After two all nighters, and on 15 minutes of sleep Friday night (in Dansville...) I made it to the Dornsife track at 08:15 Saturday morning ready to rock. I'd crawled my yard, burped the radiator, run through the gears at a residential pace on my street at 03:00 - I was ready to race!
I drew a pretty high number 113, so I had almost 2 hours to wait from the green flag before I started. I laid down under the car for a bit but on race day - even without any jitters - sleep wasn't on the menu.
The transmission was the only true change for the car. There was LOTS of work involved in making it come out and go back in the way it did but little of consequence was different from AOAA over the 4th.
Lots of new parts the week leading to the 4th. In addition to motor r&r and a rebuilt trans, it had new idler and tensioner pulleys, a new starter, and an additional trans cooler. A cracked spark plug was the cause of a miss and it got 8 fresh plugs. That all got about 6-8 hours of run time without issue before the trans pooped.
This time around, the center console was removed and reinstalled, tcase shifters were removed (not reinstalled yet, seat mounts were changed, floor structure was made removable, trans, water pump, and alternator were replaced.
Trans seemed solid (TCI Super Street Fighter & Jegs 2200-2400 stall convertor), water was checked and heat cycled and nose-downed about 15 times before loading. Brakes were also bled with a section of hard line changed that I damaged cutting out the floor.
Pulling out of the trailer it was running rough again. Great. Drove from the spot I found down to smike and some other u4 racers to hang out shoot the breeze and get some coffee. I figured I'd be looking for a vacuum leak.
I needed to move the car a few feet about half an hour later and found a cool header tube on #2 after. Plug wire wasn't seated on the plug. Sweet! Easy fix, I've got my trouble done for the day. Hard work and dedication paid off!!
I got suited up, lines up, and took the "green flag" onto a course I'd never seen.
Of all the things I saw on the course, I was most surprised when after about a mile, the car shut off.
I had power. Lights were on, fans were on, gauges were on. So I knew it wasn't the ignition circuit itself but it had to be electrical. Crank but no start.
Before I even got out of the car two spectators were at the car offering help. Cigarettes in mouth, beer in hand. One had a can of starting fluid and was like, "I got this!"
I managed to keep him from spraying my air filter while we checked spark (none) and I started looking at fuses. No fuel pump, either. I found a blown fuel pump fuse but still no fire. One other 25a proved blown. I replaced with the only 30 I had and carried on. Two miles later, same failure just as I was coming into checkpoint two. This time I wasn't as lucky in stopping and blocked the trail. 30 seconds of yelling "push me!!" Got the car on my bumper to get me out of the way.
I dug deeper an found the blown fuse supplies a relay that carries the trigger to the fuel pump relay,
Among who knows what else, as well as a second relay that was carrying both trans cooler fans.
Shortcut solution of killing one trans cooler fan didn't last 5 seconds.
I used a spare circuit to power the second relay but I was out of 25 or 30a fuses. So I bent two 20s and shoved them both in the fuse holder and I subsequently ran a clean, fast race. I didn't make up or the 45 minutes lost and came in I think 22nd in class, 59th overall. My lap times were consistent with podium finishers in long wheelbase where I entered and would have been good for about 7th in v8 where many of the fastest U4 cars enter.
That wasn't the race I got to run, but nonetheless it's a damn pleasing result. Especially to do that, and then wheel at AOAA today after tightening one hose clamp and topping off power steering fluid.
Many many thanks to smike for feeding my sorry butt this weekend. I owe you a shopping trip for the next trip
Tapatalking in traffic
