Brakes fail?
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Brakes fail?
I did not talk to Craig but that is what I was told. Almost had to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Suck fumes
JJ
When your brakes fail spin the car to scrub off speed. It is better for all parties.
I learned this from James Proctor years ago when I witnessed him loosing a brake line.
I know of at least 4 CMC/AI brake failures and you need a plan beforehand.
Thanks to James for saving my ass when I lost my brakes at MSR H.
Dan #47
Great plan Dan. Just to clarify James did not lose a brake line but the brake pedal rod came off. Pedal just flopping and zero brakes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Allford
JJ
That was his original plan, but the idea of hitting the inside rumple strip at any kind of angle other than straight seemed like it could've ended much worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Allford
What a weekend. First want to thank Mark Smith for his incredible hospitality! Second thanks to everyone who was there for such a fun weekend including having my wife, kids, and Dad out. Sure was fun teaching my kids to ride the little 50 around at the track and having my son follow me around in the garage.
Congrats to all the winners and to Michael Mosty for winning a much deserved Driver of the Year in addition to Pranav and Sean's awards-well done guys. Really great to be able to showcase that to the rest of NASA. Now all we need to do is work to shake our contact stigma. Which brings us to the downer for the weekend.
Yes, Craig lost his brakes totally at the braking zone for Little Bend. He had video so will post it this week but sure it was a scary ride. I didn't have a clue it was going to happen so was pretty surprising. Fortunately everyone is going to be okay and cars can be fixed or replaced. Again I believe the safety equipment and specifically my halo seat did it's job. But certainly need to look into a few more upgrades on safety with a new helmet/visor and considering a fuel cell. All in all I think we are lucky it wasn't much worse. But I agree we should have a safety discussion on here specifically related to brake lines, possible failures, or anything preventative.
Here again the group is what is awesome as the help/advice/parts that have been offered is great to see. More to follow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BryanL
I also wanted to thank Mark Smith for letting us use his garage (even if he did not know anyone but Bryan would be there).
I'm glad everyone was okay. Jay was pretty shook up thinking Craig and/or Bryan were hurt bad.
Bryan,
What was the failure? Was it one of the clips you were worried about the day before? If so that is weird! A part like that should be safety wired. I have not talked to Craig so I don't know if he broke a rotor or lost fluid but I worry about the old brake lines under the car. Most if not all of us have installed new lines from the stock chassis line to the caliper but what about the old lines that were installed by the factory in 198?
JJ
Great to see some of you guys again, if only for a moment. I had planned to hang out all weekend but my father passed away last week and had a hard time keeping a smile on my face - did not want to be a wet blanket. The one regret I have with my dad is we never got him out to the track like we always said we would. Logistics made it tough (most of my family is in Canada, Kyri has the car in Ohio) and there seemed like there was always "another chance"....turns out there wasn't.
Planning to see you all at TWS and still working on getting Kyri and BFP out to Hallet.
You've got no idea how glad I am Bryan is ok, Dan's damage was minor and the rest of you were spectators. thank you all for the concern and offers of help, particularly Mike and Al for loading the car. I visited the doc as a precaution today, the aches n pains will be gone soon enough. I can confirm the brake pedal went straight to the floor at little bend and avoided Jay to the right as the rumble strip approached I was attempting to limit contact with the field, unfortunately that didnt work out as well as I had planned. Bryan and I talked through it today, the cars will mend and we live to tell the tale. I'm not going to say too much more until I get a chance to find the root cause but thanks again to the great group that is AICMC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXU6sBZbBBM
Wow... that sucks for all involved. Having had two failures, I know how scary it can be and also how little time you have to think about your options.
For the record.. the first was the pedal falling off the rod. The clip had sprung and came off. This time I chose wrong.. I should have went right instead of left and might have saved the car completely.
The second time was a broken brake line at Hallett.. Luckily I chose correctly and spun the car to right and to avoid everyone. Mosty's failure helped me know where to spin for a failure in that area.
Glad everyone was okay... that was a really scary ride.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trublu
Thank the good Lord everyone is okay. Whatever you do Craig don't let anyone tell you what you should have done. The decision has to be made in a nano-second. No time to think through the different possibilities.
JJ
Exactly, thank God. I've been in the same situation with a brake failure and 2 totaled cars were the result, what it did do for me, is make me think about bailout options more, but I will admit that I haven't been thinking about it enough lately because time has gone on.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadowBolt
Yeah that was a scary ride. Craig had to go through my worst fear which is hurting someone else and something I hope I never go through. I went to my chiropractor and did a cryotherapy session today and will be fine. Since the collision shop is on the way to where I store the trailer I decided to drop the car there last night to get checked out. He believed it would pull out and then need some new body parts from a donor car.
James how/where did your brake line fail? Is there any way to inspect or be proactive/preventative and replace all the lines? Is it something that should be considered due to the age of all our cars now?
Oh yeah-something else I saw when I was in the corner stand. What happened with the red S197 after ricochet? Looked like it blew a motor but then figured it was actually the halon system going off?
Glad you guys are all right. That was hard to watch :(
I know Craig needs time to investigate his failure, so I don't want to add speculation on his issue just yet by talking about brake lines, but wanted to point out something all 4th gen guys should consider...Quote:
Originally Posted by BryanL
In regards to our cars, back in '12 when I bugged Glenn and Mitch on a daily basis about all kinds of questions, I learned that completely ripping out every single hard line on the 4th gen camaro and starting over is a good idea.
The front brake lines are not too bad, but on the LT1 cars, they run way too close to the exhaust through the K-member. I'm unaware of any failures that have occured on the front lines, but the constant heat cycles from the exhaust can't help at all. We run new line from the master cylinder down to the front, punching bulk head holes near/below the shock towers, and running custom made flex line to the calipers behind the spindle. The run from driver's to passenger's runs along the lower radiator support up to the passenger frame rail and bulkhead connection.
The rear brake line is the real issue. It is underneath the car and at risk of damage from on track debris. Additionally it is exposed to the elements and at risk of corrosion and eventual rupture, making them ticking time bombs as most of these cars are pushing 20+ years. I want to say Sean's 3rd gen ruptured the factory hard line back at NOLA not too long ago. Here we do a bulkhead connection at the firewall, run it through the cabin and out the back firewall close to where the factory brake hose clips in.
For my re-plumb job I used Allstar 3/16 hard line and fittings, Edelmann metric to 3/8-24 adapters at the master cylinder (you can get them at O'reillys), and Earl's speed-flex 3AN PTFE hose and steel, non-swivel fittings.
While you're under the car, take a long, hard look at the factory fuel lines and take note of how a bent torque arm can wipe out those lines in short order; last month I bent a torque arm and it rubbed hard along where the factory lines used to run.
Last year, I re-plumbed my setup to run Aeroquip 6AN PTFE (3000psi rated, my fuel system is 43psi) hose through the cabin, although I am re-doing some of it this weekend to make it a little safer after reading about the COTA WRL incident. I'll be ditching bulkheads connections at both firewalls for a straight run-through, relocating the fuel filter, and using high temperature liquid-tite conduit+bulkheads to completely isolate the lines as they pass through the cabin.
While we're on the subject, take a close look how the factory nylon lines run through the driver's fenderwell. If you aren't running a fenderliner here you may be asking for trouble!
I was glad to see Craig get out under his own steam too. I completely agree with Jerry, with the speed that incident unfolded, Craig only had nanoseconds to access it and to respond. Contacting Bryan's car away from the driver compartment made the best of a bad situation. Spinning into the field out of control could have been a lot worse.
Rob Kacprowicz had his extinguisher go off
It's good to hear that both driver's are okay. I was able to talk to Brian afterwards, but didn't have a chance to touch base with Craig.
On the brake line discussion, I re-routed all my lines inside the car (mainly due to the ABS pump), but all the lines are new. Also, my flexible lines (6 of them) are all the same PN, so it makes replacement easy.
Mine actually broke off the flare going into the master cylinder.Quote:
Originally Posted by BryanL
Was it a factory or custom line? Just curious...Quote:
Originally Posted by AllZWay
It was a factory flare. Just metal fatigued from the flex of the master cylinder. Have you have had someone push the brake pedal and watch your master cylinder move? It is pretty scary how far that thing moves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pranav
Yep, it's why both of the lines that I've run from the MC have coils in them!
Need pics of that. I certainly don't know enough about it and will look it over but a new set of custom lines does scare me some as maybe more chances for failure. Though I need to look over a few cars and the abs delete setup that louis did for the black car. Like James said it will all probably scare me quite a bit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pranav
My LS F-bodies have had braided lines coming off the MC, probably because of the flex issue.
Edit:It was off the ABS pump, not the MC, hrmm.
Dan showed me how much his flexed... Scary!! I would build a support bar that would put the load from the MC into the strut tower and just not have it rigidly connected (don't want to violate any CMC rules)...
Not legal.
Holy fuckin LOL that was spectacular! Were the 2 victims substantially damaged? Looked like a shower of plastic from the vid.Quote:
Originally Posted by JJordan
Found a clip of Craig practicing at Sebring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3yrxrcxTUc
Too soon?
WowQuote:
Originally Posted by Alien
hahaha that video is awesome
Man if that was me I'd have pulled into valet parking at the hotel and propped up at the bar
That front end looked like it held up nice through the fence. I can only imagine what was going through the guy's mind in the Ford truck that was pulling out onto the road.
Nice! Wasn't it Chuck Yeager who said that when crashing is inevitable, find the softest thing you can find and hit it as slowly as possible?Quote:
Originally Posted by Alien
Been there done that!Quote:
Originally Posted by Alien
Well, apparently LT1's don't like high volume oil pumps. Found out today the culprit of my retirement after R1 was the oil pump drive gear being pretty chewed up and missing teeth. Going back with a new stock gear and hope it plays nice with a used cam. Optimistic to get it back from the machine shop and in the car for TWS.
Oohwee, watching that again is not pretty. How'd Craig come out?Quote:
Originally Posted by Supercharged111
Did you notice if the drive gear's plastic retainer up top was split or not? I've pulled one or two before that were split, not tooo big of a deal but someone out there made a metal insert to reinforce it. I think with the direction it spins the split wouldn't be too big of a deal, but adds piece of mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alien
You should always run a hardened oil pump shaft! They have a metal retainer pined on the assembly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pranav
When I started building the first Ford SOHC 4.6 for the 55 I was going to use a high volume pump but after talking to Sean Hyland he told me they made a set of cam covers out of clear polycarbonate. While running the 4.6 with HV oil pump the cam covers filled up with oil........Not good. He did say if you are willing to drill the heads so the oil can get back to the pan faster the HV pump is okay.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alien
JJ
I've heard nothing but bad stories about the HV oil pumps, I have never run one. I guess if you run the motor really loose they shouldn't be a big deal, I usually run .0015-.002 on the mains and rods. I suppose they would work well with really light oil too, I run Rotella 5w-40..