476 replies to this topic

[LXCHEV]

Looking awesome!

[Struggler]

I picked up the dash from the powdercoaters the other day and made a pad for it from a chunk of 16mm MDF. I glued some foam over this then covered it in vinyl. It ended up looking OK, sort of like a LH/X dash.

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The boot floor is now complete and painted.

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As the South Coast Nationals are next weekend I have my work cut out for me. I will get a start on refitting the fuel cell and lines tommorrow and assembling the dash. Still need to wire the dash up, get a tailshaft and refit the interior.

More pics in a day or two !!!

[Heath]

What exactly are we looking at in the picture of the boot floor? I'm guessing that's a mount for the fuel cell... any info about the angles etc you've got there? are there any purposes that I am missing?

[Struggler]

Yes, the 2 square sections are the mounts for the fuel cell.

If you look back in the build the roll cage mounts onto some angled sections that sit on top of the chassis rails. The boot floor follows this angle down to level with the original floor. The fuel cell will sit parallel with the sills. If you look closely you can see I welded a pair of studs in the rear to mount the cell, as well as some holes to get fuel lines out and mount the fuel filter.

Hope this makes it a bit clearer. Due to the matt black expanse in the boot it is hard to get a good perspective.

[Heath]

Angles looked very different to the LX boot and I think that's why it seems a bit weird. But yeah all seems to make good sense

Cheers

[Struggler]

Over the weekend I got to refit the fuel system into the boot and rerun the lines. Also fitted the dash up and wired it in. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, just need my sign guy to make some real labels for the switches and it will be perfect !!

Fired it up yesterday to make sure it all worked and to prime the fuel lines. Ran it for about 10 mins. I'd forgotten how sweet it sounded

Still waiting on the tailshaft balance but chopped up the back seat to fit and should get the interior back in over the next few nights.

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PS. Don't panic, the wood rim steerer will be going before participating in any driving events.

[LXCHEV]

That's come up a treat, good work.

What's the go with the twin lines from the tank? Twin pickups, going into a single filter? Is it a volume thing?

[Heath]

No speedo... okay. No tacho... huh?

[Struggler]

That's come up a treat, good work.

What's the go with the twin lines from the tank? Twin pickups, going into a single filter? Is it a volume thing?

Thanks Brett !!

Flare fittings on tank are -8 and I needed -10 so I ran both to a 2 into 1 fitting (2x-8 in, 1x-10 out)att. to the high flow -10 in and out fuel filter (which cost a packet as it has a stainless steel methanol friendly element). I'm using a mechanical fuel pump so needed the biggest feed size practical and it came with a -10 inlet. So yes, its a volume thing !!!

[Struggler]

No speedo... okay. No tacho... huh?

I'm not really worried how fast its going, I'm sure the timeslip will tell me ! Beside that the P/glide speedo drives are notorious for leaking fluid and its easier to just pull it out and belt in a 7/8" welsh plug.

As for the tacho, what do I need one for ? I have 2 shift lights and a two step rev limiter. When I drive this rig I usually have my hands full and don't have time to look at a tacho. For drag racing I set the shift lights up so one comes on at shift speed and the other gives me a fair idea of terminal speed. For burnouts I have one set at 6000 and the other at 6500 this gives me a window to hold revs at (no lights on - rev it up some, one light on - all good, two lights on - the limiter is 300 rpm away. Its a lot easier to see how many lights are on out of the corner of your eye than trying to read a tacho and for changing gears its more accurate (light comes on - change gears). I bet your wondering about staging ???? I just bring the idle up to about 1500-1800 rpm then mash the pedal on the last yellow. As for working out the stall I use an RPM and O2 logger on my laptop so I can review the stall speed and rpm drop on shift in the pits after the run.

Incidentally this allows me to see that in the time my shift light comes on (6400 rpm), my brain sees it and tells my hand to push the shifter forward and the 'box swaps ratios the RPM has climbed 300 rpm !! Well I thought it was interesting.......

[Heath]

Okay that sounds sensible, I thought it was just one shift light and the other one might be low oil pressure idiot light. I'll trust you know what you need better than I do lol

[Struggler]

OK, heres the latest update.....

Interior is all in and complete, came up quite well and if anything is a bit of overkill for a strip terror.

Had to do a few modifications with the hammer to make clearance for the tailshaft but got there eventually.

Was ready to go to the Moruya show but due to rego requirements and last minute changes to the burnout comp decided to stay at home. The next outing will be a street meet at WSID in the next couple of weeks so I then had to change diff centres and find some wheels to mount my Street Radials on.

Finally decided on wheels, reasonably priced, instantly recognizable, not as common as the US strip running favourites and distinctly Australian...... 15x10 Performance Challengers !!!

Anyway got it all going again today and took it for a drive, under hard accelleration the diff centre touched the tunnel so had to cut the pinion bump stop mount out and raised the rear about 10mm. Hopefully it will be fine now.

Here are a couple of pics as it stood today.....

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Tyres fit perfectly and don't touch anywhere. After I run it once I'll look at changing the front over to HQ patt. and getting matching rims in 15x4.

Van Halen fans may know what the 5150 means.

Let me know what you think of it......

[Struggler]

Evil UC. thanks mate. I'm pretty happy with how it has come out.

LJ355, I'm looking at going out to WSID next week (16/9) as the track should still be pretty sticky from the weekends Nationals event. Thanks for the positive response !!

[LXCHEV]

Loving it! Even with the air cleaner just poking through the bonnet, it's still subtle as!

Rims look good too.... it'll be perfect once you get the fronts matched up.

Nice work

[Struggler]

Sorry for the late update, I was waiting for pics but due to the big Nationals meeting last weekend the photographers have their hands full.

Got to WSID and the weather was OK. Managed 4 runs on the well prepared track that had perfect traction. First pass was a 11.4 followed by 3x 11.3's. All passes were at 120 except the last were I bumped the timing up 2 degrees and it ran 121.26. Those that are familiar with timeslips will know a 121mph terminal speed is theoretically good for a ten sec pass.

Here is the interesting part, my HQ weighed in at 3230lb race ready and ran a best of 11.1 at 120.16. The UC with its new cage, 9", tubs etc comes in at 2985lb so going off weigh advantage alone the UC should be good for 10.9's at about 122 or 123.

So were did the power go ???? As I said in my build up the only difference in engine is the extractors. I am using the same tyres, 4.30 gears as opposed to 4.44 in the 'Q, same 'box and convertor, same carb, everything. The MPH is not too far off but the ET has turned to cheese. It looks like (on paper) the 1 5/8" shorty Hurricane 4:1's with 2 1/2" collector are about 10-20 HP and 40 ft/lbs down on the HQ 1 3/4" Pacemaker 4:1's with the 2 3/4" collector !!! This is so much I initially thought it was a torque convertor failure and even pulled the pan off my auto to check for shrapnel !!

Other interesting points are removing the air cleaner (which on the HQ was worth a good tenth and 1 MPH ) netted nothing on the UC. Also bumping up the timing to 36 deg. was worth nothing in the HQ yet got me an extra MPH in the UC. This tends to indicate the pipes are a bit restrictive as the engine cannot ingest any more air when the air cleaner is removed and the extra timing could be a bandaid fix for the poor cylinder filling and efficiency.

I also admit the UC has no scoop where the HQ had a A9X scoop. The HQ also utilized a slightly different carb spacer which may be worth something. Next time out I will try a scoop and also a different spacer to see how that works. I'm not going to change the pipes yet, I want to see how far I can push this nugget with the Hurricanes !!

[LXCHEV]

Great read... keep us posted next outing. Keen to see how it pans out.

[Struggler]

I just found some photos from the Street Meet ten days ago and thought I would share them...

[Heath]

Awesome, but those photos always make cars look crappy. Make sure you get inside your front guards with a black rattle can and get rid of anything that might show up when the strong lighting comes near your car hahaha

[Struggler]

As I initially posted I have finally got the car back to the same dyno I had the HQ on. Before running it up I added a 1/2" 4 hole spacer to emulate the super sucker style spacer I had on the HQ. The only other difference is the 4.30 9" in the UC compared to the 4.44 Salisbury in the HQ. Now remember the only difference is the Hurricane pipes....

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Now I know these pipes are poor but they are in no way a bolt on 46 KW loss. Possible reasons for the low Rw figure are the use of the race tyres instead of street tyres (sidewall flex), 9" sucking a bit of power or poor tune. I did notice on the dyno that the car was blowing a lot of black smoke indicating it was a bit rich which would make some sense as the restricted exhaust would slow air flow through the engine. Keep in mind this car ran 11.3 in the same guise only 3 weeks previously. Dejected I loaded the car up and towed it home.

After a bit of a think I decided to lean out the carb and have another night at the track. It is fairly hard to tune a car at 670m above sea level when you race the car at about 50m above seal level so I pulled 2 jet sizes out of the primaries and started the base line at that. Ist pass out was an 11.3 same as before. I pulled the aircleaner off and fitted the bonnet scoop in hope of forcing some additional air into the engine. The car responded with a string of 11.1's as I changed jets up and down to no definate response. The last run of the night (also the coolest air) produced a 11.09 at 121.6.

Strange really as I would expect the scoop to have picked up MPH rather than ET. I haven't isolated the carb base from the engine bay yet so that is my next move. I also have a new TCE converter here that I'm sure will put me into the tens but I am not ready to fit it yet.

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That is the car now with the new scoop on.

I'll keep you all informed of the next night out at the strip.

[MRLXSS]

OOOOOOO! So Close to a 10.99!!

Good stuff mate!