69 slowmaro

[Audrey]

I'll definitely post up results once I get some hard numbers. 1/8 mile track near me opens for test n' tune in March. So we're getting close. Although track prep isn't always great.

Trevor, if you bring it to MIR let us know. I dunno if that is the same place you are talking about in your post or not.
One day, I will run my Civic there again. I ran it 100% stock in 1999 with 92HP..18.078. I have never gotten it back there since I hopped it up (for a Civic anyway). I hope to drop about 4 seconds on the 1/4 and get it in the low 15's. I won't get anywhere near the helmet or parachute requirement.

I've run at MIR a bunch, great track. 91 GTA went 13.5s on a crate motor 12.5 on a 100 shot. Drove it there and back. Built a new motor for it, went 11.8, 11.7, 11.6 (1.5x 60') just playing w/ tire pressure and they booted me for no cage. I believe an auto would've went 11.3x as I was bogging a bit after setting the wheels down, it dead hooked. Never got a chance to spray the 300 shot on it (might've gone high 9s). If the '69 does what it's supposed to, it should go 11.0-10.7 on motor. I'll work up to a 200 shot and keep it there for now. Should put me at 9.7x around 135+ on the juice, and that's plenty fast enough for not having a trailer to tow the broken pieces home.

The new motor should go 9.0s to high 8s... on motor. Then we'll see how large of a shot it'll take. But I'll need licensing and some more safety stuff before then.

Edit: in case anyone likes playing with calculators http://www.wallaceracing.com/et-hp-mph.php

[Jamie]

Do you plan to cage it? You're going fast enough to get booted for no cage, right? But then how comfortable do you feel driving a caged car without a helmet?

[Audrey]

Do you plan to cage it? You're going fast enough to get booted for no cage, right? But then how comfortable do you feel driving a caged car without a helmet?

Cage is already in it. 12 point. Right now it's safe to go 8.50 in the 1/4. IMHO the problem with cage cars on the street doesn't come into play until you go faster than 8.50 and require a "funny car" cage. That style has additional bracing around the driver's head, back, and shoulders. Those types are meant for the driver to have a helmet on all the time. Everytime. Otherwise, it's actually more dangerous, as your head could come in contact with one of the bars. A standard 6-8-10-12 point cage doesn't have bars close enough to really be a concern.

For those not familiar, below is a standard 12 point cage (front and rear braces removed) with the funny car cage conversion in red.

[BeauV]

Thanks for the calculator - fun stuff!

I just plugged in the numbers for the Morgan with the race motor running on race gas and it came up within 3ths of what I actually ran many years ago on race tires. Pretty cool!

No need to go to the track. You just need a scale and a dyno.

[Jamie]

Do you plan to cage it? You're going fast enough to get booted for no cage, right? But then how comfortable do you feel driving a caged car without a helmet?

Cage is already in it. 12 point. Right now it's safe to go 8.50 in the 1/4. IMHO the problem with cage cars on the street doesn't come into play until you go faster than 8.50 and require a "funny car" cage. That style has additional bracing around the driver's head, back, and shoulders. Those types are meant for the driver to have a helmet on all the time. Everytime. Otherwise, it's actually more dangerous, as your head could come in contact with one of the bars. A standard 6-8-10-12 point cage doesn't have bars close enough to really be a concern.

For those not familiar, below is a standard 12 point cage (front and rear braces removed) with the funny car cage conversion in red.

Ah, I see. We wouldn't street the cars with a 12 point cage without a helmet, though some people did.

No need to go to the track. You just need a scale and a dyno.

This is how you check "spurious" hp numbers. The track times don't lie, unless there is some other excuse, sorry, I mean reason.

[Audrey]

A dyno humbles all, and the track will humble any dyno number. It's that whole "power is nothing without control" saying.
The calculators are pretty good, but nothing beats time on the track.

[Audrey]

Update, blow down tube installed, swapped out distributor springs, set flowing fuel pressure on the nitrous system. Timing seems to be a little more steady. Burned my timing light.... again. Local track will open next Sunday for test n' tune. New owners are getting things inline, my new harness and neck brace showed up last night so hope to get that bolted in this evening.

Reached out to the engine builder about some other upgrades. I'm deciding to go with a holley Sniper EFI 4500 for a number of reasons. Better fuel economy (not that I care) but mostly the self learning/tuning aspect of it and the drive-ability in varying conditions. The price is roughly the same considering a 1350-1400cfm carb will tip in at over $1350 and the EFI is $1650. Small increase for about 20% more fuel efficiency and loads easier to tune. It also has many other options which I'm mulling through (timing, 2 step, fuel curve, 2 stages of fuel enrichment, etc).

[Jamie]

Cool!

You should net a good power increase with the EFI and tuning options with the ECU. It comes with data logging and the ability to adjust settings on the ECU? On the fly like a true race ECU or through adjusting the ECU map?

[Audrey]

Cool!

You should net a good power increase with the EFI and tuning options with the ECU. It comes with data logging and the ability to adjust settings on the ECU? On the fly like a true race ECU or through adjusting the ECU map?

That's what I'm trying to figure out. My old car used a holley 950 commander which was nice, you could tune on the fly, but it was pretty basic, fuel, spark, idle speed, and a few other options. Great at the time. 15+ years later they've incorporated a lot more into the software and I'm reading through as much as I can. It does some data logging, but not enough for full race. Just a wideband O2 for the air/fuel ratio. I'm weighing my options as the initial plan was to purchase a programmable ignition with a carb. That would set me back almost $1k by itself. If the Holley unit can do spark curves and is easy to tune, then I may be able to get away with a much cheaper box.

From what I read, a perfectly tuned carb will net the same HP as a perfectly tuned EFI of this type. It will however self adjust for density altitude. Which is important when spraying a lot of juice on the edge. 75% humidity acts as water injection, but at 20% humidity, you better be careful.

[Jamie]

Cool!

You should net a good power increase with the EFI and tuning options with the ECU. It comes with data logging and the ability to adjust settings on the ECU? On the fly like a true race ECU or through adjusting the ECU map?

That's what I'm trying to figure out. My old car used a holley 950 commander which was nice, you could tune on the fly, but it was pretty basic, fuel, spark, idle speed, and a few other options. Great at the time. 15+ years later they've incorporated a lot more into the software and I'm reading through as much as I can. It does some data logging, but not enough for full race. Just a wideband O2 for the air/fuel ratio. I'm weighing my options as the initial plan was to purchase a programmable ignition with a carb. That would set me back almost $1k by itself. If the Holley unit can do spark curves and is easy to tune, then I may be able to get away with a much cheaper box.

From what I read, a perfectly tuned carb will net the same HP as a perfectly tuned EFI of this type. It will however self adjust for density altitude. Which is important when spraying a lot of juice on the edge. 75% humidity acts as water injection, but at 20% humidity, you better be careful.

1) Perfectly tuned carb
2) ECU needs less safety margin as it is able to compensate. You can also be much more accurate with your tune. AFR by rpm by load or boost maps by gear with compensation table for IAT...etc.... And It’s huge help to be able to log all the key parameters in real time as you do your pulls - know when you’re for example maxing out the duty cycle on the injector, or getting a little knock.

Anyway, sounds like fun.

[Audrey]

Agreed, I'm definitely going EFI just need to decided what ignition makes the most sense.

Took the car out for a drive Sunday. It actually ran pretty well, went to a cars and coffee meet near me. It was freezing but fun.

[Audrey]

Made it to the track and back under her own power. But that's about the best thing that happened. Got in two runs and threw the alternator belt. Both passes were very consistent. Consistently slow. R/T on the first past was .019, I still got it but only ran 7.4X @ 94 with a 1.66 short time. 2nd pass was almost identical. Slight vibration in the engine, but nothing to cause it to lose 100hp which is about how much it was missing. Oh well. I'll check the plugs and valvetrain and if all looks well, I'll put a bottle through it. I'm pretty disappointed as similar combos have made well over 500hp.

Already moving things along with the new motor. The swap may happen sooner rather than later...

[Audrey]

Update since I can't do much. Pulled the plugs and hole 4 has a dark plug, the rest look good. I swapped all for 1 step colder. I'll do a compression test to rule out anything. In the mean time, I dropped off the car to the body shop to get the paint done. Should get it back sometime next week. Settled on an ignition system and am in the process of putting together a wiring diagram. It's my first one and a lot of work but I'm hoping it saves me from stupid mistakes in the long run.

Still more to do, and re-do, but it's progress. Rewiring the car from nothing is going to be a lot of work, and trying to get a new power plant installed at the same time is going to be very difficult.

[Audrey]

I'll probably be asking for a lot of help on some of this stuff.

[TheOffice]

Looks better than my Yanmar wiring!

Yanmar wiring.pdf

[H B]

Trevor, For my boat, I used some free modeling software. I actually need to find it again and load it up..none of the computers I have now have the app, but I still have the old data files on my server. I really did it for the ignition/engine/panel circuit when I was ripping out the Catalina trailer plugs, and moving the electric from port to stbd in the boat. I'll dig around and see if I can find it. It ain't fancy, but it is free.

edit - TinyCad gets good reviews on sourceforge.net...but that isn't the one I used.

[Audrey]

Trevor, For my boat, I used some free modeling software. I actually need to find it again and load it up..none of the computers I have now have the app, but I still have the old data files on my server. I really did it for the ignition/engine/panel circuit when I was ripping out the Catalina trailer plugs, and moving the electric from port to stbd in the boat. I'll dig around and see if I can find it. It ain't fancy, but it is free.

edit - TinyCad gets good reviews on sourceforge.net...but that isn't the one I used.

Thanks HB. I have access to Autocad and even though it's way overkill, it draws 2 dimensional lines just fine. I did see some other wiring diagram software that looked nice and it would speed up the process. It has some standard blocks you just click on a circuit and it would insert a diode or switch, etc. Although nice, it was around $250. Yeah, I need that money for 2/00 battery cables...

[Audrey]

Things got sanded and primer last week. Hoping to get paint and clear this week.

[Ajax]

Who repacks the braking 'chute when you test it? Is there anything complex about it?

[Audrey]

Unfortunately I haven't had to use it in anger yet (just up to around 70 mph). But I have done some testing with it and repacked it a few times. It's very straight forward until you need to compress the pilot chute spring and hold it while lacing the flaps. Actually quite difficult with one person.

[Ajax]

Ha, not social distancing friendly for 2 people to do.
Sounds neat, though.

[Audrey]

Replacement harness. Apparently there's a dome light in there somewhere...

[Ajax]

Done light is extra weight. Get rid of it.

[Jamie]

My brain hurts looking at that loom, Yeah, yeah it's probably a simpler one...

[Audrey]

Yeah, that dome light ain't getting hooked up. Neither is the horn and some others odds and ends. This is the 21 circuit 'race car' harness. The materials are high quality but the real reason I bought it was b/c each wire is labeled and sized correctly for the anticipated load. It also comes with very good instructions on how to wire everything.

[Audrey]

Red stuff went on.

[Tim Ford]

Nice job! Looks terrific.

[H B]

nice..looking good!

[TheOffice]

SOLAS orange?

Loos great!

[Audrey]

Orange is fast, but I'm hoping it matches the rest of the car. "Arrest Me" Red.

Some big wires showed up yesterday along with terminations and bus bars.