97C5inSD

Well this weekend Ryan and myself went to Motorpark Hastings in NE for there Corvette Track weekend. And well it was a fun and well now going to be a very expensive weekend.

Firday night pull into the Track about 9pm and Meet George and he shows me where i can park and hook the RV up. Great Get to the spot unload the car get the RV all setup and everything. Jump in the car and go Look for George and he says there is a nasty storm in and offers to put my car in and such. So we get my car in incase there is nasty weather. even offers to put the RV in and i said naa i think it will be fine. Ryan Shows and gets his car in just in case. half hour later the the Sirens Blow for the storm. So we debate do run to the Club house and to the basement or wait it out. then it begins to hail quarter size or better. Well that decision is made but let me tell you being in a RV during a hail storm is the equivalent to being in a popcorn popper i feel anyways. So with that storm over find the one RV awning over my slideout is now looking like swiss cheese. and mabey some other stuff still have to fully investigate. A coupel of the trailers and trucks at the track also suffered some hail damage.

Saturday. Get up and make some cinniman rolls and such check things out more and get the cars ready to roll for the track day. get ryans car ready to roll with his hoosiers. and such do drivers meeting and everything. my first time at this track so i decide to run in group 2 ryan opts for group one since he has been here before so i decide to go for a ride along so i can get a layout of the track instead of driving it cold my first time out. Day continuted like this in 20 minute session. the Car was running great and the grip was also very well there. I manage a 1.40:19 Fastest lap for the day. wich i was very happy with Ted hughs was out there with a 09 stock zo6 with Hoosiers on it and managed to squeek out a 1.36:9 lap time but for the most was running 1.37's which i think he was probly running the fastest laps for the day. Ryan we figured managed to get in the 1.44 range with me doing the following. There was also couple callaway Vettes out there since it was a Corvette weekend And Harchelroad Motors was the corvette dealer putting it on for the most part. So the afternoon we could test drive the callaways on the track if we liked for a hour or go for ride alongs.

They also setup a small autcross course in the paddock area and ran a go cart through it which we all did granted us bigger guys couldn't beat the small gals time so ya know how that goes. Then at 5 we end for the day get cleaned up and head to Murphys for Drinks and meal as part of our package. and well instead of changeing tires we decide to just drive on Ryans Hoosiers. Well after we leave there and head to walmart and other nightly entertainment we get a flat. So yay we get to go through this ordeal call george and get him out there to help us in the mean time one of the local guys in Blue decide to check in and see how we was doing and wait with us. Well when george gets there we find the tire is blown out. So he gives us a ride back to the track so we grab my car and throw a tire of ryans in my car along with jack and stuff and go recover his car and then for the night we put the cars away again just to be safe.

Sunday. We wake up to 55 degrees and mist. So eyah things don't look fun at all but the mist dose let up and looks like we may get some good track time in. So ryan throws the street tires back on we get ready and we let the first session to head out to get the track alittle dryier for us. Today we have a few more cars other then vettes a Formula Vee a couple porsches and a Camaro that Runs American Sedan and event GT-3 Pinto and a ITA MR2. Well we get ready for Heat 2 I take off for the lead and get my warm up lap in and second lap in have to pass most of the slower groups and get out to open it up Come around the last corner Check my gauges and everything looks Good. I start to get on it hit the start finish line shift to thrid Gear and accelerate and BOOM and a cloud of Rolling small. Push in the clutch and roll to a stop. well long story short the Vette now has a ventelated Block.

So now i'm not sure what to do. Probly get the motor pulled and tore down to fully see what the damage is and then see what i can afford for the year if we can get a motor back into it or if it will be quites for the year or what the case will be. I'm sure Ryan may add more. Sorry really don't have much for picks we managed to keep busy with the track time and such. I did put over 100 miles on the car just in track time on saturday.

jabrun

Sorry to hear about your bad luck Todd, I'm always afraid mine will blow up during a race and I won't be able to afford to fix it. That's part of the reason I just stick to autocross.

97C5inSD

Yeah i hear you Jeff the worst thing about this was the car gave no warning what so ever. Oil pressure was good and i kept temps down if they got what i felt was too warm i backed off the pace. and well to be honest i wasn't even pushing the car to 100% I think if i did that i woulda pulled a better lap time but i was being stingy and wanting to save on my brakes and such. Oh well

You looking for a co driver in Soofoo this year? we can use my new Kuhmos and my traqmate if ya like

dvandentop

damn todd sounds like a good day on saturday on the track until at night i went to ****.

sorry to hear. i am sure you could find a used ls6 longblock and the swap wouldnt be too hard. depends on how much of your other motor is damaged.
Would hate to see ya have to be done for the year.

0Randy@DRM

Let me guess, 5 or 6 is hanging out of the block. Do you have any idea what rods were in that engine???

Randy

97C5inSD

Yeah but i don't know if i would be happy with anything less then what i currently had you should know what i mean by that. so guess we will see


I don't know the piston numbers for sure but it is the second one back from the front of the motor on the drivers side. and it was the eagle Rotating assembly in the car. Crank and Rods, with diamond pistons

RusherRacing

We need to get the coffee table built!

Hopefully you can put together something stronger than ever for very little $$$

I had a good time. But I am sore and tired today. I had 3 full hours of actual track time. Todd had just under two full hours. I burned up the old hoosiers that I had sitting around forever. (RS04's) I am happy with my laptimes I am not a speed demon but I was having fun. The Hawk DTC-60 pads are amazing I heardly felt any fade. The HP+ pads were fading really bad after 10 minutes. I ran those in the morning sessions.

97C5inSD

Well in anycase this ventilated Block will get turned into a coffee cup.

Also after talking with Randy and such i guess my oil pressure was running a bit lower then optimal which if i had known i was on the low side i woulda stopped. my bad in the end. Oh well i guess i can't complain the motor is over 5 years old and had many hard miles on it. the previous owner to myself is the one who built the motor and had it for 2 years and over 2000 miles of Track and Autocross time. then i had it for now 3 years i have put over 10,000 miles on the car between driving, autocross, and Track time. So all in all the motor was getting tired and probly needed to be freshened up. Which woulda been cheaper then this situation but what do i do live and learn and hopefully build the next one as good if not better.

Anyways on to some pics that actually got taken from this weekend along with the carnage that happend with my RV.

Car photos.















Carnage photos







Ryans Tires






RV Damage

bobmoore2

Let me guess. You were running with R-compound tires, and the track had lots of long left turns. Right?

The same thing happened to me, including the BOOM and white smoke, a couple years ago. The problem was oil starvation. All the oil gets pushed away from the pump pickup in long hard left turns. The LS_ engines were not designed for the high Gs we can get with R-compounds.

Be sure they install an accusump with your new engine.

bobmoore2

Accidentally double-posted. Sorry.

dvandentop

good lord the hail really did a number on the camper! i would get an accumsump for sure this time around hard to say if it could have helped or not

97C5inSD

I hear you derek i would actually upgrade to a Dry sump if possible but my Autocross Classing dose not allow for it unless i wana bump again. A accusump may be in question i considered it this last year. So who knows It's such a debate on if they really help of not. there good for preoiling thats for sure.

But i wonder if there could be issues with the system being overfull for to long at times. i'd almost feel better off adding the extra half quart to quart of oil from the get go. I don't know I may talk with Randy more about it when the time comes. disscuing motor right now waiting on a quoute and will see if i can afford it this year or if will be another winter project.

bobmoore2

The only debate I have seen (and this is quite rare) is whether an accusump is enough protection for some of the all-out racers. I haven't seen any debate that an accusump is a great help for a car that does frequent track days. (In fact many people consider an accusump as a necessary requirement for any track-days Corvette.)

The way I see it, can you afford not to protect your motor with an accusump? Do you want to (can you afford to) replace your engine every 3 years or so? You do the math - about 300 bucks to purchase an accusump and associated hardware, and a few hundred bucks installation costs, versus several thousand bucks to replace your engine. It comes down to "Pay a little now, or pay a lot later."


Of course, if you decide to go with a dry sump, that is an even better solution. Just be sure you get a good dry-sump system. I've hear some horror stories about the reliability (un-reliability) of the external oil pumps in some dry sump systems.

ajg1915

Sorry to hear of your bad luck.

I'll be selling a LS1 motor 2001 w 22K easy miles with LPE blower cam in the next month or so. Pretty much a complete long-block for $3K. No oil use issue as it was a late (March 2001) motor.

I'm going with a LS3.

ZO6NTHEWIND

Hastings NE? Good grief my wife has a sister there and she just flew in (Omaha) and was there last weekend. If I would have known that I would have drove the Vette up there instead of staying at home.

Does the track have a website?

Later,

dvandentop

www.racemph.com

ZO6NTHEWIND

Thanks!


Later,