Cross-Fire No'-Mo' = turkey meat @ the Bracket Bash
Thread Starter
Race Director
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 15,176
Likes: 88
From: State of Confusion
Cross-Fire No'-Mo' = turkey meat @ the Bracket Bash
after promising test-runs 2 weeks ago at Bradenton, we took Cross-Fire No'-Mo' into Clearwater the day after Thanksgiving for the 2 day 'Big Turkey Bracket Bash', with a purse of $500-to-win each day in Sportsman Class, at Sunshine Drag Strip's 1/8-mile facility:
on consecutive runs that day @ Bradenton, it had run 14.059 @ 97.71 MPH, 14.044 @ 95.81, and 14.062 @ 95.55, and we believed we had rectified a persistent problem with fuel sloshing into the carb following the burnout by lowering the rear float-level.
On our first time-shot Friday afternoon, under sunny skies and 74* temps with 52% humidity, the car again died after the burnout, and took forever to re-light:
once it fired-up, I quickly staged, had a .026 RT and ran 2.001 to 60', but I had once-again left the shifter in 'D' following the hurried start-up proceedure, so the car made the 1-2 and 2-3 shifts automatically, well-below the usual 2-3 shift at 5000 RPM, and the car ran a dismal 9.50 @ just 65 MPH, aborting the run once I realized what I'd done again.....
That was the 9th run I'd made since having the CFI removed, and probably the 5th run that the car had stalled on the starting-line, affecting either my RT, or resulting in me leaving the shifter in 'D' after re-starting the car:
fellow Corvette-racer and 2007 RevXtreme Corvette Challenge Series Champion Craig Gingerich stopped-by our pit-area, said he'd had the same problem with his '69 Camaro even-though he'd lowered his float-level, and suggested easing out of the water-box, so that stopping quickly wasn't needed, possibly keeping the car running.....
we also lowered the rear float another 1/16-turn, and raised the idle-speed to 800 in-gear before the 2nd & final time-trial of the day, which would determine which racer will receive a First Round odd-lot bye-run if an odd number of cars show-up for the Round.
Using the modified burnout proceedure, the car kept running, so I quickly deep-staged, and ripped-off a 'typical' run of how the car had performed in the past:
060': 1.953 (best-ever yet)
330': 5.781
660': 9.021
MPH: 73.92
My weather-data showed Pressure Altitude of -90', 50* temps, 96% humidity, and a Density Altitude of -283', very rare air for Florida, and even more important, I was lucky-enought o get a .001 Reaction Time, which meant that if an odd-number of cars made First Round, I'd get a 'free-pass' into the 2nd Round:
if an even number of cars showed-up, I would race against the last car in-line, and if I could beat him, I'd 'carry-over' the bye run into the 2nd Round.
It had cooled-off considerably for the First Round, and the humidity had risen to above 99% on my weather station instruments:
in-fact, sweat was beading-up on the faces of the gauges, and I put the computer/calculator in the Suburban, to keep moisture from getting inside it.....
it showed a Density Altitude of 411' below sea-level, and I'd never run the car in atmospheric conditions like this yet, but I dialed-in at '8.99', thinking it might run even-quicker than the previous 9.021.
When called to the Staging Lanes for the 1st Round, I was sent to an auxilary lane, nearer to the water-box, where I couldn't see the cars being paired-up for competition behind/beside me:
the 'regular' lanes were to my Left, with the water-box to my Right, and several dozen pairs of cars kept proceeding to the water-box, then the starting-line, as I sat patiently, waiting to see if I'd get a single-run, or be paired-up.....
Suddenly, a sole '79 Z28 made it's way into the water-box and performed it's burnout, as I sat, waiting for instructions:
I didn't know if his opponent couldn't get fired-up and he had a 'competition-single', or if he was the last car in line, and if I should prepare to race against him.....
..... FINALLY, the kid running the staging lanes hurriedly walked over to my car and 'asked' if I wanted to run the Camaro:
before I could buckle-up, the Z28 had lit his portion of the Christmas Tree, so I quickly started the car and did a poor burnout.
The Camaro had open-headers and a lumpy-idle, so I figured he'd run quicker than I, and that I would receive the handicap/head-start
(the scoreboard lights at Sunshine are very-small, and I couldn't read them, to check for the proper dial-ins)
so I quickly deep-staged and got ready for my side of the Tree to be activated.....
I was surprised when HIS top-bulb glowed first, and in my mind I'm thinking 'W-d-F is going-ON here?':
when his 2nd Amber bulb glowed, I thought 'these idiots have our dial-ins transposed and mixed-up, 'cause there ain't no-WAY that he is slower than me!'
I was distracted, and had a poor Reaction Time, but the guy I was racing was a rookie, had a much-worse light, and ran way under his dial-in:
meanwhile, the '82 ran a 'normal' 60' time of 2.01, yet couldn't make much power with all the humidity, running a woeful 9.181 @ 73.28 MPH, but I was lucky to advance into the 2nd Round, and I still had the possible odd-lot bye-run carrying over.
I don't have enough data for this car yet, so I foolishly thought it would run another 9.02-ish type ET, so I slightly raised my dial-in to 9.00, and went into the auxilary staging lanes again, in-case I got the bye-run:
I also made a mental note to ignore the incompetence of the Staging Lane Director if he gave me another late-signal to fire-up and race against another opponent, and I walked-over to him, and asked him to give me at-least a few moments notice if I was to have an opponent.
I go back to the Corvette and once-again begin to wait for all the remaining cars in my class to run:
after a long wait, incredibly, the same Camaro Z28 I had beaten in the 1st round pulls out by himself, and begins to do another burnout.....
apparently, he had 'bought-back', which allows a racer beaten in the First Round to pay an additional entry fee, and re-join the 2nd Round
(this allows cheap-azzed Track Operators to put more cash in their pockets without providing a better product for their patrons):
again, I am told to hurriedly line-up against this car
I'm better-prepared this time, and easily beat (RE-beat?) him to advance into the 3rd Round, with the bye-run still in my pocket if there are an odd numbers of cars left in competition:
strangely, the car went another 9-teen (9.152 @ 72.26 MPH) with a good 60' time (1.983), so I knew I was lost on the set-up/dial-in, so I dialed 9.13 for the 3rd Round, went to the auxilary staging lanes, and reminded myself to 'keep-cool' if the idiot working the staging lanes hung me out to-dry again.....
I patiently wait for al the cars in my class to empty the Staging Lanes, and the kids instructs me to make a single, bye-run:
I open the door and ask him, point-blank, 'are you SURE there is nobody left for me to race-against?', and he points me to the water-box.
I warm the tires, roll towards the starting-line, and light my top-bulbs, in-preparation of making a run, when the Chief Starter begins flashing all the lights on the Tree, and instructing me to back out-of the beams:
I sit-still, so he taps on my window, and tells me 'there's been a mistake made..... you have to run somebody who arrived into the lanes late', and my reply is 'does ANYBODY in this place know W-D-F is goin'-on?'
by-now, my ability to deal with stupid calmly is shot to Hell
after waiting at-least 3 minutes (maybe longer), my opponent FINALLY rounds the bend, and enters the water-box:
I haphazardly deep-stage, turn on the Big Red Eye, and idle down the track, seething.....
after a few choice-words with the Chief Starter ('it's not MY job to wait for people who don't know W-d-F they are doing..... it's YOUR job to disqualify them!'), I was told to speak with the Track Manager:
there, we discuss if the Staging Lane Director's parents had any children that actually survived child-birth, and I suggested 'hiring the kid who is pushing shopping-carts around your local Wal*Mart parking-lot at 2:00 AM, because that kid can do a better-job than the guy you've got doing it now;
I've DONE the job of Staging Lane Director, and it ain't hard!'
Saturday, I still fuming, but we went back to the track to race because we'd spent the night at a local hotel:
if I hadn't gone with Red 69 and Fuzzy Dice, I'd have gone-home Friday night
(I'd raced at 3 different tracks in 3 weeks in Florida {Bradenton, Orlando, and now Sunshine}, and not-once had there been anything CLOSE to resembling a Tech Inspection, not even a glance at my helmet:
for all the peole who complain about Tech Inspection at the strip, read this
http://drr.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/t...2/m/9741000404 )
I made to dismal time-shots with similar-but-slow 60' times (2.079 & 2.099, spinning the tires on the initial hit of the throttle & fish-tailing), and even-though it wasn't as humid as the previous evening, the car just wouldn't run properly (9.139 @ 76.49 & 9.385 @ 72.87), so we think something is a-miss with the car:
it's possible the float-level is too-low for consistent running, or maybe the distributor has moved.....
When a member of our group had a massive electrical problem with their car in the pits before Eliminations began, after helping get his car loaded-up, I decided to wipe the numbers from the window of the car, and remove myself from competition that day:
without having a semi-realistic chance of winning, I just won't race.
I also believe the converter is trying to lock-at in 3rd Gear at various times during runs, because the RPM will mysteriously 'drop' about 300 RPM.....
I can 'hear' it and 'feel' it, and that may explain why the MPH varies so-much from run-to-run, while the ET remains fairly-consistent.
I also have to keep in-mind that this isn't my 'real' race-car, which I hope to bring South in a few months after I build an additional 2 car garage at the house we recently bought, so I can't get bent outta-shape over this car:
I can't put sticky tires on it for-fear of busting the weak-knee'd Dana-44 rear-end yet making a run without any burnout results in tire-spin or severe wheel-hop, we can't manually hold the shifter in 1st Gear to ensure consistent 1-2 shifts, etc.
Our original plan was to cruise around-town in it, and race it a few times a year, but the last few weeks have been a hoot:
Tracy Lewis at RevXtreme is going to investigate why the TQ converter might be trying to lock-itself without reason (he concurs that the wildly-varying incrementals times & trap-speeds would be a result of this), and we'll take it back to the shop, probably to have a toggle switch installed so that we can manually lock-out that feature, then we'll work-on a tune-up & solving the stumble following a burnout, and possibly put the car on his chassis-dyno for some actual rear-wheel HP/TQ numbers, before going back to Bradenton for another test-session, just to see what she'll do.
This week we are getting the house ready for family who is visiting the next week, and Christmas is the following week, so we'll be pretty busy until the Holidays, but once we get back to working on the car, I'll post our findings:
hope you've enjoyed this series of reports, and that this has been helpful to those who own Cross-Fire powered Corvettes that are contemplating a switch to a carb instead.
on consecutive runs that day @ Bradenton, it had run 14.059 @ 97.71 MPH, 14.044 @ 95.81, and 14.062 @ 95.55, and we believed we had rectified a persistent problem with fuel sloshing into the carb following the burnout by lowering the rear float-level.
On our first time-shot Friday afternoon, under sunny skies and 74* temps with 52% humidity, the car again died after the burnout, and took forever to re-light:
once it fired-up, I quickly staged, had a .026 RT and ran 2.001 to 60', but I had once-again left the shifter in 'D' following the hurried start-up proceedure, so the car made the 1-2 and 2-3 shifts automatically, well-below the usual 2-3 shift at 5000 RPM, and the car ran a dismal 9.50 @ just 65 MPH, aborting the run once I realized what I'd done again.....
That was the 9th run I'd made since having the CFI removed, and probably the 5th run that the car had stalled on the starting-line, affecting either my RT, or resulting in me leaving the shifter in 'D' after re-starting the car:
fellow Corvette-racer and 2007 RevXtreme Corvette Challenge Series Champion Craig Gingerich stopped-by our pit-area, said he'd had the same problem with his '69 Camaro even-though he'd lowered his float-level, and suggested easing out of the water-box, so that stopping quickly wasn't needed, possibly keeping the car running.....
we also lowered the rear float another 1/16-turn, and raised the idle-speed to 800 in-gear before the 2nd & final time-trial of the day, which would determine which racer will receive a First Round odd-lot bye-run if an odd number of cars show-up for the Round.
Using the modified burnout proceedure, the car kept running, so I quickly deep-staged, and ripped-off a 'typical' run of how the car had performed in the past:
060': 1.953 (best-ever yet)
330': 5.781
660': 9.021
MPH: 73.92
My weather-data showed Pressure Altitude of -90', 50* temps, 96% humidity, and a Density Altitude of -283', very rare air for Florida, and even more important, I was lucky-enought o get a .001 Reaction Time, which meant that if an odd-number of cars made First Round, I'd get a 'free-pass' into the 2nd Round:
if an even number of cars showed-up, I would race against the last car in-line, and if I could beat him, I'd 'carry-over' the bye run into the 2nd Round.
It had cooled-off considerably for the First Round, and the humidity had risen to above 99% on my weather station instruments:
in-fact, sweat was beading-up on the faces of the gauges, and I put the computer/calculator in the Suburban, to keep moisture from getting inside it.....
it showed a Density Altitude of 411' below sea-level, and I'd never run the car in atmospheric conditions like this yet, but I dialed-in at '8.99', thinking it might run even-quicker than the previous 9.021.
When called to the Staging Lanes for the 1st Round, I was sent to an auxilary lane, nearer to the water-box, where I couldn't see the cars being paired-up for competition behind/beside me:
the 'regular' lanes were to my Left, with the water-box to my Right, and several dozen pairs of cars kept proceeding to the water-box, then the starting-line, as I sat patiently, waiting to see if I'd get a single-run, or be paired-up.....
Suddenly, a sole '79 Z28 made it's way into the water-box and performed it's burnout, as I sat, waiting for instructions:
I didn't know if his opponent couldn't get fired-up and he had a 'competition-single', or if he was the last car in line, and if I should prepare to race against him.....
..... FINALLY, the kid running the staging lanes hurriedly walked over to my car and 'asked' if I wanted to run the Camaro:
before I could buckle-up, the Z28 had lit his portion of the Christmas Tree, so I quickly started the car and did a poor burnout.
The Camaro had open-headers and a lumpy-idle, so I figured he'd run quicker than I, and that I would receive the handicap/head-start
(the scoreboard lights at Sunshine are very-small, and I couldn't read them, to check for the proper dial-ins)
so I quickly deep-staged and got ready for my side of the Tree to be activated.....
I was surprised when HIS top-bulb glowed first, and in my mind I'm thinking 'W-d-F is going-ON here?':
when his 2nd Amber bulb glowed, I thought 'these idiots have our dial-ins transposed and mixed-up, 'cause there ain't no-WAY that he is slower than me!'
I was distracted, and had a poor Reaction Time, but the guy I was racing was a rookie, had a much-worse light, and ran way under his dial-in:
meanwhile, the '82 ran a 'normal' 60' time of 2.01, yet couldn't make much power with all the humidity, running a woeful 9.181 @ 73.28 MPH, but I was lucky to advance into the 2nd Round, and I still had the possible odd-lot bye-run carrying over.
I don't have enough data for this car yet, so I foolishly thought it would run another 9.02-ish type ET, so I slightly raised my dial-in to 9.00, and went into the auxilary staging lanes again, in-case I got the bye-run:
I also made a mental note to ignore the incompetence of the Staging Lane Director if he gave me another late-signal to fire-up and race against another opponent, and I walked-over to him, and asked him to give me at-least a few moments notice if I was to have an opponent.
I go back to the Corvette and once-again begin to wait for all the remaining cars in my class to run:
after a long wait, incredibly, the same Camaro Z28 I had beaten in the 1st round pulls out by himself, and begins to do another burnout.....
apparently, he had 'bought-back', which allows a racer beaten in the First Round to pay an additional entry fee, and re-join the 2nd Round
(this allows cheap-azzed Track Operators to put more cash in their pockets without providing a better product for their patrons):
again, I am told to hurriedly line-up against this car
I'm better-prepared this time, and easily beat (RE-beat?) him to advance into the 3rd Round, with the bye-run still in my pocket if there are an odd numbers of cars left in competition:
strangely, the car went another 9-teen (9.152 @ 72.26 MPH) with a good 60' time (1.983), so I knew I was lost on the set-up/dial-in, so I dialed 9.13 for the 3rd Round, went to the auxilary staging lanes, and reminded myself to 'keep-cool' if the idiot working the staging lanes hung me out to-dry again.....
I patiently wait for al the cars in my class to empty the Staging Lanes, and the kids instructs me to make a single, bye-run:
I open the door and ask him, point-blank, 'are you SURE there is nobody left for me to race-against?', and he points me to the water-box.
I warm the tires, roll towards the starting-line, and light my top-bulbs, in-preparation of making a run, when the Chief Starter begins flashing all the lights on the Tree, and instructing me to back out-of the beams:
I sit-still, so he taps on my window, and tells me 'there's been a mistake made..... you have to run somebody who arrived into the lanes late', and my reply is 'does ANYBODY in this place know W-D-F is goin'-on?'
by-now, my ability to deal with stupid calmly is shot to Hell
after waiting at-least 3 minutes (maybe longer), my opponent FINALLY rounds the bend, and enters the water-box:
I haphazardly deep-stage, turn on the Big Red Eye, and idle down the track, seething.....
after a few choice-words with the Chief Starter ('it's not MY job to wait for people who don't know W-d-F they are doing..... it's YOUR job to disqualify them!'), I was told to speak with the Track Manager:
there, we discuss if the Staging Lane Director's parents had any children that actually survived child-birth, and I suggested 'hiring the kid who is pushing shopping-carts around your local Wal*Mart parking-lot at 2:00 AM, because that kid can do a better-job than the guy you've got doing it now;
I've DONE the job of Staging Lane Director, and it ain't hard!'
Saturday, I still fuming, but we went back to the track to race because we'd spent the night at a local hotel:
if I hadn't gone with Red 69 and Fuzzy Dice, I'd have gone-home Friday night
(I'd raced at 3 different tracks in 3 weeks in Florida {Bradenton, Orlando, and now Sunshine}, and not-once had there been anything CLOSE to resembling a Tech Inspection, not even a glance at my helmet:
for all the peole who complain about Tech Inspection at the strip, read this
http://drr.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/t...2/m/9741000404 )
I made to dismal time-shots with similar-but-slow 60' times (2.079 & 2.099, spinning the tires on the initial hit of the throttle & fish-tailing), and even-though it wasn't as humid as the previous evening, the car just wouldn't run properly (9.139 @ 76.49 & 9.385 @ 72.87), so we think something is a-miss with the car:
it's possible the float-level is too-low for consistent running, or maybe the distributor has moved.....
When a member of our group had a massive electrical problem with their car in the pits before Eliminations began, after helping get his car loaded-up, I decided to wipe the numbers from the window of the car, and remove myself from competition that day:
without having a semi-realistic chance of winning, I just won't race.
I also believe the converter is trying to lock-at in 3rd Gear at various times during runs, because the RPM will mysteriously 'drop' about 300 RPM.....
I can 'hear' it and 'feel' it, and that may explain why the MPH varies so-much from run-to-run, while the ET remains fairly-consistent.
I also have to keep in-mind that this isn't my 'real' race-car, which I hope to bring South in a few months after I build an additional 2 car garage at the house we recently bought, so I can't get bent outta-shape over this car:
I can't put sticky tires on it for-fear of busting the weak-knee'd Dana-44 rear-end yet making a run without any burnout results in tire-spin or severe wheel-hop, we can't manually hold the shifter in 1st Gear to ensure consistent 1-2 shifts, etc.
Our original plan was to cruise around-town in it, and race it a few times a year, but the last few weeks have been a hoot:
Tracy Lewis at RevXtreme is going to investigate why the TQ converter might be trying to lock-itself without reason (he concurs that the wildly-varying incrementals times & trap-speeds would be a result of this), and we'll take it back to the shop, probably to have a toggle switch installed so that we can manually lock-out that feature, then we'll work-on a tune-up & solving the stumble following a burnout, and possibly put the car on his chassis-dyno for some actual rear-wheel HP/TQ numbers, before going back to Bradenton for another test-session, just to see what she'll do.
This week we are getting the house ready for family who is visiting the next week, and Christmas is the following week, so we'll be pretty busy until the Holidays, but once we get back to working on the car, I'll post our findings:
hope you've enjoyed this series of reports, and that this has been helpful to those who own Cross-Fire powered Corvettes that are contemplating a switch to a carb instead.
Le Mans Master
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 5,086
Likes: 786
From: Lebanon Township New Jersey
Sorry to hear about the incompetence by the starting line crew and about the performance issues with your car. I was thinking about the same thing you wrote near the end of your post. Your Vette isn't your race car and, as you know, any little flaw or bug in your car will be magnified at the track. I'm sure you'll get it debugged eventually. Keep us posted.
Burning Brakes
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 1,035
Likes: 9
From: Hernando Beach Fl
Glen, sorry to hear about the problems and issues both with the car and the track. Maybe Rev Xtreme will get it sorted out for the Sat after X-mas at Lakeland. Are you still planning for that weekend? Dad and I got back about 10 minutes late from the Turkey Rod Run, nothing like unloading a car in pouring rain, could be worse though, the Northern guy's are dealing with snow and there racing is done till next year.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 2,008
Likes: 38
From: Space Coast Gator Territory
Hey-Glen, I felt for you bro, you were experiencing too many frustrations to enjoy the favorable racing weather at Sunshine Dragway. The good news is, after you work the minor bugs out the 82 will be a great street/strip car. I hope to see you back in action soon at Lakeland Dragway.
Thread Starter
Race Director
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 15,176
Likes: 88
From: State of Confusion
Sorry to hear about the incompetence by the starting line crew and about the performance issues with your car. I was thinking about the same thing you wrote near the end of your post. Your Vette isn't your race car and, as you know, any little flaw or bug in your car will be magnified at the track. I'm sure you'll get it debugged eventually. Keep us posted.
coming from Division One (North-East) and Division Three (Mid-West), where track operation & Technical Inspection is taken seriously, the slip-shod manner in which tracks are run in Division Two is eye-opening
Alcohol in the pits in glass-bottles, racers wearing shorts in competition, etc., violate written NHRA policy, and the policies written into each track's Isurance Policy with the NHRA's carrier, yet everybody turns a blind-eye towards the problem.
Earlier this year, a well-known person to this Forum, who hadn't qualified for an NHRA Competition License, repeatedly made sub 9-second runs in a car that wouldn't pass NHRA Chassis Certification, at several NHRA Member Tracks, then flaunted his violations on this, and other Forums
(to legally run 9.99-or-quicker, you must have a valid License, and the runs must be in a car with a current Chassis Certification sticker):
at-least 2 racers, who have Competition Licenses, wrote to NHRA Division Two HQ, to the attention of Bill Holt, about these violations, yet Holt did nothing about this problem.....
I've since learned that Division Two racers have nick-named Bill Holt 'Holt-the-Dolt', and it seems the name is well-deserved.
Meanwhile, we're going to try getting the car sorted-out better, with an eye on racing at 1/8-mile Lakeland Motorsports Park, which is about 5 miles from our home (as the crow flies) the Saturday after Christmas, 27 December:
last year, LMP held an addition Sunday race the weekend between the Holidays, and if they do that again, I figure most of my racing buddies from this Forum will be spending Saturday night at our place, and go-racing 2 days that weekend.....
Red 69 went a few rounds on Saturday, and unloaded a .011 RT, coupled with a run just .021 over his dial-in, for a package of .032, in one of his winning runs, showing why he finished in the Top 20 at Orlando in just his 2nd season of racing.
Amongst the other Corvettes in competition on Saturday was this gorgeous C1, complete with all appropriate chrome
the owner said he tells the NCRS-guys "ANYBODY can put 'em back-together like they were.....
..... we make 'em BETTER!"
