New personal best

First night out in 2008. Fourth and last pass of the night and I set a new personal best.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Camaro-drag-car_163625.htm

First night out in 2008. Fourth and last pass of the night and I set a new personal best.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Camaro-drag-car_163625.htm

Looks like you've done this before. :bow: Two things though. One, put some gloves on, and two, I don't care for watching you undress. ;) Nice in car video.

Sweet

very nice man, makes me excited to get started working on my 86 drag car project! Ive always dug your car.

whats up Al!

just checked out your site again (been a long time) and I have to say, I like the new paint! thats exactly what I was goin to do when I get mine together again. dont want to spend money to get it painted, so I can paint it flat black to go for that 50's look. did you paint it yourself? if so what paint did you use?

9.50s and 140+ MPH, now that is halling a$$! Also, that new flat-black with flames paint-job is a nice change. A friend of mine just re-did his Super-Comp dragster in flat-black with silver-metalic flames. I didn't realized flat-black could look that good.

WD

Entire paint job is with spray cans, Tremclad rust paint. Roughed up the surface with 220 grit sand paper. Gave the car at least 3 coats of flat black. After letting it dry and cure for a few days, wiped it all off with clean rags to get that matte look. I was worried that it would attract a lot of dust but so far it hasn't. Easy maintenance. Get a small scuff and just hit it with more flat black.

Free hand layed out the flames then painted them with spray cans. A base coat of white then yellow to make them bright. The rest of the flames with orange then red on the tips for the classic look of flames. Painted the light blue pinstripes to compliment the flame colors. The entire paint job will not win any car shows but it looks good in pictures and going down the track.

Best pass now is 9.42 @ 142 mph. I'm still working on tuning. That's with a very soft 1.39 60' time so there's a lot more in it if I can get the car to hook up. A transbrake launch pulls the front wheels but only less than a foot up for about a car length. It's not the chassis pulling the wheels up. Sort of launches like a turbo car. Soft launch, big HP on the top end. The car should be able to get a low 1.3 60' time if not in the 1.2's and has potential to get an 8 second time slip "at altitude".

This latest video includes an insert of the tach to see the rpms of a launch and run. I also have a copy of this run taken from the grandstands but haven't asked if I can post it on Streetfire yet so it's only available online from Photobucket. After this run I found I had a bad head gasket, one broken valve spring and the rest of the valve springs were too weak for the camshaft I'm now using. Don't know how long the engine was having problems but everything has been repaired and I'm ready for the track next week.

Race weight is down to 3042 pounds.

In car run with tach insert.
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/87-Camaro-June-25-2008_168661.htm

Same run taken from the grandstands. The quality of the FLV file on Photobucket is poor but I have a good quality AVI on my computer to watch. Notice all the smoke behind me as I stage. That's from my 7000 rpm high gear burnout. :) The pickup truck beside me ran a 14.27. He was just past the 1/8 mile mark when I crossed the finish line and that was a .013 reaction time.
http://s49.photobucket.com/albums/f276/UV123/?action=view&current=AlkyIroc.flv

http://members.shaw.ca/alkybaits/banner.jpg

Making HP the old fashioned way with no power adders!

cool. I love the idea of being able to touch up anything that easy. my car is extremely straight and rust free and no way could I afford to get it painted. this sounds like the perfect solution for a drag car.

I like the tach insert, well done.

Excellent run Stephen. Car looks great! I love the low buck paint ideas! Thanks for sharing.

Great camera work inside the car! Is that a solid mount or some sort of vibration iso mount? I'd like to start getting some in car footage. Thanks.

Home made simple mount made from a cheap camera tripod. I think the total cost to make the mount was less than $15. Here's what it looks like but I have it mounted on the cross bar now because I put a CO2 bottle in that corner. I'm going to move it to a different location next time out to get a different angle. I use a Kodac MD853 digital camera to shoot the video in 640x320 MOV format. I then convert it to MPG format for editing.

http://www.hardtail.com/pics/temp/mount1.jpg

http://www.hardtail.com/pics/temp/mount2.jpg

Last Wednesday I had the car on display at work for a company BBQ. Everyone liked the old school flames and nobody cared about the quality of the paint. The car got real dusty sitting in the parking lot but a clean rag was all it took to clean it up. Even smudges from my oily hands while working on the car are easy to clean up. Here's another video I shot last Wednesday night when I went to the track after the BBQ. I didn't put the tach insert into this one. This was a 1.363 second 60' time launch. Watch the horizon.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/87-Camaro-drag-car-July-9_170692.htm

Have you ever put the car on a chassis dyno like a Dynojet?

A most excellent launch! It makes me think/wish I were at the track right now!

Thanks for the info and the pics on the camera mount. I still can't believe how steady the picture is especially with how cantilevered the camera is on the mount. It seems like most in car comes out pretty bad.

Ever think of filming the suspension? I bet it'd be interesting to watch the rear suspension or the front suspension for that matter. Where's my camera...

Thanks again!

Have you ever put the car on a chassis dyno like a Dynojet?

Never been on any kind of dyno. Estimated rear wheel HP based on race weight and MPH is right around 800.

Super slow motion video of a launch to see what's happening. The IC is still in the wrong place but getting closer and was changed after this run. This is slowed down to less than 2 frames per second, 1/8 speed. Still a fair amount of wheel spin. The car is now running 9.41@143 with a 1.348 60' time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYQJVzRGdcc

I thought I was the only one who sat around watching again and again the video of the car's performance (must be a "fast guys" thing). According to a variety of sources the very first motion on a door car should be the raising of the front end. Loosen the suspension or consider new rear tires? Is that what you are working on with instant center?

The faster you go, the more you want to watch the video to see exactly what the car is doing.

I was playing with different IC points last year to see what they would do for the first year having the 4-link but ran out of race season. We can only race about 4 months of the year.

Last winter I switched from a dual alky carb system to a dual toilet system so the car's making even more power. Playing with rear springs, shock settings, IC points and tire pressure so far this year, I've knocked a half second off from the start of the season but still need more track time for tuning. It's always one thing or the other. Last time out I made 3 passes then developed a bad oil leak that put me on the trailer. I tried to get some track time last night but we got rained out. As for the IC point, I use Performance Trends software to plot the IC points. I mainly choose a point to see what it will do depending on what holes the bars are in. On that slow motion pass, the IC length was fine but the height was too low. It only had 55% anti-squat so the upward force at the IC was quite low. I've now moved it up and back a few inches to get a better AS number. This new position will probably work better and if it does, the next position will be slightly forward and higher to keep roughly the same AS number. If it pulls up too much, I'll just lower the IC to lower the AS.

Our track isn't known for good traction and the next time I could get some track time is during the street legal nights when traction is even worse. Because of the rain out, I have to wait 2 weeks for the next drag car day when traction is better. Until I get more track time, I won't know if the suspension changes have done any good or not. Technically, I could just leave it right where it is and be happy since I'm running in the ET range that I want to run. It costs a lot of money to go faster. If I was at a sea level track, I'd almost be in the 8's. Running mid 9's is fine. I can leave the 9 on the window if the air gets better or worse. It's a pain when you're right on the edge of a time break. Do I run a 9 today or a 10?

Tires only have 60 passes on them and will be replaced for next year's season. They'll easily last to the end of this season. I'm going to see if my sponsor will buy me the 32x14ish radials. These current ones are 32x14 stiff sidewall with no tubes.

Sounds like you are having a lot of fun constantly trying new setups. Between the altitute, cold, and track sharing, I think I'd move. Nice car.

Home made simple mount made from a cheap camera tripod. I think the total cost to make the mount was less than $15. Here's what it looks like but I have it mounted on the cross bar now because I put a CO2 bottle in that corner. I'm going to move it to a different location next time out to get a different angle. I use a Kodac MD853 digital camera to shoot the video in 640x320 MOV format. I then convert it to MPG format for editing.

http://www.hardtail.com/pics/temp/mount1.jpg

http://www.hardtail.com/pics/temp/mount2.jpg




I'm going to steal this idea :D

Last track event I had it mounted on the A-pillar bar and got some great footage looking over the hood. Too bad we were only racing 1/8 mile that night.

Here's some footage. Camera was vibrating a little. I should have shortened up the mount. Next time I'm moving it to the driver's side.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/18-mile-TT-pass_177445.htm

I should run even better next time. For years, my front shocks have been set on full soft. I think I put them in back when I was running 12's. Now that I have considerably more power, they need to be adjusted. They're now set to full firm, the car should plant the tires now and really pull the front end up. I now expect to trip the 60' timers with my back wheels.

Video should look real cool!

yep, love it.