Pics/vids from Streets of Willow

[JonB69FB]

Even though my day was nothing but trouble, I had a good time at Streets of Willow, and enjoyed meeting both CarlC and Salt Racer from this board. Both of their cars are absolutely awesome.

Video from my car:
http://www.firebirdofdoom.com/video/...ws111204-1.wmv
http://www.firebirdofdoom.com/video/...ws111204-2.wmv

A few pictures:























There's another 834 pictures at:

http://www.firebirdofdoom.com/photos...ets of Willow/

[68protouring454]

jon, looks like an awesome day, i bet it was a blast
jake

[Andrew McBride]

man I love Carl's 68 camaro. That car right there is the reason I bought my 68. Traditional body style of a first gen with a little PT additions. Looks like a great time to run the track. Maybe my next project for a track car: 67 RS Camaro

Andrew

[MrQuick]

great shots thank you....I would love to make one of these events. I was hoping to make it this year but it was a toss up between this and SEMA. Vegas won.
KATZ WHERES YOUR HELMET????

[CarlC]

Thanks for the pics Jon. The PS is a classic GM P-pump problem when using the integral reservoir. Going to the Lee's dry pump, remote cooler, and remote reservoir fixed it for me. There's info on my website.

Katz's car pegs the Cool meter. The pic above is on the skidpad where helmet requirements were either not needed or enforced. He was getting into the spirit of things by spending a bunch of time tuning his panhard bar. It was easy to tell when Katz was coming onto the straight. Since the Speed Venture events are dominated by imports, they have a distinct sound, as does Katz's:

Buzzzzzzzzzz.....
Buzzzzzzzzzz.....
BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Thanks Andrew!

Session 4 was the best for me turning a 1:35. As the car gets lighter in the rear it handles better and better. It takes 3-3.5 gallons for each session so after four sessions it's time for gas. I did not stay for the last session since there was a strange sound coming from the front that sounded like a bearing going bad. It's fine, but better safe than sorry with a 80 mile drive home.

It was great to meet you guys. Let's do it again soon.

[JonB69FB]

Thanks for the pics Jon. The PS is a classic GM P-pump problem when using the integral reservoir. Going to the Lee's dry pump, remote cooler, and remote reservoir fixed it for me. There's info on my website.

I'll be ordering a setup exactly like yours early this week. And I just can't express how impressed I am with your car. It's gorgeous and FAST (not that it doesn't take some excellent driving to turn laps like those).

Once the Speed Ventures guys post the overall times you'll be able to see exactly where you stand but I'd say you're probably in the top 10 for overall time, competing against race-stripped, winged S2000's on slicks and guys that have a lot more time on that track than you do. My best lap time was a 1:39 so you're a ton faster than me.

I'll probably pull the intake manifold off next weekend to see if I can figure out where the oil is getting into the combustion chambers on the driver's side. In addition to the open headbolt hole from porting I remembered this morning that several of the rocker shaft bolt holes are open to intake ports, so hopefully it's just drawing some oil in through one of the many holes when I jump off the throttle during shifts.

[Ralph LoGrasso]

Sweet pics, thanks! That looks like an awesome event.

[Fawkes]

Very cool. The second video was a nice change from most on-track clips. My suggestion for the future; roof cam.

[David Pozzi]

The #75 Can-Am car is a friend of mine from Visailia.
Carl, a rear antiroll bar would have helped the car handle better on a full tank, would have reduced body roll a very small amount.
David

[CarlC]

Thanks Jon.

I'm diggin' your car too. She's got a lot of power under the hood! The smoke did quit once you were fully on the power down the front straight.

Next time hopefully we can talk them into having us on the track at the same time. That would be great video, especially with the window cam.

[Salt Racer]

I finally made it home yesterday afternoon. I racked 3350 miles on the odometer of my car. Total gas consumption is way more than I want to know.

First of all...Brian Schein, David, Jon (spanky), and Vince, I'm sorry that I couldn't hook up with you guys. I arrived in Vegas at like 10~11PM and I figured it was a bit late to go out for drinks and what not.

The guys I met...JP, AndrewB, Brian Zales, CarlC, JonB, Mark, and Sean, it was really great meeting you guys. Very special thanks to Brian for letting me stay at his place. Those who took my Riv for a ride, I hope you enjoyed driving it and maybe gave you an idea or two for your own projects. It certainly isn't the best handling car in the world, but for what it is, it handles pretty good.

My best lap time was 1:43.256. It's slow, but if you take the following facts (excuses) into account, my lap time isn't really that bad.

1. My driving ability
2. Weight of the car - 4280 lbs with me in it, with 56.5% over the nose.
3. Cheap narrow street tires - 235s & 245s, with UTQG wear rating of 400
4. Poor susp. setup - ran out of time to make rear sta bar (severe understeer), forgot to bring extra shims for more neg. camber
5. Stock engine w/ choked up driver side exhaust - probably 280hp or so at rear wheels.
6. Never been able to make a clean lap - either due to traffic (running with bunch of other track newbies) or my screw ups here and there.

I was really impressed with Carl's car and his driving ability. Being able to pull that kind of lap time with many off-the-shelf parts takes some serious thinking. Very well thought-out combination!

JonB's car was equally great. If it wasn't for his PS problem, I'm sure he would have been a couple seconds quicker. And the car runs 10s at drag strip. Really cool!

It's a 1300+mile drive to Willow Springs for me, but I'll be back sometime next year with much sticker Yokohamas or Bridgestones, better suspension, some diet, and perhaps more hp.

[spanky the wondermuffin]

well done,boys.the ps thing stops a lot of gm's the first time out,but the fix is easy(remote res and a cooler)so who's up for a big track weekend in the spring?mid-march at fontana.a couple day nasa event on the road course,then a couple days on the tri-oval with mkm.if you've never driven on a superspeedway take this opportunity.hey fbjon-did i mention that my second car is a 68 bird?that's right,i'm multi-dimensional,i like other cars besides 68 camaros.

[JonB69FB]

The smoke did quit once you were fully on the power down the front straight.

I got the intake manifold off last night and the oil is definately coming in from the top end of the motor--there's a little lake of oil on top of every closed intake valve. You can see the hole through to the head bolt (where the epoxy was) I was telling you about in this picture:



Interestingly, it doesn't look like that's the source of the oil--I'm thinking at the moment that it's being drawn through the rocker shaft mounting bolt holes (there's one open to every intake port).

Also, I ordered the dry pump setup from Lee Power Steering this morning. Their lead time is over 10 days so it looks like I'll probably miss the Speed Ventures event at California Speedway on Dec. 17th, but I'll see what I can do to make it.

[Salt Racer]

The results are up.

http://www.speedventures.net/event_r...esults=OA&s=lt

[parsonsj]

Sounds like you all had a great time.

I got to drive the huge yellow Riviera. I even took my wife for a ride. Too bad it wasn't at Willow! Hopefully Brian Z's neighbors will forgive my attempt to turn the neighborhood into a race track.

I have to second the thought: the Riv is too cool for words. What other PT car have you ever seen with clamshell headlights?

jp

[CarlC]

I
Also, I ordered the dry pump setup from Lee Power Steering this morning. Their lead time is over 10 days so it looks like I'll probably miss the Speed Ventures event at California Speedway on Dec. 17th, but I'll see what I can do to make it.

Yeah, right. 10 days my right eye. It took closer to 10 weeks to get mine, but supposedly he was working on a new machining program to mill the unnecessary cast iron from the pump.

Thanks Katz. It was good to meet you as well. 1:43? Kicking azz for your first time and a car as heavy as yours. Backmarkers do make fast lap times challenging. Tires make a huge difference.

[Salt Racer]

Thanks JP and Carl.



You know, I was kinda worried about my PS pump but I didn't have any problem. I did hear the pump working really hard right before entering the bowl on each lap, but there was no puking or funky smell from the fluid at the end of each session. But School sessions were like 10 minutes shorter than the rest of groups so maybe I just lucked out? I have AGR 12.7:1 box w/ 0.235" T-bar, AGR's late model style pump, and Redline PS fluid.

I'm thinking about selling my current tire/rim combo and do C5 18x9.5s and 275/40R18 KDs all way around now. If I end up doing that, I probably should install PS cooler.

Next time I'll step up to White group. I see a couple of cars in W group that were slower than my banana boat, and it seemed like you guys didn't have any traffic problem. I gotta check and see if there's any inexpensive OT event at PR and PIR so I can improve my driving skills!

[Jagarang]

That 69 Firebird has 690 HP!

[Salt Racer]

I just have to thank JonB and his wife again for taking so many pics. I really appreciate the fact that they took a couple of head-on shot of my car on skidpad. It really helps me evaluate body roll angle, camber angle, etc. This gave me a pretty good idea of what else needs to be done to my car.



It's pretty obvious I need more neg camber (though wheel camber is not terrible for the body roll angle). I'll probably benefit from a tad higher inflation pressure as well. But what I really need to do is to get rid of 700 lb Nailhead and swap in 450 lb LS1. But that wouldn't happen for quite a while...

Both Carl's and JonB's cars appear to have better camber angle than mine (Carl's car being the best). But both of them will probably benefit from slight increase in static neg. camber.

[JonB69FB]

Yeah, right. 10 days my right eye. It took closer to 10 weeks to get mine, but supposedly he was working on a new machining program to mill the unnecessary cast iron from the pump.

Oh great that's the last thing I wanted to hear! Not that I'm really expecting anything soon what with Thanksgiving next week and all.

Katz, I agree with Carl, a 1:43 for your first time out is really good. And it looks like I managed to pull out a 1:38 lap, so that's something, I suppose.

On the camber: I only took tire temps once, but they were fairly even across the front tires (within 5 deg spread all the way across). I really need to start taking tire pressures and temperatures consistently (and writing them down) every time I get off the track but I always manage to forget. You're welcome on the pictures--I'm really pleased with how they turned out.