Re: FX Holden Race Car Project
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2022 8:58 pm
So the story leading up to Gunnedah ....
I took the week off before Gunnedah figuring i could get the car done and ready on the mon-wed as Claire would be in daycare so i'd get three full days to work on it .... the weekend before that Claire gets a cold, so i had to do daddy daycare, all good, wednesday and thursday my brother and i slog all day and dad helped out as well in the arvos ...
Bonnet, boot, and rear guards we had prepped pretty good for paint, but the doors were all still un-touched but we managed to give them a rub back, weld holes etc and blow a coat of primer on them, so atleast the whole car was the same colour, we also did a quick home wheel alignment too. Drove it out of the shed 4pm thursday, with just enough time to give the wheels a wash!
Loaded up friday morning and travelled to Gunnedah, pretty un-eventful trip, solid pub feed on the way and beers were had around 4pm! the beginning of my holidays haha!
Saturday got to the track, signed in, unloaded the car, got all setup, went out for my first run, could barely spin the tyres in the burnout water, just wanted to push the front wheels, and pulled hard to the right. Staged up and give it a hit, went ok, 7.7sec, not a world record but ok for the first run ever in the car. Drove ok, nothing weird too report just lacking in HP a bit.
So back at pits, check the tune, slightly lean across the board but not too bad, so added some fuel, and also added 30% duty cycle to the boost controller. Go out for the second run, get in the water, stand on the two step, let it rip, sweet burnout, but still pulled hard to the right .... backed up to the start line, they signal me to shut it down, cause theres fuel pissing out of the boot ............. water separator on the bottom of the filter decided to die (new filter 3 days ago)
Took ages to get towed back to the pits, but once we got back there my brothers flew into town with the filter to see if they could get a replacement. They came back with a sump plug with an alloy washer and some thread tape. It was the wrong thread but we hoped we could jam it in there enough to seal, turns out it wouldnt seal on the threads, so i just kept tightening it till it went in enough to seal on the alloy washer, i reckon it was about 5.5 ugga duggas .... While they were in town doing that i put a turn on the right rear coil over shock to try and straighten it up in the burnout.
So missed a run during all this, so went out for the last run of the day, did another two step burnout, worked well, just had to lightly steer to the left, much better! back it up and send it, 7.09 and felt much better, was clearly getting wheel spin off the line too. Unfortunately though my data log didnt record so no data for the extra boost :/
sunday morning i decided to leave it as it was as 7.00 was my class limit and i also wanted to get a log of the setup before i did anything else .... so tried dropping the tyre pressures a bit and went out, first run of the day, fucking 6.56 @ 173KPH!!! i was expecting 1 tenth not 5 tenths!! So on inspecting the log it was 21psi and slowly increasing with revs to 25psi at 7500rpm.
So i removed the boost control duty cycle to try and get it back to 7.0's, subsequent runs where 6.7 & 6.89, on my second qualifying pass i had the battery fail when i went to re-start the car in the deep end of the track, so i had to get towed back to the pits, luckily had a battery in the trailer for my winch so was able to put it in, but in an attempt to limit starts and heat during eliminations i decided to get towed to the start line and back from the deep end (half the people in my group were too so no big issue) .... so i dialled into eliminations with a 6.90 and i dropped the shift light rpm a bit to try and get it closer to 7.0's
First round of eliminations i line up beside probably the fastest and most consisent car in my group, he had to sit on the tree for 0.9secs after i left, and i can tell you he came past me pretty quick at the top end, he passed me well before the finish line so i backed out of it figuring i can only hope he breaks out and i dont ...... he did a 5.979 on a 6.00 dialin!!!
Second round i wasnt so lucky and got taken out.
All in all a very successful weekend, and better results than i had expected from the first outing! Certainly didnt expect to go 2 tenths quicker than the gemini on the first outing!
Got a few things i want to work on for improvements but all in all stoked, and the 6.56 translates to a low 10 over the quarter, so heres hoping one day i can get that 9 i am aiming for!
And it looks like i need to save for the safety gear needed to move to super sedan quicker than i had anticipated!
I took the week off before Gunnedah figuring i could get the car done and ready on the mon-wed as Claire would be in daycare so i'd get three full days to work on it .... the weekend before that Claire gets a cold, so i had to do daddy daycare, all good, wednesday and thursday my brother and i slog all day and dad helped out as well in the arvos ...
Bonnet, boot, and rear guards we had prepped pretty good for paint, but the doors were all still un-touched but we managed to give them a rub back, weld holes etc and blow a coat of primer on them, so atleast the whole car was the same colour, we also did a quick home wheel alignment too. Drove it out of the shed 4pm thursday, with just enough time to give the wheels a wash!
Loaded up friday morning and travelled to Gunnedah, pretty un-eventful trip, solid pub feed on the way and beers were had around 4pm! the beginning of my holidays haha!
Saturday got to the track, signed in, unloaded the car, got all setup, went out for my first run, could barely spin the tyres in the burnout water, just wanted to push the front wheels, and pulled hard to the right. Staged up and give it a hit, went ok, 7.7sec, not a world record but ok for the first run ever in the car. Drove ok, nothing weird too report just lacking in HP a bit.
So back at pits, check the tune, slightly lean across the board but not too bad, so added some fuel, and also added 30% duty cycle to the boost controller. Go out for the second run, get in the water, stand on the two step, let it rip, sweet burnout, but still pulled hard to the right .... backed up to the start line, they signal me to shut it down, cause theres fuel pissing out of the boot ............. water separator on the bottom of the filter decided to die (new filter 3 days ago)
Took ages to get towed back to the pits, but once we got back there my brothers flew into town with the filter to see if they could get a replacement. They came back with a sump plug with an alloy washer and some thread tape. It was the wrong thread but we hoped we could jam it in there enough to seal, turns out it wouldnt seal on the threads, so i just kept tightening it till it went in enough to seal on the alloy washer, i reckon it was about 5.5 ugga duggas .... While they were in town doing that i put a turn on the right rear coil over shock to try and straighten it up in the burnout.
So missed a run during all this, so went out for the last run of the day, did another two step burnout, worked well, just had to lightly steer to the left, much better! back it up and send it, 7.09 and felt much better, was clearly getting wheel spin off the line too. Unfortunately though my data log didnt record so no data for the extra boost :/
sunday morning i decided to leave it as it was as 7.00 was my class limit and i also wanted to get a log of the setup before i did anything else .... so tried dropping the tyre pressures a bit and went out, first run of the day, fucking 6.56 @ 173KPH!!! i was expecting 1 tenth not 5 tenths!! So on inspecting the log it was 21psi and slowly increasing with revs to 25psi at 7500rpm.
So i removed the boost control duty cycle to try and get it back to 7.0's, subsequent runs where 6.7 & 6.89, on my second qualifying pass i had the battery fail when i went to re-start the car in the deep end of the track, so i had to get towed back to the pits, luckily had a battery in the trailer for my winch so was able to put it in, but in an attempt to limit starts and heat during eliminations i decided to get towed to the start line and back from the deep end (half the people in my group were too so no big issue) .... so i dialled into eliminations with a 6.90 and i dropped the shift light rpm a bit to try and get it closer to 7.0's
First round of eliminations i line up beside probably the fastest and most consisent car in my group, he had to sit on the tree for 0.9secs after i left, and i can tell you he came past me pretty quick at the top end, he passed me well before the finish line so i backed out of it figuring i can only hope he breaks out and i dont ...... he did a 5.979 on a 6.00 dialin!!!
Second round i wasnt so lucky and got taken out.
All in all a very successful weekend, and better results than i had expected from the first outing! Certainly didnt expect to go 2 tenths quicker than the gemini on the first outing!
Got a few things i want to work on for improvements but all in all stoked, and the 6.56 translates to a low 10 over the quarter, so heres hoping one day i can get that 9 i am aiming for!
And it looks like i need to save for the safety gear needed to move to super sedan quicker than i had anticipated!