My report from racing at the NMRA event in Bowling Green (was ATTN: Lt. Dan)

[andy669]

We (Ryan and I) saw your car make a pass in Wild Street on Saturday while we were waiting in the lanes. Ryan noticed it and pointed it out to me. I looked all over for you on Sunday, but I couldnt find you. Where were you pitted?

Andy

[fiveohpatrol]

Yeah I saw him too, and was lucky enough to get to meet him as he was in the staging lanes.
He was pitted behind the timing tower. Can't miss that red Lightning with the mustangworks.com stickers all over it

I also watched you run a couple of times. Thats an amazing machine you've got there that puts up some awesome wheel stands! Good job
btw, who ended up winning PS. Groh or Hendricks/Moberly I assume?

-Drew

[VeNuM]

I saw you too Dan, I went to find you Sunday and it appeared you left, what a nice operation you got going on there, it'd be awesome to pass you on the highway, red Lightning pulling a red Mustang

[andy669]

I didnt even know you were there, Drew. You should have found us and hung out for awhile.

Thanks, but my car ran like a terd this weekend. Second round of qualifying sucked, so we changed a few things and got the car to run better for third round, but I missed third gear. Sucked cause that was going to be a good pass. Then first round on Sunday I decided to up the launch to 7600 and spun my way to a whopping 1.61 short time. (1.46 is normal)

I'm glad the season is over cause I'm burned out.

Rich won the event, but Hendricks/Moberley won the championship. I wasnt really keeping up on the points, but I think they had it won coming in to the last race.

Andy

[StangFlyer]

Andy / Ryan / Venum / and all others there from the site I missed - Yes, I was there and ran Wild Street. I arrived on Friday around 4 PM. BTW, great shot of my Lightning, trailer, and Mustang Venum! You obviously took that on Friday. I was in the tower with the ProMedia crew, and had left my rig down track. Saturday, and until I left on Sunday afternoon, I was pitted just behind the tower in the roundy track (fenced in) area. I'm sorry I missed ya'll! It would have been great to meet all of you.

Drew - It was nice to meet you. I am glad you found me. It's always great to meet the members from the site in person. Unfortunately, finding them at the major events often proves difficult and so much is going on that it's hard to spend any real time hanging out at the track. Hope to see you again in the future!

My trip to Bowling Green and experience running Wild Street:

Not too long ago I finally fixed my clutch clearance issues with my newer 11" sintered iron RAM racing clutch set-up. Unfortunately, just after that my hi-torque mini starter died. I had put the car up on jack stands, but hadn't gotten much farther. I was faced with the same dilemma that had confronted me since building the 377 using monstrous headers with 2" primaries and 3.5" collectors and stuffing it into the car with the stock k-member. It just had no clearance and was shoe-horned into the engine bay. To do anything with it, like get the bellhousing off or change the starter, meant pulling the engine. It was ridiculous, and it was well past time to do something about it. So instead of pulling the engine to change the starter, I decided I would instead suspend the motor and do a whole front suspension swap to tubular components. Doing so means a weight reduction benefit... but, that wasn't the purpose in my case... clearance was.

I hadn't intended initially on going to the NMRA event in Bowling Green, but the infamous Dr. Jamie Meyer told me I should... and, well... I guess he inspired me to get my car done and go racing again. Although I knew I couldn't run my race set-up (pullied for 18 lbs of boost on C16, making the car 9-sec capable) because my cage is not yet 9-sec legal, I still figured the car should run decent with the street set-up (pullied for 10 lbs of boost on pump gas, where it is 10-sec capable). So, the week prior to the event I contacted Anthony Jones at AJE Racing. Luckily he was able to fabricate me a chrome moly K-member set-up and ship it to me, with tubular a-arms and a coil over suspension kit, and right away. He literally fabricated it on Wednesday, sent it out for powder coating on Thursday, and shipped it to me on Friday. Then, I received it on Tuesday.

Last Monday I started ripping the whole front suspension out at 7 AM. By the time the parts from AJE showed up on Tuesday, and my Tokico 5-way adjustable drag struts from Steeda, I had the whole thing apart. Darius Rudis, my good friend and our Corner Carver's moderator, came over Tuesday evening and helped with assembling the coil overs and installing a Flaming River steering shaft. While doing the coil overs, I switched out the toasted starter. Fortunately, there was just enough room between the first and 3rd header tubes to slip the mini-starter in and out. I also changed motor mounts to HP Motorsports 3/4" lowering 351 mounts.

Bolt in? AHAHAH Nothing is a bolt in (except maybe a throttle body). I quickly found that the k-member main bar had oil pan clearance with the drop mounts, but it still located the steering rack in the stock location and the oil pan sat right on it. So, it looks like I should have gotten the version that drops the rack down 1.5 inches. Therefore, I had to run out first thing the next morning to have two 1/2" aluminum plates fabricated to use as spacer under the mounts. So, in the end I only got a 1/4" drop of the 3/4" I wanted (I'll fix that later by modifying the rack mounting tabs on the k-member myself). Then, the bump steering kit's tie rod bolts are larger than stock. Therefore, you have to have your spindles drilled out to 5/8" holes also. Then, later I ran into a problem with my strut tops not coming through my old Global West camber/caster plates. So, at the very last minute on Thursday morning I was looking all over town for someone that had some Maximum Motorsport adj. camber plates in stock. No one did, but fortunately Detroit Speedworks had a set of Steeda's on hand that are virtually identical and I snatched those up. This solved that problem.

In the end, I just managed to get the whole thing done and fired up at 5 PM on Thursday. This was after working from 7 AM to 3 AM every day on it since Monday. Then, I was running all over that evening trying to find a tire place open later than 6 PM that would still do an alignment for me. After several places, I found a Belle Tire that was open until 8 PM that would still do it. I got home at 9 PM with the car, but had nothing packed or ready to go... also, the garage and tools were a shambles from days of wrenching. So, I spent until 5 AM getting everything sorted out, the truck packed, and the car loaded on the trailer. At 5 AM I left, on no sleep, and heading off to Bowling Green, which is a 9 hour drive for me. I really wanted to make it to the track in time on Friday to have a few test and tune runs. I knew I'd be running on an all new front suspension set-up and it would be the first time out on slicks with this clutch. So, I wanted to get some passes to figure out the car before racing. I made it to 6:30 AM, being somewhere in Ohio by that time, but was falling asleep at the wheel. I ended up decided to stop at a rest area and passed out until 10:30 AM. Therefore, I unfortunately didn't make it to the track in Bowling Green until 4 PM Friday (their time, an hour behind Michigan time) and missed out on doing any testing.

On Saturday, I teched in for Wild Street. I found a great spot behind the tower area to pit the car, which was also right next some great guys I met at my hotel... and, that were also there for / racing at / the event. I had someone that was supposed to come with me to the event, but bailed at the last minute on coming and I had ended up going alone... So, making some new friends and having them include me in their group was really cool. Any ways, later that afternoon we finally did the drive. That was pretty cool and I have most of it on video because I have a roll cage mounted video camera mount and had my camera going. After the drive it was time to race.

Unfortunately, because I had no test and tune time before the event I had no idea how the car was going to react. Therefore, since you are supposed to launch at a lower RPM with the sintered iron clutch set-up and it is supposed to slip a little coming out of the hole, and then lock up as the rpm's come up, I decided to launch the car at 3000 RPM the first pass. I also didn't know how the suspension would act, or what kind of difference I would see in weight transfer, so I didn't want to try anything radical yet.

Well, when I launched at 3000 RPM the first time the car hooked like a mother! And, so much for the clutch slipping because it grabbed like crazy... as, more than likely I have my base pressure to high for it to do so I would imagine. I probably should have figured that any ways, since I didn't drop it from my street adjustment for the event. Any ways, when it hooked that hard at only 3000, the car fell on it's face and bogged really bad. You wouldn't even notice it on the video if I didn't point it out, but it was very noticeable in the car. It hooked, bogged, and then immediately took off like crazy. It pulled really hard, and I hit every shift good... but, it made a nasty synchro noise on both the 3rd and 4th gear shifts. I didn't notice it at the time in the roaring car, but you can clearly hear it on the video from the in car cam. Any ways, the bog just killed my 60 foot, which was only 1.75 sec. That caused my ET to only be 11.3, but I turned it at 126 MPH. That shows the car is right where it should be with the street set-up, as 126 MPH should be good for about 10.6's.

Regardless, the second pass I knew the clutch was grabbing hard and the car was hooking like a mo-fo, so I upped my launch RPM to 4000. When I launched the car still bogged, but not as bad. My 60 ft dropped to 1.63 and it felt much better. I think I was on track for a 10-sec pass, but when I went to do my 3rd to 4th gear shift it was like hitting a wall and the trans wouldn't go into gear. I had to try a couple times before it finally went into gear, so I missed the 4th gear shift. Oddly, I ended up running the same 11.3 ET though, but at only 118 MPH because of the missed shift and coasting through the big end. Again, telling me it would have been a nice 10-sec pass... so, I was bumbed and had no idea why after the first pass why it wouldn't go into 4th.

On the third pass, I decided I'd just have to now launch all out to not bog. I figured it would either take off like hell, it would blow away the tires, or I'd break something. So, I launched the car at 5500+ RPM. The car still hooked like crazy and it took off out of the hole like a fricking rocket ship with absolutely no bog. As I went down the track, I was consciously thinking... ok, it's giving me a problem going into 4th gear now, so I'm going to have to jack hammer it into 4th to make sure it goes in. So, when I went to do the 3rd to 4th shift I jerked it back hard. Keep in mind that I do not "power shift" the car. I just do a good, clean shift pressing the clutch in and letting off the gas... just as quickly as I can. But, when I did so I jerked it back hard. But, it was like hitting a fricking brick wall still and the shifter almost felt like it bounced off where 4th is and suddenly it dropped over into 2nd gear on me!!! Yeah, no kidding... at probably almost 120 MPH the car went into 2nd gear. It over revved massively and the engine roared extremely loud. I hit the clutch and the motor immediately died.

I coasted off the end of the track and pulled into the grass. I thought I might have thrown a rod of something and got out to check under the car for a hole in my oil pan or any fluid... but, all looked well. I then tried to start the car, but it just cranked over. Finally I cranked it while flooring the gas and it eventually fired up. It was obviously missing and running BAD. Another racer who had stopped slammed my hood for me, and I kept revving it up to keep it going while I drove it to the trailer.

Again, the great bunch of guys I was parked with (Matt, Dilan, Brian, and others) helped me rip into the motor. We initially took a laser heat gauge to the headers. I started the motor and had to keep it at 2K to keep it running. Each primary tube pegged the gauge at 500 degrees, except number one cylinder, which was only 190 degrees. So, we thought maybe that cylinder was dead. Also, I wondered if perhaps I bent some push rods. So, we took off the upper intake and passenger side valve cover. However, all looked normal. The rockers were all fine, and cranking over the motor all the push rods looked ok with nothing looking bent... At that point I decided to pump the cylinder with a compression gauge. When I did, number one pumped ZERO even though the spark plug looked fine.. So, we thought that perhaps the head lifted and blew the gasket between cylinder one and two. So, I pulled the plug from number two and pumped it. It pump ZERO. Now I pulled plug three and four... and, again, they pumped ZERO!

Wow, now I figured either I lifted the head so bad it blew across all the cylinders OR it stretched the valves, tapped the pistons, and bent every valve in the motor. So, I pulled the #5 spark plug and pumped the first cylinder on the other side... but, it pumped zero too... So, my conclusion at this point without having the head off yet is that I bent all the valves when it dropped to 2nd and over revved massively. Therefore, I'll have to pull the heads, have them torn apart, checked out, and probably replace all the valves. My feeling is that it probably didn't damaged the pistons other than perhaps putting a mark in them, as it probably just tapped enough to tweak the valves and now they aren't sealing. But, I'll know for sure once I pull the heads off.

Any ways... **** happens, and that's racing... It's kind of like they say, "If you ain't breaking... you ain't racing". Never the less, I had a good time, I met some great people, and I learned my car is doing it's thing and how I need to launch it. The MPH is right where it should be, and with a clean pass with a full out launch I'm sure the ET will be too. But, I definitely need to figure out what the heck was going on with my 4th gear. Either the synchro got hosed during that first run... or, something is heating up (expanding) that is causing a problem, the trans case is twisting (solid mounts) or something is miss adjusted with my bottom shifter stop... but, I'll figure that out once I have it rumbling again.

Well the worst part of my weekend wasn't breaking the car actually, it was that I screwed up my eye! I wear contacts, and one of my contacts got screwed up Saturday. I took it out after getting back to the hotel, but made the mistake of putting it back in instead of wearing my glasses Saturday night. We all went go-karting, and until I got back to the hotel it was fricking ripping at my eye. By the time I did get them out, that one had scratched my cornea! The next day I had what looked like pink eye... my eye was pussing crap out of it and I couldn't hardly use it or see! So, I left early on Sunday afternoon and headed for home. I had a hell of a time making it too. I then crashed and slept for like 12 hours I was so exhausted from the whole past week and my eye hurting so bad. Today it is much better, but still somewhat blood shot and sore. Man, what a bunch of crap that is!

Any who... I unfortunately ran out of tape on my camera after the second pass I made, so I didn't get the pass where I broke on tape (damn!!!). I had used up too much tape during the 30 mile cruise. But, I've made video clips of the 1st and 2nd passes, and you can watch them here:

http://media.mustangworks.com/showga...page=24&sort=2

[andy669]

Kelly has got a couple pictures of your car, Dan. If you contact her personally I think you can get a better deal on them. She does a real good job on them.

Andy

[StangFlyer]

Thanks Andy... Those are sweet. She's sending me a couple 8x10's. Those will look good hanging in the garage.

Btw... If anyone took video of any of my runs, I'd love to get a copy! I'd like to see it from the outside view, especially the third pass because that was an awesome launch.

[andy669]

I'm surprised she didnt try to talk you in to 10x13's. Were any of the top end pictures yours? I couldnt tell.

My avatar came from her. Hopefully after the Dec. issue of 5.0 comes out, I will be changing it.

If you were pitted in the circle track, I'm surprised I didnt see you. I towed the Stangcrazy car back there with my 4 wheeler twice this weekend. We were next to the track all the way past the scales. Last year we were inside the circle track, and I think I like it better where we were this year, even though its grass.

Andy

[VeNuM]

I flipped threw the pictures and saw one of Dan's car on the top end.

[StangFlyer]

Originally posted by VeNuM
I flipped threw the pictures and saw one of Dan's car on the top end.

I looked through the top end photos, but none of them are me. There are a couple red mustangs that look "similar" to mine in the thumbnail, but it's not actual me. You can tell right away because they either have a stock or cowl hood. I have a 2.5" cowl ram air hood.

[lx mike]

Dan what was the times on the final run up untill you broke?

[StangFlyer]

Originally posted by lx mike
Dan what was the times on the final run up untill you broke?

I have no clue. After I got it started I had to keep it going to make it back to the pits where my trailer was, so I zoomed right through without getting my time slip. It was a perfect launch and I wish I had the slip, because I'd love to see what my 60 ft and stuff was.

[StangFlyer]

UPDATE: I just posted a couple great photos taken by Digital Racecraft of my car both staging and launching during the event in my Media Center gallery. I think these were taken during my first pass when I bogged the car, but it's still pulling the wheel on one site and looks really cool!