This last weekend we raced at the July
SCTA El Mirage lake meet. I'm sorry that I didn't get this out sooner,
but as you will see there was not a lot of good news to report so I procrastinated.
We finished up all of the required canopy work and all of the extra work
required for an enclosed drives compartment. We also finished up all of
the trailer work (the trailer tows much better now) and even smeared on
more Bondo (with lots more sanding). All told, we were ready to race.
Saturday, Mark brought up the race car from San Diego and I pulled our
tent-trailer up from Orange County. We got to the lake about 11:00 am,
set up camp and put the car in line for inspection just after noon. The
wind up in the high desert was gusting really bad Saturday afternoon and
we returned from inspection there was a surprise waiting for us at our
camp.
We shot a photo at sunset so you could see what the car looks like with all of its part put on. Sunday morning we were in 48th position to run (not everyone shows up so we were more like 35th). James got to take the first run since he had not driven the car yet.
Unfortunately the car ran very badly
in top gear and only went 94 mph. James thought he might have shifted twice
and put the cat into 6th gear when it should have in 5th. When we took
our second run I was driving. The car ran really strong up to 4th gear
where it seamed to stall like it was out of gas, 5th gear was even worse.
Over all, I only got to 103mph. My previous run (back in June - 132 mph)
the motor pulled hard all through 5th gear. When we checked out the motor,
it seamed like it was VERY lean. The only thing we changed was adding the
canopy, but that could have cleaned up the air going into the intake ports
and leaned out the motor. Another possibility was that the fuel pressure
regulator was not putting out enough fuel or possibly a combination of
both. We turned up the regulator and put the car back into line hopping
for a third run....... The the three things that
usually end a race are 1) the track gets
to torn up to safely run, 2) the winds blow to strong to safely run or
3) Someone has an accident (a racer or spectator) that requires medical
attention serious enough that the ambulance can not continue the meet.
Unfortunately the race was ended by situation #3, fortunately their injures
were not life threatening. So we didn't get a third run... We still
don't know why the motor
was running lean... We don't know if it
will effect the new motor... But for now we know the car is safe and drive-able
and we are proceeding with the Hayabusa motor starting this Saturday. Then
next race for the car is September 16 at El Mirage.