took the 914 V8 to Pueblo, finally a decent track day! Options

[byndbad914]

Took the car to Pueblo last week for the first real shakedown since I had the tube chassis built (in otherwords, since I changed the whole damn car! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy11.gif) ). I have no front sway bar and the car was a slight plow but easily made neutral with the go-pedal. Between the high compression and HP I can easy dump throttle, bring rear around, hit throttle plow a little more if needed, etc. Fun car to drive.

That said I have a LOT of tuning to do. I went down a fistful of jet sizes moving to altitude and overshot so I am too lean at WOT and had lean miss above 6K... so a the back esses and the front stretch are just kinda cruised at 6K (in back stretch 2nd gear is about 80mph instead of 100mph at 7500 in second gear and front stretch is around 120mph cruise at half way instead of going for 145 around 7500). Also, without a bar and having some plow implies I need to soften the springs up a fair amount in the front, or stiffen the rear depending on how you want to look at it. Also my tire temps were way hotter inside than outside, and I had the cold pressures right (centers were in the middle) but I have way to much camber front and rear at 2.5neg as a starting point.

After I tune the engine correctly and remove some camber (down to 1.75deg and see what I get) can hammer it at all points of the track I will start really watching times and tire temps. After the camber is right, grip is best, etc and times are getting somewhat consistent as I get used to a new track I can start increasing rear rate and see what happens, then maybe go back and decrease front rate and see, etc etc. The pain of freakin' tuning, not the fun part of racing at all. And I have new, wider wheels on the way from Kodiak.

Ken got me at a 1:49 one of my early laps that I wasn't really pushing yet, which was only 10 seconds faster than I was in the Lightning there a month ago, but I think he roughly had me at low 1:40s near the end of the day, so I think with some tuning and track time I would be in the 1:30s for sure.

Wind noise was brutal on that video camera of his so I tried to remove some of the sound and overlay music in heavy noise sections, but also tried to keep a fair amount of the car noise to give everyone an idea of how great a ripping Chevy sounds in the car (IMG:style_emoticons/default/shocked[1].gif) I live for that large cam V8 sound.

My fave part of the vid is to see my acceleration v. the Subie I eat up out of T4 about midway thru. I pass the other one just before T5 and am on the binders pretty hard since I was way inside, but had a very clean safe pass you don't get to see of both before climbing up out of five. Also, a couple laps before you might recall seeing them behind me - I had lapped both cars within a few loops.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uWGQBUHNZA turn up the volume and enjoy some tunes and engine sounds.

[race914]

Nice Video. Looks like you had a great track day!

Can't wait to see you when you can hit redline at 7300!

[byndbad914]

Can't wait to see you when you can hit redline at 7300!

yeah me too (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I have on my list-o-things-2-do to get some vortex generators and lower the rear wing a bit. Seeing vid of it really shows me just how high I have it and I think it looks a little dumb. It works up there for sure, but I think a little lower and some generators would be a better idea.