The 72 Demon Follies....
A little update from today's activities. After driving the car to a local show on Friday evening, I got up this morning and put the new slicks on it and dropped the mufflers off it. Loaded it on the trailer and headed to the track. This was a test-n-tune day only but I wanted to shake down the new front suspension parts and alignment, try the new slicks, and knock the winter's rust off me too!!
The weather was perfect - mid to upper 70s and clear so I figured the engine would make good power. I also wanted to play with shift speeds to find the lowest I could go and still make a best number.
Let's start at the line...the track was either prepped better than ever or those new slicks were really biting! Here's an example - hanging the hoops on a little dry hop after the burnout!
The new shoes:
Some more shots of the SPC UCA's:
But the best part was that on every pass made, the car went dead straight! No wandering and certainly none of the violent fishtailing and wanting to swap end for end like previously! Just plain old dead straight like a car with a spool should do!! So mission accomplished getting some positive caster and making a car that is stable. This will hopefully allow me to work on other things!
The car ran within 0.011 of its personal best on the next to last run. It went 11.157 and was within 0.01 mph of its personal best: 118.24 mph. Here's the timeslip since we all know it didn't happen without pics. I was in the left lane (hard to see but timeslips don't print all that great). I was really happy with this as the DA was close to 1700 at about 77 deg (the previous 11.14 best was run in 57-59 deg weather). I shifted it right about 6250 rpm for both gear changes.
I thought I would make one more pass and believed it just might set a new best. But on the last pass, the shiftlight did not go off so I was shifting more by instinct than anything. On the digital replay later, I actually shifted it WAY too high (7000+ rpm!!) and the car slowed to an 11.20.
And like always, we met some new people and made friends! All in all, it was a great day at the track. We proved that physics do work - dialing in positive caster makes a world of difference!! And new slicks make you have to hang on more at the hit!!
Until next time...that was today's follies!
A little update from today's activities. After driving the car to a local show on Friday evening, I got up this morning and put the new slicks on it and dropped the mufflers off it. Loaded it on the trailer and headed to the track. This was a test-n-tune day only but I wanted to shake down the new front suspension parts and alignment, try the new slicks, and knock the winter's rust off me too!!
The weather was perfect - mid to upper 70s and clear so I figured the engine would make good power. I also wanted to play with shift speeds to find the lowest I could go and still make a best number.
Let's start at the line...the track was either prepped better than ever or those new slicks were really biting! Here's an example - hanging the hoops on a little dry hop after the burnout!
The new shoes:
Some more shots of the SPC UCA's:
But the best part was that on every pass made, the car went dead straight! No wandering and certainly none of the violent fishtailing and wanting to swap end for end like previously! Just plain old dead straight like a car with a spool should do!! So mission accomplished getting some positive caster and making a car that is stable. This will hopefully allow me to work on other things!
The car ran within 0.011 of its personal best on the next to last run. It went 11.157 and was within 0.01 mph of its personal best: 118.24 mph. Here's the timeslip since we all know it didn't happen without pics. I was in the left lane (hard to see but timeslips don't print all that great). I was really happy with this as the DA was close to 1700 at about 77 deg (the previous 11.14 best was run in 57-59 deg weather). I shifted it right about 6250 rpm for both gear changes.
I thought I would make one more pass and believed it just might set a new best. But on the last pass, the shiftlight did not go off so I was shifting more by instinct than anything. On the digital replay later, I actually shifted it WAY too high (7000+ rpm!!) and the car slowed to an 11.20.
And like always, we met some new people and made friends! All in all, it was a great day at the track. We proved that physics do work - dialing in positive caster makes a world of difference!! And new slicks make you have to hang on more at the hit!!
Until next time...that was today's follies!
