The road to Optima Challenge 2021

[Captain]

Awesome Track Pictures !!

Car Set Up is Like "Dancing"..........
We ALL Do IT Our Own Way !!!

[SuperBuickGuy]

and while I'm on that rant

basic suspension rules:

1) springs are for defying gravity. They solely maintain the altitude of your car against the gravity that is pulling it down.
2) suspensions are for reacting to changes in how gravity is affecting the object when you decide to move it.
3) the best suspension joints move only in one direction
4) frames are for providing rigidity and shall not move.Frames are not a suspension component.
5) shocks are for controlling how your springs react to gravitational changes
6) bushings are not sacrificial. rubber is an anode not a bushing
7) square exhaust doesn't matter nor did Epstein kill himself.

someday we'll talk about how to make a suspension defy the Newtonian laws, but until we are all on the same page about those first 6... we wait.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Herb Adams always went with soft springs and Huge(for the time) sway bars... Dick Guldstrand went stiffer on the springs and a bit milder on the sway bars... Adams also figured that Urethane bushings were too harsh for the street and preferred to use fresh factory rubber bushings...

old people.

huge sway bars and soft springs would basically make your independent suspension a solid axle.... why the bloody hell would you do that? all that complexity, all that weight, for nothing. drag racing, I love what Tom Bailey is doing on his 57 Chevy Wagon, it makes so much sense to use a solid axle on a dragster, but if you are going to turn and the road isn't perfectly flat, binding the A-arms together is lunacy. Yeah, I recommend Herb Adams suspension book, but that doesn't make him god.

Guldstrand is still being copied today... for good reason.

clearly Adams was going soft... plus, with solid axles and leaf springs; anything to make it softer would be better....

I'm beyond done with the poly v. rubber discussion. rubber is great for keeping Herb from procreating. Presuming for a moment that there is only one "poly" material. Rubber works when the joint must move in more then one direction (think Ford lower control arms). IF you have that problem, replace them with johnny joints (or simply use a softer poly). Aluminum is for racing, poly is for everything else.

[silver_bullet]

Herb Adams always went with soft springs and Huge(for the time) sway bars... Dick Guldstrand went stiffer on the springs and a bit milder on the sway bars... Adams also figured that Urethane bushings were too harsh for the street and preferred to use fresh factory rubber bushings...

[70chevyC-10]

That is a nice looking Vette....

[pdub]

WOW, I'm totally surprised by my reaction to those photos. Y'all know I'm not the Corvette guy at all...that car looks twenty thousand times better on the track than it does on the trailer.

[65RHDEER]

Where is the "Really Like Button"!

[SuperBuickGuy]

Pictures
130ish mph, nice thing, not hitting the fender (front or rear)... bad thing, probably need bigger sway bars

the dragging thing underneath is my tow strap...

going away

[SuperBuickGuy]

bought a refurb holley efi. hopefully it will be here asap.... but in any case, it should be here before FiTech tells me to pound sand....

[SuperBuickGuy]

I well know the “work on until time to leave” thing. Very tiring and kills a lot of the fun factor.
Hope you find a replacement soon!

I need to remind everyone my goal was to get there. I did. I learned a tremendous amount and gained new friends. I would have loved to race (more) but even dead last was a win since the car was a brick the day before.

I didn't get a warm-fuzzy from FiTech today... I suppose that's one way to avoid bad news is to not participate in a Holley event? taking a deep breath, but my hopes they would step up .... we will see, but it's looking bleak.

[silver_bullet]

let me put this in simpler terms (and hope my wife isn't reading this)

If I continue to have problems, I can make the argument that I 'need' a reliable race car. I don't need her permission, but I respect her input and if I take the step every good husband takes - she may actually come out racing with me.... she's already tentatively agreed to go to Utah (ostensibly to look at places to live).... so I do want to go, but I'm not going to be in a car with her all the way back if the car didn't (again) perform. And let's remind, last year, when I decided to do this - I said "I do not want to be working on the car just before I leave".... I could make a solid argument that I was still working on it because I think the signals and grills were the cause of my overheating issue.... never got to test that locally....

As the Corvette Challenge and Optima Challenge are functionally owned by Corvettes... I can purchase another Corvette. This will get solved eventually, but I'm not going to force the issue and create even more trouble. Let's not forget that I still have a mild overheating problem that I need to solve too.... if not too much heat, I would have likely been just fine at Willow Springs.

in other news, UPS store got me. They said my EFI would be delivered Monday, but actually put in Tuesday.... which means I won't have my FI back for (likely) 2 more weeks.

Just waiting on the merger to get Fed-UPS.... Fully understand your direction... BTW Love the new stress reliever(Puppy)!

[Deaf Bob]

I well know the “work on until time to leave” thing. Very tiring and kills alot of the fun factor.
Hope you find a replacement soon!

[Beagle]

let me put this in simpler terms

Ah, got it. Justification... You don't really have to do that here, and your secret is safe with us. Carry on.

[BBR]

I think BBR has run an A1000 both carbed and EFI on a mill making close to or over 700hp during Drag Week. Maybe he'll chime in here. Not pushing, again, just thinking there is an "Easier" button that keeps you on the track this year. It would suck to get this far and C5 the teething problems.

FWIW - My A1000 has been the best pump I have ever bought, hands down. I have run it for years. It has been in the original Blue Ranger (2008?), the 83GT and now it is in the 73 F100/250. Knock on wood.

When it was carb'd I ran 2 regulators. 1 return and 1 dead head. More out of necessity than anything. My return line was too small so I could not get the fuel pressure below ~12 psi. So, I just put the dead head reg between the return reg and the carb. Worked great..That kept the pump happy with around 12-15 psi and it kept the fuel circulating.

[SuperBuickGuy]

I think BBR has run an A1000 both carbed and EFI on a mill making close to or over 700hp during Drag Week. Maybe he'll chime in here. Not pushing, again, just thinking there is an "Easier" button that keeps you on the track this year. It would suck to get this far and C5 the teething problems.

let me put this in simpler terms (and hope my wife isn't reading this)

If I continue to have problems, I can make the argument that I 'need' a reliable race car. I don't need her permission, but I respect her input and if I take the step every good husband takes - she may actually come out racing with me.... she's already tentatively agreed to go to Utah (ostensibly to look at places to live).... so I do want to go, but I'm not going to be in a car with her all the way back if the car didn't (again) perform. And let's remind, last year, when I decided to do this - I said "I do not want to be working on the car just before I leave".... I could make a solid argument that I was still working on it because I think the signals and grills were the cause of my overheating issue.... never got to test that locally....

As the Corvette Challenge and Optima Challenge are functionally owned by Corvettes... I can purchase another Corvette. This will get solved eventually, but I'm not going to force the issue and create even more trouble. Let's not forget that I still have a mild overheating problem that I need to solve too.... if not too much heat, I would have likely been just fine at Willow Springs.

in other news, UPS store got me. They said my EFI would be delivered Monday, but actually put in Tuesday.... which means I won't have my FI back for (likely) 2 more weeks.