Nate Crisman
10+ Year Contributor
- 749
- 6
- Nov 26, 2008
-
Blairstown,
New_Jersey
Today was an insane rollercoaster ride with #139. I got to the shop at 9 to pick up the car and leave for the track. Tools all packed and ready to go on friday. So I get in the car, it won't start. sounds like dead battery, but it reads 12.5V. (
) Put on battery charger and it starts, but is vibrating. I have had a clunk sound while cranking for a while now. The vibration scared me, and I had loose flywheel bolts in the back of my mind. Last thing I need is the flywheel to blow up.
So I decide to see how fast I can do a trans job on my back in the driveway (#255 was stuck on the lift in mid-partout). Started disassembly at 9:30 and had the clutch off by 10:45. Spend about 1/2 hour staring at parts trying to figure out what's going on. With the front ear broken off the engine block, there is now only 3 bolts and one dowel holding the trans to the engine. The 3 bolts were tight, but the rear dowel (the 12mm little bolt goes through it) was all all mushroomed and deformed enough that the bellhousing was sitting low relative to the block and the flywheel was hitting a notch inside the bellhousing. . It must have not been centered the last time I tightened the trans bolts and it was crushed.
Possible VR4 was on his way to the track, so he shows up at my shop about 11:15. We decide, F it, let's try and salvage the day. I flip the existing dowel (couldn't find another one) putting the mushroom end into the trans and the clean end into the block. Benchpress the trans back in and we tag team the remaining assembly. (I make Frank pump in the gear old though }
) The car is on the ground and running before 12:30pm. Fix a fuel leak, set fuel pressure, repack tools and we make it to the track at 1pm.
Thankfully, the track is pretty empty for the last day of the year. 2 gallons of 116 sunoco racegas, hook up extra battery to the bottle warmer, and open nitrous bottle: not even 600psi. ack go over to tech lane. Tech guy is cool, he knows car went 11.1 last time out, and has no rollbar. He advises to make a few easy passes then "run it out the back door" on your last run. But he is clear that once It goes 11.49 or better I'm done. So that's the plan.
Run one:
nitrous is turned off, I wanted to check to see what boost is set at and see if changing the vac line from compressor housing to the intake manifold helps the boost dropoff problem I was having. I left at 6600rpm and about 6psi then lifted right after the car launched. Half wanting the car to bog down, A to be sure it didn't break on first pass and B to just run wot through the gears and get a log. Seems even trying to run a slow easy pass I nearly get booted: RPM bogged down to 3500rpm in first gear while I lifted. Log says I shifter 1-2 at 7000rpm on the nose, normally I shift at 8000. I ran 2 and 3 out to 7500. 23 to 26* timing, ~28psi of boost (between 28.9 and 27.7), mid 11's AF, 0 knock. Ait temp at the line was 77*F up to 102*F at the traps.
1.585
4.666
7.144 @ 100.88 (100mph at the 1/8 whoo hoo one milestone down)
9.283
11.082 @ 125.92
MPH sure did pick up. Boost stayed consistent 28 to 27psi in every gear. SOLID boost control is finally here! Air temps seem to have improved with the new intake pipe as well. MPH is about 3mph better than previous run on the same tune even with worse driving. Also had some orange rust colored water sprayed around under hood, seems my radiator cap was leaking, so we swap with PossibleVR4's colt beater car.
link <--youtube vid of the run
Timeshack dude tells me to go directly to tech, "Im done". Shit! Had I not lifted in first gear or gotten on the studderbox for even a little bit of boost on launch, this would have been an easy 10 on the motor alone. Oh well, I know it's capable of solid 10's now.
After talking with the tech guy, he says the track owner will let me make more runs, but this is the last warning. So now I have a decision to make: try the nitrous or try to make a perfect pass on motor alone?
Run Two:
I decide to make a slow launch pass, arm the nitrous in 3rd gear, run it through 3rd to get a log, then coast. I do so for a 12.1 @ 107 on a 1.7 no boost launch. boost only 1-2 gears, nitrous in 3rd, half throttle 4th with a little brakes at 1000'. Make the track guys happy.
no coolant spray, log looks good. When nitrous came on in 3rd it spiked the boost up over 30psi and was rich enough to missfire a few times throwing off the A/F log. But it felt real good! no knock. Nitrous doesn't affect the AIT reading as well. All seams good. Bottle pressure was about 750
Run Three:
I intended to launch with nitrous armed and only run 1-2-3 gears then get on the brakes hard after 3rd gear to run something in the 12's but assess how to launch the car with nitrous armed and make sure it doesn't missfire in 1-2 gears and doesn't overboost or act funny. Dropped boost controller down quite a bit expecting to run an actually 26-27psi. I can't really build boost on the line as I don't want the nitrous sprayin while on the studderbox (could cause nitrous backfire).
So I half throttle launch at 6600 but 0 boost. RPM bogs down to 3375rpm then I go WOT and nitrous kicks in: instant 24psi! Lifted to shift 1-2 (again no NLTS due to backfire issue) at 6800rpm. Second gear boost hits 28.5 settles to 27.4, lift shift at 7600. Third gear boost was steady 28.5psi and felt AWESOME!. So stupid me shifts into 4th at 7300 and plants it out of instinct. 29psi through 4th gear and I ran it out. Had a little bit of knock in 3-4 gears between 6 and 14 counts. Mid 11's A/F. Bottle pressure about 700psi. But oh it felt so good!
Here's the slip:
1.671
4.656
7.021 @ 105.85mph
9.082
10.802 @ 131.28
link <youtube vid of the 10.8
I got THE LOOK at the timesheet shack again, Im pretty sure the track owner will be visiting me in the pits shortly for a "conversation".
on the return road; On one hand I'm VERY happy to have the 10second slip. On the other hand I'm pissed at myself for running out a pass with a shitty launch. Had I aborted the run, gone back and nailed a 1.4 or low 1.5 60' I could have been kicked on a 10.5 or 10.4 ET which would be so much cooler.
Park the car, Possible is all thumbs up! hood is smoking. Pop the hood and find the upper radiator end-tank has seperated from the radiator core! HAHAHAHA The pressure from the cap now being sealed up good blew the top off the radiator. Maybe HG is pushing some pressure through...oh well, can't expect much from a OEM composite stock hg and standard arp's at low torque. The radiator appears to be twisted as well. weird. So now Im happy I ran the last run out as the car is broken anyway.
We make a run back to the shop and snag another stock GVR4 rad from one of the partouts (thank god for all the extra GVR4 stuff laying around!). Get back to the track after it closed, swapped rad, filled, packed tools, and headed home content. temps stayed normal, car ran normal, no signs of blown HG. Not that it matters anyway as I need to replace the block due to that cracked trans mount ear.
So in the end, Im pretty happy with the car for this season. #139 started out the year as a shell sitting in a grass yard in MD and ended up hitting all my goals this year
And now the fun part: deciding what to do with the car from here. I would really like to have the car back as a more streetable everyday driver. Since the engine has to come out, Im thinking about de-modding it a bit. I don't want to put a rollbar in the car and ruin it for street use. Keeping the car in mid 10 second trim is a waste of time since I really can't get away with faster than 11.5 anymore. The only way I'm staying under rollbar ET is to only run street tires & pumpgas.
My current mindset:
I'm thinking of picking up a 1g-awd shell with a rollbar to use as a track only car. I'm buying a trailer for partout business anyway, so it's no biggie. I could transfer the hoosiers, T3T4 set, nitrous kit, smim, and 3.5" exhaust over to the dsm where I can actually make use of a 10 second powerplant with the right safety equipment and not worry so much about ruining a low mileage gvr4, and I can go nuts with weight loss and not care. It would free up #139 from dragstrip abuse and let me enjoy it as a full time streetcar vs the track car it has morphed into now. I think I would rather drive a 16G torque setup everyday vs the 50trim.
My other thought is to just fix #139's block but keep the powerplant together. Still get a 1gawd to satisfy my dragstrip cravings but go back to my other forgotten love: budget building and try to take back the 14B records (nos and without..10.6 and 10.8 respectively. both Bucci's FWD). The unfortunate part of this idea is now I have two highly modified cars.
Basically, I feel I have done what I wanted to do with #139 and now have to figure out what I really want to do with it. Either DD it and get something else to do racecar stuff, or turn it into a racecar. Keeping it the way it is now is a poor option as it's too fast to keep without safety equipment and too "aggressive" to be a true everyday driver. Not to mention reliability is somewhat poor when trying to do 1.4's on friday nights. } I can't count on it to take kids to school on monday morning.
) Put on battery charger and it starts, but is vibrating. I have had a clunk sound while cranking for a while now. The vibration scared me, and I had loose flywheel bolts in the back of my mind. Last thing I need is the flywheel to blow up.So I decide to see how fast I can do a trans job on my back in the driveway (#255 was stuck on the lift in mid-partout). Started disassembly at 9:30 and had the clutch off by 10:45. Spend about 1/2 hour staring at parts trying to figure out what's going on. With the front ear broken off the engine block, there is now only 3 bolts and one dowel holding the trans to the engine. The 3 bolts were tight, but the rear dowel (the 12mm little bolt goes through it) was all all mushroomed and deformed enough that the bellhousing was sitting low relative to the block and the flywheel was hitting a notch inside the bellhousing. . It must have not been centered the last time I tightened the trans bolts and it was crushed.
Possible VR4 was on his way to the track, so he shows up at my shop about 11:15. We decide, F it, let's try and salvage the day. I flip the existing dowel (couldn't find another one) putting the mushroom end into the trans and the clean end into the block. Benchpress the trans back in and we tag team the remaining assembly. (I make Frank pump in the gear old though }
) The car is on the ground and running before 12:30pm. Fix a fuel leak, set fuel pressure, repack tools and we make it to the track at 1pm.Thankfully, the track is pretty empty for the last day of the year. 2 gallons of 116 sunoco racegas, hook up extra battery to the bottle warmer, and open nitrous bottle: not even 600psi. ack go over to tech lane. Tech guy is cool, he knows car went 11.1 last time out, and has no rollbar. He advises to make a few easy passes then "run it out the back door" on your last run. But he is clear that once It goes 11.49 or better I'm done. So that's the plan.
Run one:
nitrous is turned off, I wanted to check to see what boost is set at and see if changing the vac line from compressor housing to the intake manifold helps the boost dropoff problem I was having. I left at 6600rpm and about 6psi then lifted right after the car launched. Half wanting the car to bog down, A to be sure it didn't break on first pass and B to just run wot through the gears and get a log. Seems even trying to run a slow easy pass I nearly get booted: RPM bogged down to 3500rpm in first gear while I lifted. Log says I shifter 1-2 at 7000rpm on the nose, normally I shift at 8000. I ran 2 and 3 out to 7500. 23 to 26* timing, ~28psi of boost (between 28.9 and 27.7), mid 11's AF, 0 knock. Ait temp at the line was 77*F up to 102*F at the traps.
1.585
4.666
7.144 @ 100.88 (100mph at the 1/8 whoo hoo one milestone down)
9.283
11.082 @ 125.92
MPH sure did pick up. Boost stayed consistent 28 to 27psi in every gear. SOLID boost control is finally here! Air temps seem to have improved with the new intake pipe as well. MPH is about 3mph better than previous run on the same tune even with worse driving. Also had some orange rust colored water sprayed around under hood, seems my radiator cap was leaking, so we swap with PossibleVR4's colt beater car.
link <--youtube vid of the run
Timeshack dude tells me to go directly to tech, "Im done". Shit! Had I not lifted in first gear or gotten on the studderbox for even a little bit of boost on launch, this would have been an easy 10 on the motor alone. Oh well, I know it's capable of solid 10's now.
After talking with the tech guy, he says the track owner will let me make more runs, but this is the last warning. So now I have a decision to make: try the nitrous or try to make a perfect pass on motor alone?
Run Two:
I decide to make a slow launch pass, arm the nitrous in 3rd gear, run it through 3rd to get a log, then coast. I do so for a 12.1 @ 107 on a 1.7 no boost launch. boost only 1-2 gears, nitrous in 3rd, half throttle 4th with a little brakes at 1000'. Make the track guys happy.
no coolant spray, log looks good. When nitrous came on in 3rd it spiked the boost up over 30psi and was rich enough to missfire a few times throwing off the A/F log. But it felt real good! no knock. Nitrous doesn't affect the AIT reading as well. All seams good. Bottle pressure was about 750
Run Three:
I intended to launch with nitrous armed and only run 1-2-3 gears then get on the brakes hard after 3rd gear to run something in the 12's but assess how to launch the car with nitrous armed and make sure it doesn't missfire in 1-2 gears and doesn't overboost or act funny. Dropped boost controller down quite a bit expecting to run an actually 26-27psi. I can't really build boost on the line as I don't want the nitrous sprayin while on the studderbox (could cause nitrous backfire).
So I half throttle launch at 6600 but 0 boost. RPM bogs down to 3375rpm then I go WOT and nitrous kicks in: instant 24psi! Lifted to shift 1-2 (again no NLTS due to backfire issue) at 6800rpm. Second gear boost hits 28.5 settles to 27.4, lift shift at 7600. Third gear boost was steady 28.5psi and felt AWESOME!. So stupid me shifts into 4th at 7300 and plants it out of instinct. 29psi through 4th gear and I ran it out. Had a little bit of knock in 3-4 gears between 6 and 14 counts. Mid 11's A/F. Bottle pressure about 700psi. But oh it felt so good!
Here's the slip:
1.671
4.656
7.021 @ 105.85mph
9.082
10.802 @ 131.28
link <youtube vid of the 10.8
I got THE LOOK at the timesheet shack again, Im pretty sure the track owner will be visiting me in the pits shortly for a "conversation".
on the return road; On one hand I'm VERY happy to have the 10second slip. On the other hand I'm pissed at myself for running out a pass with a shitty launch. Had I aborted the run, gone back and nailed a 1.4 or low 1.5 60' I could have been kicked on a 10.5 or 10.4 ET which would be so much cooler.
Park the car, Possible is all thumbs up! hood is smoking. Pop the hood and find the upper radiator end-tank has seperated from the radiator core! HAHAHAHA The pressure from the cap now being sealed up good blew the top off the radiator. Maybe HG is pushing some pressure through...oh well, can't expect much from a OEM composite stock hg and standard arp's at low torque. The radiator appears to be twisted as well. weird. So now Im happy I ran the last run out as the car is broken anyway.
We make a run back to the shop and snag another stock GVR4 rad from one of the partouts (thank god for all the extra GVR4 stuff laying around!). Get back to the track after it closed, swapped rad, filled, packed tools, and headed home content. temps stayed normal, car ran normal, no signs of blown HG. Not that it matters anyway as I need to replace the block due to that cracked trans mount ear.
So in the end, Im pretty happy with the car for this season. #139 started out the year as a shell sitting in a grass yard in MD and ended up hitting all my goals this year
- 11's on pumpgas/street tires
- sub 11.5 on pumpgas
- running a 10
- 130+mph 1/4 and 100mph 1/8
- Beating my 2002 yellow 1g car performance
And now the fun part: deciding what to do with the car from here. I would really like to have the car back as a more streetable everyday driver. Since the engine has to come out, Im thinking about de-modding it a bit. I don't want to put a rollbar in the car and ruin it for street use. Keeping the car in mid 10 second trim is a waste of time since I really can't get away with faster than 11.5 anymore. The only way I'm staying under rollbar ET is to only run street tires & pumpgas.
My current mindset:
- stock motor with Evo3 16g, 2g manifold, internal gate o2 housing. (cams are undecided)
- stock intake manifold will make my ic pipes fit right
- ditching the side prothane motor mounts should eliminate some of the nasty vibrations in the car
- get a standard 3" exhaust with a real muffler
- nitrous kit can easy swap between cars, so Ill keep the wiring and feel line on the car. Just remove the fuel line "tap in" an fitting and the fogger nozzle.
- possibly swap the coilovers for street shocks and obviously the car stays on 17" street tires.
I'm thinking of picking up a 1g-awd shell with a rollbar to use as a track only car. I'm buying a trailer for partout business anyway, so it's no biggie. I could transfer the hoosiers, T3T4 set, nitrous kit, smim, and 3.5" exhaust over to the dsm where I can actually make use of a 10 second powerplant with the right safety equipment and not worry so much about ruining a low mileage gvr4, and I can go nuts with weight loss and not care. It would free up #139 from dragstrip abuse and let me enjoy it as a full time streetcar vs the track car it has morphed into now. I think I would rather drive a 16G torque setup everyday vs the 50trim.
My other thought is to just fix #139's block but keep the powerplant together. Still get a 1gawd to satisfy my dragstrip cravings but go back to my other forgotten love: budget building and try to take back the 14B records (nos and without..10.6 and 10.8 respectively. both Bucci's FWD). The unfortunate part of this idea is now I have two highly modified cars.
Basically, I feel I have done what I wanted to do with #139 and now have to figure out what I really want to do with it. Either DD it and get something else to do racecar stuff, or turn it into a racecar. Keeping it the way it is now is a poor option as it's too fast to keep without safety equipment and too "aggressive" to be a true everyday driver. Not to mention reliability is somewhat poor when trying to do 1.4's on friday nights. }
I can't count on it to take kids to school on monday morning.
So close to making it in the 6's in the 1/8 too!!!!
SRT4 That's not nice Nate!
