The Daily Driver: 1987 Chevy Monte Carlo LS

[Gil]

Very nice to see both improvements, car & drivng skills, also the idea of the split video is very good ! Do you plan to go to autoX events now ?
Gil

[SSLance]

Nice work Dave!! Love the write up and I couldn't agree more about fixing the driver first!!

Although a quicker ratio steering box would do wonders for you. ;)

[SSninja]

Nice work Dave!! Love the write up and I couldn't agree more about fixing the driver first!!

Although a quicker ratio steering box would do wonders for you. ;)

Thanks Lance! Yep, that's on the short list. I have an XH box from a thirdgen F-body still boxed up that I need to install.

[bonecrrusher]

Love the quick fix and the ///Nascar shirt - hahaha!

[SSninja]

Love the quick fix and the ///Nascar shirt - hahaha!

Oh, you mean my "BORING" shirt? It really gets a rise out of NASCAR fans, especially when I cruise around in my SS wearing it.

[SSninja]

Just one very short week after attending the Evolution Driving School I was back in Ayer MA again for the sixth NER Solo points event of the year. Since I only had a few days between driving events I didn't have time to install any new upgrades on the car, unless you count fixing my "Good Enough" alignment repair performed during the driving school an "upgrade". My buddy Dundy was good enough to correct my alignment woes at his shop during the week, adding a bit of camber and caster while he was at it. I went from -0.5 degrees camber and 4.5 degrees caster to -1 degree and 5.5 degrees respectively. By the way, it turns out that both of my upper control arms as well as my tie rod sleeves were loose. Note to self: If the guy at the alignment shop is younger that the car you're getting aligned, bring it somewhere else...

Anyway, with that repair done it was time to see if I retained any of the lessons beaten into me the weekend prior. While this will be a short update, let's get right into the photos and video.


Per usual, it was Dave and the Corvettes. While that's one heck of a name for a surf music revival group, it also meant that I'd be hard pressed to get out of the basement of the class.



Being a typical SCCA points event I only had six runs versus the twenty-four runs at the driving school; if you're going to do well you need to pay attention during the morning course walk and make sure to look ahead.



While nothing fell off the car this time, there's still some pretty good body-roll going on, which was especially evident in the tighter portions of the course.



Prior to the driving school, I was running twelve to thirteen seconds behind the leader of the class, which is an eternity. I was hoping to reduce their lead a little with my new-found driving ability, so I was more than a little bummed when my first two laps came in at 67.431 and 66.214, which were...wait for it...ELEVEN seconds behind the leader. Awesome.

One of the other drivers offered to go for a ridealong to give me some advice. To sum it all up I wasn't being aggressive enough in regards to speed in the slalom and the car wasn't accelerating quick enough to make up for the braking that I was doing. While I couldn't fix the acceleration problem that day (Soon, soon, my precious), I could work on maintaining my speed through each element.



The fourth lap of the day is unfortunately always a bit of a throwaway as I've just been working for 45-60 minutes as a cone jockey, so I wasn't surprised when the ticker lit up with a 65.613. Still, it was almost a half-second faster than before lunch, so I knew there was hope that I could keep improving.



Below is a video of my fifth lap, where I finally put it all together and landed a 63.983. Still in last, but I was eight seconds from the leader instead of the normal twelve. Seeing as the only real change made from the previous event was the driver, I was pretty pumped. Before you roll your eyes, remember that the guy leading the pack was in a 2002 Z06. Look, this is how I keep myself sane. Work with me here.






So, here it is, the sixth lap. With a brief prayer to the gods of all things full-frame, rear-wheel-drive, and quadrajet-equipped, I was off, all 150 horses wheezing through cast-iron lungs, past a 27-year old catalytic converter and into a set of mufflers of indeterminate age and quality. Tires howling in protest, parts-store brake pads squealing, course workers glancing up from their smart phones in mild disinterest as I past their corner, I wanted this one. Maybe I wouldn't get out of last place, but I wanted to get within five seconds of the leader. Ok, I'd take six seconds, six and a half tops. As I cross the finish line, knowing that I had to be faster than the previous lap, I see 64.140 flash on the screen, two tenths slower. FUUUUU..dge. And, that's it. I'm done for the day.





Lesson learned today is that a lap that may feel slow and smooth may in fact be faster than an aggressive lap, especially if you're trying to force it. The driving school was also a worthwhile investment as my four second pickup event to event showed.

So what's up next? I'm taking a few weeks off from autocross to repair a few things as well as pay attention to my other Monte, but before I return to the track I want to get a faster ratio steering box installed to see if that makes a difference at all. While stickier tires, more power, and better gearing would all be obvious improvements, unless something radically changes I'm going to wait until the off season to make those changes. Til next time!

[SSninja]

Trying to keep things on a budget with the LS and need to figure out a tire/wheel option for this season's autocross.

Keeping with the budget theme, I'm thinking of keeping the wheel and tire combination under $1000 and see two potential options:

16" option:
$FREE - Use a spare set of GTA wheels that I picked up over the winter (16x8)
$800 - These 200 TW tires in 245/45/16:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

17" option:
- Find a set of 17x9 or 17x9.5 wheels and a set of 200 TW 275/40/17s
Cost is probably more than $1000. Odds are the wheels will have to be steel to stay within my defined budget.


I'm not sure if the added weight of larger wheels is worth the extra 30mm in tire width per side, and I don't need larger diameter wheels for the brake clearance. Thoughts?

[SSninja]

So about last night...




It’s 1:59 AM Eastern as I write this update while my car currently sits in a driveway, inoperable.


Now that we have the ending out of the way, let’s jump back a bit in time, say nine hours or so, to where this saga all began with a seemingly ordinary attempt to merge onto the highway.

Admittedly it wasn’t a very aggressive attempt, as anything past 3/4 throttle in a G-body equipped with a wheezing 144,000 mile 150 horsepower 5.0L and 2.41 peg leg is really just creating noise. The small thump once I hit 55 didn’t give me much pause, but you better believe the sudden lack of forward acceleration did. “Hey, maybe the transmission shifted into neutral”, I thought, giving it an optimistic rev and shift into third.

Nope, turns out that my aged 2004R had turned into a two-speed: Neutral and Park.

Spotting a full service rest stop half a mile ahead, I prayed to the Gods of all things RWD and full-framed, threw on my hazards, and revved the piss out of the motor to keep forward momentum up. Vin Diesel may have lived a quarter mile at a time, but I lived for that half mile.

Sure, I could have left the car stranded on the highway, but I’ve always joked with my friends that anyone that causes a traffic jam during rush hour should have their license revoked, and besides I hadn’t washed the car in a while so it wasn’t prepared for the spotlight of the Evening News traffic report.

So here I found myself, stranded at a highway rest stop, across from a small pickup of questionable appearance with Maine plates and an even more questionable occupant that was staring down the guy in the old Chevy (Me) that was busy crawling around under the car trying to figure out the answer to “What the heck happened?”.

I had a few options for what to do next: Call my wife, who had the AAA card? Call my buddy that may have access to a tow truck? Both good decisions, but instead I called Brian Lohnes from BangShift.

The below may not be 100% accurate dialog, but it’s the closest I can recall.
Me: “Hey man, it’s Dave”
Brian: “Who is this, and how did you get my number?”
Me: “Uh, Dave. Nutting. I work for you?”
Brian: ::silence::
Me: “Hello? Anywho, the inevitable happened and this car finally left me stranded”
Brian: ::Laughter, followed by a dial tone::

Brian might have also included some solid advice about checking the shifter linkage and TV cable, but unfortunately both of those checked out fine.

At this point the Monte would only idle forward if I held the RPMs up and laughed at me if I attempted reverse. Yep, time for a tow.

Fast forwarding a bit, my wife and my buddy Dundy show up with her triple AAA card, which I used to call for a tow truck. Being told that it would be “up to a three hour wait”, we settled down for a few Big Macs at the rest stop McDonalds while waiting for our broken Chevy to be carted home. Is there anything more American than that?

Well, three hours turned five thanks to a call informing us that the tow scheduled to be there by 9:30 would now be there “by 11:30″. No word on if that was AM or PM as the lady hung up on me before I could ask the question.

11:45 PM rolled around, at which point a call back to AAA resulted in the revelation that “The truck scheduled to pick you up got stuck in the snow” and “The best advice I can give you is to leave the car for the night and come back in the morning”.

With my marriage in shambles at this point, only saved by a last ditch offering of a large bag of Sour Patch kids, Dundy talked me out of giving the car away to our new friend in the aforementioned pickup truck “Creepy Jack”, who faithfully stared us down for hours while chain smoking some hand-rolled “cigarettes”, and instead to call up a private tow company from a few towns over, Negoshian’s Towing.

This was the best decision of the day, as the guys there were able to get a flatbed to me within fifteen minutes and the driver, Jeff was a gearhead to boot! Jeff is a moderator over at NastyZ28.com, so I figured he had to be alright, even if he did have a fascination with F-bodies that rivaled my obsession with G-bodies. Turns out that Jeff was also relieved to find out that the Monte he came to tow wasn’t “Some clapped out G-body that the owner picked up in high school and never took care of” (Jeff was in luck as I left my SS in the garage that day).

30 minutes later, the Monte was dropped off and paid for, ready for next steps.

The thing is, I have no idea what those next steps should be.
– Should I go the quick and dirty route and pull the 2004R out of the SS in a mad thrash to get this Monte back on the road?
– Should I just have the 2004R currently in the car rebuilt?
– Suck it up and admit that after almost a year and a half and 20,000 miles I need a “more reliable” daily driver for the winter?

Keep in mind that I have a 5.3L LS motor waiting to be swapped in and autocross season starting in April.

Looks like it’s going to be an interesting weekend’s worth of decisions.

[Justin@EntropyRad]

Everyone has a funny "waiting on the tow truck story"

Once, we waited 4 hours on the side of the interstate for the tow truck that "was there in 45 minutes" and "didnt see us"...we were in a red '00 silverado extended cab..slammed on 22" polished wheels :/

Or: Broke the "race car" in Huntsville, AL...and had to wait for the "hauler" (buddies dad to drive 5.5 hours from NC)...long weekend!

DROP IN THE 5.3!!