Hardtail Racing

1987 Camaro
IROC-Z ET Bracket Race Car

Previous season results:

2008 Season Results

Jan 3 - About time to start a new year page to catch up on the Christmas projects. A new hood has been designed. The 6" cowl is now off and a low cowl with a short aero scoop is now in place. Looks much better and greatly increases visability. The toilets without filters are about 2" from the top of the scoop. All the decals have been removed and the car has been repainted flat black. It looked too plain without any decals so I painted traditional yellow/orange/red flames across the hood and down over the sides. It's got that rat rod look now.
Feb 23 - Back in January, a changed all the engine bearings, got the oil pan and related parts back on and filled it with oil. I've been waiting for warmer weather before doing anything else. Today I put some alcohol into the fuel cell in preparation of firing up the engine. Had to fix a couple of fuel leaks, primed the engine with gasoline and managed to get the engine running today. Adjusted the timing, adjusted the idle and barrel valve, burned a couple of gallons of alcohol and was very happy with the results. I now need to fix another small fuel leak at the 3 way valve (an o-ring) and remove all the electric fuel pump wiring. There's still a list of small things that need some attention but I'm just happy the engine finally runs. Weather permitting, we should be on the track around mid May.
Feb 27 - Fired the car back up to see if all the fuel leaks are fixed. No more leaks. Brought it up to operating temperature then readjusted the idle down to around 1100. I did two transbrake stalls and both pegged the tach at 5600 rpm. A gas primer system needs to be completed before the race season. Squirting gas down the toilets to get it fired up will probably be a pain at the track. I don't know how long it will have to sit before it needs to be primed for starting.
Apr 30 - Some Ebay parts arrived today and I need to get them on the car soon. We'll be on track for T&T in 3 weeks (weather permitting of course). If you read my past history, May and June have never been good for racing dates. First local race of the season is Father's day. I picked up a Sponsor today. My fuel is paid for this season.
May 3 - Unmounted the slicks to fix the bead leaks. They would both leak down to almost nothing in less than a week. Left tire sealed up fine. I had to take the right tire off 3 times before I finally fixed the leaks. I'll recheck pressures tomorrow.
May 4 - Tire pressures are still up. Will recheck again in a week. After a few shots of gasoline into the intake, the engine fired up today. Took the car out of the garage to get some better pictures with sponsor decals now on the car. Looks great, runs great. Installed a crank trigger last week and finally got a chance to check the timing. Burned almost 2 gallons of fuel running it up.
May 11 - Installed CO2 bottle in the car. Fabricated and installed a throttle stop cylinder into the throttle linkage as a starting line controller and tested it out. Works perfect but I never fired the car up yet to see what RPM I have it set at. I still need to install a bump button somewhere. I'm still waiting for the air shifter solenoid to arrive before hooking up the air shifter to the CO2. The right tire has more of a leak that the left. Pressure was set at 10 psi last week. Left tire dropped to 8 and the right dropped to 6.5 psi. No tubes in tube tires and the air leaks through the sidewalls.
May 18 - Finished installing the gas primer system. It takes very little effort to get the cold engine fired up now. Adjusted the throttle stop so that the throttle will only open to around 4000 rpm on the stop. It's a starting point. My oil pan gasket may be leaking at the rear. I don't want to pull it right just yet. I'm working on making a control panel to mount beside the shifter. The delay box, VRT display, ignition controller and a few switches will eventually be relocated to the panel. Weather permitting, we get a T&T this Wednesday night.
May 19 - Spent the whole day making the control panel beside the shifter and wiring it up. Weather is looking good for Wednesday. Much better than the long range forecast last week. Other than I'm still waiting for a shift solenoid to arrive, I'm ready to go.
May 21 - T&T Rained out, too cold. Need to wait another week.
May 22 - Air shift solenoid arrived yesterday and I finished installing it tonight but won't have a chance to test it until the weekend.
May 28 - Test and tune and nice weather! I made 4 runs. All 4 were not pretty and all had something wrong with them but the fourth run produced a new best ET and MPH. I really don't want to explain what went wrong with each run. The last run did produce a new best corrected HP and I never did any tuning to the fuel system between the runs. The engine is puking oil. Looks like it's coming from the intake end rails. While I'm at it, I'll pull the pan and reseal the gasket. Next T&T is on June 11 and the big race is June 14/15. That gives me 2 weeks to get things tweeked. I need to get the car across a scale to see what the race weight is first. I had the air shifter turned off until I get the throttle stop set up the way I want.
May 31 - Hooked a vacuum pump to the crankcase to find out where the oil leak was coming from. The rear oil pan seal had a big sucking sound. I pulled the pan and replaced the gasket. No more sucking sound. While I was at it, I also pulled the oil filter and cleaned it. Nothing unusual in the filter which is good. I'll run the vacuum pump now instead of the header evacs. That should decrease the crankcase pressure and hopefully the intake end rails won't leak. I never heard any sucking sound from them when I was checking the oil pan.
June 8 - Refabricated the seat mount to lower it in the rear. Seating position feels much better now and I can't bump my helmet on the halo bar any more however reaching for the shifter is difficult. Dash switches will be difficult when strapped in but the only dash switch I need to access when strapped in is the master and I can reach it just enough to flip it off if needed. All the other switches on the dash should be on or off after I tighten the belts. I'm refabricating the shifter mount now to move it up and back so I can easily reach it. Almost a tube chassis style mount. It will leave a lot of room for the future removable tranny tunnel.
June 11 - T&T Rained out
June 13 - T&T Nasty lightning and heavy rain around mid afternoon. It's now 6pm, 12c and still very damp. I won't even attempt to go to the track since I know traction will be questionable. At this time, the Saturday evening racing looks like it might be a go and the forecast for Sunday has gotten much better than it was this morning. Update: It's 10:30PM. A huge thunder storm rolled through at 6:30 soaking everything again. I just found out that the entire weekend will be 1/8 mile racing because of the poor track conditions. I guess I won't be racing in the poor conditions. If they change to 1/4 mile racing for Sunday, I'll take the car out. I could go to Medicine Hat to race on Sunday but it's an NHRA track and I'd have to throttle stop the car to run slower than 10.0 under NHRA rules.
June 14/15 - Due to poor track conditions, the Saturday racing was limited to 1/8 mile so I decided not to attend. There was a threat of late afternoon showers which didn't happen. Nobody could confirm if the Sunday racing was going to switch to full 1/4 mile racing since all the forecast rain stayed away and the track had some time to dry out. The air was fantastic on Sunday so if they did run the full 1/4 mile, racers probably set new personal records. I heard the racing in the afternoon while at work but never attended. Paying $70 to make some passes with a field of show cars on the 1/8 mile didn't impress me. I'll try for more track time on the next Wednesday night rumble on June 25.
June 16 - Found out today that the bracket cars were allowed to run the full 1/4 mile yesterday but the show cars were still limited to 1/8 mile. Not sure if I would have been able to 1/4 mile race since I still need the full shut down area to slow down.
June 21 - Last night's street legal night was the second of the year and the weather was great. It's been about a month since they were able to go because of all the rain we've had. I didn't go because I figured I probably would have gotten 2 passes in all night. Unofficially, there was over 200 cars and lots of rookies who don't know how to stage, launch, etc so I'm glad I didn't go. I changed my 4-link setting again today. The IC is almost along the neutral line now instead of far below it and it's 52" out from the diff centerline. I got across a scale today. The car is lighter than I expected. 3042 pounds race weight with 58.7% over the front wheels. I'm ready to go for next Wednesday and there's no rain in the forecast! UPDATE: Went to tinker on the car this evening to discover the rad started leaking. Took about 5 minutes to yank it out. Plastic headers means it's not repairable. If I can't find one in the local junk yard tomorrow, I'll buy a new one on Monday. It's out of an early 90's Firefly/Sprint/Metro and not very expensive.
June 22 - Rad is replaced. I found at least 4 of them in the local junkyard and picked the best looking one.
June 24 - Shipper screwed up sending the fiberglass doors. They were reshipped today.
June 25 - T&T. Got to the track and the first thing I had to do before unloading the car was fix a tranny cooler line oil leak. First pass down the track sucked. The ignition just doesn't like the crank trigger. Reconnected the distributor, reset the timing and made a second pass. New best! 9.425@142.74 mph at 5261 density altitude. Before I was able to make a second pass, I saw and heard one of my slicks was going flat so I loaded up and went home. Reaction time on the first pass was .014. Second pass .013.
June 27 - Intake gaskets are replaced because I had a bit of a leak. Just need to set the timing before I can fire it up. The engine was running a little hot last weekend so I broke down and bought a NEW rad. New rad is in. Picked up some 12 way adjustable rear coil over shocks today and installed them. The old 3 way shocks may be the cause of my poor 60' time. I've also noticed with the new coil overs installed that I can't get the recommended ride height. The 150 pound springs are too heavy. I'll have to pick up some 125 pound springs tomorrow if I can.
June 28 - Nobody in town has lighter springs in stock so I removed the preload from the springs and that brought the ride height down to where it should be. I still want to try some springs with less spring rate. Fixed the flat tire today. I ran over some sort of staple. It actually put 3 tiny holes in the tire. Set the timing on the crank trigger and phased the rotor then drove the car out of the garage. Under load it sounds ok but I want to retest tomorrow with the transbrake. No more leaks or at least nothing that I've seen yet.
June 29 - Rechecked tire pressure. Neither have dropped down since last night. Weather forecast isn't looking good for Tuesday. Rain and not even a percentage chance, just rain. I need another momentary switch to hook it up to the bypass terminal on the delay box. That way I can do a transbrake stall without activating the throttle stop or delay timers. Had the car running late in the day to readjust the toilets. Neighbor came over to check out the race car. The engine gets hot quickly even with the water pump and fan on. With the engine off, I can hear air bubbles going through the cooling system. I have a drain cock at a high point on the engine and can bleed off air. Running the water pump with the engine off still produces air. There's no external leaks, no coolant in the oil, no indication of coolant coming out the exhaust and doesn't appear to be losing any coolant from the rad but I still suspect a head gasket may be starting to fail. A cylinder leakdown test can pinpoint if it is or not but I didn't have time to do one today. On the plus side, there's still no oil leaks.
June 30. OK. It was bound to happen. I was concerned about the bubbling sound the coolant system was making when the engine was shut off. The cooling system seems to keep sucking air from somewhere. There's no external coolant leak and there's no coolant in the oil. Last time at the track, the engine was also running much hotter than normal. Tonight I decided to try something. With the rad cap off and the water pump on, I cranked the engine over and coolant came bubbling out. That's not good. First thought is a head gasket so the first thing I wanted to try was to see if any head bolts were loose. Taking the driver's side rocker cover off, I found #7 intake valve outer spring broken. Must have been that 7000 rpm water box burnout I did before my best run. I guess I better hook up the burnout rev limiter to the line lock. Checked all the head bolts on that side. All were tight. Pulled all the plugs and #7 was the only one that wasn't totally black. Did a compressed air test into all the cylinders to see which one produces bubbles in the coolant but couldn't pinpoint a cylinder. Did a compression test. Passenger head was from 185-205 across all 4 cylinders. Driver head started good at 180 on #1 and #3 cylinder but #5 was 165 and #7 was 150 psi. Looks like I'm pulling the driver side head to replace the head gasket and replace the broken valve spring. Hopefully I don't find anything else seriously wrong. If I had a spare set of head gaskets, I do but not for this block, and a spare set of valve springs, I do but not for these heads, I could have it fixed in time for tomorrow's race. What's interesting is that I had the car running last night and tonight and it still runs fine so I don't expect there to be any other serious issues once the head is off.
July 1 - Head is off. Definitely needs a heads gasket. It also explains why the crankcase pressure was high and blowing oil out the intake end seals. It's been doing that for a while now so I wonder just how long the head gasket has been bad? No indication of the valve ever touching the piston so just some gaskets and new valve springs and I'll be good to go. I'll need to upgrade from the double springs I was using to triple springs recommended for the camshaft. All the springs have shims under them so it should be too bad getting the spring install height. The gasket blew out at the top of #7 cylinder right where the extra head stud would go. I guess I'll order the stud kit and install them later.
July 2 - All the valve springs are replaced. Head is back on. All the valves are adjusted. Just need to put the spark plugs and intake back on and it's ready to fire up.
July 3 - Engine is back together and I fired it up tonight. Everything seems OK now. Ran it long enough just to buildup some heat then shut it off. I may fire it up again on the weekend just to recheck some stuff.
July 6 - Took a bunch of measurments and adjusted the 4-link again for a different IC. When installing a 4-link, it's common to have the lower hole on the chassis bracket around 7". I'd recommend 6" to give better options. Connected the burn out rev limiter to the line lock. Never did fire the engine up this weekend.
July 9 - T&T. Got 4 passes in tonight with no problems. The car is running good. Did some tuning to see results. First pass felt slow and it was still a 9.662@141.48 mph. By the fourth and final pass I did for the night, I managed a 9.472@142.31 mph with a new best 60' time of 1.363. Those were the high and low times out of the 4 passes so the engine is making consistent HP. I wish I had an external video of that last launch because the front end really came up more than normal. It's interesting that the new valve springs and head gasket did little to affect performance. The only good thing about the head gasket change is that the engine doesn't leak any more oil.
July 12 - Decided to fix the diff oil leak today. Pulled the pinion and discovered the inner bearing support was cracked. Spent the rest of the day swapping the gears over to another third member. Filled the diff with Lucas 75W90 from a sponsor.
July 13 - Fired up the engine to get it warm then readjusted all the valves. Adjusted the transmission band. That could be why the first gear high rpms climbed so quickly shortly after launch and I had to shift by the 330 mark. I think the band was slipping. Big weekend coming up and I'm finally ready to bracket race this year.
July 16 - Replaced 150 pound rear springs with lighter 130 pounds springs. Installed a pressure gauge on transmission to check pump pressure. 220 psi. I guess the pump is fine and putting out lots of pressure so I won't need to buy a new one even though I probably will this winter just to get a welded stator support tube.
July 19 - Points race. First time trial pass was uneventful with a 9.504@141.13 mph and a 1.363 60' time. I changed the pill to fatten up the fuel for the second time trial and was rewarded with a 9.411@143.01 mph and a 1.348 60' time in worse air. Somewhere on that run, the rear intake seal blew out and I covered the underside of the car with oil. I slobbered some silicone on the back of the intake and sat out the third time trial run to let it set up. First round of eliminations, it blew out again and I won the round backing off around the 1000' mark. I loaded up and went home. I pulled the intake tonight but couldn't save the gasket so I guess I can't race tomorrow. Everything will be fixed for next Wednesday night race.
July 21 - Engine is back together. I took the car out of the garage to clean up the oil spills on the floor then put it back in. I need to find a car wash that has a good degreaser to wash the oil still stuck to the underside. I readjusted the 4-link again to try a different IC. The last setting worked well but still had a bit too much squat.
July 23 - T&T. Rained out. What a crappy race season. Fiberglass doors still have not arrived. Put in a Paypal claim.