1987 Camaro
IROC-Z ET Bracket Race Car

Previous season results:

2011 Season Results

  • Feb 26 - Winter Sucks! It's been very cold for the last couple of months but I have managed to accomplish a lot of things. I cut out the old sub frame connectors and part of the front sub frame that goes under the floor and welded in some tubular SFC. The camshaft has been replaced with one designed for a lower rpm bracket engine with good heads (less than 8000 RPM). It's also a 4/7 swap cam. The front motor plate has been replaced. The fuel pump and alternator were relocated to allow room for the belt driven vacuum pump. The rear motor plate was replaced to move the back of the engine up higher. The transmission crossmember was removed as it did very little last year anyway. A crossmember was welded between the new SFC behind the transmission and a driveshaft loop was installed on top of it. It's roughly directly under the shifter but I haven't decided if I'll mount the shifter off the loop yet. With the old SFC gone, new exhaust hangers needed to be fabricated. The tube and fin tranny cooler that was mounted in front of the rad was removed and a stacked plate cooler out of a Ford truck has been installed under the passenger floor. No fan on it yet but if I do install one, it will be on the inside of the car blowing through a hole in the floor and across the cooler. I was finally able to fire up the engine today!! Timing was at 34* so I bumped it up to 37*. I checked the tranny fluid and topped it up. The vacuum pump seems to be working fine and was pulling a few inches of vacuum at an idle. I readjusted the valve lash. I burned off about half a tank of fuel checking things over and I'm now happy with the current progress. The car still isn't ready to race but it could move under it's own power if it wasn't still sitting on 4 jack stands. I still have a lot of tinkering to do.
  • Apr 25 - Race season is 3 weeks away. The majority of the snow is gone. I haven't been doing much to the car because there's very little left to do however today, that changed. After work, I put air in the tires, took it off the jackstands and was going to give it a wash. The car fired up fine however when I put it into gear, nothing. All gears except park do the same thing. The car will only move forward ever so slightly. Fluid level is full. I checked the shift cable adjustrment and it was fine. I checked the shift lever on the transmission and it moved through all the detents however it also seems to move in and out of the tranny more than I remembered. There's a good chance when I had the transmission out over the winter, I damaged some linkage inside it when it fell off the jack. I started draining the oil and if possible, pull the pan tomorrow to take a look inside. Man that sucks.
  • Apr 26 - Transmission is fixed. Shift linkage popped off the spool valve. I need to tighten up the starter clocking bolts before I can take it back down off the jack stands. I don't have the right size allen key at the moment.
  • May 10 - All repairs are completed. Racing starts this weekend. T&T Saturday night and the first points race on Sunday. Other than loading up the trailer, I'm ready to go. Car is washed. New IHRA numbers are on the windows. Wheel nuts are torqued. Fluid levels checked etc. The only downside is that as of today, the long range forecast says a 60% chance of rain on Sunday. That could be a late evening shower so we'll hope the weather forecast is wrong. I need to make some licensing passes for my IHRA license this weekend.
  • May 14 - No rain this weekend but the T&T for tonight was cancelled because it's too windy. They can't even keep the timing blocks on the track. Better luck tomorrow.
  • May 15 - The day started off cold with a wind chill. We were holding out to see if the wind would die off or not and it didn't. Gusting winds to 50 kph (30 mph), cold track, couldn't spray any VHT so they called the race because of wind just to keep everyone safe. Looks like in order for me to make some licensing passes now before the Father's day weekend, I'll have to travel to Edmonton in 2 weeks.
  • May 19 - In anticipation of going to Edmonton, I fabricated an oil containment pan tonight. Just need to make some front and rear mounting brackets and I can put it on. Edmonton is mandating that all cars running 9.99 and quicker have an oil containment device. I've already tried to put a diaper on the engine and that idea won't work so a pan is the next best option. On the plus side the other day, another T&T date is arranged for us before Father's day. The evening of May 28 is a T&T and King of the Hill race. If there isn't enough time to make the required licensing passes, going to Edmonton the next morning on the 29th is still an option.
  • May 21 - The oil containment pan is finally installed. If the requirement to have one becomes a rulebook rule next year, I'm ahead of the game. I made the pan 36" long. It extends from the tranny pan to just beyond the balancer. That way even if the tranny input seal starts leaking, it still won't drip on the track. I'd love to mount the pan higher but it's as high as it will go pushing against the bottom of the engine oil pan. That makes it low enough to go under the k-member and only some notches for the tie rods was required. Once I lift the car up, 4 Dzus fasteners and the pan is off. There's no way to access the rear fasteners with the tires on the grounds.
  • May 28 - T&T rained out
  • May 29 - Road trip to Edmonton and it was worth it. Licensing passes were not required so I made 4 T&T passes and almost got into the 8 second zone. 2 passes I tripped the 60' timers with the back tires. I was seeing sky!! Ran a best of 9.029 @ 148.78. I need larger nozzles to get more fuel into the engine. I'm currently jetted as fat as I can go with what I have. Here's a link to a video of that run. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bubblybubbs/5773612201/in/photostream
  • May 31 - Found out smaller pills give better tuning ability than larger nozzle jets so 10 smaller sizes than what I currently have were ordered today. The slightly lean mixture in Edmonton may be perfect for Calgary at the next race but I want to be able to tune the fuel more anyway.
  • June 8 - Pills arrived today. Looks like I'll be heading to the track on Friday night to get some more track time. I shaved 25 pounds off the car tonight. I swapped out the battery for a smaller one. I need to get across a scale again to get a new race weight.
  • June 10 - Went out for the Friday night street legal racing to get some track time. Traction wasn't best but on my second pass I was able to keep it under power all the way down the track but right as I crossed the finish line, something snapped in the engine. I threw a rod and there's a hole in the pan near #7 cylinder. Once I got home, the engine cranked over with no noises and once it fired up, there's a noticeable vibration as I drove into the garage. I'll have to strip the engine down to see how bad the damage is. On the bright side, I was able to get across a scale before going to the track to find out the race weight is 3020 pounds and on that run, I got a 150.45 MPH. That means the engine was making 802 HP uncorrected and 904 HP corrected for altitude.
  • June 18 - After doing number crunching all week, I've decided on what to do for a rebuild. The cheapest way is to rebuild it back to a 540 but upgrading a few things like better rod bolts and wrist pins. The crank might be repairable etc. Instead, I'll buy new rods with the better rod bolts, new pistons for a 0.100" overbore and a new crank. This can easily make a 565 however for the same price, I can stroke it some more and make a 582 so today all the parts for a 582 were ordered. Unfortunately, everything I want is special order so I won't get any parts for at least 2 weeks then all the machine shop work needs to be done. The goal now is to get it all back together and get back on the track before the season ends. Going a cheaper 540 repair, I could probably get it back together in less than a month. The 582 should make around the same HP, maybe a little more, as the 540 but will move it down the powerband so I won't have to shift so high. The new engine should easily give me that 8 second timeslip with no power adders.
  • June 23 - The engine is finally out and sitting on the stand. It still needs to be stripped down before sending it out to the machine shop. Parts should start arriving next week. The heads are cleaned up and I reassembled the non damaged head. The nicks and bumps from the piston hitting the head have been smoothed out around the combustion chamber. All the spark plug holes have been cleaned out and new plugs have been indexed.
  • July 22 - Block and stuff are finally back from the machine shop. The 2 sleeves that were install in 2006 were not thick enough to support the overbore so they were replaced with thicker sleeves. Total bob weight after the balancing is lighter than the 540 engine. I can now start assembling. I'm still waiting for 2 new valves before the one head can be touched up but I can still get the engine together and in the car without the head on it. I have 3 weeks before the next race. I think I have everything I need to get it back together and in the car. The rush is on.
  • July 24 - Engine is together and in the car. Assembly went better than I thought. Clearances were all better than perfect. If the other head was ready to be installed, I probably could have had it running today. Still no word on what happened to the valves I ordered. I have a few more things to do to the car then it sits and waits for the head to be installed.
  • Aug 2 - Finally got word on the valves today. The head office purchaser got the request to order the valves but they were never ordered. I don't expect to see them now for at least 2 more weeks. I checked with Jegs and Summit and neither carry both valves that I need in stock and I'm not buying a set of 8 when I only need one. Some good news though. I scored some shaft rockers off Ebay yesterday and may have time to install them. They'll probably arrive the same time the valves do. There's no way I can make the Aug 14 race as planned. The Aug 21 race may be pushing it. Sept 4 is the last race of the season and that's a possibility.
  • Aug 10 - Valves arrived today. I dropped the head off at the machine shop and told them I need it 2 weeks ago. They'll try to have it done by Friday.
  • Aug 11 - Head is done a day early. The head is now on the car, the valve train is done. The exhaust is done. I still have a bunch more to do before I can fire it up but unless something unexpected happens, I WILL be racing on Sunday! I hate this rushing to get things finished. The engine should have been completed about 2 weeks ago.
  • Aug 12 - As of 8:30 this evening, the engine was fired up and sounds great. Still a few more things to adjust and fix but it runs.
  • Aug 14 - DA is high today. First run almost equaled performance performance in Edmonton back in May and the DA was 2000' higher. If the DA was lower, I could have gotten that 8 second timeslip. I made 3 time trial runs and lost in the first round.
  • Aug 16 - New shaft rockers arrived yesterday. With the amount of work involved to check and adjust to determine the pushrod lengths, this will be a winter project. I also plan on upgrading to 7/16" pushrods when the shaft rockers go on. I'm just about ready to go for next weekend. The temperature is supposed to be even hotter this Sunday. I doubt I'll get that 8 second timeslip again.
  • Aug 18 - New double adjustable rear shocks are installed. I'm still using the 130 pound springs and they would only compress 1-1/2" when loaded. I'll run them for now but feel I need to get some 110 pound springs or lighter ones than that. I'd like close to 3" of compression to set the shock travel where it will work the best.
  • Aug 21 - Not a good day. After a bunch of delays, my first pass down the track caused more delays. Around the 1000' mark, something let go in the engine and I still managed a 9.4 time. There's a hole in the side of the pan at the front and pieces of a con rod are sitting in the oil containment pan. So much for that engine build. Season is officially over for me. No track time until May 2012 and it probably won't be local. Lots of time for a new rebuild. On the plus side, I scored a set of 110 pounds springs today.
  • Oct 8 - Most of the engine is stripped down but the shortblock is still in the car. I've just been very lazy even though there's things I want to do to the car once the engine is out. I know how bad the damage is and it isn't good. Right now I'm considering purchasing an entirely new shortblock instead of repairing this one. The block needs at least one more sleeve and already has 2 sleeves in it, The camshaft got damaged beyond repair. The front main bearing is coming out the front so the block probably needs to be line honed. I don't think it's worth the expense to repair this one. Top end however still looks fine.
  • Dec 23 - OK, I've been lazy but I have been making purchases. After a lot of deliberation over the last few months on what to do, I finally decided on doing a rebuild. The block will be punched out to make a 588. A new rotating assembly is out being balanced. When that gets back, the block goes to the machine shop for repair work and assembly. New billet mains caps will be installed and I'll get the machine shop to put the shortblock together. I finally stripped down the heads today. 3 bent exhaust valves and 2 bent intake valves. I was expecting more.