You should make yourself a little youtube acct.. upload your videos and share them anywhere
12:05 Garage- ’70 Duster build
- Thread starter racerjoe
- Start date
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bjkadron
Well-Known Member
I paid for the whole course and I'm using it! Haha
racerjoe
Well-Known Member
Here you go Dan. It isn't bolted up yet, just sitting on there. I like it. Maybe not a fan that it doesn't reach the wheel opening on the side (about 3" short), but I can remediate that at some point.
JBrian
Well-Known Member
Hell ya, brother.. I like it!
I have pics from moparty and have to look twice as it is, to know who's who.
Will the real slim shady, please stand up!
racerjoe
Well-Known Member
From a distance, the black bumpers is the only differentiator. Jimi Day fussed at me for something Brian did. I was like, wtf are you talking about. Then he realized it wasn’t me.
Mopar603
Well-Known Member
I realize this is really old, but damn. Great to follow this build. I think I still see this car on A body platforms doing autocross, correct? I'm more of an old school look and straight line guy, but there's no denying how awesome this car is. Kudos.
racerjoe
Well-Known Member
I post occasionally on some of the mopar FB groups, and yes I do autocross the car fairly often. I've been to Moparty 4 years in a row with it. Although, it is easy to confuse my car with @JBrian car. His is a 71, mine's a 70, both black with black stripes and black interior. He has a 6.1 hemi, mine is a 5.7. The easy way to tell us apart is my bumpers are black.
JBrian
Well-Known Member
What did I besides take down cones and flat spot tires?
DionR
Well-Known Member
I have to (again) compliment you on your build. Sweet car.
In my musings and wandering on the internet, I have mostly settled on the idea that an S197 Boss 302 would be pretty close to the ideal for me. There are certainly others that catch my imagination (M3, 911, Mach 1, GT350, etc), but the Boss 302 keeps drawing me back. That said, I would rather build something to emulate a Boss rather than buy one. Not a car that I will someday buy, but a benchmark car to target.
That said, I think your car does exactly that. High winding “small block”, stick, handles really well, well thought out build that keeps pursuing better. Exceptional build.
Definitely something to emulate, even if I will never have anything as shiny as yours.
In my musings and wandering on the internet, I have mostly settled on the idea that an S197 Boss 302 would be pretty close to the ideal for me. There are certainly others that catch my imagination (M3, 911, Mach 1, GT350, etc), but the Boss 302 keeps drawing me back. That said, I would rather build something to emulate a Boss rather than buy one. Not a car that I will someday buy, but a benchmark car to target.
That said, I think your car does exactly that. High winding “small block”, stick, handles really well, well thought out build that keeps pursuing better. Exceptional build.
Definitely something to emulate, even if I will never have anything as shiny as yours.
Hey, Brian. Is the weather affecting the event? What is your schedule? We might stop by one of the days. RickDeal! I'll trade you a boat ride on the mighty Mississippi! Just bring your swim trunks, life vest and beer!
JBrian
Well-Known Member
Hi Rick, I'm real sorry I didn't have any time to get on my computer this past weekend. Yes, the rain sucked all day Saturday, but it's autocross, so we raced. Yesterday, Sunday, it dried out, but we only had three passes in the morning. I ran a best of 71.147, but pissed it away by spinning a 180 thru shutdown. Their may be some great pictures of it. Tim ran a best of 68.645. The course was .8 of a mile, a VERY long, fun, fast challenging course! The quickest time in CAM-T was a 63.289 by a 68 Camaro that runs a complete aftermarket chassis with 295/35-18s square, anti-lock brakes and so on. Still, we had a lot of fun
racerjoe
Well-Known Member
Brian and I won the car show.... Oh wait, there wasn't one.
Side note, the new sway bar I made is exactly what this car was missing. St. Louis region hosted a test and tune session Friday with a very short course, but it was all I needed to dial in the sway bar adjustments since I haven't had a chance to autocross since I installed it. The car was oversteering slightly so I decided to adjust the rear bar to a lighter setting just since it is easier to get to than tightening the front. Turns out that was all it needed. For the first time since I've started autocross, I have the confidence the car will stick and go where I want it. I tried driving faster on my last run only to out drive my talent. The car was going faster than my ability to process the course and I ended up missing a gate for a DNF. All I need now is seat time. There were some badass hotrods and drivers there and I ended up 10th out of 24 CAMT cars. I'm happy with that result and fully aware those results would have been different if we had 2 dry days. But, we all had the same conditions this weekend.
This was also the first time I actually tried to push the car on wet pavement. I was pleasantly surprised how good it was in the wet from a turning prospective. It never understeered or oversteered in the wet, but it sure would roast the tire at anything over about 25% throttle.
Special thanks to all the St. Louis Region guys for being great hosts and more hospitality than I could have ever asked for. Huge shoutout to @JBrian and his wife for welcoming me into their home for a place to stay and nice hot breakfast every morning. I genuinely enjoyed it.
bjkadron
Well-Known Member
Yeah Aero will make a difference, just not as much as at higher speeds (it's like drag where it increases by a power of 2 for double the speed) which is why you usually see pretty extreme setups. on most setups it starts being noticeable at about 25mph but can be pretty significant in the higher speed sections (50-60mph+). If you are are trying to win class you basically have to have it if it is allowed in your class. I think CAM-T shouldn't allow wings but they likely will allow it which pushes the whole class a lot more towards dedicated race cars. If you look at the nationals winners they all have max aero allowed for the class.
EDIT: If you are interested in grassroots aero development then the FB group: Professional Awesome Racing Technical Forum is a good starting resource.
No problem, Brian. I wanted to make it out there just to see the action and hang out. I autocrossed a few times with my '73 Datsun 240Z back in the day and always loved it. I ended up quite busy this weekend trying to correct a couple of flaws in the bodywork on my '70 340 Swinger. Hoping to have it ready for it's 1st car show this Saturday. A busy week ahead of me. I'll catch you and Tim the next time!
JBrian
Well-Known Member
I may run Boeing Sports Car Club May25th, will run STL-SCCA June 8th, 29th, July 29th, August 10th. Let me know, bring a helmet, sneakers, sign the waver and ride along!
racerjoe
Well-Known Member
CAM-T does not allow wings currently, but does a allow a rear spoiler, front splitters, and even rear diffusers with some sizing constraints. There's currently an open ballot with the SCCA to vote for or against wings for CAM-T. Personally, I wish they would eliminate all aero features in the class beyond what may have come on the car originally. I think all the aero crap takes away from the spirit of the class. My opinion, if you want to run aero, go to CAM-C. CAM-C does have a higher minimum weight. Out of all the CAM-T cars there, I'm pretty sure all of us would have met even the CAM-C weight. Some of those cars were more porky than I would have expected.
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racerjoe
Well-Known Member
A little update to keep everyone up to speed on the car.
It's the off season for autocross down here in South Louisiana due to the heat. Since I missed the June event due to being out of the country on vacation, I'm really having withdrawals from racing. I won't race again locally until early September, then I leave for Moparty 4 days later.
I haven't really done much with the car other than drive it occasionally. I did finally get some regular street tires for my Rocket Racing wheels so I'm not doing regular street driving on the expensive 200TW REs. I forgot how good it looks with those wheels, however, they look small now after having the large Kansei wheels on it for so long. Allegedly, these tires make some decent smoke and leave dark lines on the road.
@Dantra mentioned getting a light tint on the windshield of his car to help the AC work and thanks to him I can't stop thinking I need the same thing. I think it would look pretty awesome too.
The next "big" change on the car will be replacing the HDK K-member with a new version from Denny. He has incorporated the adjustment I made to move the LCA forward into this version, along with raising the LCA slightly. This will allow me to lower the car, which will also lower my roll center. Lowering the car will lower the CG too. I'm not smart enough to know if those two points will move the same amount. I'll likely also add a very thin lowering block to the rear to keep things level. I'm thinking this change to the K will allow me to tune the roll center with the upper ball joint. As a reminder, I'm using a 2" longer ball joint now. I may be able to use a 1.5" if I need to bring the RC back up some. Changing the upper ball joint length will also change my KPI, so I'll have to keep that in mind also. I also think I'll need to pull my track width in a touch (maybe 1/8"-3/16") to keep the tire off the wheel opening when at full lock and full compression. Although I really don't think the suspension will travel that far under real world driving situations.
Here's a shot of the car with new shoes and shined up for a cruise night. The car seemed to attract more attention than usual. Maybe I just never noticed it before because I never stand by the car. I've heard too many stories about my uncles, sisters, neighbor's, great grandpa had one just like it with a 454 Hemi that would jump coke bottles.... The one cool thing at that cruise night was a bunch of younger guys came out with their hot rodded modern mustangs and Pontiac G8s. They were all sounding rowdy! Great to see the new generation coming out.
It's the off season for autocross down here in South Louisiana due to the heat. Since I missed the June event due to being out of the country on vacation, I'm really having withdrawals from racing. I won't race again locally until early September, then I leave for Moparty 4 days later.
I haven't really done much with the car other than drive it occasionally. I did finally get some regular street tires for my Rocket Racing wheels so I'm not doing regular street driving on the expensive 200TW REs. I forgot how good it looks with those wheels, however, they look small now after having the large Kansei wheels on it for so long. Allegedly, these tires make some decent smoke and leave dark lines on the road.
@Dantra mentioned getting a light tint on the windshield of his car to help the AC work and thanks to him I can't stop thinking I need the same thing. I think it would look pretty awesome too.
The next "big" change on the car will be replacing the HDK K-member with a new version from Denny. He has incorporated the adjustment I made to move the LCA forward into this version, along with raising the LCA slightly. This will allow me to lower the car, which will also lower my roll center. Lowering the car will lower the CG too. I'm not smart enough to know if those two points will move the same amount. I'll likely also add a very thin lowering block to the rear to keep things level. I'm thinking this change to the K will allow me to tune the roll center with the upper ball joint. As a reminder, I'm using a 2" longer ball joint now. I may be able to use a 1.5" if I need to bring the RC back up some. Changing the upper ball joint length will also change my KPI, so I'll have to keep that in mind also. I also think I'll need to pull my track width in a touch (maybe 1/8"-3/16") to keep the tire off the wheel opening when at full lock and full compression. Although I really don't think the suspension will travel that far under real world driving situations.
Here's a shot of the car with new shoes and shined up for a cruise night. The car seemed to attract more attention than usual. Maybe I just never noticed it before because I never stand by the car. I've heard too many stories about my uncles, sisters, neighbor's, great grandpa had one just like it with a 454 Hemi that would jump coke bottles.... The one cool thing at that cruise night was a bunch of younger guys came out with their hot rodded modern mustangs and Pontiac G8s. They were all sounding rowdy! Great to see the new generation coming out.
racerjoe
Well-Known Member
I didn't have much going on this past Saturday, so I decided to swap the K member. I picked up this engine support bar from HF and it turned out to be much beefier than I expected and it worked perfectly. My plan going into swapping this was to remove as little as possible, unless it proved to make things more complicated. The only part I removed was the coil overs and sway bar arms. I left everything else hanging. Everything is back together with only a few more items to bolt up and/or final tighten. I adjusted the coil overs to lower the car the same amount as the LCA pivot. I should have everything wrapped up soon.
Oh, my throw out bearing started making a fairly loud squealing noise, so dropping the trans will be next.
Oh, my throw out bearing started making a fairly loud squealing noise, so dropping the trans will be next.
WHat are the advantages of the new setup vs the old? I may have missed or forgotten haha
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