Hello friends!
It has been a while since I posted anything, but that doesn't mean that nothing is happening. It only means that I have been pretty busy.
The new trigger cable/cord for the Innovate EGT system finally arrived. The old one got pinched in the glove box, and the wire got ripped out of the crushed plug.
Don't you just hate it when those kind of things happen?
Anyway, the new cable has been sitting in the corner for a while, but is now in the nice heavy plastic Innovate carry box with Data Collection unit.
The sensors are still in the headers and terminate in glove box. So it will simply be a matter of plugging the box back in to everything, and reconnecting the trigger.
I love the name of the company that provides the EGT system; Innovate.
One reason why I like that name is that being innovative has been one of the hallmarks of what Chris and I started when we first got the Drag Pak.
Doing things differently, just to be contrary, was never our goal.
Doing things differently, to gain an edge, was always what we always tried to do. And talks recently with several people about the Mega Maniac, have reminded me of the nearly 40 unique innovations on my car. That is nearly 40 different things that we did first, and some others have followed. Or things that we did, and since I don't tell everything, (except to the Secret Squirrel club), they are still secret. In addition some of these things can't really be copied as they are integral to this car.
For example, most drag packs use the standard steeling wheel that comes with the car. Fortunately the air bags are removed from them. Something I didn't think about until I had the steering wheel off of the car. Them, there was that moment... when I realized that I might be messing with a live "bomb" and had one of those "oh crap" moments. But fortunately for me, the air bag was not active.
The steering wheel on the Mega Maniac is lightweight, and removable. Interestingly it also retains the stock tilt/telescope mechanism of the Dodge Challenger for maximum driver comfort and flexibility.
Other things like polycarbonate side windows which only reduce weight a few pounds, and add infinite inconvenience since every time the windows go down, and back up, the Drag Pak windows don't go back into the roof channel unless someone on the outside pushes them in at the top. That didn't seem so bad when Mandy was with us, and went around pushing the windows in place. Everytime the door was opened, the windows controller would put the window down a tad, and when close, would raise the window. So there would be times when you would go down the track with extra wind resistance because of the window being outside of the roof track. Probably not something that slowed us much, but the inconvience irritated me. So I decided to fix these two issues.
So I replaced the poly "pain in the tail" windows with stock safety glass windows. A total increase of only about 10 pounds. And I threw away the smart window switches that lower the windows when the door is opened, replacing them with positive action switches so the driver can control both windows. When a window is up, the door opened, and then closed, "They"told me that the glass would break trying to escape from the roof channel. Or, if it didn't break on opening, the window will not properly reseat into roof channel when closed.
Once again, I was right. And "they" were wrong....again.
Lot's of other innovations but I have talked about some previously, and some are only known, and will only be known to the owner of Drag Pak 24, the Mega Maniac.
God Bless, and Race Safely
David
