Mary Pozzi at Atwater autoX

[mpozzi]

A big CONGRATULATION for Mary. Most people don't realize that Mary won with a street car. Her competitors were in fully built, tube frame car with optimize suspension, and race tires
(aka pure racecar). I watched her runs as she pulled down faster time lap after laps. The most truly amazing thing I 've seen in auto-xing. Mary, you are very special person, not the driving part, we all know that, but the part where you help my co-driver with driving advice. With your help, she won her class by a large margin and her first National Tour trophy. Thank you again!

Cliff
p.s. you are welcome to drive our car anytime.

Hey Cliff,

You'll LOVE this site and welcome aboard. The Tour was fun and the STS contingency is the best. And Doris put down some of the best driving I've ever seen her do. The times showed it and I was so happy she was rewarded with her first (of many, I'm sure) Tour and perhaps Nationals wins. Both of you should look to that premier event as being one of your autocross goals.

I posted the following in the Second Gen forums but will add it here as the event results are a bit misleading for CP and CPL, and there was some hoopla about CPL dusting the CP open class. While it looks like our Camaro was the most awesome thing on four wheels, it actually was only mortal and not invincible.

Gotta confess . . . on Saturday, C Prepared had the unfortunate experience of driving in the rain where us gals in CPL got the dry stuff earliler in the day. The open class dusted our times on a dry Sunday by almost five seconds as every car in there is prepared to the limits of the rules and most are very well driven. While it looks great on paper, those that were there know there was a weather element that contributed to this. Driving a CP car in inclement weather is not fun. Some of the CP-Ladies competitors asked me what I did when faced with rain. Telling 'em I roll up the windows, turn on the heater, select defrost, and get warm didn't win me any friends that day. It was cold, rainy, windy, and just plain nasty outside.

As for the car, I drove the hell out of it. There was absolutely nothing more to get from the car, suspension, tires, steering, engine, everything else and I even include the paint with this. I was behind on my last run by almost 7/10ths of a second and in autocrossing, this is huge. I had a 4/10ths overall lead from Saturday and was hoping to pad this cushion a bit more. The SCCA National Tour events are run like the Solo II Nationals - fastest run from one day is added to the fastest on the second day and the combined time total determines the class placings. You get three runs per day and if you hit a pylon, two seconds are added to that run's time. There are many classes where the placings are decided by mere hundredths of a second.

I went into this event being a real underdog and not expecting much. My competition was Mary Ankeny and she drives exceptionally well. Her car, however, is nothing short of awesome. It's a tube-frame, V6, heavily modified to every letter of the C-Prepared rules Fourth Gen Camaro and just plain hauls butt. In Impound (occurs after each day's heat runs), they asked if I wanted to forego the weighing of the cars and I told them I didn't want to break the scales with mine. Being a V6, the Ankeny's car can have a minimum weight of 2450 lbs or so where my car weighs over 3500 lbs easy. Not sure what the actual weight of the Ankeny car is (very hard to get one down that light) but it's been put on a serious diet for autocrossing. That is one cool car . . .

In addition, I was the only one on street competition radials (Kumho V710's). Every other car had Goodyear or Hoosier race rubber with 10-12" wide wheels. Kumho Tire Company should be happy . . .

I drove at the same site two weeks before and was very unhappy with how my Camaro handled on concrete. The surface was extremely grippy and most cars will understeer when presented to that type of surface. My car thought understeering was a joy to behold and did it very well much to my displeasure. In retrospect, I was glad I ran that event as it told me what we needed to do to get the handling better.

The next two weeks were spent measuring and calculating lots of suspension data and determining what fixes were necessary. Dave's the guru with that stuff and decided to add a rear bar for the CAT5 GW springs and make it adjustable. The Hotchkis bar donated itself and is now sporting longer ends with several mounting adjustment holes. Other changes involved removing the front bump stop spacers (not the actual stops themselves) and adding the G-Braces.

Of all the changes, the G-Braces were the most noticeable from the driver's seat. The front end turn-in was incredible with absolutely NO understeer. It's rare that a component is added that gives so much benefit just by itself. As most are aware, the early Camaro front end doesn't lend itself to the addition of any bracing or frame stiffeners that tie one side to the other with the exception of a full cage. For the price and relative ease of installation (not THAT easy but that's for another thread . . . ), it's the best $$$ you can spend on your car. Calculations showed that it increased front roll stiffness by one-third (33%) and that's huge for a Camaro. I called Dave at ProTouringF-Body and thanked him for developing and manufacturing such a fine product.

I was so proud of the car and it gave everything I asked of it. Totally blown away on how well it did.

Thanks to everyone that added their .02 to this thread and especially to Leo (IDLZRUF) and Mark (Marks71BB) who took time to come out and take videos of the runs. Dave also drove over to help tune the suspension on Friday's Test/Tune event to see if the Camaro agreed with his calculation results. We made a couple of small changes and were good to go.

This site is awesome . . .

Cheers,
Mary Pozzi

[6'9"Witha69]

Congrats Mary. My wife is inspired to see this type of driving. Now she REALLY wants me to finish up my 69 so I can start on her '71.

[Merlin]

Mary, I was working impound when we weighed the Ankeny's camaro. I believe their car was just over 2600lbs. So they are not near the minimum weight for the v-6 engine combo. Again, great drive.

Cliff

[jeffandre]

Great job Mary,
You better stay involved in the sport after this success! No more 10-year hiatus stuff for you. Anyway, I have a set of g-braces for my 71 Camaro and would like to know if you did anything special when mounting/installing them, or did you bolt them on and go? Thanks,

[Orngcrush69]

Congrats Mary!!!!!

[mpozzi]

Great job Mary,
You better stay involved in the sport after this success! No more 10-year hiatus stuff for you. Anyway, I have a set of g-braces for my 71 Camaro and would like to know if you did anything special when mounting/installing them, or did you bolt them on and go? Thanks,

Oh boy . . . here we go. The right side was a relatively easy bolt-on. No muss, no fuss, textbook per the instructions. The left side, however, was a real PITA. The mounting flange for the fender bolt did not match up with the cowl flange. When you mounted one part, the other would either stick up or not align at all!! Dave cut the fender bolt flange completely off, I bolted it to the fender with the necessary six washers and a new bolt, installed the rest of the G-Brace, Dave tack welded the brace tube to the mounted flange, and the entire assembly was again removed for further welding so the flange could live in it's new location. The bolt hole was also tapped. And after dropping the washers down the inside of the fenders not once but several million times, they were taped together using electrical tape. This worked well and the next time they fell, it was in one solid piece. I learned how to snake my hands inside of small crevices that are part of a Camaro (yes, there are some of those) to retrieve dropped washers and bolts.

Fiddle-farting with this side took about six hours and lots of creative language until we finally realized what degree of surgery needed to be done for a correct fitment. After the final welding, I cleaned and beadblasted the end, and then painted it. Unless you look very close, you can't tell what we did and the brace looks fine. While this may be a problem for just my car, I can't believe that others haven't had the same frustration. Again, a real PITA and I can't see anyone that doesn't have access to welders, grinders, metal cutters, and the like tackling the installation of these braces. If you have a friend that has some of this equipment, perhaps you might install the braces at his facility.

Remember, these are 30+ year old cars that have probably sustained some type of collision damage, have had repairs for such, and have self-altered (read: sagged) their original mounting points for most anything that was once attached on the assembly line. There may be installation issues but I hope it goes well for you. These braces do work and you'll be rewarded with a better handling car when they're on.

Cheers,
Mary Pozzi

[David Pozzi]

On the other hand, the passenger side bolted right on.
You might luck out on the drivers side. Or if you carefully note what needs to be modified and how much, you could mark it and have someone remake the end. It may just bolt on though, hard to say.

I do recommend you start with the difficult side first.
David

[jeffandre]

Thanks for the replies! A quick trial fit looks good already (I can't believe I might have it easy on one part of the car!!!). Did you do anything to increase the support to the cowl area where the g-braces attach?

[Aceshigh]

500lbs lighter and they STILL lost to a 2nd gen.
Schweeeeet.

[Damn True]

Got the new issue of NA Pylon yesterday and Mary was mentioned there as well.

[David Pozzi]

Thanks for the replies! A quick trial fit looks good already (I can't believe I might have it easy on one part of the car!!!). Did you do anything to increase the support to the cowl area where the g-braces attach?

Jeff,
No we didn't do anything to add support. We were a bit pressed for time, just got them installed a day before Mary left. The inner ends have two bolts and I would have liked to make a metal strip to go underneath instead of just washers. Ideally I'd make the end twice as wide and use twice the bolts, but probably use smaller bolts like 5/16" or 1/4". The lip is suprisingly sturdy and it's much easier to install the bolts compared to a first gen which has no lip. It's probably plenty strong the way it comes.

We will keep an eye on the braces and see if there is any sign of weakness. I hate extra tubes in the way of the engine, I wish there were another way to do it, but this method certainly works much more effectively than I'd imagined. I'd read a quote from Guldstrand that the Second gen's had a lack of subframe torsional rigidity, but WOW!
David

[CarlC]

David,

You know you've created a monster (a very nice one), right? What's the next mod?

Would installation/manufacturing be easier if the downtube to upper A-arm mount or the cowl tube used a turnbuckle and/or rod end?

[David Pozzi]

I see subframe connectors in the future, also complete the cold air system.

It would be nice if the cowl ends were threaded in, so you could adjust length and clocking. I'd also like to investigate bracing parallel to the anti-roll bar. Third gen IROC's have a small bar that mounts on the antiroll bar holes and strengthens the steering box since it's mounted to the front frame horn and that is only attached at one end. I still haven't driven the Camaro so haven't felt the "improvement"

Steering brace is not a problem on a first gen. I have a buddy with the G braces on a first gen, don't know how much they help for them. I'd like to "borrow" his car, but I don't know if he'd let me twist it with a huge piece of tubing!
David

[ErikSOCAL]

wow, I looked at those pics and was surprised to see the mufflers didn't have any scrapes on a lowered 2nd gen. Whats the lowest part of the car, header flanges?

[David Pozzi]

The front dives a more than the rear, when you hit a dip on the freeway the header tubes can hit. Especially the RF tubes, they are lower (thanks Hooker)... The front tubes and header flanges are the lowest part. The exhaust is pretty new so not a lot of miles on them yet. Love the X pipe, very quiet and nice sound.
David

[PTAddict]

The front dives a more than the rear, when you hit a dip on the freeway the header tubes can hit. Especially the RF tubes, they are lower (thanks Hooker)... The front tubes and header flanges are the lowest part. The exhaust is pretty new so not a lot of miles on them yet. Love the X pipe, very quiet and nice sound.
David

I ran Hedman elite headers when my '71 still had a 1st gen SB, and they had pretty good clearance even with my Hotchkis front springs. I also have an x-pipe, and in combination with magnaflow mufflers it makes the most lovely snarl. I run the revs up in the lower gears just to hear it.

My '71 is now set up quite similar to your car, except for rear sway bar, Guldstrand mod, and g-braces (I have a set, but haven't installed them yet), and I have Global subframe connectors. I run track days but no auto-x yet. The car works very well indeed. I haven't noticed issues with too much understeer, except in one tight left hander at Portland International Raceway. Interestingly, I didn't notice that much difference in ride switching from the Hotchkis to the Global Cat5 rear springs - the ride overall is pretty firm, but not to the extent it really bothers me. And I'm not a young guy

I also noticed that rear-end dip under acceleration was dramatically reduced with the Cat5 springs, even without the Guldstrand mod.

[David Pozzi]

Will the Headman headers clear a wide oil pan? We have the Canton pan.
You have 100hp more than us, must be fun to drive!

The car rode much better with the street tires, but I liked the softer Hotchkis leafs better for street use.
Dvid

[PTAddict]

Will the Headman headers clear a wide oil pan? We have the Canton pan.
You have 100hp more than us, must be fun to drive!

The car rode much better with the street tires, but I liked the softer Hotchkis leafs better for street use.
Dvid

I don't have the motor any more, it's been three years - but if I recall correctly, I had a Milodon road race pan on it, and I know I was using a Lakewood scattershield, and the Hedmans cleared both.

The modified LS1 is an absolutely fabulous motor, pulls hard to the rev limiter at 6,800, but idles and drives like a late-model *****cat. I'll never build a car with an old gen SBC or BBC again ...

Edit: I see there's an old term for a feline pet that triggers the kid-safe post checker! LOL.

[Orngcrush69]

Since this thread is still hot...Speed Ventures is on June 2-3 we'll be there with Dan's new 383 and my tranny problems are solved! Hope to see ya there.;-)

[mpozzi]

Buttonwillow, right?? If so, I'm in. You guys going for both days or just one?

How'd you fix the tranny problem?? Yank it and put in a 5-speed??

Cheers,
Mary Pozzi