48 Hour build

[bret]

The 48 Hour Camaro did nicely at RTMC this weekend...4th overall! Not bad for such a fresh car. I was running 4th in the autocross on Saturday, but broke a front sway bar right before lunch and spent the rest of the day trying to tune and drive around that problem. We rewelded the end on Saturday night a Finch's garage so we were ready for the road course on Sunday.
The Nashville track is a blast...good corners and a couple of harsh transitions from the banked track to the infield...one of them at the end of the front straightaway at over 125mph! I was really proud of the new triple adjustable shocks on the Camaro. On the first session I was bottoming pretty hard on the harsh transitions, but the car was really good everywhere else. So I turned upcthe high speed compression adjustment...it took care of the transitions and didn't upset the rest of the handling characteristics. Very cool.
After the second session I had a severe power steering leak. We didnt install a power steering cooler yet and the extreme fluid temp had distorted the plastic reservoir. Thanks to Kyle Tucker for having a spare! Auto crossing doesn't produce enough heat to require a cooler, but several laps at nearly 135 seems to make it protest.
That Lingenfelter motor will MARCH on the top end! It took until the third session for me to gather enough sack to run full throttle the whole front straight. Spectre clocked the camaro at 121(and we ran some distance yet past their timing equipment). This is on a banked tri-oval where you dive into a fairly severe transition to the flat infield portion of the track at the end of the straightaway.
Loved, loved, loved the Gearvendors overdrive! I ran the infield portion in 2nd and 2nd overdrive, not shifting into 3rd until the long front stretch. I was on the chip at 7000 in 3rd over at the end of the front straight. That overdrive will certainly make you a better driver.
Now it's off to the Powertour...