Msr cresson

[BlueFirePony]

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.

[Trublu]

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

[AllZWay]

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.

[BryanL]

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?

[BryanL]

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?

[dtanker65]

Rob Kacprowicz had his extinguisher go off

[marshall_mosty]

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.

[Pranav]

Glad you guys are all right. That was hard to watch

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?

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...

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!

[dtanker65]

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.

[AllZWay]

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?

Mine actually broke off the flare going into the master cylinder.