Big Bend Open Road Race 2013 Recap

Hey F-body dorks. I check in now and then but don't post much these days. Had to let everyone know the f-body crowd is still around in the ORR scene. This year I made some changes to the car:

Rebuilt engine myself, summit bearings, stock rods/pistons, sealed power rings, ball hone
26 gallon ATL fuel cell
Aeromotive fuel system (A1000, pre and post filter, all AN lines, aeromotive regulator)
Old ass Fast 90 intake a 42 lb ford injectors
Removed all wiring from computer except what needed to make it run, went from 150ish wires to 51 wires, no IAC, no MAF, etc.
Made own exhaust
Bought a JD2 bender and made roll cage
Sparco Ergo (some new model) seats for me and co-pilot
NRG quick release hub and steering wheel (love this!)
Trashed ABS and installed Wilwood prop valve with remote adjuster on dash
Removed all gauges from my side of car, I only had steering wheel and shifter (co pilot had laptop and command center)
Tick master cylinder to fix clutch issues

Car ran great going south, we averaged a little over 156 mph. We almost hit a deer at 175 mph. I slowed down and moved over and it launched out at the car, barely missed my co-pilots door. We were in the Super Sport class so I had to let off the gas at 180 mph. I roasted the front brakes because I had way too much front brake bias. The Hawk HP+s were gone at the end, I should have ran a real race pad anyway.

Going back I dialed the brakes to the back. They were perfect this time. However we were overheating bad, like 240+ degrees about 20 miles into the run. I had a thick dual 1" core aluminum radiator. I have a huge wickerbill on the hood. Neither of these things helped. It's time to make it a true front breather and duct the air out of the hood. I need a wind tunnel. Because of this I had to run 80% throttle on the way back and we averaged a little over 149 mph.

We had the 3rd fastest average of the race, even beating a couple unlimited cars. The record for Big Bend fell though, as two cars averaged 172 mph! It was awesome.

Also my front splitter is plywood with a layer of carbon fiber over it (laugh now) and the rear diffuser is Home Depot foam and carbon fiber. The rear diffuser has held up to a couple races now. I made it quick release with pins so it can come off to load on the trailer easier.

Here is a link to an album with some pictures. Hope everyone else is doing good!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/95823732@N06/...ith/8746281728/

(IMG:http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8273/8745171599_7c3b3c13cb.jpg)

Big Bend ORR Report - FBODY Representing

First, if you get bored and have half an hour to waste, here is a little documentary from last year about our first time at Big Bend.

http://vimeo.com/22439564

This year we ran the 135 average and took home a trophy, got 3rd place. My navigator was awesome. We were 0.899 seconds off our target time, average of 134.9 mph.

The car was running 255 degrees at 165 mph during practice, so we converted it to a front breather with a razor blade, Rubbermaid tub from walmart, and duct tape. Got the temp down to 230 after that. The car was so loose it was insane to drive. I have no rear wing, so I tried taking rebound out of the rear Koni DAs to let the axle stay on the ground better, but it didn't help a whole lot.

I put three 40 pound bags of rock salt from walmart in the trunk and it was like a new car. Had new Hawk HP+ pads on the front so I could nose dive from 160+ into the turns. We only had a stop watch and a hunting GPS that doesn't even do tenths of a mile an hour. The guys who won had multiple laptops and GPSes and so much electronic wizardry.

All I know is I've been around Texas World Speedway, Motorsport Ranch, Texas Motor Speedway, and autocrossed a bunch, but it doesn't get the adrenaline going like this. It's still crazy flooring it out of the apex of a turn and having to let off at 160, and being at 50% throttle according to HP tuners. I want to go faster.

I'm not stopping until we have the unlimited record for Big Bend and Silver State. Going to need a lot more engine and aero work.

Glad to see all you guys rae still doing good! Sorry to hear about Randy and his car. I loved that thing. I know he will be back in one someday. Yall be careful. This year we had every piece of safety equipment you could imagine, from HANS to arm restraints and window nets and beyond.

Hey Guys! Big Bend ORR Questions (Chuck, AndyJ)?

Haven't been on here in probably over a year. Finally graduated college and am getting back to my hobbies/addictions. I think the oil in my Camaro has been the same for 2 years. Trying to finish up school left me no time or money the past couple years to drive the racecar.

So a buddy and I registered and paid for Big Bend this April. We are in the 140 max (125 mph average) class. This is the same one we tried to do 4 years ago but couldn't race in since I didn't have window nets and straps on the back window (and the tow rig broke down and we were late).

Questions:

1. Will the Camaro pull 125-140 in 6th gear or will that be a 5th gear job? Tried googling but can't find any answer to that.

2. Any suggestions on where to buy window nets? I don't really know where to buy anything for these cars anymore since I've been out of the loop for so long.

3. Straps to hold the back glass in like a NASCAR? What the hell am I supposed to do here, any thoughts? Aluminum strap drilled into the hatch and into the roof? I guess I won't be able to open the hatch?

4. Helmet intercom for navigator suggestions? We tried the $50 motorcycle 2-way intercom I bought in 2005 for the race yesterday. Me and my navigator got in my old thirdgen and went down the street. As soon as I started accelerating all we could hear was static and reverb and wind noise and couldn't hear a word the other was saying. I suppose that is another good reason we weren't able to race Big Bend in 2006 because we wouldn't have been able to even talk to each other.

Anyway hope everyone around here is doing good. Glad the fbody crowd still knows how to turn the steering wheel. The new Camaro looks like a boat so I'm curious how that thing handles. I've got a lot of catching up to do... (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/2thumbs.gif)

Need a big @$$ wing for the Camaro

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been trying to finish college getting my BS in computer science. I'm down to my senior project which is going to be a ghetto imitation of the Bugatti airbrake system on the Veyron. I'm sure some of you have seen it, and apparently at speeds above 115 ish once it snaps up to a 55 degree angle it provides around .6 g of negative acceleration on the heavy 4,500 pound Veyron.

(IMG:http://www.bugatti.com/pages/101/bildspalte/verzoegerung02.jpg)
(IMG:http://ghettolanparty.org/gallery/gallery-storage/CamaroRacecar/ghettomaro_2007_1.sized.jpg)

The ole Camaro weighs 2,875 on the scales so hopefully I can get some free braking out of this and graduate at the same time. The system will be controlled by a microcontroller and circuit setup I have to design, and will change degree based on the speed of the car. So for autocross speeds I can have a very high angle of attack, and as speed increases it can drop back so as to not kill the drag. Then of course under braking it will snap up to an appropirate angle to give some additional drag on the car. I have to test all of this along the way with accelerometers and what not to see if it makes any difference.

So the question is, does anyone know where to get a Camaro sized airfoil that isn't $1,100. After googling for a while the only one I could find is a G-stream wing, but I don't really want to blow that much on an airfoil. All of the ebay knockoffs are only 56 inches wide or so, and would look goofy on the wide Camaro. I also need a wider chord so I can get some good drag out of the airbrake so a silly 6 inch wide ebay wing wont do me much good.

Anyway thanks for any ideas or help! I'm still in the Dallas/Fort Worth area if that makes any different on an airfoil supplier.

-Kyle

Big Bend Open Road Race 2006 Report

After 9 months of preparation my navigator and I were finally ready to drive to West Texas this week for BBORR 2006. It was to be my first open road race and I was really excited. Two good friends wanted to come along to help, so we turned my 1977 Grumman Stepvan into a makeshift RV for the week. We put a mini-fridge, television, Xbox, home sound system, etc. into the van, along with every tool from my shop and tons of spares for the racecar and van itself.

http://teejaded.com/v-web/gallery/BBORR2006/STA70001

We all loaded up Wednesday and drove to the truckstop for fuel. We drove the rig up onto the scales and paid the $8.50 to find out how much everything in that picture above weighed. 13,200 pounds with the 4 of us in the van, HOLY CRAP.

As soon as we got onto the highway a cold front came through, and we fought storms through the night. I soon found out the top speed for the rig was around 65 mph and we were averaging 8 miles per gallon in the semi-flat land around Fort Worth and West of it. After our first fueling I noticed the oil pressure dropping, and pulled off the road for a checkup. The oil wasn't touching the dipstick, and it took 3 quarts to get it back to normal. We had only gone 90 of the 500 miles...

The sun was rising and we were way behind due to pit stops and the horrible storms. We had to pull off the road for over an hour for hail and bad rain earlier in the night. We finally made it onto highway 285, the road BBORR is held on. The van wasn't liking 3000 ft altitude and the huge hills, and I under estimated our gas needs. We ran out of fuel 6.6 miles from Sanderson and had 30 minutes to make it for our rookie school. We tried to flag down racers and random people for 30 minutes to no avail. We stood on the side of the road with a big red fuel jug next to us, and wathed handfulls of Vette drivers and other racers just wave as they went past.

I unloaded the racecar, I knew it only had a gallon it in to get it onto the trailer, but it was enough for me to light-foot it into Sanderson. We filled up the fuel jug and booked ass back to the van. Allthough the racecar isn't insured, there was no other option. We arrived at the courhouse and saw the rookies coming out, the class had just ended 5 minutes prior...

We went to the registration desk, and the lady Kenda that runs the race said even though we missed the school she had two guys who could get us caught up on what we needed to know. So it was off to tech the car in.

I drove the car off the trailer and into the tech line. The tech guy was just about done going through the car, everything was perfect until he said, "you don't have any windows?" Oh Lord I thought. "No I don't have windows, the rules say nothing about it, is this a problem?"

The tech guy called the race director who said he was afraid the back window on the Camaro might blow out due to air pressure since I had no windows. I proposed a number of options, including removal of the entire hatch, using tow straps to hold the back window in, and even smashing the entire glass out right in the parking lot. The tech guy said removing the hatch should work, and I was fine with that; he walked off for a minute.

He came back saying the race director said even if we remove the glass, we would now need window nets. I asked why the Shelby Cobra replica with no roof or windows was allowed to run, or the handfull of other convertibles, and he had no response. He called the race director again and said "without window nets, you can't run, no exceptions." I asked why there was no mention of this in the rulebook and the tech guy said "it's just assumed all of these cars have windows, most are street cars." Oh my God. After 2 hours of bickering with the director we had run out of time, loaded up the racecar, and headed out of Sanderson.

We started back through the hills on 285, and found our miles per gallon to be 4.4 for those 60 miles. It took a little over $500 in fuel to get us from Fort Worth and back, and 28 quarts of oil. Yes I said 28.

We saw some dragstrip in Odessa at around 6pm Friday, and decided we needed to do something with the racecar. The owner greeted us at the gate, we told him our story, and he invited us in. We had fun taking turns trying to launch the racecar on 315 Kumho Victoracers (which don't hook worth a flip at the track), and enjoyed the laid back atmosphere.

It's really odd I felt more at home in the middle of the desert with a bunch of redneck drag racers than in Big Bend. We sat on the roof of the step van and drank the last of our beer, and headed back to Fort Worth.

So I spent a couple thousand dollars and dipped into my savings to run an 1/8th mile dragstrip in West Texas. I just wish the BBORR guys would elaborate their short rulebook a litte more to include things like this.

So uh watch those back windows folks. And if you are going above 120 mph make sure you don't roll your windows down...