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| Building our Lemons/Chumpcar (Page 9/29) |
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fieroguru
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JAN 13, 10:49 AM
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Feel free to use any photo I have posted, they were posted to be helpful and provide potential benefit to others.
3/4 toe out is insane! With the driver in the car, the DS probably was dominant and the passenger side one was dragging, but if you turned to the left, the passenger side would shift to the dominant wheel and upset the chassis.
That toe panel is pretty slick! Mind sharing where it came from?
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Tony Kania
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JAN 13, 01:22 PM
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Easily my favorite thread at this moment!  Please do not stop posting. This is like crack to me. 
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DonP
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JAN 13, 01:51 PM
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| quote | Originally posted by fieroguru:
3/4 toe out is insane!.....
That toe panel is pretty slick! Mind sharing where it came from? |
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Oh yeah. I wasn't kidding when I said the car was evil. Our problem in the field was trying to decide what we should set the toe at. Just seat of the pants, we tried to relate the settings to what we remembered the front should be. And of course that's subject to opinion. But the 1/32" toe in seemed to work. Later we had time to reset everything.
The toe plates I showed were just a quick image off the internet. Now a search doesn't turn up the same image. I did not have a photo of Rich's toe plates, but needed something to demonstrate the concept. Rich's look a lot more like the Longacre plates, not quite as fancy as the image I used. But I know that someone made his. If I remember correctly, it was in exchange for either his "How to Build an IMCA Modified" or Building the Stock Stub Race-Car" videos. He always has them on the war wagon in the trailer The Coleman Racing units are nice as well. http://www.colemanracing.com/Toe-Plates-P4384.aspx
Thanks for the use of the illustrative photo.
Don[This message has been edited by DonP (edited 01-13-2013).]
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DonP
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JAN 13, 02:06 PM
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| quote | Originally posted by Tony Kania:
Easily my favorite thread at this moment! Please do not stop posting. This is like crack to me. |
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LOL Thank you. We have ( at this point in the narrative) made it to the track. But that just helped to point out new changes and improvements to be made.
We are on hold for a bit on the Fiero, so literally, just yesterday Rich started another non-Fiero project. He assembled his jig and started on a new IMCA modified for the season. He hasn't been happy with the last two "store-bought" frames.
Don't worry, we aren't going to document that here. Those are the only images we'll show here.
But thanks for the comments Tony.
Don
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DonP
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JAN 13, 06:17 PM
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I have to correct yesterday's post. Robert pointed out that he actually did drive the car on Saturday. But he had a 45 minute or so stint before the heat induced sweat was blinding him in the car. As SCCAFiero said a few posts back, ” Racing is as much a mental challenge as a physical one." Paula points out that we certainly cannot quote Robert's on-track radio communications here on the forum.
Sunday started well. We did, however realize our mistake in leaving the car outside of the trailer overnight as the San Francisco Bay area fog had completely soaked everything. I think that's why they made me drive first, the wet driver's seat. Given the fact that we had a couple hours down-time on Saturday, it appeared our chances of an over-all win were slim.
One of our questions left over from Saturday was whether the rear sway bar should be re-attached. We had left it disconnected but hanging in place from before discovering the rear toe-in problem. We determined that we should do some testing on Sunday. I started out first thing, as-is. The bar was disconnected. Since it was cold, I ran about a 1/2 dozen laps with the bar off. Then I came in and we re-attached the bar and I went back out. On the first lap it felt as though the rear was too tight but I ran maybe another 1/2 dozen laps before coming in and having the bar disconnected again.
The car was definitely a bit more squirrelly with the rear bar. I was surprised at that conclusion. I have to give a couple qualifiers to that conclusion. The car was better given that the shocks and struts were completely shot, the spring rates were unknown, and the alignment was still slightly suspect. Changes in any of those things might have led us to a different conclusion.
We did finally dig out our own Go-Pro cameras. I have uploaded a video of our car pre-swaybar. So this is the first few laps of the day.
http://youtu.be/neaZjO3BbCg
Yes, I was passed by a B-210 at about 1:35. He realized that the green flag was out before I did. Behind the B-210 you can see the Fiero Libre guys closing in. At about 8:48 I missed a shift going uphill into turn 2 and lost a lot of hard earned track position. If you watch, you can see that yellow flags were not all that rare. Feel free to laugh at my line. I blame it on traffic. In any case, as I said earlier, our stock brakes seemed to be a step above most of the brake systems you could see on other cars.
Robert got his turn on the track once I returned with the decision to disconnect the sway bar.
Okay, you may have noticed the change in the paint scheme in the last two photos. Robert was just driving along, minding his own business and keeping it clean when he was black flagged. These guys in black robes proceeded to vandalize his car. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vvXJBQPlPY
Evidently, since Rich had failed to go to the penalty box during one of his "offs," there was an outstanding warrant out on the car. Robert got the opportunity to collect the penalty on the warrant. Because of the date of the race, the judges/vandals painted "Happy Halloween" stencils on the hood. A skeleton on the rear deck, flames coming out of the front wheel wells, "Save Ferris" on the right rear quarter, and a comment about pardoning LBJ on the hood. Rich and I were the only team members of an age to catch a reference to LBJ. Robert, who was the painter and who had plans for future paint, was not amused. Two laps later they black flagged him again because they forgot to check off that warrant. Luckily they just let him go, but he wasn't amused.
The Fiero Libre boys were hard at it as well They actually painted their hood during the race weekend.
Finally, Robert pulled in and commented that he thought the clutch wasn't working too well. We did the obvious thing and bled the hydraulic system, but saw no bubbles. And at the same time we found a leak that needed some attention. It took a bit, but we narrowed it down to the fact that the transmission was leaking at the little vent cap on top near the shifter. To be honest, our at-the-track cure was to just clean it with some brake cleaner and ignore it.
While we were looking at the clutch mechanism, the LeMons founder and chief Jay Lamm strolled by. We described the problem and the fact that we were trying to bleed the clutch. His comment was "Bummer. Do you have any more of those tamales?"
Eventually we arrived at the decision that the clutch MIGHT have a problem due to the fact that we had not adjusted the seat for Robert and he might not have released the clutch fully. We also recognized that shifting could not be hurried with the cable system. Adjusting the linkage was placed on our list of to-do projects back home.
Our over-all goal was to be running at the end of the race. Our secondary goal was to turn more laps than either the Mustang or Fiero Libre boys did. When we noticed the other Fiero coming in, Rich hit the track.
With an hour left to go, I took over. Our Fiero exhibited handling concerns coming through the abbreviated turn 11 that the Lemons race used. I do not have a picture of the car doing so, but through-out the weekend, when I was driving through 11, the inside (right) front tire would lift off the ground. The car would roll over on the suspension such that when I was fully on the throttle the front tire lifted. From the inside of the car, I had no indication that this was happening. The car was obviously too softly sprung, most seriously at the rear. We were using the old shocks and struts that came with the car as well as the stock springs.
We finished the race, on the track and moving. One of our goals was realized.
We had a couple of additional concerns moving forward. After the race, I told the guys that on the final stint on-track, I had the throttle stick fully open. I was at full throttle on the front straight and turning in through turn 1 and heading up the hill. So I was at pretty much maximum speed. This was the second time that this happened during the weekend. It's not like we had a carpet sticking in the throttle, so I have no explanation for what happened. In both instances, I could not just de-clutch as the engine would free-spin. I used the ignition kill switch to stop the engine, clutched and dropped the clutch to start again. All at speed. At that point all was well. It's never happened again but we still do not know what happened.
The winners were the Model T GT team.
Their team had built a car based on a 1927 Ford Model T frame. Sort of. You can read about it here. http://www.hotrod.com/featu...model_t_gt_race_car/ Besides the braggibng rights, their prize was waiting for them in the winner's circle.
According to mylaps, the winning team had completed 378 laps on the 2.28 mile Infineon raceway. Their best lap time was 2:02.883. That was actually the sixth fastest lap of the day, but consistency won out as the second place car was 3 laps down. The absolutely fastest car was 89 laps down.
We, on the other hand, finished 121st out of 164 teams. We completed 141 laps, 237 down from the winner.
The '78 mustang had trounced us with very consistent runs. They placed 65th, and completed 271 laps. But we made sure we passed them in front of the grand-stands!
The Fiero Libre guys were 6 places behind us at 127. They completed 117 laps.
The Mustang 's fastest lap was......2:21.308 at 58.086 mph
Our fastest lap was......................2:16.087 at 60.314 mph
Firo Libres fastest lap was.............2.30.755 at 54.446 mph
The full MyLaps results can be found at http://www.mylaps.com/resul...owrun.jsp?id=2122085
As a point of interest, in December 8-9, 2012 race at Chuckwalla Valley Speedway, the Fiero Libre guys finished first in class.
Our next race was scheduled for March of 2012 and we had some work to do.
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Fierofreak00
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JAN 17, 12:32 PM
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Bump! Please continue, I enjoy reading about your adventures. -Jason
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DonP
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JAN 17, 06:15 PM
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Hi Jason, we haven't stopped. There's still a lot left to the story... in fact our next wreck, uh, race is in two months at Sears point/Infineon/Sonoma raceway.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Don
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DonP
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JAN 17, 06:19 PM
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We had a rough weekend. But nobody was too seriously overwhelmed by the experience. Obviously we had several tasks to complete in order to be ready for our next event. Speaking of next event, Rich and I decided that a little more instruction wouldn't hurt. So we joined NASA and signed up for a weekend back at Infineon. That was scheduled for February 11-12, 2012. Doing a HPDE (High Performance Driving Event) had a couple more requirements such as adding a passenger seat.
Our identified task list included:
Replace the front bumper
Replace the nose
Repair the air box for the radiator
Replace the front springs
Replace the front shocks
Check ball joints, tie rods and related hardware
Check the front alignment
Remove the paint job "enhancements" provided by the judges.
Box the steering wheel bracket ( adrenalin does some strange stuff)
Check the brake pads and rotors (basic maintenance)
Add a passenger seat - can't just velcro in the instructor
Add passenger harness
Add roll bar padding for passenger
Adjust shifter linkage
Add transmission vent system
Bleed clutch
Replace rear struts
Replace rear springs with a coil-over setup
Replace wheel studs (Rant mode on) I cannot express strongly enough how much we hated the "tuner" lug nuts required by the wheels that we used. Add in the fact that the studs were JUST long enough but still inside the wells created by the wheels, and it just sucked. Wheel studs had to be replaced. We really wanted a set of steel wheels such as these by Bassett wheel. But bolt patterns versus offset... it got complicated and spendy. Still, they would have been our choice.
Okay, we had a start on our rebuild list.
Rich started with the front bumper. Luckily, he had saved the conduit templates and notes, so it was pretty straight forward. What was interesting, and you can see it in the photo below, was that our welds didn't let loose. Rather the original steel separated from or was sheared off the supporting structure. We were hit hard enough to shear the original welds that held the pieces together. Rich was quick to make that point about the integrity of his welds. Rich did a little clean-up, bent up and welded a new bumper back onto the car.
You can also see some of the fine artwork applied at the track. Robert got after cleaning that all off. But he did leave a stenciled skeleton on the rear deck lid as a "conversation piece" for future talks with the judges. At our first race, several cars had stickers saying "Save Phil." Phil was the head judge who missed a race because of a serious illness. After our race with the paint modifications, Robert wanted to commission some "Kill Phil" decals. Naw, Robert doesn't take this stuff personally. As an added benefit, having a skeleton on your car changes the way SCCA and NASA type inspectors look at your car.
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Fierology
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JAN 17, 07:49 PM
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I must have missed something. How did the front bumper shear off?
-Michael
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DonP
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JAN 17, 08:00 PM
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