Good to hear man, once again glad you were alright, especially with the little one at home! So you think it will all be back together & ready for the shootout?

 

That's the plan. With a potential main bearing problem I'm going to take it really easy. I might make one qualifying pass but the field should pretty much have me covered anyways. Other than IDRC, I haven't had a clean pass all year. This work schedule stinks.

 

Looking forward to seeing the clean *** bay even if you don't run it and happy bday today is mine as well.

 

I slid mine into a high bridge curb playing around in Mexico City, Oakland. I figured, "hey its an evo it can take this turn at 70mph with a steep degrade under wet conditions. I was very lucky to do a 180 and only mess one tie bar up, flatten my 3 inch exhaust and completely wreck a sideskirt and rear bumper. Allstate cashed me out for $5000, that seems to be the going rate for these cars with slight accidents lol *everbody was unhurt*

 

They short changed me but the body shop is going for more to cover the rest of the damages the adjuster missed. My est was 6400 without the wheels or fmic. Insurance cashed out several grand less than that. It was enough to get the ball rolling and get parts in the door.

Thanks for the birthday wish and happy birthday to you as well.

 

Damn I missed this. I am glad you are ok.

Happy Birthday

 

Thank you.

Things are sparaticly coming together. Everything but the bumper has arrived. Hood is in primer, bearings will be going in Sunday and hopefully have a few mins to drive it to see if the drivetrain is ok since the accident.

Had a few friends come over last night and help knock a lot of my list out. Primarily getting all the mud and floating seeds out from the inside of the car. Only two things holding it back from the shootout at the moment so we'll see.

 

Big updates. I knocked almost everything out this weekend with help from some great friends. Engine is back together and running, its far from ideal but should be good to run. My body guy knocked the bumper out in a day including attending a bachelor party, he rocks. I still have a ton of odds and ends but it looking promising.

We also towed Aaron's colt over so we could knock more things out and I could be home with my son. We fired it for the first time with completely new wiring, cams, turbo, injector etc.

So all in all a very long and productive weekend.

 

I suppose this is my after Shootout update. It was a great weekend with a lot of long days leading up to it. Wednesday before packing up Thursday AM we took it for a 15 minute test drive being the first and only drive since the accident and having the engine apart. The car was 45% leakage on #4 cylinder, a boost leak that I couldn't fix in time at the tb and a main bearing that was shedding metal. All things considered it looked pretty decent and could make full boost so we packed it up and headed out.

Friday morning we headed to Buschurs from the hotel and it felt great driving the car again. I always forget how much I love driving the car. Got back to the hotel and put some fresh plugs in it finally after 2 years, the old ones just went through a really bad head gasket failure and were breaking up slightly at wot. Headed to dinner and did a wot pull to verify everything on the log was still the same as before the accident and it was down a few psi boost but overall really good. After Casa I wanted to see if my 2 step was finally fixed. As annoying as it is I sat on 2 step for two seconds and it held a flat 14psi for the first time in over a year. It felt amazing to finally have fixed the issue. It was stupid and easy but just wasn't something I really needed to fix on sportsmen trees. However at the IDRC race it made it impossible to consistently launch when it would ramp to 38psi in under 1 second.



Saturday morning driving to the track was great, temp was perfect and the car drove great. On the Hoosiers the car is so comfortable. Made a pass before qualifying and the boost was back up at the line, it was only 27 but still not acceptable and the car bogged hard then spun like crazy. I made a few clutch adjustments, tire psi change and adjusted the 2 step limit a little. Went to make another pass and it was the most violent the car has ever been. I think it was partially out of the groove. One side spun and the other side hooked. It went straight for the wall and felt like a bucking bronco. I was able to get it straight and finish the pass to get some data. Boost was still a few psi low so I adjusted the map to compensate for the boost leak. 7 pm came around and first round of qualifications started. Before the round I made another adjustment to the map and fixed the 2 step issue once and for all. Made a pass with an "ok" 60' and went 9.8@148 to qualify 2nd. Its down power but the fact its even out there making a pass was good enough for me. I was racing Jason and I don't know what it is about racing him but I just drive the car, I never remember anything about the pass except this time I remember it crunching loudly into 3rd. On the way back to the pits I tried to go into 3rd again but 3rd was hurt. I assume it either bent an input shaft on the launch before or the syncro finally failed. At this point it could even have been a clutch not fully disengaging since its a few years old and I had a few issues in some other passes. Happy with my position and how the car was running we packed up and headed to casa.






Sunday came around and I didn't want to risk any passes on the car in case it went rounds in eliminations. This was a mistake, I haven't made hardly any passes this year and the last ones I made were in May. I was green and it showed. First round was a bi and I took it easy. Second round was against Mario. I don't know if this was intentional or if something messed up on his staging lights. I generally pre stage and wait for the other person to pre stage before I pre load into stage. I saw his pre stage light flash so I rolled into stage loading the car and on the clutch. A few seconds later I look over and none of his bulbs are lit and the starter is waving him forward. By the time he finally staged I had been on my clutch for a while. I think we both sucked at the line but when I went for second gear I didn't have a clutch, it just fell to the floor. That was it for me and he took the win. Congratulations to Mario for taking 1st in EE

It was great meeting old friends and making new ones along with putting some faces to screen names. Until next year!

 

i need your body guy.. car looks awesome like always

 

That is good stuff Wheats. Being able to knockout so much with the car and to actually run her. The car did great man, good stuff and great work!

 

Thanks, he actually wasn't my body guy unitl shortly before the shootout. He was just a friend whos parents own a body shop. I had never seen his work and never actually really discussed his work with him. He's a real chill dude that has a gsxr 750 that runs low 9s @155 on stock wheel base and just loves the drag strip as much as I do. It turns out hes pretty badass at knocking out quick and quality work as well. He really made the shootout happen for the car, mechanical stuff I can usually knock out in a few hours no matter what it is on this car but body work I just don't have the facilities for.

Thanks! I see yours is running now as well???

 

Yes it is! Working out some kinks but shes making somewhere in the 600whp range with low boost and timing. Hopefully ill get it on the dyno this week unless I have to send out my ignition for inspection.

 

Good luck and try and stay out of trouble.

 

Yeah that was dumb doing that... but thanks man.