SOWHATHAHELLSGONNAHAPPENEXT??????
Monday, April 24, 2006, 09:21 PM
OK…. It’s somebody else’s turn. I’ve had it.
I was in a kinda “grumpy” mood Sunday, as Saturday nite’s outing at the track proved to be yet another disaster.

The track rained out Friday nite, so I loaded the Stang on the trailer for some more “Driver’s Ed”, on Saturday at Angleton Raceway Park. Fun Ford Weekend was just around the corner, & I was behind the 8-ball getting used to the trans-brake & practicing on a .5 second Pro Tree. This type of tree is not the norm.....usually a .5 second “bracket” tree (where the 3 amber lites fall individually before green) or a .4 second “Pro” tree (where the 3 amber lites fall simultaneously) is the order for the day. But noooooooooo, “Ford Has A Better Idea” (if you haven’t heard that one). They designated a bastardized .5 second “Pro” tree for the particular class (Mod Comp) that I’d signed up to run in at FFW. … Sooo, a lot of starting practice was in order. I ran 5 passes with the RT’s REALLY sucking & progressing to sucking “just a little”. However the car was pretty consistent on the ET’s: 7.08, 7.08. 7.13, 7.05, & 6.99 (nite temp cooling off on the last one).

About 9:30, I decided to make one more hit, then put it on the trailer and get ready for next big weekend. I made it around to the burn-out box and warmed the tarz up. Then I staged. Because I was test & tuning with this weird tree set-up, I was the only car in both lanes, making a solo pass. What happened next was to say the least, unexpected.

After I lit the 2nd stage bulb, I engaged the trans-brake and loaded the car up for the launch….the lites came on, I released the TB, and the car launched and went 90 degrees from the track & straight at the tree! I always heard of “chopping the tree down", but somehow didn’t think this was what was meant! I lifted as quick as I could, straightened the car up to miss the tree & it sort of rolled down the track a ways. Every time I tried the brakes, it seemed to be on banana peels. I finally got it shut down just past the 60’ mark, & realized I had really screwed up, when I climbed out of the car and saw the trail of ATF I’d left on the track (and my tires). It took about an hour to clean everything up on the track & resume racing. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the most popular guy at the track that nite after that.

So, it seems that the front seal decided to blow out of the brand new $2K Art Carr C-4 tranny that I just purchased & we installed a week ago. Installing/removing this tranny (in our shop)ranks up there with getting a root canal & a colonostomy simultaneously, so I’m looking into getting a transmission shop to pull/reinstall the transmission. I spoke with the Art Carr Folks, as the tranny’s under warranty. They agreed to pay shipping to/from Abilene, and they will repair everything in addition to looking into making some converter adjustments. It seems there were some miscalculations made, & they’re gonna recalculate & tweek the converter to hopefully improve the launch & ET’s.

Bottom line, no Fun Ford Weekend in Houston for WCR this year. That’s OK though, as I just keep thinking about what kind of ride it would have been, had the seal blown out on the other end of the track at say, 100 mph……. pretty catastrophic, one would think. I am however, more than ready to pass this bad luck baton to some other poor unsuspecting soul. I wish the racing bunch would give a new truck away as a hard luck trophy like they do at the rodeo. If so, I’d be toolin’ around in a new F-150.


[ 1291 comments ] ( 1988 views )
STUDENT DRIVER
Monday, April 17, 2006, 03:43 PM
My Easter weekend started last Thursday, as I waited for the tranny to be delivered as promised by the Art Carr folks. I’m almost 50 years old, and you’d think that I’d learned by now not to expect things from people just because they tell you so.

“Your tranny will be shipped out Wednesday, FIRST THING IN THE MORNING”, was what they told me. What I should have expected was 5:14 pm Wednesday evening.

“It’s only a ONE day routine delivery from Abilene to Houston”, they said. “Are you sure?” I asked, “because it’s gotta go to Houston and THEN to Freeport”….”Are you SURE it’s one day for all that??!??” “Suuuuure I’m sure! We do this all the time”, said the guy at Art Carr.

So….. I took vacation Thursday, expecting to see the tranny during the day sometime………………….I received it FRIDAY at 2:30 PM.

It was just as well though, as I didn’t have any help Thursday to stab it thinking I could do it myself. As it turned out, it was the tranny stab from HELL. Joey was home Friday to help me, and we had all kinds of problems with the installation, but we finally loaded the car on the trailer & headed to Angleton Raceway for some T&T’ing Saturday nite.

The problems followed us to the track as I found out that I had the MSD 2-step chips reversed, as the car did a 4000 rpm stuttering 1st pass. On the second I pass I learned a valuable lesson: the transbrake will not function on a cold transmission. As I lit the 2nd stage bulb up, I depressed the transbrake button and hit the gas and found myself 10’ out in front of the tree. On the third pass, I didn’t get on the gas quick enough, and was still loading the car up on the green bulb. On the fourth and final pass of the nite, I took a serious nap on the tree. Yeah I had a scorching RT of 1.24 seconds! Joey told me to install an alarm clock on the dash. I had an excuse though. I was whooped.

All in all, the transmission works and shifts great. I’m a little disappointed in the ET’s, as I might have got a little big on the converter (5K stall). However, I need to stay focused on the fact that we’re building this car as a nitrous-mobile, & it’s still under construction.
We’re running Fun Ford Weekend soon, and we’ll be running just on the motor there. I’ve just gotta get some transbrake/tree time under my belt before then.

I’m thinking of writing “STUDENT DRIVER” on the back windshield.


[ 2 comments ] ( 32 views )
1st it was Aggies & Longhorns in the family... it just got worse!
Monday, April 10, 2006, 12:07 PM
Veronica’s uncle Floyd called yesterday, while I was out mowing the yard. He asked to speak to me, so she brought the phone out to me & I shut off the lawnmower & grabbed a cold brewski. Floyd started quizzing me about the ‘Stang, & after a bit, I asked him, “Whaddya do.. buy ya a Mustang?” The Corvette drivin’ uncle replied, “Hell no, I ain’t owning no *%#@ FORD!”

Well it seems that Floyd & brother-in-law Tony went to the O’rielly SuperNats and got a lil’ itch they couldn’t reach to scratch. Soooo, they came home with a turnkey CHEVY Vega wagon with a 383 bowtie motor that turns mid 10’s. I’ve been around this car before and it’s a nice car. The fire truck red Vega is formerly part of the “Beat the Heat” club out of the Galveston/Dickinsen area. These guys build race cars and make them look like police cars and emergency vehicles, lite bars and all, then run people at the track for fund-raisers. They’re a nice bunch of folks, & thier cars are no slouches either.

So what are these 2 old guys gonna do with this car? Who knows? Who’s gonna drive? Who’s gonna wrench? WHAT’RE THEY GONNA DO WHEN THEY”RE LOOKIN' AT THOSE TAIL LITES ON THAT BLUE MUSTANG?????!!!

Seriously, I think it’s pretty cool that we’ll have some other family members racing & I’m looking forward to some good times w/them at the track and a lil’ smack talkin’ at the next family get-together ;)


[ 1 comment ] ( 1 view )
Indoor Plumbing
Sunday, April 2, 2006, 02:42 PM
Five years ago, when we purchased our home in Angleton, one of the big selling points (to me, anywaze), was a 28' x 30' dettached brick shop that was to become the home of WCR. The realtor told us that the shop had a water supply running TO the shop, but there was no plumbing installed. After the sale, I immediately installed a sink for washing up, and plumbed it to the water supply outside. Future plans included acquiring & installing a wall urinal in the back room of the shop. This would prove to become a necessity when working long hours in the shop (and maintaining proper "hydration")and getting chastized for coming in the house all dirty & greasy just to relieve oneself.
The big day came when we turned on the water to the shop and....... nothing.
We found out from the owners before the previous owners that the wife had chopped up the water line building a @%#*&+@@^! flower bed. Project over...Although we could scrub up w/a water hose, we still needed a urinal. We could go outside around the corner at nite, but those daylite hours still presented a dilemna. Problem solved.
This is the official WCR shop urinal (patent pending).

Just an empty it daily and give it a shot of Clorox, and you'll live happy ever after.

Of course, it's common knowledge (at least by most men) that EVERY urinal has some sort of target in it. Some use the "rock candy" deodorant, while some pick out a particular hole in the drain. Sometimes a piece of gum that some butthead put there gets the cross-hairs on it. Since there's no drain, nor "rock candy", nor any type of foreign debris, we had to come up with an alternative..........................






...this oughtta get something started...

[ 9 comments ] ( 89 views )
This was cool...
Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 10:50 AM
With our new tranny coming with a brake in it, the shift pattern will be reversed. Therefore, a different shifter with the correct pattern will be needed. A new one was gonna cost a couple of Franklins, and then we'd have this other perfectly good shifter laying around. Soooo, I did some digging, and found out that I could send ours back to Hurst Shifters for a $60 refresher, and they could retro-fit it to the correct pattern as part of the deal. This was cool.....
Yesterday, Mike from Hurst called and told me the shifter was on it's way back to Texas. I asked him if everything was OK, and he said,"yeah, I just stuck a brand new reverse pattern shifter in the mail and kept yours". This was even cooler.

[ 2 comments ] ( 30 views )

Back Next