Tough finding something historic for this week in May.
I do have a blurb on GM.
On May 10, 1923 they named Alfred P. Sloan as corporate president. They didn’t just pick from the streets. He was actually, a draftsman for a bearing company, Hyatt Roller Bearing. That company eventually merged with a few other companies with United Motor Corporation. Sloan became the president of that and shortly after that they were purchased by GM.
He served GM from 1923 to 1956 in some manner including board chairman.
I grab every book I think is useful in any of my hobbies. I happened to be at the mall the other day and had some time kill and wonder down to Borders books store. Pick up a book entitled “Ultimate American V-8 Engine Data Book” 2 Edition by Peter Sessler, published MotorBooks.
This book has engine identification codes, component casting codes, internal dimensions and specs, and power and torque ratings.
It goes back as far as 1952 and covers Fords, GM, Mopar, and AMC, Packard and Studebaker. It includes big blocks and small blocks. There is a lot of information.
I learned from this book that all of the engines possible for the Corvette in 1984 were rated @ 205 hp. The CFI was the main power supplier, but it also had listed a couple TPI’s (engine suffix code ZFC), TBI (engine suffix code ZFJ – supposedly for export only) and a 4v for California (engine suffix code ZFF).
They also inform you of the transmissions that go with the engines.
There are listings for cylinder heads parts or casting # as well as intake and exhaust manifolds as well.
I think this one is worth the $30.00.
This is a great transition to introduce an up and coming feature for this blog.
I love engines…(duh). To me the history of development, what was used when and where and maybe even why can be fascinating. I’ll be tossing out specs and the like and hopefully some, ” I would have never guessed that” information. Now, I don’t have this all in my head, it will be researched stuff or some experiences. (My 1974 Torino was a good case study..tell you the story soon).
So let’s get to my runs. As I mentioned, there were 2 sets of runs, one for time and points and one for just time. Each was five trips on the course.
One thing they have you do is of course walk the track which is to get you someone familiar with the corners. I walked it twice. Once on my own and once with the novice “coach”.
This is my second auto cross. If you’ve been a constant reader you might recall that was on Jan 25 2010 and it was mainly corvettes. We rented the area and set up our course. I did fairly well there for my first time. But this course was different. A lot tighter corners in a row and two sets of very tight slalom. Nothing a vette couldn’t handle with the proper speed and a good surface..this was not a good surface, however.
My first run was a darn right awful. I look like some crazed speed demon with a severe hatred for orange cones. I over drove every tight corner. My second run wasn’t much better, I didn’t even hit the first corner and then a took a cone for a ride under the vette.
So now I feeling like a knucklehead. I had the oldest car there and maybe the one with the most torque, but certainly not the most horse power. My third run was better and I took along one of the novice coaches but I still had a CD (course deviation) on the backside by missing the second slalom set of cones. I dropped off the novice coach and my 4th and fifth runs were clean as far as CD’s go but I still got a cone on each run.
So here is how it end up in the first set of 5 runs.
My next runs were much better. I did have on CD and I did get a cone, but the times were getting better. The 5th run below I took a cone and spun on the back side of the course.
1. 51.643
2. 53.146
3. 52.622
4. 51.645
5. 54.188
So I ended the day with the following times and points.
PAX Time Points
46.260 753
43.575 796
PAX time is like a handicap in golf, it takes the class of your car and the skill level reduces your time to keep you somewhat competitive.
Not bad for my first real “formal” event.
By the end of the I was worn out. That is a lot of driving, in the heat (ok..only 88 degree..little hotter on the course).
The vette performed perfectly, no over heating issues (one of my biggest fears) and nothing broken, did have to rub out a few cone marks….but I showed them whose boss!!!!
You’ll notice a lack of pic or vids on this one, didn’t have my son along as a camera man, and when I wasn’t running they put you to work resetting cones.
So the other cost I mentioned will be in the area of tires.
In this event I just ran with my street tires 255/50 ZR 16 BFG GForce Sport and stock rims (only chrome). There was a lot of tire spinning and some smoking. The surface of the track was…well lets just say less the optimun..ok…fine…it was horrible. (You could toss in a few cuss words in front of horrible and you wouldn’t be over dramatizing.) It was black top, cracked, uneven and there was grass and weeds growing on the far end. The tires looked rough when I finished the 10 runs. Too many more events (this was the second auto cross on these tires) and I think I’d have to replace them.
So that really means that to protect the street tires and the chrome rims, I really ought to have an other set of tires and rims. Now you are talking money that many of us average guys aren’t going to spring for. This is true for vette owners..tires are not cheap for the older vettes. Not so for my co-worker running his Civic, they are reasonable.
Take my C4 the tires and the Wheels are uni-directional. Not unusual for tires, but my 1984 C4 rims only go one way and are labeled left front, right front and the same for the rear. I do have the original set of rims that I will eventually restore to the factory aluminum and clear coat, but right now they would for auto crossing. But the rubber can run upwards of $700.00 and if I put racing rubber on it, according to SCCA rules it will change my class.
The last cost is the “I broke it cost.” They could be just about anything on a car that’s racing. Anything mechanical, brakes (oh..they will wear out a lot faster in auto cross…or at least the way I do it!!!!), undercarriage, right down to the dreaded “cone damage”. (yeah…yeah….I know you aren’t suppose to hit them…I know the object of the race..but man did I kill some of them ‘good’..no doubt!!!) I did no damage to the vette but I did see a Evo that took out a portion of his front air dam.
In fact the vette performed flawlessly, only problem was the driver. I’ll get to that next blog. You’ll laugh and I’ll give you my times and points and we’ll talk about PAX times and classes.
The name of my blog includes “racing”. This isn’t meant to be watching on TV and reporting back, it’s meant to be my events. My blog title also includes “Average” and includes budget as well. (You might as well include ‘time’, as in average amount of time to spend on the hobby.)
I just finished running a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) event. It was a blast!! I’ll get to my times in a bit, but first, let’s talk about cost of this particular event.
Straight up to join SCCA there is the yearly fee for the national membership and there is the fee for your regional membership. Total cost here was $80.00. Now the events are not free. In my regional club which run events in the Tucson areas and Phoenix as well, they have to offerings. They have a round for points and time and they have the time only round. There are separate prices for each.
Today when I showed up (you can pre register and save ..I think…$10.00) filled out all the paper work and went to pay. The fellow taking the money asked if I wanted “time only” and I’m thinking…do I only want to be timed…so I said “No.” and he said “That will be $30.00.” So I paid.
Now I have co-worker who talked me into joining SCCA and he attends regular events at the local drag strip – the auto cross is held in the huge drag pit/parking area. He cleared up my misunderstanding and said if I wanted the “full” experience I need to go back and say yes I wanted the ‘time-only’ round as well. That cost me another $10.00.
So putting this together we are at 120 big ones this month to race. Not too bad, I’d have to say.
There are more costs and I’ll get to that in next portion of this subject.
The last I blogged about my Mustang I had finished up the installation of the new dash pad and replaced all the bulbs and cleaned up a few years of dust.
If you recall (well you don’t have to, just go back and read the posts) I talked about planning and how I could have saved time by waiting to put new dash pad on (not cap, pad) until the pillar molding came, but I decided not too. The molding came in today….so out with the old….
Old cracked and broken
And in with the new:
New
Mustang Unlimited
I have pretty good luck with Mustang Unlimted’s parts and service. I recommend them. (No I don’t get paid for plugs or compensated.)
These will have to be painted which is very common with interior parts. I even had to paint the replacement arm rest. I have the paint and I’ll post up the entire process.
I finally got the exhaust manifold taken care of (I didn’t do it). But apparent when I had the custom exhaust with hooker headers created and installed, they didn’t use locketight and they loosed up with the vibration of daily and drag strip racing. The right side had to be replaced and the left side was just tightened. Oh she sounds so much better.
Thanks for reading. I’ll get the pillar molding replacement pretty quick.
Finished this up today. Here are some pics. (Yeah..I know..forgot to take them before I put the air cleaner on…but you get the idea.)
Only issue..the thickness of the chrome covers was less than the originals and I had to get a shorter set of chrome bolts. I have got quite a collection for chrome bolts now!!
Ok..let me finish up blogging to you on this event. I had a read ask if it has really taken this long and the answer is No and Yes. (I’ll explain the YES in a bit..it ain’t pretty!!!!)
After find the correct bolts, wrestling the covers back into place was, I bolted them down. Installed they looked pretty good.
Check it out.
Left side painted and installed. Still missing the emblem..right now
The only difficulty was aligning the holes in the cover and the gasket and the engine. Due to the lack of room to maneuver I wasn’t able to keep the gasket and cover holes aligned while wrestling them into place. I used two (small enough to slide into the threaded holes without damaging) phillips head screw driver to help keep them aligned and put the bolts in.
Errrkk……whatever you do tighten them carefully…..let me spell that for you (Mickey Mouse Club tune playing in my head) C…A….R.(because you care about your car)…E…F….U…L…L…(cause you want to keep the oil full)…..Y…(because if you tighten too much on the 1984 C4 magnesium valve covers you’ll crack them and they can’t be welded, JB or other wise, and then you’ve got to find used ones, because aftermarket aren’t all that great)….Ok…end of Mickey Mouse Club song…and the end of one of the original valve covers….
And in case you didn’t get the between the lines intention of the above Errrkkkk…I broken one.
I wasn’t sure at first, my mind refused to process the sound so that I could be sure..it might have been a crack, or maybe I just crunched one of the plastic tubes covering a bundle of wires. Yeah..that’s it…I sure (it might have been a crack though….crap!!…let me spell that for you…oh…never mind….just invision huge font type all in upper case, bolded and underlined.)
I inspected the cover while it was in place and I couldn’t see anything and said…ok.average guy.. with average skills and average budget..you have above average luck…at least today…at least that’s what I thought…or hoped.
When that happens the only way to tell is to either take the cover back off and inspected…that wasn’t going to happen…or let her run and build up the oil pressure and see what happens….that is what you’d normally do any way after replace the gaskets.
Here she is running: (includes bonus views of the injectors…I think they are pretty cool to watch.)
Covers don’t look to bad…but they aren’t going to stay…because..there really was a crack…but it didn’t show up by leaking on this run…it should up the next day when I took the car to work. I checked it when I arrived (about a 15 minute drive) no leaking…drove it home and she started to run poorly and had no power…yeah….it was leaking…on to a spark splug….got home and a little puddle of oil formed under the car and…well lets just say as I replaced the tightening episode in my head the crunching noise…sounded a lot more like a crack..in fact it was very clear on the replay!!!! The little referee in my head….said ‘After reviewing the play..the ruling in the garage is over turned, and Tim is charged a time out and $400.00 fine for cracking the cover and the vette gets parked until the parts get here!’
Here is the pick where the crack occurred.
Yup...cracked!!!!
That was Monday (4/5/2010) fast forward to today new cover have arrived (chrome) and they’ll be installed today or tomorrow. So Yes it was finished and now No it’s not.
