as a complete guess about what lap time the car might have. I ended up near the front of the grid thinking I'm going to end up giving lots of point bys. Out lap goes well and I'm actually keeping pace with the cars ahead of me when starting the flyer. At this point I've already scolded myself for horrible lines on the out lap (I try to practice race line on out and cool down) and I have the worry about running the pan dry in 7/8/9 as that is common and I have oiling on my mind from Black Hawk Farms. Sure enough I run through 7/8 and 50 percent of the way through 9 I see the oil pressure twitch then drop to zero. I shut it down going into 10 and carry enough speed to get several car widths off course. I was worried about an oil down situation and kept to the outside of 10 until I could turn for the corner station. Once stopped the engine still turns over but I'm not seeing the oil pressure come up....."E36 M3". I get towed in at the end of the session and pull the distributor because I'm still not seeing any oil pressure while cranking. Throw the drill on it and within 5 seconds there's 60psi of pressure...."ok....so why wasn't there any while cranking?" I keep checking everything over and not finding any glaring reasons I suspect that it was just the pump not primed after going dry. After fighting to get the timing reset (since I neglected to pack the phasing tool) it fires right back up, no problems and running great. Lucky me I got away without damaging the engine. At this point I start try to look at options to continue the weekend from finding a used Accusump to driving hours to get a new on somewhere on a Saturday. At this point its time for a few beers while I try to think of a fix since getting an Accusump plus needed parts is going to be impossible on a Saturday morning. I start my walkabout with pockets full of beer and make it around far enough to spot Jabay and decide to stop and say sorry for partially ruining a session. He asks what happened and I end it with "unless I can find an accusump tonight or in the morning I don't know what can do other than add extra oil and hope for the best" to which he turns around and say that's the guy to talk to....well ok. So that guy is friends with the Doug Lane owner of Lane Performance which is only 30min away and he for sure will be willing to help! By the time I got back over to that trailer in the morning Doug was on the phone and lining up parts for me! We go over what I might need and he says "start driving down there, the stuff should be pulled from the warehouse by the time you get there". So I make the drive and wait maybe 10min tops for the parts and head back to the track after stopping to find a shorter oil filter to compensate for the sandwich plate thickness. I start the install with the help of my crew only to realize that I can't find my drill bits and sent them to town for some as continue the install. Finished up in just over an hour and thanks to that air tank I bought I'm able to properly setup the accusump pre-load.

Only missed one session. I grid up last in group B since I have no lap time and not sure where I'm supposed to be yet. Go out and push hard.....oil pressure in 9? Yes!!! A few laps later...fuel starve in 9....damn...and I was thinking about that while getting parts but forgot when we got back to the track. Got a lap in at 1:48.9 so at least I have a starting point.

Fuel up the car this time and go over the accusump parts again finding a small leak and fix that. I don't make any setup changes as I know my driving was the weak link that session and focus on what I know I was getting wrong and taking into account what the Garmin said I should be doing different. Get grid slot 6 in group C for the last session of the day. I work on what I want to do different on my out lap and then click off a string of 1:47 and 1:48 laps with a best of 1:47.25 with a car that's really loose in the slow speed corners. Was sliding through most of 2, 3, and 6 with a little bit in 9 (high speed) but not as much. Car felt fast but just couldn't get the power down on corner exit, brakes were better than ever with making me nervous on how late I could brake. Then the car just dies on the back stretch as I grab 4th???? coast in almost to hot pit but not quite. Won't restart or even act like it wants to. After a few minutes some friendly folks give me a push back to my pit. 10 minutes later the car starts back up like nothing happened...weird since the gauges didn't seem to be showing an red flags and after a good look over I can't find anything sticking out as the cause. After a discussion with a Ryan Finch about the car setup we agree that more angle of attack in the rear wing is good move to see if it cleans up the rear slide in 9 and maybe help in the low speed corners too. He also suggests a compression drop in the rear shocks. Decide to do my full chassis and brakes bolt check which was all good until a cracked front rotor... Now its after all the parts stores are closed, I check with the few corvette guys in my camp but they all have different size rotors despite to offer to cannibalize a broken C5. Time for those beers and walkabout again. Swing by another vette guy I know and he's willing to help but left his spares are the wrong size too. 

I get up Sunday morning and decide on one more effort as the parts stores did not have anything in stock. I come across a C5 I hadn't spotted the night before and ask if they have an spare 13" rotors...And he did! Turns out it was Taylor Allen who's a sales rep for Hawk Performance and he had a used set of rotors as spares in his truck. I tell him I can give them back before I leave and he says you can keep them, he didn't even want anything for them. Thank you, thank you and I head back to pit and swap them just in time for first session of the day. Car dies on the backstretch during the first flyer and I coast into the pit again. I notice the IAT is reading higher than normal but 5min later it fires back up like nothing happened and I'm able to finish the session. With traffic I was able to do a few more 1:47 and 1:48 laps with a 1:47.24 as best lap. Same as evening before but the car felt better and "optimal lap" dropped to a low 1:45 from high 1:46. Top speed only dropped .1 mph so I added significantly more rear wing again to try to get the rear to work. On cool down lap I paid attention to the IAT and didn't come down more than a few degrees...odd. Next session in quickly heating up and degrading track conditions I decide to work on my brake zones as the main focus. I'm getting into a rhythm and doing 1:48 laps until I catch up to all the spec Fits. I just enjoy a lap or two following them before passing...at which point the car decides to die again....mid pass...so I stay inside of turn one and drive it off across the grass to pit out. Sit there for 2 min with the fan running and the car starts back up like nothing happened. Continue on and put in another 3 or 4 laps to end the session without problems. Best lap was a 1:48 something with me being way easier on it in the brakes zones and the extra rear down force reigning in the back a little more in the slow speed corners and enough to have the front slide first in 9 at high speed. Peak MPH dropped 3mph. Overall the car felt better and maybe I'd have still shaved time if I stuck with more aggressive brake zones but I was trying to be smoother with less lockup and less on power slides. The overall lack of rear traction makes me think there is a lot more in chassis setup and as much or more in my driving it in a way that makes it work. The car is better since last year we only did a 1:54-1:56 lap..I don't remember exactly. The brakes and corner entry is where the biggest gains came from, top speed was pretty much the same, corner exit seems "meh" which makes me think its not what it could be. Too much sliding for what those Falkens and my suspension changes should have done. 

What the car is doing really well compared to last year is changing direction. With the rear setup it rotates in better with trail brake but then rotates even more upon throttle application..until the back tires start sliding. This was real noticeable on 6 where I would brake before 5 coast through then just a touch of brakes to start the 6 turn in then it would tighten its radius going back to throttle. Enough that I had to take wheel angle out in order to track out on exit all the way.

I'll be looking through the EFI for a safety or something that I may have missed that could be causing the random engine off scenario. 

This weekend I'm going to BIR for Proving Grounds Part 1 2021 in which I'll have Autocross, drags, HPDE, and Standing Start Shootout. Plan is to largely use this weekend as test and tune with the various disciplines. I'm grateful for the help Doug and Taylor provided which is why I have a operable car going into this weekend and not in a mad scramble for parts.

do you think it might be a vapor lock situation?

man, this thing is super cool to see you develop.  can't wait to hear more!

ScottyB said:

do you think it might be a vapor lock situation?

man, this thing is super cool to see you develop.  can't wait to hear more!

It's possible given how random it was and quickly "fixed" after a short cool down. Given the higher IAT and starter's protests to cranking right after have me thinking that with the aero there is far less air passing through the under hood area and its created elevated temps.

An air box setup for cowl induction or ram air may be the ticket for getting IAT lower and thus keeping fuel in the throttle body cooler too. 

It finally happened. Pushing to make improvements to the car all the time and I make a mistake. 

I hadn't thought about it while at Gingerman because everyone was saying the track was slick. Even the heavy hitters were seconds off their previous best laps. I got thinking about the corner exit slides I kept getting and realized that something had to be wrong because the car felt like it had less traction off corner than I did last fall at Road America in the rain. So after researching again and making some phone calls I figured out that the suspension setup idea that I followed was for a circle track application with bird cages which do not have the rotational force of tire traction/rear housing rotation being applied to the control arms (they use a pull bar for that). So what my mistake did was remove lift (lift is what plants the tires) and make all that torque only act in a horizontal plane which does not increase traction. I also found that I bottomed out (or very nearly) the right rear shock at some point. I modified some coil spring rubber spacers to isolators for the rear springs to add ride height. I'll see how it goes with those, if they don't work out I'll make solid spacers or install weight jacks. Multiple scources also suggested I set pinion angle at 5-6 down vs I was at 2-3 down. It is now at 5.5 down. My drive shaft is also too long and bottoms out in the trans when jacking the car up. That is being taken care of today by shortening it 3/4". 

Having realized that I messed up this much I reset the front end too. Figured out my turn plates were binding up and just made grease plates out of them. Tire wear from Gingerman indicated I needed more camber and with the extra weight of the splitter and lighter parts in the drive train it was time to simulate diver weight and splitter to get as accurate an alignment as possible. New settings are:

Caster LF 4.95/RF 5.25  - Camber LF 2.8/RF2.7 - Toe Zero

Rear UCA chassis side stock hole, Housing side +1.25 of stock (this was as low as possible on the 9 inch) Last year it was 11-12 degrees downhill to the front. Now with the rearend and ride height change it should be sitting at 9-10 degrees downhill.

Rear LCA chassis side stock, Housing side in 4th hole below stock (3" drop). This is where at full compression it get to around 1 degree uphill to the front. Any closer to stock hole and it would go past level and could cause all kinds of weird handling problems.

Rear swaybar installed

Ride height approx 3/4" higher than previously

MAP Proving Grounds at Brainerd International Raceway recap:

Friday I had Auto X but before I was even ready the drivers side exhaust v band caught the trailer edge unloading and broke the clamp....since the x pipe and passenger side where holding it in place this was minor enough to not worry about after being unable to find another at the local speed shop. The course walk revealed a fast and flowing setup that the car should do well on. First run was a DNF because I carried to much speed out of the slalom and missed the end gate. First run also had a rough patch that bounced the car so once back in line I adjusted the tires back to 40psi (35 was not enough at Gingerman based on tire wear) then made a shock adjustment. 2nd run was clean and the bounce lessened significantly. Kept adjusting tire pressure to 40 and one shock adjustment each run until I got a 33.875 on the 5th run putting me 18th in class of 43 and 48th overall out of 140 cars. Exhilarated is the only way to describe how happy I was with the car. The rear grip I expected from it was there and I was cutting a second every run and had just reached the point of a little rear end slide on the 5th run. 6th I slid too much and slowed down a couple tenths.

Saturday was the start of the Triple Track Shootout and Drag Racing was up first. I took the aero off the car for weight and drag but it inevitably didn't matter much. First and second pass had no traction off the line what so ever and then that exhaust leak caused the tune to go bad and the car died during upshifts. I reloaded the tune and locked out the oxygen sensor for the rest of the weekend after that. Third and final run was a 15.008 with a dismal 2.2+ 60ft and I just don't have the HP to make up MPH on the big end. Lots of other cars struggled as all of us were setup for auto x and road course with stiff and short sidewall tires. Ended up last in class and 35th of 40. Not the start I was looking for. If more runs would have been an option I could have practiced launches I think there could have been a 13 in it which would have put me in the low 20s instead of 35th. Things to keep in mind for next year.

It was the scored Auto X in the afternoon so all the aero got put back on and end of previous day's shock settings restored. Feeling good about how the car did in Friday's Auto X I felt I could claw back some spots in my TTS class. Drifting overran their time slot putting us 30min late and zero chance of a course walk. Luckily I was last run group and worked the first group. The course was much more tight/technical this time and not something I though the car would be as good at. DNF the first run again because I missed one of the 3 places where you get setup with speed only to have a hard tight turn come up. The course must have been designed to find every bump in the lot because it was ROUGH! I started to pull clicks of compression out of the shocks to get the rear to quit bouncing which worked and by run 3 it was smoothed out and ran a 38.42 which I felt was on the slow side. 4th run another competitor asked to go for a ride....and a ride it was! Leave the gate, hard 90, shift before the bump and lay in it...I take the first left hand sweeper and hard trail brake to backside a cone and get it opened up for a fast section. Full throttle right hander and 3 cone slalom and I hear my passenger suck in air. Run it wide, hard brakes, cut it right at the hard 90 and full throttle again for decreasing radius left hander, lift, trail brake to get it pointed and strait line the next section into another big left...at which point I have too much speed...the front turns and the rear steps out big time. I wheel it over till it hits the stops and have only partially lifted at this point i see the last cone coming and go back to full throttle to try to push wide and miss it....clear the cone but a split second slow getting the steering angle out of it. Tank slapper getting past the next two cones just to get pointed for wide open to the next gate, hard brakes left, full throttle, hard brakes, right full throttle to the finish. "Clean" run and only 1 sec slower than previous. Despite the flood of adrenaline I'm currently experiencing I realize that if that horrible sloppy run was only 1 sec slower I must have found some serious speed in the first half of the course....oh yeah, and my passenger is breathing again. Only thing he says is "I thought I drove the hell out of my car"... For reference he was running 41/42s in his car and we just did a low 39 sideways for half of it. As we get back to grid I hop out check the tires and take one click or rear compression out and add one of rebound to try to set the rear in those fast left handers without another big slide. 4th run turns into a rerun but I got enough of the course in to feel out the shock change and I like it. Good run #4 I drop to a low 38, no adjustments, run 5 I go to a low 37....run 6 I wind up being the very last car. A buddy of mine is .4 ahead of me in his 2020 mustang GT but I had beat him on Friday. The guy working the starting line says "you're the last car...lets see something, clean and fast". I then knock out a 36.91 for 10th in class, 39 overall out of 146 and beat my buddy by .033 to get yet another adrenaline dump into my system. I was ecstatic! It took me over 3 hours to come down off that high.

Sunday morning I was signed up for some road course HPDE so I could get practice in for the Standing Start in the afternoon that would count towards the TTS score. Car felt great on the same shock settings as the night before so I just left them alone. Tires got greasy after 3 laps so that's all I would do but each session I was knocking off 2 seconds and still had more by the time the Standing Start Shootout started. We got to hot lap our runs just like in the drags and I ran a 1:47 followed by two 1:45.19 runs. I wasn't sure if that was everything it had or not. First lap on the second heat of 3 I went 1:44.4 followed by a 1:43.36 putting me 7th in class. If not in TTS it would have been good for 2nd place in class for the SSS only entrants. Once all the event points were tallied up I was 11th in class and 18th overall for all 3 events (Drag, Auto X, SSS) and I'm real happy with that considering the awful drag performance and the oldest car in TTS by 18 years. I have a lot more confidence in the performance of the car going into GridLife @ Autobahn in 2 weeks and list of fixes and changes to make before then. Top of the list is the exhaust, tune, and brake ducts.

What a fantastic weekend. I'm still smiling about it!

So it did not die at all this time around. I suspect (and you probably already know this) that dying like that is what killed your rotors since you couldn't "breeze them out" by having a cool down lap.

In reply to GCrites80s :

Only hiccups in running it had on the road course this time was if I missed a shift which happened twice during SSS (3rd gear was getting very uncooperative). The transmission got to the point it didn't even want to use reverse. I haven't had time to check yet but my guess is heat is the cause of that problem due to the exhaust leak. 

I agree that the toasted rotor was largely due to no cool down lap. Regardless the used set of rotors I got are showing some signs of high heat even with only doing 3 laps at a time. I ordered ducting hose yesterday and started fabrication of inlet ducts so the extra cooling will be there before Autobahn.

GoPro video of Friday autocross run. I had been dropping nearly a second per run and was real happy with the results.

Standing Start Shootout footage from last weekend.

GridLife at ABCC this past weekend.

Got out for one session Saturday with the track wet from rain only to have the entire afternoon scrubbed due to inches of standing water on parts of the track. Lightning and tornado warnings didn't help either. Had my first 4 off that session. Luckily nothing serious just an over rotation and I had it starting to straighten out before I hit the grass. Was able to continue without issue. It was weird how 1 through 10 felt decent but 11 to start/finish was atrocious. I wasn't the first or last car to go off by a long shot.

Sunday was drying but still had water on track in places but I was able to start dropping serious time going from a 1:55 Saturday to a 1:45, then back to back 1:40.xxx sessions. I'm sure there was a little more to get but the hot weather of Sunday afternoon and water seeping out of the track in a few places just lead to the tires getting greasy quickly and having slides all over the place.

Ended up 8th in Street Mod at 12 seconds off the lead (which was also the fastest lap of the entire weekend). Surprisingly though my 1:40 would have been a 3rd place in both Track Mod and Unlimited...goes to show the competition level of Street Mod class and my goal is a top 5 this season.
It was also great to get some attention on the live stream. Had friends and family messaging all weekend about it! I'll need to watch it myself too.

Now have 3 weeks before Alpine Horizon festival to make more upgrades!

So what happened during the live stream when you pulled off the track Sunday morning?

I would have loved to stop over but work had me heading to Detroit at lunch time.

In reply to GPz11 (Forum Supporter) :

It just quit on me like at Gingerman. Again I was just trying to rev it out to get to turn 1 without shifting and it got up past 6K and was like I turned the key off. Coasted off the track and cycled the key 3 times to over prime it and then I started right back up. I'm not seeing anything in the EFI that is a cause but it sure seems like it just semi randomly fuel cuts. It not an every time thing but it seems to be over 6K, after 3-7 laps, and on strait-a-ways. I don't have a fuel pressure gauge but if it was starve I know that that happens in long corners...not on the strait. I suspect is must be EFI parameter I'm not seeing or a weird ignition thing. If I short shift and keep it under 6K (should be making power up to 6300-6500) then it doesn't happen. Lucky me at least the mid range torque keeps the car accelerating well. I really wish there was a local chassis dyno (nearest is 3hrs away) so I could just go diagnose it for a day and make a really good tune. Rev limiter is set for 6800 so it shouldn't be that. I might try removing the limiter completely just to see...but even if it was, it doesn't make sense to kill it.

Sounds like what happened with my FiTech when I got a lot of EMI/RFI noise.   ECU would lose its mind and randomly shut down.   This probably isn't the case with your car as the ECU is in the cabin not up front close to my distributor on my SBF.   I shielded some wires and that helped.   I also had an issue with my fuel pump (Tanks Inc GPA-4) being incompatible with FiTech PWM pump control.  Fuel pressure would drop and cause random shut downs.   Summit replaced that fuel pump on their dime as they recommended it and new FiTech brand pump works without issue.

In reply to wawazat :

I "shouldn't" be getting RFI but I have been wondering if perhaps a signal wire for/from the ignition is getting some. I did clean up the engine bay wiring and now have most of it on the firewall...along with the coil and CD box. I think I routed everything far enough away from each other but maybe not.

Fuel is the other thing...I should just add a pressure sensor since the Terminator is pre wired for one anyway. Probably order one today.