140.3 & 141.5 @ SCSN means...

We just might have the 26x8.5 MPH record in the books, backed up and sewed up tight. What are they going to do when we turn up the power? Thanks Chassisworks, Procharger and Dad's!

More to come...

SCSN Outlaw 8.5... the good, the bad,the ugly!

Our SCSN experience started on Tuesday night with an 11 hour tow down to Vegas and right into test and tune. Our first hit off the trailer was a very soft leave but netted our best short time on the tiny 26x8.5 ever, a 1.37, sweet! Next pass, a 1.36, even better! But... the MPH was way way off. We broke the blower and we broke it bad.

With no options and no idea what to do, we took it to the internet. Within 20 minutes the phone was ringing and we had a new blower en route from New Mexixo from 275 racer Frank Valera by way of Joel Orme. 20 MINUTES!!! These two really stepped up in a big way and by Saturday morning we were back up and ready for battle.

On Saturday we had our first hit and it quickly became apparent that the MPH was still WAY off, 5.55 @ 129. A little panic, a bit of thinking and then a phone call to none other than Steve Morris from Steve Morris Engines. Steve asked a few question, pondered a bit and then gave us some advice that eventually ended up netting us 11 MPH!!! We were hands down, the fastest in the class.

While MPH helps, it doesn't win races. We were able to slip by round one with a horrible 60' that was made up on the back end allowing us to slip by for a narrow win. Coming back to the pits we knew there was something awry in the bottom tune but with no time to analyze and a final call to the lanes on the PA, we simply tossed some numbers at the tune and prayed. Unfortunately we didn't pray hard enough as the car failed to come up on the transbrake, fell out of the beams, almost shut off and then work up some time later to a 2.7 60' and a busted weekend.

We had a great time, horrible luck... great luck and learned a TON at this race. Y'all better look out come next season.

Thanks again to:

Eric Kvilhaug

Kevin Keller

Frank Valera

Joel Orme

Steve Morris

Dave W.

UPDATE

Looking at logs and figured out part of what happened.  Last couple passes, I changed the MSD file to have a -12 degree gradual timing ramp over a couple secs. Problem is... I was in such a rush, I forgot to put the first 0.0 dot in at -0 degrees and the second at 0.01 with -12, instead I just put the first dot in at 0.01 for -12. 

This means, we were trying to come up on the brake with 12 degrees out! I remembered the first -0 dot in the first few files... just forgot it in the elims where it counted. That said, the launch tune is still way off, but at least we were pulling 1.3x 60's with it that way.


The Good

We set high MPH for the meet and bested our 26x8.5 short time by almost a tenth.

The Bad

Something about me and blowers is like oil and water. We had to travel through all of Las Vegas to get the necessary components to mate Frank's blower to our existing system.

The Ugly

It just hurts to watch. My goal is to get this BS3 dialed or bail on it and get a Holley... I'm just not quite sure yet.

It's ugly!!! ...but it'll work.

Craigslist... $200

When it rains it pours...

Unfortunately we had a mishap with the wall Friday which shut down our racing glory hopes for the weekend. With the engine repaired and the blower tuned up, we knew the car would make a bit more power so we stepped the tune-up back in anticipation of the power. Well... even stepping back from our 5.80 tuneup, we had a lot more than a 5.80 tuneup in it.  At launch, the car got up on the tire and stayed on the tire until our timing curve kicked in and the car kicked out. I'm fine, the car, not so much.

A broken blower, a broken motor and now a broken car, all in a matter of months. When it rains it pours!

It's OK, chin up and we'll be back out to a track near you soon.

THANKS S&S

Dave, Rick, George and Jeff at S&S Machine in San Leandro worked thier asses off to get the bullet back together in time for the race this weekend. We got it yesterday, are dropping it in today and hope to be racing tonight!

NO TIME! NO TIME! 

Off to go get this sucker in and make trouble for Outlaw 8.5.

New sponsors!

Afromaro Racing Team is proud to welcome aboard ATI Procharger and Dad's Custom Tanks!

Both of these companies have been unofficially helping us for a while now so we thought it would make sense to get things official and get these guys some press.

Dave W. and Procharger have been awesome to work with and are there when you need help with service, repairs and tech.

Donny at Dad's Custom Intercooler Tanks & Fuel Cells has been here with us since day 1 and has always filled our intercooling tank needs. Donny has decided to make his support official as well. Thanks Donny!

Down but not out...

After the first race we had a small problem with clearances on the new blower setup. As a result we hurt the crank real bad, destroyed the main caps, hurt the lifters and killed the brand new GRP rods.

OUCH!!!

As a result, we missed the June race where it took a 6.07 to win the race and a 6.003 to re-set the record. For those of you paying attention, we were able shake down a few 5.80's (minus 20 degrees of timing) the previous night and in qualifying before we realized the motor was eating itself. It hurts to know you have the tools but not the luck... that's racing.

 After the blower mishap, the new gear drive and a wedding, this season is turning out to be an expensive one be we haven't quit yet. We've got the block repaired, the lifters replaced, the crank is due to be repaired by the end of this week, and new rods are only a few days away.

#1 Qualifier at season opener... Hooray!

First race, new car, and it looks like we just might be competitive...

But... we hurt the motor before I could get to elims... Boo!

While it wasn't easy getting there, this weekend we attended the WCHRA season opener in Outlaw 8.5. Our trouble started last month when we broke our blower shaking down the car. With the help of Procharger and Chris Alston's Chassisworks, we were able to get new blower and gear drive in hand by the end of last week.

With little time to spare, we got the blower and gear drive on the car and worked to modify our existing fuel, cooling and charging systems. In the end, we ended up ditching the radiator for intercooler water, ditching the alternator and fabbing a new bracket for the fuel pump drive. Cool... everything is set except the fact that the car will not start. After three days of pulling everything apart and putting it back together MULTIPLE times, we thought we tracked down the problem to a bad crank trigger pickup. We get to the track for TNT and run into even more problems with the car and trace it down to bad plugs and wires.

Off to the races...


Our first qualifying hit left us as the only team in the class able to get down in the 5's on the new Goodyear tire. Sweet! Number one qualifier and class record holder... if we could back it up. Back in the pits, we looked at the data and saw this graph. Two problems here, (1) something ate about 10 pounds of my boost and (2) there is huge flat / bad spot right smack dab in the middle of the run. Fixing the flat spot in the launch curve was mission #1. Looking at the data in the BS3, I was pretty sure we could smooth it out a bit and also add a bit of power down low. I made some changes to the tune-up and thought I had problem number one solved and moved on to the boost issue. Well, try as I did, I was unable to find any significant sources of boost lost and qual  2 was coming up quick.

The next pass wasn't so good. Off the hit, the car bogged and lugged really hard to a 1.77 60' which was more than 3 tenths off our best, almost 3 tenths off our last pass and more than 3 tenths behind Mark Washington in the other lane. Then, about 2 seconds in, the car took off like it hit a stage of nitrous, caught up to the other lane by about the 330 mark and then really fell off at about 3.90 in. As I was rolling through the top, lights started going off, I had about 5 PSI oil pressure and the weekend was done.

Our guess is that we hurt the motor when the last blower seized and stalled the engine at about 7000 RPM and whatever bogged down the motor in our second qual run, finally broke loose cause a serious internal leak. Motor is out and hopefully the damage isn't too bad as we've got to go racing in just over a month for the WCHRA June race.

Wish us luck!

What's that goofy looking red thing?

Bye Bye Belts!

I always said if I lost two belts... I'm done with them. Last trip out, I lost a new $200 polychain and I'm not buying another.

I spent some time on the phone with the Alston's and Chassisworks and they have begun building me a brand new ProDrive" unit. Along with the cool things they add into their drives like a timing pointer and pickup, Jr. is adding some "yet to be seen" provisions that will allow for faster gear changes and ease of fuel pump and accessory mounting.

Chassisworks Supercharger Drives

If you're looking for the industry's best supercharger drive, you just found it. Take a look at the first offerings from Chassisworks' new ProDrive line.

• Models available for most Vortech and ProCharger superchargers
• Other engine applications available
• Multiple gear ratios
• Timing pointer, built-in
• Crank trigger pick-up mount, built-in

http://cachassisworks.com/cac_superchargerdrive.html

Thanks Jake from FSC Mag for the Press!

About a month ago, Jake Amatisto from Fastest Street Car Mag contacted me with some questions and a request for pictures. When I opened up my March issue of FSC mag... low and behold, our first piece of press for the car. I was kind of embarrassed that the car is not painted but plans call for going fast first and paint later (as the budget allows). 

Oh, and before I get flamed, we hope to eventually get the car into the 4’s, it’s not there… yet. Thanks again Jake and FSC Mag!

Let's make some hits!

We made our second trip today to button up the NHRA license passes but some belt alignment issues prevented us from getting the last hit in. It’s becoming clear how tricky this tire will be. We knew the tire wouldn’t hold any portion of the boost so on the first hit we pulled a bunch of power and ramped in slowly, it spun about 2 seconds into the run. From there on out, we decided to unhook a blowoff valve just to get a feel for the car without all the boost. With one of the blowoff valves disconnected, the car would only make 20 pounds of boost instead of the 37 pounds we had seen on the dyno.

The car seems to leave fine with the low power tune-up. We were running consistent mid 1.40 60’ numbers which are not too far off from the Goodyear’s reported best of 1.38 and with more time, I’m pretty sure we can get there. However, the top end needed a little work and I think we’re getting close. One of our later passes spun really bad but still ran 153 out the back with one blowoff wide open. The next pass hooked a 1.44 60’ but broke the belt just before the 1-2 shift. 

We’ve decided we’ll give the belts two more tries and then look into a Chassisworks gear drive unit. 

First track outing!!!

We took the car out for its first trip to the track today and ran some shakedown passes to rough in the tune-up, get the driver (me) reacquainted with racing and see how tricky the Goodyear 26x8.5 really is. Well, it's definitely going to be an interesting season with this tire. After a few shakedown runs, we tried one hit off the brake before packing it up for the day... it didn't go so well.

On the Side auto does good fab =)

Thanks Joe and Kevin for the help in the way of installing my TRZ rack and hacking up the front cross members for easy towing and oil pan clearance.

A trailer, a Camaro and a golf cart...

It's going to be an awesome season!