Today was a "cleanup" day...not the shop hell no.....but the little nagging things we needed to finish....when it gets down to those , better not to have the distraction.
Slow start for the day, but I went to Salvation Army Thrift Store for some important Drag Pak Items like decorative frying pans, a polycarbonate kitchen vacum container thingy, and a stainless hamster bowl, as well as a cup cake tin and some other items our car needed.....they became speaker hole firewalls, steering column cover, engine camera housing (were going to run an infared engine camera...yeah really because we can and its damm near free, well build it ourselves in about 30 minutes, and I think it will be cool, even if it dosent give us data we can use itll give us really cool infrared video of the engine in a run) and lets see some other odds and ends, total time to procure, modify and install items 43 minutes....cost $6.50 (It was 50% off day) BUT If you ever need spun aluminum, stainless, plastic covers go to the kitchen section of a goodwill and let you imagination roam.
Lots of brackets, mounting, fitting items like the trans shield, and I lost 3 ounces from the tranny by removing things not needed like the kickdown post and other flanges.... yes I weighed it, actually it was my dads Idea to weigh it but the reason was for the trans shield.
Finished the overflow tank, emmm...... the package tray firewall plates , or in this case pans over the speaker holes, I still have to wrinkle paint them......Its all in the details.......details that cost me nothing, are nicer looking that a can of krylon and serve a purpose, in this case to give me a minute to sit my but down in the office with a heat gun and watch paint dry....litterally....but it give me time to think.
Someone said they couldnt believe how much we were "giving away" well..........errrrr......the only thing seen other than the rear chunk internals is........uh were using a 904....yeah....and uhhhh......were using strange shocks.....and uhhh........were using an 83/4 with alloy spool and gundrilled axles, wilwood rear brakes and....well who cares....
a)Everyone is at least doing those things and more....nothing suprising there, some are running a Protrans maybe a couple of hunreths faster
b)Anyone will be able to see anything at Pomona we are showing in pictures
c)If they havent thought of it themselves maybe this will save them some heartache
d)I havent revealed any engine info and well its stock eliminator, so there isnt much too do, making those things priceless
e)Were gonna get tore down, isnt that like taking our clothes off in public ?
f)This isnt rocket science, you try to produce the most horsepower you can, you try to get that to the ground effectivley, you do things like removing gyro forces from rotating mass by reducing, well...it mass...you try to find the "sweet spot" for your gearing and you try not to break things by going as fast as you can consistnetly....as well as a bunch of other things in between but you already know that and you know what the goal is
h)How can you be sure we havent shot 2 sets of photos in some cases and 1 is real and not published and these are the other ?
i)If we told you 100% of the truth would you just take it all and make a direct copy of us ?
No....hence , it dosent really matter........its informational, and hopefully will save someone else time, time that they save get their DP car done faster and out there "In the Wild"
TRUST me when I say we have revealed nothing that is "secret squirrel" stuff and there is some. But for Phase I its about completing the car and getting it running at the track, THEN well see where were at and things will change, as soon as that happens this blog is over the build part.
AND if I can be of help on stupid things to other DP owners along the way good, Im happy to do it....not everyone is paying people to do all the work, hey there is nothing wrong with that and I would if I could but I cant so I dont, and when you have as much blood in the car as we do (real blood....under the paint, inside the rear end....a little skin I think too) well, if I can save someone a leak....
The machine shop is even working on our stuff tommorow for delivery....Great vendors and suppliers thus far, Id like to name them all but Im not going to until we run and are doing well with the combo we choose, it dosent seem right, if we go out and fall flat on our faces for people to be able to point out "well he was using X, that musta been it" Nope if we fall its noone choice but ours, we were given suggestions and some we chose a differnet path than the "Everybody" route.
My dad has a saying "If youre both exactly the same one of you is redundant" , to me if "everyone" is doing xy and z , wed all build the same package and wed all run the same.....that seems to a large extent to me as an outside where CERTAIN things are in Class Racing...so were doing some of those but on other we are pulling a "Change Up"
I almost made a grievous error in judgment today, the kind that would have bothered me for a long time and it was simple. I am a minimailist....I strip things to the bare functional minimum in most cases thinking about the breakage , procurment, and repair cycle while 1000 miles from home in wherever.....BUT its easy to get off that track when Summit Racing is 20 minutes from the house and shop.......The error ? Radiator hoses.......It started innocent enough, we needed good clamps, and well hell while youre at it get us one of those billet filler T's .....they parts came back, nice clamps, but the filler T had a seriously restricted flow, so we hopped back on to Summit Racing site to see what else they had in stock, ooooooooohhhhhhhh and AN ended ....but then I need new hoses and adapters, ok....total like $300........Wait a minute.......WHY ??!?! The radiator hoses arent going to make us faster, period, the thermoplastic is not going to break and it has a better ID for flow, the hoses are new and a standard part we can get all of that at the dealership.....the OE clamps just arent suited to use/reuse and ease.....WTF was I thinking......
So we dodged a bullet of "coolness" that was going to do exactly jack crap for us and complicate things should we need to repair, and increase costs, and well.......If the OE hoses and T cant handle it for a couple races....then our motors got a LOT bigger issues than some cool hoses are going to help.....dumbass.....me.....good thing the old man came back to the shop, he said "If theres a good reason Ill run over and get them, is this going to solve a problem ?" I thought about it for a second....yeah a problem I was creating.....oh well.....
Im going to put that on the whiteboard tommorow,
"Its cooler to be less cool"
On these cars a radiator hose will never make you faster....
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