Formula Ford - Page 9 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

t walgamuth · #**121** 05-18-2012, 11:04 PM

I got two shortened studs to work on the back two fastening locations and replaced the bolts on the rest with Stainless cap screws which are about 3/16" longer than what i took out.

t walgamuth · #**122** 06-09-2012, 08:47 PM

just got it all together so I can run at Grissom tomorrow.

I had the yellow done professionally. I painted everything orange myself with the good paint put into the rattle cans. Today I adjusted the suspension height and made little adjsutments to the body panels so they would fasten on after being repaired and somewhat distorted by the body shop guys. I think the body now is about 5# heavier than before.

With my winter and early spring modifications to reduce weight I am at or very near the minimum weight even with my considerable mass. 1100# ready to race. (or more).

The next cosmetic thing is to paint the suspension stuff black.

The next mechanical thing is to drill my brake rotors to reduce them by 1# each.

daveuz · #**123** 06-09-2012, 10:26 PM

Tom, that is cool as hell. Nice job!

t walgamuth · #**124** 06-10-2012, 11:01 PM

I ran today with all the new stuff. Unfortunately the new paint did not impact the performance much.

The worst thing was my new distributor rotor with the rev limiter of 6200. I ran out of rpm several places on the course and could not extract alll that the car is capable of. The handling seemed pretty neutral and the brakes felt good though.

I didn't drive too badly and by the end of the day had mastered the subtilties of the course reasonalby well.

We have another event next weekend at connersville, a nice slippery little parking lot with badly deteriorating asphalt where last year I gave the man who finished second in C mod in the national event a run within .003 seconds of his best. I actually had him beat up until the last run of the day and didn't know it.

I always seem to do well on slippery asphalt venues.

I have a week to get a list of things sorted out. the rev limiting rotor is at the top of it.

t walgamuth · #**125** 06-12-2012, 06:07 AM

the official results came out today. When I looked at the pax results I found myself 27th of 92. Pax is an index which gives a factor to every class so that people with different types of cars can compete against each other directly. I thought that was better than I expected and felt even better when two of our most experienced drivers from the indy region placed 40 and 42.

It was a typical Fort Wayne region course in my experience with areas you had to slow down and creep through and areas which allowed a lot of raw acceleration followed by hard braking. this favors cars with large motors and good brakes.....like camaros and M3's.

Having a momentum car is a disadvantage.

The top pax guy was an A modified which is a car that is basically unlimited. This guy was next to me on the grid. His car weighs 950 pounds with him in it, has a front wing the size of a junior bed, a rear wing the size of a dining room table for six and a two cycle motorcycle motor with 280 hp. He has a gas tank that holds a little over a gallon with a sight tube. He fills it after each run. Second place was a well driven BMW m3.

t walgamuth · #**126** 06-15-2012, 10:19 PM

I redid the outlet from the valve cover vent so that it does not kink the hose or foul the throttle. I also changed the points, plug wires and removed the rocker assembly so I could re-torque the head bolts. I pulled the rocker studs and reglued three of them. Tomorrow I will change the plugs and take it down to Indy for an alignment.

Points event on Sunday. We'll see where we are then.

t walgamuth · #**127** 06-16-2012, 06:32 PM

Arrrrrggghhhhhh!!!!!!

First thing at the Maestro's place is he found my right rear loose again.

So I won't be running tomorrow and next will be fixing the wheel bearing again, it appears.

Bummer.

The corner weights were really good and the camber and caster etc. Nothing was out enough to warrent any adjusting. The winter disassembly and re-assembly occurred without any drastic changes in alignment settings it seems.

t walgamuth · #**128** 07-30-2012, 09:30 PM

We finally fixed the right rear. The hub halves were not supporting the inner races of the wheel bearing adequately and they were working loose. I had.037 taken off the inner hub and that took care of it. This was after changing the bearing at least four times.

On saturday I got in five runs with no ill effect on the wheel bearing.

I had taken off one of the two radiators but found that allowed it to over heat. The temp guage did not work either and upon examination it was found to be installed in the wrong place and was fouled with debris. I relocated it to what appears to be the original location just under the thermostat in the head., installed a 160 stat for the 180 and a new pressure cap.

I also had bought and installed two lightweight rotors. These have aluminum hats and drilled rotors and weigh 3.6# ea. this is compared to about 6# on the stock iron rotors. I took the lightweight ones and clamped them to two of my iron rotors and transfer punched them, then added additional holes and drilled them and chamfered the holes like on the high priced spread. One rotor ended up at 4.2#, the other at 4.6#. it took about five or six hours for the two of them.

I missed a trick on the rotors. I should have had them turned the max before drilling them to further reduce weight.

I was slow on saturday, barely beating the local hotshoes in modded econobox vw's. I have had so little practice lately I am very rusty and have zero confidence.

With the car approaching soundness i will run as much as possible and try to get up to speed (heh!)

SwampYankee · #**129** 07-31-2012, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

I was slow on saturday, barely beating the local hotshoes in modded econobox vw's. I have had so little practice lately I am very rusty and have zero confidence.

With the car approaching soundness i will run as much as possible and try to get up to speed (heh!)

Well, then. Get off your computer, get your @$$ in that car and get driving!

t walgamuth · #**130** 08-03-2012, 06:23 AM

I have nearly everything fixed now. ...and got the drilled rotors on the rear. Today I am going up to Grissom to to the test and tune for the national tour. I have a family funeral to attend tomorrow but will run on Sunday if they'll let me after missing saturday.

My BIL's mom passed at age 92. She died of cancer aftering smoking for about 85 years.....who knows how long she would have lived if she had skipped the cigs. She was a very nice lady.

MTI · #**131** 10-15-2012, 06:49 PM

Tom, are you lovin' this month's Road & Track?

Two Egan pieces about FF.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/racing/motorsports/virtually-affordable-racing

and the Side Glances column about preparing the refurbished chassis.

t walgamuth · #**132** 10-15-2012, 08:00 PM

I did read both his pieces, both featuring FF. I have to say that my FF looks prettier than his (to me anyway), though his looked simpler.

I was planning to run yesterday but the forcast was scattered T showers so I stayed home. this weekend I am planning to run up at Gary if the weather is decent. I have no interest in running my open wheel car in the rain.

I finally got the starter sorted and the overheating not solved but at least controlled more or less.

t walgamuth · #**133** 04-21-2013, 09:04 PM

I ran one more event last year after the above post. the oil pressure guage line came loose and oiled my lower legs so it was a short day.

So this year I worked on the car all last week resolving a few things, getting the worn shifter rebuilt, changing the oil etc.

So was off bright and early this morning to Grissom for a test and tune, hoping to get in a lot of runs to get some of the rust out of me and get the car working well.

It was about 35 degrees out when I started trying to start the car. I could get it to run fine with ether but it would not stay running for anything. next thing I know it backfires and catches my foam air filter on fire.

I was in the cockpit at the time so I jumped out. First I tried cranking the engine hoping to suck the flames down through the engine and putting the fire out. ... Didn't work. So I had to get the rear cover off and my fire extinguisher to put it out.

They both were In the truck, one in the bed the other in the back set. The cover has four dzeus buttons securing it to the back of the car so ...Off with the cover .....There are large flames now, all within 12" of the filler cap to the 3 gallons of premium in the rubber fuel cell.

You can be sure this situation had my full attention at this time. So I pulled the red lock ring off the extinguisher and sprayed it with the white powder. In seconds it was all out.

Yikes! Deep breath.....last time I caught a car on fire the adrenaline nearly made me pass out after it was over but this time... not too bad.

So it melted my foam filter and filled everything with powder and charred lumps of the foam filter. I decided not to try to clean it up at the course so got my practice fee back and headed home.

Another day at the autocross done before even getting the car off the trailer!

If it weren't for bad luck I'd have none!

So tomorrow I'll order the rebuild parts and figure out a new air filter, hopefully something that does not readily burn!

t walgamuth · #**134** 04-27-2013, 09:20 AM

So I rebuilt the carb and fabricated a new case for a standard paper air filter. I put the car back together and then....

I took the car down to Fishers yesterday and displayed it at my granddaughters grade school. they had the Kindy 500 today with racing by kindergarteners riding big wheels. The course was slippery asphalt with the start line going uphill and the final (tight) curve leading to the finish line off camber (I am not making this up).

A lot of the kids had trouble getting started on the uphill and then spun out on the final off camber curve. My granddaughter was undefeated until the final heat (against a girl....the girls smoked all the boys). She was leading into the first curve and the other girl bunted her sideways. She was catching her fast at the finish but for the first time all day, pinched the off camber a bit and slid sideways.

If not for that she probably still would have won it all.....but who's keeping score, right?

layback40 · #**135** 04-27-2013, 08:59 PM

You need to keep your eyes out for the old BCF fire extinguishers they had in MB's back in the 1980's. They are not permitted to be refilled (ozone hole problems), but you are permitted to use them. You would have not needed to get the covers off, just spray the vapor in. No mess to clean up. CO2 are nearly as good but a bit $$$