40 COOP goes to Bonneville - High Sodium Diet III - Please do not post on this thread

September 7, 2012

Hi folks,

Today it got real. Rich and I went out to the entrance to the Salt at about 8:00AM and discovered that, where there was a prediction yesterday that it would dry out by this morning, instead the wind had picked up last night and blown a LOT of water over to that end of the Salt Flats. But people were venturing out there……

So we left Rich’s brand new Dodge pick-em-up truck at the Bonneville sign and drove 40 COOP out there verrry slowly. I put it in low gear and let it idle along so it didn’t splash up under the car much at all. The wet area was somewhere around 2 miles through which we drove to get to dry salt.

The pits were pretty good, although the salt did cake up a lot. We lag-bolted the tarp down, changed the tires, put on the numbers, and….

Remember the issue with the replacement of the electric fuel pumps when dufus ran out of gas? Well, I figured that dufus had better put the higher-capacity pump back on if he wanted to do 130….so we did that too!

We passed inspection with some trepidation and some give-and-take from the inspectors (helmet certification date, battery hold-down, and welding methods for chopping the top) and as part of a promise to Judy that this would be my last drive-out to race, I sold the tires to one of the inspectors. I will deliver them on Sunday night unless the weather forecast for a rainy Monday changes.

Well, the trailer will certainly carry a smaller load back to Maryland.

When we returned to the entrance road, after the sun shown for the whole day, the trek was made much easier as about half of the water had evaporated. We are hopeful for a dry entance tomorrow.

40 COOP is ready. Don Vogt showed up in time for dinner this evening, and Jeff and Tim Hughes are on their way from Salt Lake City as I write this.

Drivers’ Meeting is at 8:00 AM. After that we will all drive the course to see where there may be any issues with the salt, then the fun begins (although I am already having way too much fun!)

Wish me safe and successful runs.

I will report tomorrow from the Salt.

Jim Ireland, AKA Irish Jr.

P.S. The red streamliner is the Spirit of Salt Lake, which Athol Graham ran at Bonneville in 1959 and 1960 and his son has restored (no Allison V-12 aircraft engine right now). I believe it was in The World’s Fastest Indian and was nice to see on display today.

 

September 8, 2012

Hot rods go FAST….Kustoms look COOL!

I’m having to come to terms with that. Today I got three runs in on the 130 course with 40 COOP, and it is definitely a KUSTOM!

After the drivers’ meeting at 8:00 and the 130/150 Clubs meeting at their course, we finally got to get some speed runs.

They have changed the system a little bit, as we now get six runs instead of five. The first is still a calibration run at about 100 MPH on the speedometer so one can calculate what the speedometer should read at 130 to 140. Then there are five tries to get the 130. If it is achieved in the first two runs, then that’s all, you’re done.

With the bigger rear tires and not resetting my electronic speedometer, the calibration was way off. At about 92 mph on the speedometer, I was actually doing 109 mph. That’s OK, as I really didn’t have to calculate how fast I needed to go to not exceed 140 mph, which would get me disqualified. It just felt nearly out of steam on the calibration run! I accidentally went through in overdrive, but it still felt lazy at the high speed, even though the acceleration through the gears felt GOOD!

So on run number two, I manually shifted so I could wind it out in each gear a little further and then kept it in high gear through the traps. We also bumped the tire pressure up to 40 psi to reduce rolling resistance. Result: 112.000 MPH! 130 mph is a looong way off.

As in my attempt in 2006 with 33 COOP, we had to try something to get the motor feeling more alive at the high speed if we were going to get even close to 120, let alone 130. So, after getting a bite to eat, we went back to the pits and fooled with the carburetor. I adjusted the float level up a little bit, packed small wads of duct tape into the chamber where the vacuum secondary damper counterweights operate in order to hold them into a full-open position, and removed the air cleaner. More airflow and more gas……..NEED MORE POWER SCOTTY!

By early afternoon, the staging lanes were getting really long. To make run number three we were in the staging for just over three hours. When I finally made the run, it was almost 5:30 and they close off staging for the day at 5:00! Run result: 114.362, a nice improvement, but certainly a long way off from the goal.

After conferring with my buddy Carl Langkammerer, back in Maryland, it was suggested that I bump the timing up about 3-4 degrees. According to Bob Walker at Hot Heads Research and Racing, hemis don’t like more than about 30 degrees advance. I’ve noticed no pinging on this engine (and the mufflers are not as loud as on 33 COOP, so I at least can hear any detonation), so I will try it and see what happens tomorrow.

Am I disappointed.…just a little. Am I having fun….just a LOT!

We’ll see what happens tomorrow at the Salt.

Regards,

Jim Ireland, AKA Irish Jr.

 

September 9, 2012

WOW! What a day at the Salt!

I had three more runs to do. As I said yesterday, my buddy Carl, back in Maryland, suggested advancing the timing by about 3-4 degrees. First thing was to go to the pits and do that….but the really nutty thing is the timing was at top dead center on idle instead of the correct 6 degrees!!!! I guess in my panic as I prepared things in Maryland, I misread my timing light……and I drove out all the way with that error. No wonder the car felt lazy in overdrive when climbing those long inclines!

I thought that that change alone (we went to 8 degrees advance at idle which is 32 degrees at full advance) and thought that would make a HUGE difference. It didn’t.

First run of the day with a slight headwind……….112.70.

I think the car speed has hit the wall. No 130 MPH Club for 40 COOP.

There were two one-hour delays while they run the barstools on the course. Yep, motorized barstools. The record is above 45 MPH!

Next attempt at improvement: Change main jets to lean the fuel out just a little to adjust for the 4,600 ft. elevation. Dick Curtis, from Hamilton, MA, offered to let me use jets from his kit and the tools to do the change right at the staging area. Thanks, Dick. Dick has a ’47 Ford Coupe with a newly-built 389 Pontiac engine and was also short of 130 (but some runs were above 120), so I guess 100 more cubic inches would probably not get me in the 130 Club either. Too much frontal area on these old coupes!

Second run of the day with 0.089 jets…..114.3.

Just not gonna happen……..

Well, I had one run left, so I got into the staging line. I decided to shift it into overdrive near the end of the run to see what it could do.

Jeff and Tim had to leave at about 3:00 to catch a plane in Salt Lake City.

I worked my way up to about fourth in line.

Dark clouds were moving in from the west.

Then the starter announced that there had been an accident on the long course and there would be a delay of at least an hour. Note: Emergency services must be in place for either course to operate.

Looking to the west, the dark clouds became REALLY DARK and there was some lightning! I decided that we would go back to the pits and unbolt the tarp from the salt, put the street tires in the trailer, and get it ready to go. Don took Rich and me back to the staging line and hightailed it back to the entrance road in his rental car.

We mounted the trailer hitch in the rain and decided to leave the staging lines, grab the trailer, and get off the Salt. While the storm passed fairly quickly, it was pretty wet on the salt surface. We decided that that was to be the end of the effort at Bonneville for 40 COOP.

We went to the car wash, cleaned off the undercarriage and both sets of tires, changed to the street tires in the carwash parking lot, and went for our dinner.

Tomorrow I will finish packing, deliver the racing tires to the end of the entrance road, and head east.

It’s been a fun adventure!

I am definitely cool with the speeds I did attain, although certainly it would have been neat to put both my cars in the 130 Club before heading back to Maryland.

WAIT A MINUTE! What about 53 COOP? WHAT HEMI CAN I PUT IN IT?

Thanks, again crew.....Tim, Rich, Don, and Jeff.

Oh yeah…..I sold my tires…..

I’ll talk to you soon from somewhere east of the Salt.

Regards,

Jim Ireland, AKA Irish Jr.

P.S. The second pic is the sale of the tires to BJ Burkdoll, third generation landspeed racer, inspector for the 130 Club cars, and owner of Rod & Speed Co. in Farr West, UT. Good transaction, BJ. Thanks.

 

September 11, 2012

"On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again"
----Willie Nelson, 1976

Yesterday morning, I did the deal with BJ for the tires just a little after 11:00, but I had to pack up from my room at the Nugget, remount the fender skirts, change out the jets in the carburetor, re-check the timing, clean out the interior, repack the trailer (much easier without the tires) and do another wash of the undercarriage..then I could hit the road east.

I left Wendover about 2:00 PM.

I made a stop at a FedEx Office spot in Salt Lake City to send off some forms for........I can't tell you what for............ and looked at a very black sky accompanied by strong wind gusts.........NEED MOPRE RAIN-X! Found an O'Reilly's not too far away, then had dinner........it was getting late............not going to make Rawlins this night.

So I am writing this in Rock Springs, WY.

It did rain hard for a little while and boy, that Rain-X really works.....no wipers needed!

I took the pic at a viewing pulloff near the Wyoming/Utah border.....cool rainbow at sunset.

One coincidence of note:

Don and I met for breakfast at the Salt Flats Café before he left for the SLC Airport. I related to him how I woke up suddenly at about 5:30 AM and thought "where are my fender skirts?" We had intended to put them in my room until the tires were removed from the trailer and had leaned them against a wall in the Nugget Parking garage. So I got up to look for them

Luckily they were still there.

When I told Don about my waking up with that message he said that he also woke up very early and thought "where are Jim's fender skirts?" OF COURSE, HE JUST ROLLED OVER AND WENT BACK TO SLEEP!!!!!

So today, I continue east, probably into Nebraska. Maybe I will stop in Ogallala, NE, where my great grandmother, Alma Pearl Reese Throckmorton was born in 1880 in a sod house.

Talk to you later from points ever further east of the Salt.

Jim Ireland, AKA, Irish Jr.

 

September 13, 2012

Yesterday was not such a good day.

I was heading east in I-80 about 70 miles west of Lincoln, Nebraska with a wind blowing like snot from the northeast......... I would guess about 30 to 35 knots!

All of a sudden the top of my trailer lifted off! Luckily, nothing came off to do damage to the car behind me and one of the chains that props the top up hung on so that I just dragged it a little ways before getting stopped along side the highway. Being resourceful, I disconnected the chain from the trailer box, flipped the top on upside down, and tied the chains to the eyebolts I had put on side of the frame (using two half hitch knots for any boy scouts or sailors out there). And I used duct tape (the racer's friend) to hold other parts of the top down as well as the two corners of the box together that had separated. I was then able to limp about ½ mile to the next exit and buy bungee cords and tie-down straps to better secure the top.

Then I headed to Lincoln to Speedway Motors to get a new carburetor (Edelbrock 500 CFM w/ electric choke) to replace the carb that I suspect prevented me from going faster speeds at the Salt. It was acting strange up long hills. If I held it to the floor it seemed to sputter a little and if I let up on the gas pedal somewhat, it found more spunk. I bought the 600 CFM carb on eBay and it turned out to have some corrosion inside the bowls and must have also had some passages that prevented full fuel flow under high throttle. So I put the carb on in the Speedway parking lot and even had one hole on the linkage opened up by their maintenance guys.

The car runs a LOT better up hills, even in overdrive.

Then I headed east toward Omaha with my trailer wrapped with bungees and tiedowns, the wind still blowing strong.

As I got to Omaha, I called my buddy Carl and had him look up the address for Harbor Freight there. My GPS took me right there and I bought tools necessary to do a good temporary fix on the trailer. Then I went to a nearby Ace Hardware to buy some screws, strapping bars, and a new hasp. The management at Ace let me plug my new extension cord in and do the repairs right in front of the store. Just as I finished, the sky opened up with really heavy rain!

What a Day!

Today, I made it to Peoria, Illinois after making two stops. The first was to S. Amana, Iowa, where a former history professor at the Naval Academy, John Kolp and his wife Ruth operate Baba’s B&B. John had done two presentations at Judy's Kent Island Library Book Discussion Group, which she continues in her retirement. Then I stopped at Chassis Engineering, in West Branch, Iowa (near Iowa City). I had met the owner and his streamliner crew when we both stopped at the same McDonalds in Laramie, WY (I always have managed to stop at he same place, I guess it is probably spaced out to where nature calls on each trip. Look at the pic of the wall of hemis!

Tomorrow I head to Winston and Janet's in Marion, Ohio. I already called the G&R Bar in Waldo, Ohio to order a half roll of their great bologna to take home with me. If you are ever near there, stop in and have a fried bologna sandwich. It's to die for (and the cholesterol clog will probably do it).

Well, I will say goodbye for this trip. I will be getting home on Saturday. I miss my wife and am really looking forward to sleeping my own bed. It's been a great trip. Bucket list item checked off!

Put Bonneville on your bucket list then GO. It is really a fascinating place.

I hope you have enjoyed my journal of my adventure.

Maybe I will read your journal from the Salt!

Regards,

Jim Ireland, AKA Irish Jr.

 

Hi Jim,
thank you very much for sharing your experiences on your salt trip # III!
I hope you made it home ok, slept in your own bed like a baby and are getting ready for your next bucket list item...
all the best, Peter