Allen's California Speed Machines
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6/6/99 - Ready to rumble at the 24th annual Vette Magic at Sacremento Raceway.
Latest news 7/4/2000
Three weeks later, while preparing the car for the 25th annual Vette Magic race, the engine blew out the passenger side head gasket. I found the vacuum advance on the MSD distributor was dialing in 56* of total advance at high vacuum.
For better or worse, I pulled the heads and had Mike Blackstone freshen them up. I'm also pulling the short block for a refresh as well: honing the cylinders, new bearings and decking the block are on the menu. Once I've got the engine back in the car (and once again have something resembling a wallet), it's going to be getting some much over due attention to the interior and the body.
The Camaro continues on as the daily driver while the Vette is laid up. I've recently purchased the LT1 Edit program, which allows me to program my own timing and fuel curves into the Camaro's PCM. Should be very cool indeed!
Test 'n Tune at Sacremento on 11/28/99 was well worth the $37 entry fee.
Jeff Stevens, hot shoe extrordinair,rowed the car to a new best ET and MPH.
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Read all about the chassis dyno results, see more pix and get more info for both cars here.
Here are but a few of the nice pix taken by Rob Glover using his nifty new digital camera at the track:
An exceptionally good picture of the car showing off the sporty unpainted
L88 hood ;-)
A classic front quarter picture. That's Rob Glover's '98
Camaro Z28 on his trailer behind his mondo turbo diesel Dodge Ram dually
pickup truck.
From left to right:
Joe
Gervais ,
Jeff Stevens, and me in the red hat standing on the trailer.
This was the first time at the track with the Hurst shifter on the tranny and what a wonderful difference it is. Shifts are definately more precise. I am looking at buying a shorter stick for the shifter for stip use only though to speed things up even more. A shorter stick would be annoying in traffic, but would be helpful at the drags.
Jeff's driving abilities far outstrip my own - more proof that just because you can bolt together a hot car, doesn't automatically mean you can drive one :-) My best run in the car was a 13.46 @ 111.25, over a full second slower than Jeff.
I did have two in the pits fixes to perform: The 1st three runs resulted in 108-109MPH trap speeds, which was 4MPH lower than average in the 90+ degree temps the car made in June. After some head scratching I decided to check the carb to ensure the secondaries were opening all the way.
Well, they weren't. A throttle cable adjustment later and I had recovered not only the 4MPH "lost" from June, but due to the cooler temps, the car gained an additional +2MPH, which equates to roughly +20HP. That was just about spot on the mark to where I was expecting the car to run in the colder air.
The car also sprouted a slow leak in the pits at the water pump heater hose attachment, which a quick turn of a screw driver cured. It's always something isn't it? ;-)
The Comp T/As are grossly over powered, but until I have the wallet to flair the fenders and buy some serious wheels and tires, they continue to provide yoeman service on both street and strip.
That's the last time
I"ll be running the car at the track this year. With the holidays
and the rainy season approching rapidly, the Vette won't see any more track
time until March or so.
6/11 updater: The Hurst
Competition Plus shifter is installed, hooray! What a huuuge difference,
the car is a joy to drive now. The stock shifter was my #1 bitch about
the car, even though it was completely rebuilt. The Hurst shifter is a
wonderful modification, highly recommended.
I finally got the Vette out to the track for the first time at the annual Vette Magic event held by the Northern California Corvette Club. It was a real thrash to get the car there - I had new 245/50ZR15 Comp T/A tires put on the rims on Friday, and then ran through the valves on Sat and then the fun really began early Sunday morning.
I only got 2 runs in the car at Vette Magic in Sacremento before elims started due to the tranny popping into Reverse AND 1st at the same time after I parked at a grocery store for supplies on the way to the track. Auuuughhhhh.....
One AAA flat bed ride to Jeff Stevens' driveway, and a single turn of a 9/16th open end later and we were once gain back on the road to Sac, only now we were 90+ minutes behind schedule.
We drove as safely and as quickly as we could and arrived at the track at 11:45, just 15 minutes before tech was to close. We found a pit, dumped the usual junk onto the tarmac and drove straight to the staging lanes where we hooked up with Dave and Tom.
10 minutes later (race prep consisted of a PDQ restroom break and tossing the drivers side floor mat onto the passenger seat), I'm making the first pass in the Vette - a left lane wheel spinning triple rev limiter pass that netted me a 13.24 at 111.71. You could say not having a working tach in the car makes it a bit more challenging.
Straight back into the staging lanes and 30 minutes later I light 'em up hard in 1st and second, but only touch the rev limiter on the 1-2 and the car runs a 13.46 at 113.7 in the left lane once again - yep, I went slower by going faster :-)
Lunch ends and Elims begin. We make a couple of minor tweaks to the car (mainly dropping the rear tires from 35PSI to 25PSI) I paint a 13.00 on the glass and then pass the keys to Jeff (who has busted his butt on this car as much as I have) and we're off to the staging lanes once again.
Jeff draws the left lane as well and he also light's 'em up in 1st pretty good, but still shaves .44 off the 60' time. He has trouble finding the gate on the 2-3 shift, but still manages to break out by running a 12.92 at 113.4. So we went down in the brackets but went home thrilled to have popped into the 12's on the car's 1st time at the strip.
The car definately has mid 12 second runs in it. I have *got* to get the Hurst shifter into the car, and figure out how to get more tire under the fenders. Other than that, the car is ready to rumble!
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