Projects rebuilding after the crash

I should have the new radiator next week. Long time Racine hot rodder Jimmy Walker made it similar to the first one. He now lives in Georgia running Auto Rad Radiator.The tubing was changed to a larger size for increased cooling. This added a half inch to the thickness. He said it should eliminate the temp creeping up on a hot day when I'm pulling the trailer in stop and go traffic. With everything shut down do to the virus he was waiting for a core. Once installed street driving can begin. I'm in the process of cleaning up some wiring and putting the tach back in. The tach helps in setting up a consistent idle. The car leaves from a idle. I'm also wiring the shift light. I'm running out of projects to do on the car. I never thought I would say that.

 

There's always magnesium wheels to polish!

 

I did that last friday. The flitz sealer is doing its job. That was the first time I polished them since the autorama. Speaking of flitz. Amazon is taking a long time to ship flitz as it's not considered a priority. If flitz is ordered direct it ships the same day. Use product code 3132 on checkout for a good discount.this applies to all products.

 

Good job once again, it is funny how much things change when you gear up the protectives and strap yourself tight. They eat up a lot of room and mobility.

One car I needed to redo the whole shifter brackets and placement assy. Could not reach P position at all when strapped. Glad I noticed that before entering the track. Oh well at least it would have been safe like that.

 

This guy seems to know what he is doing and just this month he posted this video on the subject of fire safety.

He tells it like it is and may offend some people watch at your own risk LOL.

DISCLAIMER: Not my video or shop

https://bangshift.com/bangshift1320...your-race-car-that-might-be-in-a-stupid-spot/

 

Great video. Lots of truth there. Here is just one of my fires I have been in. I had a fire at Maple Grove with the 65 going 189 mph. It blew a front trans seal very close to the lights. The oil ran out onto the spinning converter which then flung it onto the red hot zoomies. The result was instant black smoke and flames blowing in through the passenger window area. I only ran a windshield.This is no exaggeration I couldn't see my hands on the wheel. I couldn't see out the side. I didn't know if I was upside down or backwards. I didn't know if I was drifting toward the wall. I killed the engine. Set off the fire system and hit the chutes. I prepared for impact while holding the wheel straight and pushing hard on the brakes. I could hear the fire bottle hissing. The rear tires started to bounce making chirping sounds. Keep in mind during all of this I can't see. The car finally came to a stop as I felt the release of pressure against the belts. I knew then I could safely get out. I didn't get burned only a little paint in the engine compartment got crispy. I had one of the nozzles mounted on the firewall pointed straight down. This wall of spray kept the fire from going forward. I had several other nozzles placed strategically throughout the car.
The coupe has one ten pound bottle supplying four nozzles directed at the engine inside the diaper. The other ten pound bottle supplies two nozzles on me. One located on the knee bar sprays my lower legs. The other one sprays from the knees up. I will get more spray time inside the car with only two nozzles.
The diaper is also a big part of fire safety. If the engine throws a rod or pushes a gasket out the oil needs to be contained. If its contained to a small area the fire system has a fighting chance to get the fire out. Without a diaper the entire bottom of the car get oiled and no system can put that out. Fires are a serious threat that most don't prepare for. I wear a spec 20 rated firesuit. I also wear rated shoes spec 20 boots and gloves. Rated underwear gives a additional 5-10 seconds of protection. My helmet has a permanent nomex skirt and is nomex not nylon lined. Even with the best equipment you only have 45 seconds of direct flame contact. That's not alot of time to stop the car and exit the flaming wreck if you can even get out. I have this kind of protection because I have seen people burned to death up close and personal. I have said it before if you can't afford good fire protection then you for sure can't afford even one day in a ICU burn unit.
I will be cutting a five inch hole in each side window very soon. If you have ever wondered why cars have these it's so the rescue crew can stick a fire hose through it. The fire hose nozzle is just under five inches.

 

That must have been a really frightening experience. I have been in situations like that, when the best first thing to do, is nothing. Better to wait and make the right decision, than to act quickly and make things worse.
You have the Nomex vs nylon thing right. The protection a person gets with the Nomex, can save your life or minimize the hospital stay.
Two friends of mine spent 6 month in the tank, and required extensive skin grafting because of an engine explosion in a CF-101 Voodoo. Even the nylon in the parachute of the navigator was partially fused, and he was lucky it opened. All that was left of their nylon flying suits, was the cuffs.

Bob

 

Your right you usually don't get a second chance. When I'm in the staging lanes with my eyes closed waiting to run I'm going through every situation I can imagine. I work in a hospital were I'm under pressure with lives on the line in emergent situations. It has provided good training on how to stay calm when its hitting the fan. Controlling the adrenaline is everything using it to your advantage. I have practiced shutting off the car activating the chutes and fire bottles then getting unbuckled to exit the car. I do this in my shop with the lights out. Developing a routine that can be activated without thinking is the goal. Part of getting a competition licences is doing a blindfolded test on the location of the cars kill switch etc.

 

I was talking with a friend of mine about racing and being scared of what could happen, he said nothing bother him, going fast was no big deal. He was never around when the guys we knew got killed or the cars went into the guard rail, he just remembers the few times everything went right.
Some people are just not smart enough to be scared, and that is what can get you badly hurt or killed.
Scared may not be the right word, but to me respect and scared go hand in hand.

You and the other drivers of the fast cars have my respect, mine ran low 11 sec at 120 mph and was fast enough, you guys are on whole other level!

Joe

 

The world is full of the kind of people that don't think it can happen to them, and they don't prepare. Some can go a whole career without a mishap.
There are a couple of accidents that should get their attention, and the best example I can remember, is seeing the Bob Glidden crash in a Pro Stock Ford. The idea of the car rolling down the guard rail horrified me. Not a lick of fire, but I would not have wanted that ride.
You know when you have cheated the reaper, when you start to shake later in the evening.
Bob

 

As Chad notes Tim has never been the guy to sugar coat anything.

Roo

 

You can easily tell the guy who has cheated the reaper. He is the guy with his belts and chin strap pulled tight.

 

Roo how do you mount your fire systems. I'm interested to hear about nozzle placement and the control placement. I know the dragsters use a arrangement of levers. What do you do on door cars?

 

On our bonneville car we had 4 nozzles one on each side of the motor down low and two inside the car and unfortunately we had to use it once it worked real well as we had an engine fire and the driver was not harmed at all and it barely blackened the paint inside the engine compartment other than the cleanup of the fire suppressant chemical which in my opinion was well worth the time it took to clean up all was saved so I’m like you Brian the fire system and Sfi 20 suit is priceless also the belts need to be extra tight a person doesn’t know how much they will stretch in a crash I had friend barrel roll a liner at bonneville who walked away from a 200 plus mph crash he had cameras inside the car and you could see when the footage was reviewed how much the belts stretched it makes a person think twice about how tight the belts need to be Glad to see the car is coming along I for one am ready to hear that thing roar


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The most informative tech type video I've ever watched with some entertainment to go along with it, Tim has the kind of delivery peppered with enough adult verbiage to get the point across.
I generally look for the exit door as soon as I feel like I'm being "sold to", this video didn't feel that way.

 

I mentioned earlier I was hooking up the tach and shift light. No one can tell me if it can be wired to the efi and the mag so they work with both systems. It's funny that I get the same answer no ones ever done that before. So I guess I will wire it up and see what happens.
Do to the msd 44 amp mag a converter box needs to be wired in to change the signal to something they can read.
I wired them up per the diagrams. The only wire that's shared between the two systems is the signal wire for the tach. The shift light is not set up to work on the efi side.
It would be cool to flip back and forth between the two ignitions and have the tack work.

 

Maybe you can use a diode in the wiring so you don’t have feedback between the two systems


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The shift light uses a chip so it only needs a 12 volt signal for use with the mag. I spliced into this wire and ran it to the wire that's on the negative side of the efi coil. The efi side gets its signal from the negative on the coil. Only one system is on at a time except when I start the engine on nitro. They are both on for a few seconds.

 

Looks like time for two shift lights and two tachs? Has that been done before


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I don't want the extra weight or clutter inside the car.
I spoke to my electrical engineer friend about my set up. He feels it will work if I move the signal input wire from the efi coil negative side to the tach output wire at the msd spark box. The directions say I can use either one. He brought up a good point saying the msd coil fires multiple times at each ignition sequence therefore the signal wont be accurate. That's why the msd boxes have a seperate tach output. He also said the way I have it wired the shift lite will work on both ignition systems.
I spoke to squirrel last night about all of this for input. He suggested a three pole switch to flip back and fourth. That's a good idea I might use if moving the wire to the tach output doesn't work. It's kind of busy in the car starting it up with everything I need to do. I don't want to add more things to do.
The fun of the learning curve when your trying something new.
That's real hot rodding and that makes it fun.

 

I thought about the MSD while we were talking, and forgot to ask you if that's what you're using...definitely want to use the tach output on the MSD box, not the coil wire! It will probably work without a switch doing it that way.

 

The last piece of the puzzle showed up today. That being the new radiator. I will mount it on Saturday. It will then be ready for the street. I will practice social distancing with any car that wants to race. I can see it now. Officer I was just practicing social distancing I wasn't racing.

 

Would you say the car is faster in “street trim” these days then it was before the crash, when it was orange and had a grill shell? Soooooooo many changes since then after all.
I don’t think you’ve ever alluded to it’s EFI/gas performance as its focus is Nitro. The car has certainly a fair amount of go fast goodies most street cars only dream about nitro or not.


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It went in the nines with the old engine. That was on street tires with the mufflers on. I haven't run the car on gas with the new engine. I'm sure if it hooked it would go low nines. It goes good on gas for a engine that's built all wrong for that fuel.

 

I hear that, the first time you sit in a car running on nitro everything changes. The car comes alive in a totally different way, power courses through the frame, you're part of it, it runs through your body.

 

It sounded like a easy thing to do mounting the new radiator. The old radiator cracked. We think it was mounted too rigidly or unable to move a little when it gets hot and expands. The new design allows it to float on soft rubber.

Mounts were drawn on paper to get the correct dimensions before metal went in the brake. After cutting and bending they went into the plasma cutter. I have only seen hand held plasma cutters. It was cool to see this one in operation. A picture was drawn on paper. The machine sees this image and cuts it automatically. The lightening holes make them look better and save weight.
It was tricky getting the radiator in the exact place I needed it. I used the pre existing sheet metal that goes around the fans to get it just right. The rear mounts could be tig welded. There was no room to get the uppers like that. Those were hit with the mig welder from below. The bottom mounts are like hooks. The radiator slides down into the padded mounts. They are very strong and under acceleration support the radiator. The top mounts have a nut welded underneath so I can remove the radiator myself. If I didn't take this extra step it would take another person working from under the car. The bolts are tightened down pushing the padded aluminum plate to hold it all in place. The upper mounts also keep it from moving side to side.
While parts were waiting to cool I saw that the anti roll bar bushings had moved out ward. There are collars to hold them in place. After the parts were chromed they must have been put back on the opposite side of the mount. It's a good thing I took it all apart. The bushings were stuck on the bar. Dirt got in there causing a bind. Everything came apart and was cleaned. The links with heim joints were stuck. Those were also cleaned and lubed. They now spin with my fingers. View attachment 4670988 This project took the better part of eight hours. I just need a new fitting for the radiator and a new catch can and it will be ready.

 

Nice clean work. I've been watching some of your old videos. I can't wait to see run again. Awesome car. Keep us updated!

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Thanks. Very soon my friend.

 

Now that the weather is getting better around here it's time to do some pr type things. Flitz metal polish asked me to bring the car out to shoot some infomercials. We have been working together lately. It's easy to do as I believe in their products. In return they take care of the cars product needs. It's a good relationship. The company CEO and marketing executive were on scene adding a little stress to the shoot. When I got home I filled the tank with nitro as we plan on a nitro fire up Saturday.

 

Wow! At least someone around here is famous.

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