This weekend the stick-shift cars hit the strip at Pacific Raceways. This is an annual race we look forward to with our ’57 Chev, as we get to race with fellow gear-jammers from British Columbia and the Northwest! They are a great bunch of guys to race with and run an excellent program throughout our area and are celebrating their 25th Anniversary this year! I’ve posted their 2019 schedule here! If you are interested in running in their program, you can read their rules here.
We went into this weekend with two hits on our new 372 bullet, 12-runs on our Ram clutch and Mark Williams 35-spline axles, and we had gone thru the transmission after our March 30th testing and installed a new, lower 3.19 1st gear. We felt we were well prepared for this weekend, but we’re having transmission issues which we believe is due to damaged/cracked/twisting 3-4 shift-arm in the old transmission, as the 3-4 shifter adjustment changes after each run! We were very happy to qualify #3 on Saturday with a .015 reaction time effort on our 2nd qualifying hit running a 10.298 @ 129.64 MPH facing a headwind, but lost in the 1st round when I got gated on the tree.
On Sunday we made it to the 2nd-round before the transmission blocked out going into 3rd. We have more work to do! [Updates will be posted in the comment section connected to this post].
Our best pass was on Sunday running a 10.295 at 130.35 MPH. We were very pleased with the clutch data we collected this weekend and the new 3.19 1st gear. We can now control how hard we hit the tires with engine RPM on the launch! Here’s a video of that hit:
My thanks to Chris, Paul & Pam for all their hard work and support! And a sincere thank you to all our friends who stopped by to give us support!!
Race Results:
Saturday winner: Jamie Roth
R/U: Pat Byron
Sunday winner: Rich Graves
R/U: John Depourcq
They had 18 cars on Saturday & 15 on Sunday which was a good turnout!
June 8th 2019
Pam captured plenty of their runs on video:
Slow-motion of our Q2 run on Saturday where we qualified #3 that day:
Paul’s Mustang This Weekend
Paul’s Mustang ran very well this weekend after the cooling system improvements, it would appear all the leaks and cooling issues have been resolved!
He set a personal best on Sunday, recording a 11.642 @ 114.53 MPH!! With some more hits, Paul should do well in Pro Bracket but he’s having fun and very pleased with how his car is now running! Here are a couple of his runs this weekend:
Our thanks to the entire crew at Pacific Raceways that kept us all safe, and it was a fun show this weekend that featured the PNW Outlaw 10.5 cars that thundered down the strip!!
Happy Birthday Peyten!!
And it not only was a big weekend at the strip, we celebrated our Granddaughter Peyten’s 9th birthday on Sunday afternoon! – Roger
Thanks to Our Great Sponsor…
Need trailer repairs while at Pacific Raceways?
Call 206-391-9695 for a price quote!
I ran the valves this morning after our long weekend, and I did NOT need to adjust one valve!! Love these new Jesel shaft rockers!
And using the original Doug-Nash part number 66-55034, I was able to find the replacement 3-4 shift arm through Summit if you can believe that!! Richmond Gear which bought out Doug-Nash years ago still makes this shift arm which we believe is causing the shifting problems.
Update June 13, 2019:
Just pulled the qualifying run on Sunday out of the Racepak, our quickest pass of the weekend, and I’m proud to say I hit every shift point!
The data closely parallels the data from March 30 except on the initial hit where the lower base pressure doesn’t pull the engine down as far with 60 lbs less of base pressure. I would say we have the clutch PERFECT!!
Tomorrow Chris and I will pull the transmission and I have a new 3-4 shift arm on the way.
Update June 18 2019:
The new & improved 3-4 shift arm arrived from Richmond Gear yesterday, P/N RMG-6655034 available from Summit. And it fits perfectly with improved construction and weld. Now to get the transmission back together and in the car.
Update June 19 2019:
I got the transmission back together this morning, and I see a difference. First, I had to adjust the 3-4 shift rod a turn and the 3-4 shift lever is now parallel with the 1-2 lever. Prior to taking it apart, there was a slight angle difference. Second, I had to readjust the Long shifter stops so the new shift arm made a change in that sector. Third, I now have more clearance between the 3-4 rod and case, so something was wrong!!
Both Chris and I power-shifted it on the bench today approximately 15 times thru all the gates today and the shifter adjustment did NOT change!! I believe we found the shifting problem but we’ll know in July when we take the car back out for some test hits.
Update June 20, 2019:
The gearbox is back in the car and while Chris rotated the driveline, I pounded it through the gears 5-times and the shifter held adjustment perfectly! Good news! Thanks Chris for all your help, again!
I also made some improvements to the cooling system, installing an electric cooling fan activated by a 140-degree coolant sensor. This allowed me to remove the heavy, high-pitch cooling fan on the water pump which reduced the amperage on the Moroso water pump motor and increased water pump RPM. It should be the best of both worlds.