Great write up on Cheryl, Steve, and the little blue truck. I really enjoyed it, and love seeing her race on Drag Week. One of my favorites .
I'll try and fill in a drag week story as time permits. We made it to Drag Week, and finished with no serious problems! Of course there was a huge last minute thrash to get ready that is now just a blur. Since the coupe was no where near being adequately sorted out, I said that DW 2018 would just be a test and tune, and develop a to-do list. But in my heart, being competitive, I really wanted to win and have everybody carry me around on their shoulder and sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" while the confetti falls. But I had to settle for 4th place in the Hot Rod class because 3 awesome cars and drivers cars were consistently faster than me. But I'm still happy the way it turned out. The whole time, we had the hurricane looming, threatening to strand us and blow us away and drown us. But we dodged that bullet, barely. We got to Atlanta Dragwway friday and did some test and tune friday night and sat before drag week. But right away friday when we got there we had to change rear end gears. The car had 3.70 in it, and I wanted 4.57. Brain Kohlman, with the Nitro Coupe pitted by us on friday night- sunday. Squirrel show up to: Sunday we got checked in early, we were 12th in line out of 375. Made some test passes, Moday morning we left the trailer behind and went to the pits and got ready, and to the drivers meeting. Then made 2 passes at atlanta. Here is the better of the 2: Then we packed up to leave; It started raining just as we left the track, and rained on and off during the drive:
What are the things on the far right inside the car that look like gauges in the first video it looks like white streaks on and off?
Great to see a car driven hard and strong, especially over such a demanding schedule. Really cool, what sort of ET/MPH did you average? Cheers, Drewfus
LOudbang, those are a pair of Innovate MTX-L air/fuel ratio gauges. With 8 carbs and 16 main jets to keep track of and get dialed in, I consider them essential. I still did some plug reading to verify results. The plan was to use the in car Gopro camera to record the gauges, and use it like a data logger. But there must be some incompatibility between the shutter speed of the camera and the cycle speed of the gauge display, be cause even though they are reasonably steady and readable with the naked eye, on the video playback is is bad. When I first started driving the car down the track, everything seemed to move so fast it was kind of a blur, and all of my focus was on getting the car to end of the track. I didn't yet feel comfortable enuff to look down at the gauges at WOT on the big end of the track. So with the camera failure, I didn't know the A/F ratio. But then after I got comfortable with the car on Drag Week, and I was becoming more aware of how the car felt and drove, I started taking a quick glance down just before the stripe. I could see the A/F ratio was in the mid 9's. Way to rich! I think about 12.7 - 13 is best for making power. SO I started leaning out the mains a little at a time, and as I did, the MPH was going up. But at the same time, my E.T. was falling off. Eventually I realized, that as I leaned out the mains, an off-the-line bog was developing, killing the 60' time.
Drewfus, my average for Drag Week was 10.385 @130.66. My best pass at the event was 10.175 @137.13. I turned in a 10.629 @111.53 at Bristol which really hurt my average. That happened because of clutch slippage. My first pass of that day, the clutch slipped so much that I aborted the pass. So I went back to the pit and readjusted the clutch tighter. It wasn't enuff, and it slipped again on the second pass. I could have tightened up the clutch further, but I checked the standings of the other cars in my class. I was in 4th place. I determined that even if I ran a pass equal to my best ever, I would still be in 4th place. Also, I wasn't sure if the clutch was glazed, and if it was in peril of failure. With finishing being the top priority, and wanting to get to the hotel at Atlanta before dark-thirty, I decided to turn in the lame time slip and hit the road. In hindsight (always 20-20), I would have made another pass. The averages of the top 3 in the Hot Rod class were 9.97, 10.03, and 10.13. So it was a close race! Here is a vid of my first pass at Bristol on Thurseday: Pictures are at Bristol as well. I nthe picture in the pits, Richard Abbotts 29 dodge is in the foreground, he came in 3rd in the Hot ROd class.
Wow, that's some really awesome numbers for a N/A hot rod that's banging gears, super cool. Just finished doing the Aussie version of D.W. called Drag Challenge, where we averaged 11.3's, so inspired by your coupe to get busy and finish mine, really admire your achievement, and can appreciate your comments about 'finishing', as it's a hectic deal that sounds simple, but is far from. Again, props on your car, and what you're doing, love it. Cheers, Drewfus
Hemi Joel - what are the 2 round gauge shaped flashing lights underneath your dash on the right side?
Drewfus, thanks very much! Good luck on finishing your coupe. Finishing DW in Australia, or US, is an accomplishment. People think, "so you drove 1200 miles, big deal". I used to think that too. But when you add to the drive the fact that you are thrashing the car for all it's worth on the drag strip, every day, and that you made a lot of compromises so the car will be a race car and a street car, and that you have to meet deadlines, and follow a prescribed route, there is a LOT that can go wrong. I have a big to-do list for winter, maybe 2019 the car will actually be "finished" haha.
57Tail, those are a pair of Innovate MTX-L air/fuel ratio gauges. If you check out my post just few above, I give some detail on those.
Getting back to the story, on Sunday tech day, and Monday the first day of competition there was a lot going on. Drag Week draws a good crowd. The spectators are free to roam everywhere, that makes it fun. Mike Finnegan was there with his gen 2 Hemi powered, stick shifted 55 chevy gasser, and the raodkill ramp truck with a 700 horse compound turbo Cummings swapped in. How can you not love a guy who puts mopars best motivators into chevies? 9.39 at 147 was his opening shot on Monday. In the A Gas class, Finnegans rival for the #1 position was also a Hemi powered brand x, Jarrad Scotts 62 Ranchero. He laid down a 9.07 at 155 on Monday. Where else but Drag Week? Nick Plewniac brought his extra awesome “Dirty Thirty” 1930 Plymouth. I had to get a picture with his 30 and my 31 together. Even though they are 2 different years, Plymouth made midyear changes to the models, so they are the same model. Nicks Plymouth runs leaf springs and caltracks, running in the Super Street Big Block power adder class. He ran a best of 8.35 at 166 before he DNF'ed
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