2nd Annual International Invitational Mid-states HybridZ LS Fest

[RebekahsZ]

Will (wfrits911) and I met up again in Arkansas to beat on our cars together. I trailered in from Alabama and Will drove in from college at the University of Arkasas. On Satruday, the Arkansas SCCA held an autocross driver school at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock (Will skipped this because he's obviously a superior driver), then we met at Centerville Dragway in Centerville, Arkansas for a night of Test N Tune. I had hoped to enter the stick shift streetcar shootout bracket race, but I lingered too late at the driver school and missed qualification rounds. We then both headed back to Little Rock for the SCCA competition autocross on Sunday. I trailered back to Alabama and stayed up 'till 3:30am working on the weekend's breakage (a rear brake caliper) and was back at work at 8am. We are both whooped, but we will both have smiles on our faces for a long time to come.

 

We made friends along the way. We were joined by Dillon? from here on the forum (Dillon-PM me, I want to follow up with you-I was kind of stressed when we met because I was so late getting there). And, some of the instructors from the SCCA school made the 90-minute drive to the dragstrip just to see my car run. Hopefully, Will will get caught up on his homework and join me in this thread. The cars performed well, and I learned a lot.

[RebekahsZ]

I want to start by saying that Will's car is a beast.  His is a true budget swap starting with a $400-500 car and a his own wrecked F-body donor.  He's done everything himself, and while it doesn't shine (he painted it with Plasti-coat over spring break, the thing is awesome.  My car represents a 30 year love-affair with a $900 rust bucket turned resto-street car, turned non-competitive BSP autocross car, turned 15 year garage queen, turned LS hotrod multisport fun machine. 

 

Autocrossing.  The driver school was great-everybody should do one of these.  The instructors were super helpful and did ride-alongs in the morning, then we hot-lapped the 20-ish second course all afternoon.  When I was on a support period working the cones, I just left my keys in the car and encouraged as may instructor drivers to drive it who would.  I had fairly accurately achieved johnc's recommended alignment specs then mounted BFG R1 225/50/15s on 15X7 wheels on the car, because they had worked well for me on summer south Alabama concrete 20 years ago when the car had a weak L24 in it.  Well, things have changed in the tire world and an LS2 and inexperienced driver can really make it show.  On a cool Spring day, those tires were harder than a greased marble and the car was a real handful.  I did turn in the best time over all the instructors who did drive my car, but only once and not by much.  Of course, my time was still weeks behind the FTOD, which was in a turbo miata with only 225/50/15, but they were of a very sticky variety.  The instructors were much faster in my car on the average and I just had one lucky run late in the day when everything just fell in place on the track-all the hot lapping by almost every instructor helped heat up the tires, too.  I learned a lot about "street tires" which is a tire with at least a 200 wear rating.  Some of those have very aggressive contact patches and were much stickier than the "race tires" I stupidly bought without doing adequate research.  Those tires are up for sale very cheap or maybe even free to anybody who will come and get them.  The car consumed 1/2 tank of gas 20 seconds at a time.  I let the instructors totally whore it out and they knocked down as many cones as I did (one guy alone had to have made 10 runs-I know at least 6 instructors made multiple runs in my car), but all had big smiles on their faces and gave me lots of compliments, saying things like: it only needs this or that to make it a really competitive car.  I think it would take a LOT of this or that.  On Sunday, the vibe was totally different, honestly I didn't enjoy it.  One, I was tired, and two there were so many cars and good drivers trying to win points that I really had no joy in the day-a few of the instructors who had been so cool when teaching turned into stressed out a-hole once that competitive element was present (different day-different role).  I am not really eager to compete again, but I can't wait to attend my next school.  Our Zs were not competitive at all.  In fact, we got our butts handed to us by 3-seconds (40 second course) by a driver with only 1 full season's experience in a really nice 240z with a souped up L28 (sounded great) and a set of Dunlop 200 wear rating "street tires" (very sticky).  He was a great driver and really showed us how to get down.  I learned the hard way to push in the clutch once a spin is uncontrollable-the car runs like crap for a while after a long spinout, and somebody suggested that the engine can run backwards after a spin-is that really possible?

Edited April 9, 2013 by RebekahsZ

[EastTnZ]

Roughly what month are we shooting for in this invitational? I'm game for late summer because my car isn't ready yet. I'd be tempted to save some cash and drive it 550 miles (to Little Rock) instead of hauling it plus it should get there a little quicker if I'm driving the Z and not my truck I'll just buy an extra set of 300ZXT's just in case it acts up on the drag strip lol.

 

How much did the whole weekend cost last year?

[RebekahsZ]

In autocross, my car and Will's were very closely matched.  Other than drivetrain (LS/T56/R200 LSD), our cars are totally different.  Will's car was hand built by the owner (probably under a tree in his front yard), including fabbing all his own motor mounts, headers/exhaust.  Neither of us have an interior, but Will even has the stock seats (?) and seatbelts, whereas I have super light racing buckets and a 5-point harness.  He ran junkyard axles (including the junkyard u-joints) and I ran modified Z31 turbo axles.  He had 17X9.5" Rotas with nearly worn out 275s under ZG flares and I had 16X8 Rotas with fairly new Kuhmo cheapie 225/50/16s in the morning and those lousy R1s in the afternoon (times were the same on either tire).  He has done no suspension mods at all-heck, he may even have junkyard shocks on the thing.  I have coilovers, 225/250 springs, Illuminas, camber plates, adjustable LCAs and TC rods, full poly bushings, all set to johnc's recommended settings (john, my tirewear and temps were great-spot on as usual).  Will adjusted his toe-in until it "looked about right."  I had -3 degrees camber; he had probably +3 front camber.  I had -2.5 rear camber, he probably had -4 rear camber.  Both of us were all over the track, but at the end of the day, we had run about the same times (we didn't check the tenths and hundredths).  In the game of dollars vs. speed and fun vs. frustration - Will whipped my butt.  And so did everybody else.  I met his parents and finally got that Jerky (which was all eaten before I got home).

[RebekahsZ]

EastTNZ-the title is "tongue in cheek" humor.  This all happened last weekend.  It was just the two of us.  We just showed up in the same places where events were already planned for the general public and we just joined in.  It cost about $30 for the school, $40 to autocross and $15 to test and tune at the dragstrip.  If you are trailering your Z-car your truck will get half the fuel mileage you usually get, but my S-10 handled the car and trailer just fine (thank God no deer or coyotes jumped in front of me). You will be too busy to eat, so don't budget any food money, just lots of fuel at $4 a gallon.  If you plan a gathering-make it simple.  If I do this sort of thing in the future, it will be a Saturday only event with me getting up on Sunday and heading home-I'm shot.  I stayed up two nights before the drive until 4am getting the car finished up.  This was the maiden voyage for my exhaust system (which did great).  The first Zfest that Will and I had was at a gas station on the side of the highway near his parents' house.  If you want to have a get-together late this summer, plan it somewhere where a driver school is gonna happen, and somewhere where there is a dragstrip nearby.  You will need to look at all the SCCA club and dragstrip websites and just see what falls in place.  If only one other hybridZ shows up - it is a party!  At some point even racing, golf, surfing, and trying to fertilize and egg can become work, so keep it simple and don't over-do it.

[RebekahsZ]

Drag racing.  Swapped on the drag slicks and skinnies and loaded up for the drive to Centerville.  Centerville is a 1000' track that gives you splits for 1/8-mile on our timeslip.  The pits are pretty nice (lots of standing water in some places to get your truck stuck in), the staff is SUPER nice and the track is in super shape.  It was the first night of the season and it was PACKED!  The vibe was great, everybody was having so much fun and Will knew everybody.  When I got there, racing had been going on for a couple hours and the staging lanes were bumper to bumper.  We were getting about 1 run an hour until it got late, then I went in the "hot lap" mode and was getting a pass about every 4 minutes.  My stack of timeslips is huge.  The first pass they threw down a pro-tree and it caught me off guard, but I cut a decent light by pure luck.  Got the windows marked for a .500 tree, then I red-lighted for the only time of the night (damn nerves).  I had played with a practice tree some over spring break and it really helped, but I was not particularly fast off the light, but I didn't red-light again all night.  I think our only video shows my flagrant red-light-I must have gone on the second yellow!  I'll post some timeslips in a thread tomorrow.  We traded cars and made a pass-we both took it easy on the launch, but Will got to see what slicks are like at both the slow and fast ends of a track (it's different).  I kind of went for a Sunday drive in his, even though he brought two extra axles, I sure didn't want to be the one to make him swap one.  I did see the shift light in 2 gears and his car with the under-floor exhaust cutout shounds great.  It was nice to have some good gauges (his are super nice).  My Datsun temp gauge looked a little scary, but Will hooked up an OBD2 port scanner and I was fine at 205 with my dual-fan Champion radiator.  Will went home early with both axles intact (he has a huge posse of friends up there and they caravanned home together).  I was the last car running as the air got better, and I closed the place down at 12:30am and was in bed at my mom's place at 2am.  My last few runs I had some spinning off the line, but more about that later.  Not many cars lined up against me, and I didn't see a tail light all night.  A bunch of the guys in the money race said I should have run with them-maybe next time I will.  I love this car at the strip.

Edited April 9, 2013 by RebekahsZ

[wfritts911]

Keith brags on me way too much. Great weekend, way too busy though. Drag racing on saturday night, then smashing some cones Sunday. The thread title is a joke, wasn't really much of a fest lol. I didn't have time to round up the videos off the GoPro onto a hard drive that I could take back to school, so it will be a while before I can get the videos unless I can convince my brother to edit them for me.

 

The first run at the dragstrip when we got to actually race each other(Keith's second run of the night), he red lights by almost 4 tenths. I knew I wasn't going to stand a chance anyways but him leaving a half a second before me really didn't help lol. The track was crazy busy(First night races, stick shift shootout). Too busy in truth, we were stuck waiting in line a lot. I finally got my 9 second run in the 1000ft. Ran a:

 

sixty: 1.93

1/8:   7.83@94.56

1000: 9.94@107.7

 

In comparison Keith's LS2 car was running 9.1x consistently(I watched him run within a hundredth of a second 4 runs in a row). He let my race his car once, I bogged it bad but could tell had I not it would have felt amazing lol. In 3rd gear the car started to sway like crazy. I'm sure it was a combination of me never having raced on slicks before and I probably over corrected once and it sent it into a sway. I tried to ride it out but ended up just shifting to 4th and cruising through the finish. Almost had to change my boxers after that, probably felt worse in the car than it really was though. Still ended up running a 10.1x, that car moves out!

 

The run after my fastest time I decided to ditch racing Keith to run a 03/04 Cobra that ended up next to us. Should have been a pretty close race(With him winning by a tenth or so). But my transmission apparently wasn't too happy after my fastest run right before this and it locked me out of 3rd AND 4th(I might have drove it a little hard the run before hehe) so I lost by a lot. After that I decided to call it a night before I push my luck.

 

I have decided the U-joint axle that is in there now is made of something really strong. I have been to the dragstrip on it 4 times now without breaking. And I haven't been driving it easy either. The car is starting to wheel hop a lot, think the stock struts in the rear filled with power steering fluid are finally giving up.

 

EastTnZ, Don't know where exactly you are in Tennessee(Assuming East Tennessee for some weird reason), but some friends and I are planning on making at least one trip out to Memphis this summer to race the 1/4 mile. Still a long drive for you but closer than Little Rock is for you and Keith. Autocross wise in LR you're looking at:  May 19th, June 15th, or July 27th  . I will probably be out to all of those unless my car is down for modifications. We could drag race all of those weekends too. I wouldn't worry about trailering, especially if you are coming to LR. My house is close by and we would be able to fix anything you will probably break.

 

-Will

[SUNNY Z]

Isn't Z fest in branson around the first of june?

[RebekahsZ]

I'm always up for 1/4-mile!  Memphis anytime you want; never been there, but lets change that.  Yeah, sorry about the red-light, I was still screwed mentally up from the pro-tree light right before it.  That really hurt your feelings, didn't it?  It was my mistake and I still feel bad for screwing up the video!  Man, don't put your car down all season!  Listen, with Josey's help, I just ordered my kit for the billet stub axles, so I'm gonna sell off my 280z stubs and M2 brand Z31 turbo companion flanges as soon as I have the kit installed.  Can't you just scrape up a couple of Z31 axles to get thru this summer and do your big mods when the tracks close for winter?  If you would consider it, I would just loan you my companion flanges for the summer (and maybe my used slicks).  That Cobra lined up against me toward the end-I settled the score just fine.  He thought he was bad with his DRAGRACR license plate!  He got a good look at my Alabama Antique plate, but he didn't get to look at it for long.  Turns out the reason I was spinning toward the end of the night was 2-fold: my tire pressures were 5 pounds higher from all the hot-lapping (I've got to rotate my tires on the rims; I'm near the wear markers on the inside), and I was bleeding brake fluid from my left rear Maxima caliper onto my tire.  It must have started either at the drags or at the autocross before.  Remember that suicidal braking area on the autocross on Sunday???  Well, I had brake pedal when I loaded the car at the stadium but none when I rolled off at home-talk about God's mercy!  I think that caliper was leaking all weekend from the amount of mess on all my rims-how did I miss it with all the tire changing??  I gotta get you do do a QC on my car after I work on it.  Curious about your clutch-I did the warped clutch boogie last summer and it burned up a lot of open track time.  If it keeps locking you out, try to get more pedal to open the cluch separation a little more.  Good thing the autocross was all in 2nd, but I was at 6000rpm exiting the sweeper for the final straight away and just tried to keep it straight until honkin' on the brakes.

Edited April 9, 2013 by RebekahsZ

[wfritts911]

It isn't a clutch issue, my clutch takes a serious beating and keeps on asking for more. My transmission really needs rebuilt(And has ever since I've had it, that's why you have to go 2nd then 1st otherwise it grinds). Think it just got hot on those last couple runs and I was driving it hard trying to beat that cobra and get my 9 second slip.

 

I don't plan on putting my car down all summer, my axle swap shouldn't take long once I get the custom parts made(Which won't require my car being down). If I do decide to build new motor mounts and fab new headers that will take a while, but once I get the first set built the rest can be built on a jig. Thanks for the offer on the Z31 axles, but I don't think I will need them. I plan on having my axle swap done before Z Fest in Branson(Which is the end of may/beginning of June). Even if I don't get my axle swap done as early as I would like, I'll continue to race on my ujoint axles like I always have. Spares are easy to swap in, and at least I know what I'll break so I can have spares. My car has yet to need trailered home from a motorsports event, I don't plan to start this summer. The problem for me is summer is the only time I'm home for an extended period of time so I have my shop to work in and I actually have a job so I have money coming in. So I can't just take it down in the winter.

 

Josey, you need to come down for that this year. I don't want to be the only LSx car there this year. Going to try and actually make it to the track day this year as well, just made it up for the car show last year. You should definitely try to come down for that.

 

Get that brake issue fixed, that's worse than that cobra kit car that was pouring out gasoline while autocrossing! I need to get some suspension work done to mine this summer as well, I'm tired of plowing the front end.

 

-Will

[SUNNY Z]

It isn't a clutch issue, my clutch takes a serious beating and keeps on asking for more. My transmission really needs rebuilt(And has ever since I've had it, that's why you have to go 2nd then 1st otherwise it grinds). 

-Will

 

Sounds like your synchros are tapping out. Here's to hoping your trans is in better shape than mine was when I bought it. (though you still have all your gears, so it is lol)

 

When i picked this one up, the 3/4 synchro hub was in 6 pieces, just rolling around in the case. chewed some stuff up pretty good. 

[EastTnZ]

Thanks for the offer on a place to fix it if they break. Memphis or LR sounds good to me. I'll be at the beach on the 15th of June so July is more doable and I can work out the bugs by then and maybe install some A/C! Oh and yeah I'm just outside of Knoxville, TN but I'm always up for a good road trip

[RebekahsZ]

Ok, gotta search for the details on z-fest in Branson. I can't wait see the beasts you guys put together.

[wfritts911]

Sounds like your synchros are tapping out. Here's to hoping your trans is in better shape than mine was when I bought it. (though you still have all your gears, so it is lol)

 

When i picked this one up, the 3/4 synchro hub was in 6 pieces, just rolling around in the case. chewed some stuff up pretty good. 

 

Ya it has been on the list of things to do ever since I bought my firebird. Amazingly it hasn't got much worse in the 30k miles I've put on it. Usually shifts great at WOT, its just really notchy driving around town and such. And I can't downshift to first at all unless its rev matched perfectly, so I never even try. Need to build a good press before I rebuild my trans though, the last transmission I did I ended up having to take the mainshaft up to my old work to get a gear pressed off, my habor freight special wasn't cutting it. And ya, my trans isn't as bad as yours was.

 

Alright July should work for me. Lets kind of plan on meeting up that weekend then. Autocross and some drag racing.

 

-Will

[RebekahsZ]

Did you see all the AC Cobra replicas with their doors flying open? I'm surprised nobody got dumped on the track! After you develop your motor and trans mounts and headers, can you make and market a "bolt on" solid axle conversion? That black factory five and the red trans am made me think that maybe a solid rear axle wouldn't be so bad after all. The trans am (amazing driver) flat got the job done. He was 4 seconds ahead of us and 2 seconds off FTOD.

[RebekahsZ]

One thing I really learned from the night at centerville is that we need to try to run dial-ins in order to make the fun last longer. Our cars are gonna be different with different strengths and weaknesses. If we just try to run heads-up, it will get boring pretty fast. Nitrous/boost will be lonely in front and stock L24 will be lonely in back. Or, we could just heads-up till somebody breaks and call it a reliability run, but I vote for putting dial-ins on out windows and letting the tower help us have some good competition at both ends of the track. Then maybe do some heads-up at the end😜.

[RebekahsZ]

Timeslips:  I tried to post these the other night, but I think the site went into back-up mode and dumped them.

 

Run       Time    React     60'     1/8   @    mph     1000'  @   mph    Notes

1          8:39pm  .631     1.62      7.23        97          9.26       114     Unexpected pro-tree

2          9:28      -.366     1.63      7.36        95          9.42       112     Red lighted - must have left on 3rd yellow

3          10:34     .121     1.57      7.25        96          9.29       113      Crowded, getting 1 run per hour

4          10:47      .065    1.59      7.20        99          9.24       113      I don't believe that mph-bug must have broken beam

5          10:53      .101    1.57      7.22        94          9.24       114      Starting to get the hang of this!

6          10:57      .018    1.58      7.16        95          9.17       115      Air must be getting cooler?

7          11:04      .132    1.57      7.13        97          9.16       115

8          11:15      .137    1.55      7.12        95          9.12       115

9          11:28      .076    1.56      7.11        95          9.11       115

10        11:32      .021    1.53      7.09        98          9.10       115      It's like I have my own private drag strip!

11        11:40      .114    1.57      7.19        96          9.22       114      Beat that Cobra-I guess I got distracted

12        11:45      .112    1.58      7.10        95          9.10       115

13        11:47      .100    1.54      7.09        95          9.11       115

14        11:49      .086    1.66      7.20        96          9.20       115      Getting wheelspin-what's up with that?

15        12:01      .172    1.56      7.13        98          9.12       116      Tires had gotten hot-let psi back down to 15 from 20

 

2-step rocks!  Gotta learn how to cut a light.  And order some new slicks.

[SUNNY Z]

Keith, where is your 2 step set at on these runs? Have you played with the rpm much?

[RebekahsZ]

I have only played with it from 2500 to 3500.  I think it is on 3500-I think I raised it from 3000 to 3500 after the second run.  The line was terrible when I first got there and Will came out of line in order to line up next to me, but then the car in front of me broke a driveshaft and oiled the box.  Will aborted that run and I took his lane and made the first pass solo.  I tried both lanes throughout the night and the left lane felt better, but I had a little spinning in either lane.  For the most part 2500 bogs pretty bad and makes a 1.6 60' time and 3500 bogs a little and makes a 1.5 60'.  Will kept goading me to set it up higher, but we know you broke at 4500, so I resist the temptation to crank it up.  Will can change an axle in 5 minutes, but I haven't built up a spare CV yet, so I'm not interested in testing the system to the point of intentional breakage.  I'd rather be able to race all night at a slower speed and live to fight another day.  I was having some wheel spin late in the session that got better, but not completely when I lowered my tire pressure back down to it's earlier cold setting, but I'm also pretty sure brake fluid on the edge of the tire may have had a contribution too.  If wheel spin starts to be a routine problem, I'll turn it back down until I hook.  I've got to learn a lot, like my light sucks and I don't know how to set a dial-in anticipating better air as the night cools off.  If I had set my dial in at 7.20, I would have broken-out when the temps dropped.  Lots to learn.  I wish we had planned better to give each other a dial-in, perhaps we would have had more fun chasing each other down.  With the slicks, every race I ran was over before the 60'.  I wonder if my next set should be the same or if I should try a Hoosier or a MT bias ply ET Street just to learn about them?

[wfritts911]

I never saw the doors fly open, but one guy I worked the last heat with was telling me about it. Apparently it was a cheaply made kit.

 

Couldn't make a solid axle swap bolt on, could be close but would require some welding for the lower control arms and the coil over mounts. The watts link setup would require some welding as well. I knew I could make the solid axle handle well, but then I figured out my current plan would keep the IRS, be cheaper, and should be just as strong.

 

Not sure they would do the dial in for just us too, but they might have if I went and talked to them. We will have to see next time. Those runs are either out of order or you are missing some time slips, probably the latter. I watched you run within a hundredth of a second 4 runs in a row. It was a 9.11,9.12,9.11,9.11 or something like that, dead on consistent. You need to bracket race that car. You could have dialed in a 9.10 and done really well in a bracket race.

 

SunnyZ, he was bogging every run I watched him run. I am willing to bet had he done a bigger burnout and launched higher(4500+) without breaking, he could have pulled a 1.4x sixty. Speaking of burnouts, what gear were you doing a burnout in Keith? Cause when you stop being afraid to break, you need to do a bigger one and launch harder. That car could do a 6.9x 1/8th or a 8.9x 1000ft no problem with a harder launch.

 

If the track wasn't as busy in the beginning we could have played around a lot more and tested out new things. By the time it wasn't busy I had called it a night and we were ready to go. If you decide to get a new set of slicks I'll take your old ones off your hand. I think I'm going to go E85 with a small(75-100) dry shot this summer. Now that i've ran my 9 second slip I want 8s lol. Next time you come up I'll talk to the tower worker to see if we can run a dial in between us too, or I'll just have to be faster before the next time.

 

Oh ya, on another note, Keith's car picks up a lot of mph on the big end. For comparison I was consistently trapping 93/94 in the 1/8th and trapping 106/107 in the 1000ft. Keith was going ~96 in the 1/8th with a few odd balls a couple mph higher than that, but in the 1000ft he was trapping 115. He goes from trapping 2-4 mph higher in the 1/8th to trapping 8 mph higher in the 1000. I think you need to put your car on a dyno Keith to see what it puts down, I'm really curious if that's a stock LS2 or not. Either way it is FAST! SunnyZ what were you trapping in the 1/8th and 1/4?

 

-Will