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fscott
04-14-2021, 05:13 PM
This weekend was a whole lot of fun. The new motor turned out to be pretty good. Really good actually. It's a 47k mile motor that came out of a well maintained and very clean Mustang. I pulled it partway apart to replace the oil pump and reseal everything. The cylinder bores had their original crosshatching, it had platinum plugs installed (they're not really useful, but it's a sign of an owner who cares). And the piece de la resistance was the little bit of motor oil still in the engine. When I sprayed it with brake cleaner, it turned purple. Royal Purple.

And I want to thank Jerry Jordan for letting me ship the motor to his business, and for providing a lot of advice on the 4.6 Mod motor.

There was no time to dyno, so I just assumed that it was still making factory horsepower, and then overballasted so that I'd go across the scales 100lb heavy.

During the warmup session I discovered the heater hose clamp that I'd forgotten to tighten.

https://youtu.be/XL-Flj8vUrU

I qualified 8th for race 1, and spent most of the race staring at David Francis' bumper while trying to get around him and Bryan Leinart. David got the inside line on the final turn, and I rode his coattails past Bryan. Then I outbraked David in turn 1, got past him and through 1 and 2, and then promptly yeeted myself off the track at turn 3. Bryan, David, Sam and Daniel all passed me while I was doing rallycross things, and I finished 11th out of 12th place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff5ERn8glCA

Race 2 was the invert start, and I was supposed to grid second behind Sean Richardson. Grid...had issues. I was first to grid, quite early, and as I parked and shut off my engine, they blew the 5 minute whistle. Sean was never able to get to his grid position, so I wound up leading my first rolling start. Hopefully I didn't fuck it up too badly.

The bad part was that grid sent CMC out before AMCM, so on lap 1 we had 500hp tube frame cars filtering through our pack.
I held the lead, built a gap, went off on turn 3 AGAIN, but somehow kept the lead and made it across the finish line with Michael Mosty's Fox body 0.164 seconds behind me and closing fast.

There was some concern that I'd passed under yellow, but the video showed that a G-Speed Corvette had passed me on the front straight, then braked hard to give the pass back when he saw the yellow. The corner workers saw an SN95 blowing the doors off of a Corvette, and they didn't understand that this is not physically possible. My onboard video cleared me, so no harm, no foul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJQXDgtvU08

Race 3 on Sunday dawned with the worst hangover I've had in a while, coupled with some of the worst driving I'd done in a while. The only reason I didn't come in dead last is because Sean Richardson had to drop out. (In a field of 10, that's actually a good strategy since it wins you $50 Toyo Bucks.)

https://youtu.be/0H0nEilWFlk

By Race 4 I was feeling better, but my tires were at 15 heat cycles and were absolutely shagged. I gridded 7th behind Bryan Leinart. Sam Crumpacker was the MVP in turn 3, waving out the window and making me aware of a spun AMCM car that was completely blocked from my field of view.

Unfortunately Sam had an engine issue and dropped out putting me in 6th and Bryan in 5th I spent the next 20 minutes trying to get around him. My attempted pass on the outside of turn 10 didn't go so well. I didn't get my front wheel up to his door, and so he had the line. He made it clear to me that if I wished to continue, my racing line would involve dirt. Well played.

Two laps later I tried for a pass at turn 6. I got inside, late braked, and had a mental thought "I've just made a terrible mistake" as my tires howled and I found myself within a foot of his car. But he's got enough skill to cover for my recklessness, and we made it through the turn without contact. We drag raced to turn 7, and I held the inside line and got the lead through the 8 and 9. After that it was "Don't fuck it up, Frederic" for the next two laps while Bryan and David loomed in my rearview mirror. A near miss with a spun Porsche Carrera at turn 11 on the last lap made things interesting, and may have held up Bryan and David long enough for me to make it over the line in 5th.

https://youtu.be/zc3ravh9Q_c

With the weekend over, I packed up the RV, loaded the Mustang up, and ripped the exhaust off of the car when it snagged on the edge of the trailer. That's racing!

ShadowBolt
04-15-2021, 07:56 AM
I wish I understood the tire heat cycle deal. At most tracks when the RR's on the 55 get over 10-12 H/C's they are gone. One to two seconds a lap slower. I have read that new surfaces like old tires and vice versa. We ran the same tires that we ran at Cresson (they were stickers in warm-up on Sat. morning). They had seven heat cycles on them when we got to ECR. Michael was on the same tire schedule and may have had one less H/C on his set. Jay and Michael ran about the same lap times in R4 at ECR that they had ran in Qual on those 15 H/C's tires. Bryan and John were quicker than Jay and Michael but they were a second slower than they were in Qual that morning. I think they were on tires with half the H/C's Michael and Jay were running. The first four were nose to tail for awhile until Bryan got away from the other three. No one was going to get around anyone in the top four unless a mistake was made. John went two off and Michael had to get out of it for a second and it looked like there was going to be some passes made but John held his ground. R4 was a great race to watch!

JJ

Fbody383
04-15-2021, 12:38 PM
Dude... well done.

I can tell you the 88 looks a lot more composed from the outside than it feels from the inside. Was nice finally having a more complete car that could race with the group.

Edit: Man the 88 looked good holding up the field in R3.


A near miss with a spun Porsche Carrera at turn 11 on the last lap made things interesting, and may have held up Bryan and David long enough for me to make it over the line in 5th. I had glanced at the flag stand and don't remember seeing anything. I crested the hill and there's a Porsh-Uh sideways... I waved at Dan who told me after the race it was a good thing I did as he was even more surprised.

Such a great track and great group of racers from salty old veterans to the new guys - fantastic top to bottom.

I'll see what video I have of the back of Bryan and Not Jander's cars.

Supercharged111
04-15-2021, 06:41 PM
I wish I understood the tire heat cycle deal. At most tracks when the RR's on the 55 get over 10-12 H/C's they are gone. One to two seconds a lap slower. I have read that new surfaces like old tires and vice versa. We ran the same tires that we ran at Cresson (they were stickers in warm-up on Sat. morning). They had seven heat cycles on them when we got to ECR. Michael was on the same tire schedule and may have had one less H/C on his set. Jay and Michael ran about the same lap times in R4 at ECR that they had ran in Qual on those 15 H/C's tires. Bryan and John were quicker than Jay and Michael but they were a second slower than they were in Qual that morning. I think they were on tires with half the H/C's Michael and Jay were running. The first four were nose to tail for awhile until Bryan got away from the other three. No one was going to get around anyone in the top four unless a mistake was made. John went two off and Michael had to get out of it for a second and it looked like there was going to be some passes made but John held his ground. R4 was a great race to watch!

JJ

I kinda think that not all heat cycles are created equally, i.e. dependent on track temp, obviously duration, surface quality, and maybe even luck of the draw with any given run of tires.

fscott
04-15-2021, 11:08 PM
I wish I understood the tire heat cycle deal.

I'm clueless too. All I know is that when the rear brakes stop groaning, it's because the tires are heat cycled out and I can't generate sufficient lateral force anymore.

Gerno
04-17-2021, 01:06 PM
19751976All those fancy videos are over rated. Here’s my post race media. Good news is the trans and engine seem ok... I’m also checking to see if I can rebuild the clutch disc... seems safe. (J/k) 😂😂

For those that weren’t there I decided since Lienart was passing me that I would just try shifting from 3rd to 2nd instead of 4th on the front stretch. Thought for sure the 5.3 could rev to 10k...guess not...🤯

Supercharged111
04-17-2021, 03:53 PM
19751976All those fancy videos are over rated. Here’s my post race media. Good news is the trans and engine seem ok... I’m also checking to see if I can rebuild the clutch disc... seems safe. (J/k) ����

For those that weren’t there I decided since Lienart was passing me that I would just try shifting from 3rd to 2nd instead of 4th on the front stretch. Thought for sure the 5.3 could rev to 10k...guess not...��

Well you got me beat. This was September 2014.

1977

michaelmosty
04-17-2021, 05:01 PM
Wow, nicely done!!

fscott
04-18-2021, 08:28 AM
Good news is the trans and engine seem ok...

The really good news is that your legs are OK. That could have gone badly indeed.

Gerno
04-18-2021, 09:37 AM
The really good news is that your legs are OK. That could have gone badly indeed.

Yep. Really makes me consider a quick time.

Supercharged111
04-18-2021, 10:47 AM
Yep. Really makes me consider a quick time.

The way that that scattered I don't think it stood a chance at blowing through the bellhousing. You'd need something substantial to break loose to get through.