First Road Course Experience in the Chevelle

[gmorris]

After just 800 shakedown miles on my '69 Chevelle I signed up for a high performance road car driving school and track day with Allen Berg Racing Schools here in Calgary Alberta. The morning consisted of some classroom time followed by one on one instruction from certified instructors with slalom, threshold braking, and lead/follow sessions. All the drills were carried out on the track so the students had a chance to learn the track before running real laps. We were then turned loose in an open lapping session.

The track is about 2 miles,with 13 turns and a 3/4 mile front straight. There was a nice mix of cars with the fast group including me, a porsche gt3, ferarri 355, nissan GTR, BMW Dinan supercharged M coupe, and an e92 M3. There were some snickers when I pulled in but after one run through the track they stopped and everyone was asking what I had done to it to make it corner the way it does. Basically none of tehm could keep up on the straight (I guess that's what 750HP will do) and they weren't exactly loosing me through the coners either.

We did not run timed laps but I was hitting 145mph in the front straight and had a lot more room to accelerate. My rev limiter was cutting in early for some reason which slowed me down a lot.

A few small issues popped up that stopped me from running the full day. My breather system was not adequate for extended high RPM and I managed to puke oil everywhere under the hood...so much for the nice ceramic coated headers. My oil temps were also through the roof after 3 laps so I now have a cooler on the way to take care of that. Now that I have completed the instruction portion I can go back for afternoon lapping sessions throughout the summer once I get things sorted out.

All in all it was an amazing experience that has made me far more comfortable with the car and improved my skills significantly. Few pics below that the staff took throughout the day.

More info on my car:

https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54033

[JEFFTATE]

Cool Gary !
That is so neat.
I can't wait to do it with my car .
How did your over all lap times compare with the other cars ??
Like what were the lap times ??

And , I looked at your build thread . It's pretty impressive.
What did you do to the rear suspension to improve it ????

[gmorris]

We were not able to time our laps.

I recently completed "phase 2" of my suspension upgrades which consisted of varishocks, SPC springs, Spohn PT adjustable rear swaybar and 1 5/16" front bar.

[Young Gun]

car looks great!

[CamaroJesse]

That must of been fun. I cant wait until my car is track worthy.

[CurtiSS 69]

We were not able to time our laps.

I recently completed "phase 2" of my suspension upgrades which consisted of varishocks, SPC springs, Spohn PT adjustable rear swaybar and 1 5/16" front bar.

Gary,

That is one BAD A$$ machine...A Super Unlimited with number plates! Glad you got it on the track. Get some in car video. A little GroPro camera is cheap and does the job.

Regards

CurtiSS 69

[CarlC]

Nice Gary!

Track days are like crack. Once you start, you can't wait to pick up the pipe again.

[fishtail8]

Nice to see Race City is still getting some use before it gets wiped off the map. Car looks great! How often do they run these schools? Might have to make a run from the north for one...

[Bow Tie 67]

Very cool, how high were your oil temps getting?

[gmorris]

I can tell already that I've been bitten buy the road course bug...too bad it will be gone next year. That should help the street racing problem.

Oil temp...well my guage ends at 280 and I was just a little past that so I'm assuming I hit 300 or so. I layed off right away after that. I should have stopped sooner but it's hard to slow down half way through a lap when you running someone down hard.

Allen Berg has 2 or 3 more days this summer. Definitely worth the trip down from edmonton. There is always nice hardware there and the guys are great to work with. The guy with the GTR was actually from edmonton.

[Tiger]

wow, sounds like a wonderful day.

very nice car too.

[James OLC]

Great work Gary!

Race City is/was a great track and it really is too bad that it's going the way of the DoDo (or the dump to be more accurate). Hitting the braking zone at the end of the front straight and tossing the car into that quick left right left is too much fun!

It's great to see the Chevelle out there with all of the new junk. There are a couple of other options to run the car if you want - David at Racing Adventures usually has a couple of days that you can take your own car to, the Calgary Exotic Club has a few days but they are all preapproved for members, and I think that Steve at Davenport has a few open track days scheduled for the summer. If you want to run some more he is probably your best bet.

Maybe I'll see you around town some time - we almost have enough guys around here to justify a Pro-Touring get together...

[CurtiSS 69]

I can tell already that I've been bitten buy the road course bug...too bad it will be gone next year. That should help the street racing problem.

Oil temp...well my guage ends at 280 and I was just a little past that so I'm assuming I hit 300 or so. I layed off right away after that. I should have stopped sooner but it's hard to slow down half way through a lap when you running someone down hard.

Allen Berg has 2 or 3 more days this summer. Definitely worth the trip down from edmonton. There is always nice hardware there and the guys are great to work with. The guy with the GTR was actually from edmonton.

That sucks that your local track is shutting down. Why are they closing it? Take advantage of it while it still exists.

What type of oil are you running? If it's Dinosaur oil you better get it out of there, as it gets very questionable above 260F. If it is a good synthetic such as Redline, Mobil 1,... the seals will melt before the lube film gives up, and most seals will melt at about 300F.

Regards

CurtiSS 69

[gmorris]

Great work Gary!

Race City is/was a great track and it really is too bad that it's going the way of the DoDo (or the dump to be more accurate). Hitting the braking zone at the end of the front straight and tossing the car into that quick left right left is too much fun!

It's great to see the Chevelle out there with all of the new junk. There are a couple of other options to run the car if you want - David at Racing Adventures usually has a couple of days that you can take your own car to, the Calgary Exotic Club has a few days but they are all preapproved for members, and I think that Steve at Davenport has a few open track days scheduled for the summer. If you want to run some more he is probably your best bet.

Maybe I'll see you around town some time - we almost have enough guys around here to justify a Pro-Touring get together...

It would be fun to have a mini-get together some time this summer. I have a friend in the exotic club but they are pretty tight on who gets on the track with them...I guess they don't want to bend their cars up which is understandable.

I didn't realize Davenport does track days...I'll have to look into that more. Allen Berg has at least 2 more days and possibly a third in the works so I'll be out for both of those as well.

[gmorris]

That sucks that your local track is shutting down. Why are they closing it? Take advantage of it while it still exists.

What type of oil are you running? If it's Dinosaur oil you better get it out of there, as it gets very questionable above 260F. If it is a good synthetic such as Redline, Mobil 1,... the seals will melt before the lube film gives up, and most seals will melt at about 300F.

Regards

CurtiSS 69


I'm runnig synth so I wasn't too concerned until it went to 300º. I have already changed it and the cooler and oil tehrmostat will be installed before I hit the track again.

I also swapped my good flowing mufflers back in last night. They're way too loud but I wanted to see if I noticed it pick up any power and decide if it's worth trying to quite them down. Need to get it on the dyno and do some testing on of these days.

[parsonsj]

Sounds awesome Gary. What Carl said!

Nothing like extended high rpm to find the weak points in the car. How did your power steering hold up?

jp

[gmorris]

Sounds awesome Gary. What Carl said!

Nothing like extended high rpm to find the weak points in the car. How did your power steering hold up?

jp

Power steering did well. I already did a rebuild on that system when the POS Billet Specialties pump died after 5 minutes. PSC built me a steel cased pump and I added a derale cooler at that time and tehy took teh abuse without a problem.

[shortrack]

Truly Awesome.....!!

And as Ive said for years and as you've proven ONCE AGAIN.....that foreign junk is not all that!!

[406 Q-ship]

It is such a blast to take a car out on the road course that most think have no business on anything but a drag strip.

CarlC is right it is the worst drug of all cause it is completely legal. When are we gonna pick up the pipe? lol

[gmorris]

I finally had a chance to thouroughly go through the car this weekend. Amazing how many bolts had loosened off...I see now why safety wire is so popular. I also found out why it seemed like a bit of a dog on the drive home and didn't want to idle very well. Apparently my distributor hold down wasn't quite tight enough and my timing had backed off from 26 initial to 8º. Put it back and it feels like a rocket again.

[CurtiSS 69]

Amazing how many bolts had loosened off...I see now why safety wire is so popular.

I'm not surprised at all. Safety wire and witness lines on all critical fasteners for open track. It's a whole new dimension. Welcome to the fun.

Regards

CurtiSS 69

[David Pozzi]

Most aftermarket dist hold downs are not spring steel like the stock ones. The Hold Down needs to flex to hold tension on the distributor.
David

[406 Q-ship]

Most aftermarket dist hold downs are not spring steel like the stock ones. The Hold Down needs to flex to hold tension on the distributor.
David

or get a real GM one like God intended.....

[protour_chevelle]

uhhhh why have I not known that there is another badass Chevelle local to me? hahaha

Kick ass dude!! Wish mine was done in time for that. :( I'll have to swing up to Calgary when mine is on the road and meet you.

Cheers.

[gmorris]

uhhhh why have I not known that there is another badass Chevelle local to me? hahaha

Kick ass dude!! Wish mine was done in time for that. :( I'll have to swing up to Calgary when mine is on the road and meet you.

Cheers.

Allen Berg just updated their site with a couple more track days. Now there's one in June, one in July and on in Sept I think.

[CurtiSS 69]

Allen Berg just updated their site with a couple more track days. Now there's one in June, one in July and on in Sept I think.


Excellent! Sign up for those events get a GoPro video camera and post some of your track action here. It sounds like you are going to have a good Summer.

Regards

CurtiSS 69

[Roadbuster]

Glad to see that it went well for you! I will eventually get to the open track days. Looks like lots of fun!

Jon