A few years of catchup…
Few years in the making, but here’s a headline shot! COVID years, move to Utah, and a lot of other things, but here we are. Big evolution in grip and tires, paint in 2022->2023, continued tweaking on the power plant. Stepping back in time with more details below…
April 2022, headed off to paint. I did a lot of the flare work myself in the garage, but sent it off to the pros for making it pretty!
Color choice ended up being Aston Martin Buckingham Shire Green which was a nice change from the previous Aston Martin Derwent Green Metallic. The trim I wanted to delete the chrome and ended up going with a Bronze metallic. Original plan was a flat finish on this, but did end up with gloss trim on account of feeling it would hold up better and be easier to clean.
Pickup day at What’s Happening Performance in Salt Lake City, Utah! Dixon and his team did a fantastic job blending in the flares, finishing out the body work, fitting the fiberglass front & rear bumpers, putting in the Aerocatches and laying down the color! Phenomenal work!
Winter of 2022-2023 was LONG in Utah. Fresh paint and salty roads weren’t desired, but SWAGs detailing came through and provided covered transport back home!
Reassembly took far long than anticipated, but spent the time to add more sound deadening in some places, had fit shorter seat risers for more headroom, and also dyed the rear seat cushions so my daughter could ride in the back and not be so embarrassed by the tan upholstery!
Power Windows from New Relics and door panels from Tuned Injection with a cleaner appearance were other goodies.
Some “finished” shots. Trim all painted, pop-open gas cap (upgraded with internal flap to avoid splash back), blacked out deluxe trim panel, and fiberglass close-fit bumper from Maier Racing.
Bangin’ Headlights LED lights with halos on display here. Huge upgrade over stock or halogens! Close-fit front fiberglass bumper from Maier Racing and all the trim painted.
Side shot, look at that stance!
Last shot for this update, but here’s the car post PPF install by SWAGs detailing. First few drives had rock chips quickly showing up on the flare from the wide tires, so a little protection was in order!
Final update here was a major upgrade in terms of livability of the car and that’s a Moroso air-oil separator and a dual-flow PCV valve from M/E Wagner. The car hadn’t had a PCV on it since the late 90s due to issues with old valve covers sucking up oil and making a spectacular smoke screen. This issue was never addressed in later iterations of the motor, but a persistent oil / gasoline smell in the cabin continued for the duration. Finally after much research and effort focusing on weatherstripping and the gas tank area, nailed down that the PCV and open breathers on the valve covers were likely to blame. This was an INSTANT massive improvement and effectively eliminated the smell in the cabin (for a car of this vintage and type anyways).
Lot of work going on now getting the ECU better tuned for high-altitude and still dealing with ITB issues stemming from very poor quality of the Speedmaster intake. I haven’t given up yet, but the time may come…
Thanks for checking in!
Dyno Results!
More to come! Working out a few idle-air control related issues and hope to have some driving video and details soon.
Thanks Horsepower Research!
Balancing Throttles and Filters – #ITBLife
Spend any time looking into individual throttle bodies or individual Weber carburetors and you’ll inevitably find horror stories of being unable to balance idle and poor driveability.
A lot of these issues can be resolved through proper setup of the throttles themselves and others resolved through tuning.
On Black Friday in 2018 I bought an intake Speedmaster79 which is basically a clone of a Borla/TWM stack injection setup, the same as my Dad has on his Daytona Coupe. An important part of this is the vacuum plenum which connects the individual runners together so the MAP sensor gets a good reading and the IAC works correctly. You can see the plenum in the below picture.
You also might notice in this picture that there’s no connection between the runners and the plenum… (more…)
Heart Transplant – The ITB 363
If any of you are following me on Instagram and Facebook, a lot of the below is going to be repeat, but I figured I’d capture it all in one spot.
This spring, with hot idle oil pressure sub 20psi and peak pressure barely hitting 50psi, I knew my DSS 306 had incurred some main bearing damage. Different oil pumps (volume, pressure, etc) hadn’t prolonged the life and I was worried about going too far before it popped. Since it was still running fine, just had low pressure, made the call to pull it.
Thanks to help from my Dad, the removal was pretty easy. In the meantime, though I knew the fix wouldn’t be too difficult, other plans were hatching… (more…)
Monterey Historics 2019 – 1960s American Cars
Earlier this year, my Dad and I made the trip out to Monterey for the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at WeatherTech Speedway (Laguna Seca). This was a bucket list trip for the both of us and it was really special to use the event to celebrate my birthday as well as an early 70th birthday for my Dad.
I took tons of photos the whole week, but I wanted to start off sharing those related to some of the classic 1960s American cars that we saw during the week with a particular focus on the Trans Am racers.
I’ll get to the photos in a minute, but also wanted to share this video walking through the pits:
This was just sliver of the awesomeness that we saw. (more…)
Big Tires = BigFun
In December of 2017, had a big post covering some work that I was doing to my ’67 Mustang. Fast forward a little more than a year later and a lots happened since then!
That post covered MOD1 front suspension updates from Mike Maier Inc and Wilwood 140-10220 6 Piston Brake Kit install which highlighted new wheels I was working on installing.
At the time, I wasn’t able to get the wheels to fit the way I wanted, even with spacers as the front wheels could only tuck in so far due to upper ball joint positioning that I had a mismatch of about 1.5″ per side between the front and rear of the car, a little silly looking to say the least! Click through for more. (more…)
Extracting and Comparing Autocross Runs from GoPro Hero data
By now you’ve surely seen the data overlays that GoPro cameras Hero5 Black and later can do. If not, here’s a refresher from my most recent autocross! (Separate story to come on that soon).
This is great, but GoPro’s software doesn’t let you extract or do anything with the data afterwords. After a little digging, it appears there’s a lot of people who’ve been able to extract the data from these files and do some clever things with it. The extracter I’ve found and done some playing with is this one: GPMD2CSV
With this extractor, am able to get .csv, .gpx, .kml, and .json data out. Now, how to visualize it? Click over for more. (more…)
CP Camaro For Sale!
After 13 years of racing success and fun, Todd and I have decided it’s time to pursue some new automotive projects and have decided to put our CP Camaro up for sale. Details are available on the Spec Page and Cars for Sale page.
This is a fantastic car which is a past National Champion and competitive every year!
FOR SALE: 1979 Chevrolet Camaro, built for SCCA C-Prepared autocross competition. This car is a National Championship car and consistent top 5 contender nationally. Available as a complete package, rolling chassis, or chassis without shocks, engine separate (wet sump) we’re willing to work with you.
Car currently has all brand-new fiberglass nose and doors; however front fenders are un-flared now and don’t have the splitter mounted. Pictures below show what it could look like for you!
Included extra set of Real Racing wheels.
Car is located in Bryan, TX.
PRICE: $25,000 complete, options related to breaking the package apart are negotiable.
Something new is coming
Been a long time and I’m way behind on posting any activity. Life, job, those types of things have gotten in the way of racing and playing with the Camaro, but behind the scenes some things are in progress on my ’67 Mustang that I wanted to share.
In college, I got my autocrossing start in the ’67. It was a pretty entertaining ride and for years the suspension setup didn’t change until last winter when I upgraded to the Mike Maier Inc. rear panhard bar, shocks, and rear sway bar. Since last fall, I’ve driven the car a fair bit, upgraded the front brakes to a Wilwood 12.88″ rotor with 6 piston caliper (note, these are for a 1970 spindle, not a normal ’67!), and also tried out a stiffer set of front springs. (more…)
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