Yet another setback

Folks,

We just had another minor setback and its name was....... Yes, you guessed it "Harvey".

Hurricane Harvey that is.

We were hit hard in the Houston area by hurricane Harvey and our house/garage are under 2 feet of water for the second time in 14 months. We live in a 500 year flood plane and we have had two 500 year record floods at our house in a little over a year.

We are very lucky that no one was hurt! As we speak, we are upstairs waiting for the water to recede so we can see what the damage was.

The garage has a bunch of water in it but I cannot tell if it is high enough to affect the race cars. I had them up on their jacks so hopefully they are fine. The water is running so fast by our house that I cannot get to the garage.

Our daily driving vehicles were not so lucky. Traci's Jeep and my F450 are both under water as we speak.

I think Shaky Truck may be the only vehicle that survived!!!

Anyway, it is just stuff and it can be replaced. Traci and I are going to really rethink everything before rebuilding this house again.

Drag racing is on hold for an undetermined amount of time. It was fun while it lasted! All 2 weekends!!!

This picture is from our top floor looking towards the garage.

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DUUUUUHHHHHH

I just had to do two posts tonight because I want to share our DUH moment for the weekend.

I have been consistently red lighting in the elimination rounds but I was able to get some OK lights on Friday night racing. Each time I red lit, I felt like I had a decent light and certainly didn't think I red lighted.

After doing it again on Saturday, I told Traci that something was not right. I knew I was not leaving on the competitor's light, because there are blinders on the light where you cannot even see their lights. Traci and I decided to go watch some rounds of racing to see what was going on. We went to mid track so we could see the back side of the tree and see both lane's lights. Sure enough, no matter how much difference in the dial ins of the cars (slow cars vs fast cars), the top yellow light was coming on at the same time. I had never seen this before at the races I had been to. In the old days, the top light comes on later for the faster driver. And when the racers are running heads up with no handicap, it does not affect the lighting sequence. That is the reason I was not red lighting on Friday night (heads up racing). Something was going on here.

After going back to the trailer, I started to research this crazy light thing. What I learned is that these Super Pro classes that I was racing in uses what is called a Compulink Crosstalk timing system. This system has both lights come on at the same time and the faster car's light stays on longer until the slower cars lights give him the head start. I was just leaving on the top light and never saw the lagging light because I was already traveling down the track.

I then started reading how to use this system and found out the super smart delay box that I bought will compensate for this.  If I plug in the competitors time into my delay box. Sure enough, it works. DUH!!! By the way, the delay box instruction manual does not say anything about this type of staging system.

Traci and I laughed about it all evening and were ready this morning armed with our new knowledge. The delay box worked perfect!

This is information that competitors don't tell you when they see easy prey, ha! They just hope they get paired with me so they can get a freebie round, ha!!

Anyway, another lesson learned. Now they will have to beat me another way. That method is history.

We felt a little better this morning when we met another nice racer and his wife that told us they did the same thing when they started.

Life is full of challenges.

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Making More Progress

Traci and I just finished the third day of racing and we mades tons of progress. We are both getting more comfortable with the race routine and getting more smooth with our process every run. Traci keeps me organized and comfortable and makes sure I get the car serviced every round.

We now have a process to get suited up and getting me strapped in and everything ready to go.

Our first round today felt better than any of our first runs. We finally got the Compulink Crosstalk Tree figured out and we ran real close to our dial in. The car ran four runs in a row ranging from 4.95 to 4.93. We are getting the car way more consistent. I made ignition timing, shift rpm, jetting, and launch rpm changes that the car responded well too. I think the car will do better and better as I figure out what it wants.

I am reviewing the data that we gathered all weekend to see what other changes I may want to make to the car.

If the driver could get his reaction times consistent, we could win a round of racing. It will come in time. My next investment will be a practice tree so I can practice in the car while it is in the garage. I need to really work on my lights!

Overall, a great weekend! The car is a good car. We accomplished nearly all of our weekend goals (except for winning a round of racing) and met some really nice people.

I am posting two more videos of the first round of eliminations today. The car ran well and ran right on its dial in time. The driver was late!

I nearly caught the guy at the finish line. His car had more than a 2 second head start. Notice the difference in speed when I go around him just after the finish line. It is amazing how much speed difference there is!!!!

Here are the videos:

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Second Race Weekend

Traci and are are two days into our second weekend of racing the dragster. We just got it into the 4 second zone in the 1/8th mile. That was our primary goal for the weekend!

We also figured out why I am red lighting in the elimination rounds. We found something we were doing wrong in the delay box setup. Hopefully, tomorrow we will get a good light in the elimination round.

We will see.

Here are a couple of videos from different angles of the 4.95 second, 1/8th mile run.

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New Ignition and Data Collection

I am installing a new ignition system on the car because I found some issues with the old MSD Digital 7 ignition.

I am pretty sure that I was losing a lot of horsepower (the car should have run faster than it did) due to a programmable ignition retard that was not working correctly. I am pretty sure that the ignition was retarded at least 8 degrees from optimal because the programming did not work with the new starting line controller. The retard is supposed to start as soon as I press the transbrake button (that works correctly) but is supposed to go away over a period of one second once I release the transbrake. That ramping down of the retard was not happening because the program logic requires that the engine be on the rev limiter when I release the transbrake button. The new starting line controller does not let the car hit the rev limiter because it is pneumatically controlling the throttle, therefore, the ignition stayed retarded through the runs.

I found this while checking everything over after the races a few days ago. I observed it while I was checking ignition timing with my timing light. I was verifying that the retard was working but I noticed that it never went away. Further investigation and a talk with the software guru, Joseph (our business partner) and some testing led me to believe this is what was happening. This, and the fact that the car is not running as quick as it should led me to modernize the ignition.

The new ignition (MSD Power Grid) gives me more control over the timing curves and rev limits. It also allows me to capture the timing data from the ignition controller in the Racepac data collection system.

I will be able to look at timing curves with other data from the runs to see what effect the timing is having on the engine.

The two pictures of the chart show a test run after installing the ignition. You can see the engine RPM on the top green line on the chart. You can see timing advance on the second blue line. You will notice that I have it set to ramp up the advance as engine RPM go up. The third red line is showing the transbrake button being activated (upward line is the switch turning on and the downward line is the switch being released. Notice that the ignition line shows the ignition retarding 10 degrees when I push the transbrake button. When I release the transbrake button, the ignition ramps back up to full advance over a 1 second time frame. This is what was not working with the old ignition. I can also adjust how long for the ramp up to happen. If the car spins the tires early, I can slow down the advance to kill some power. If the track will take the horsepower, I can advance it sooner.

Being able to look at these events with all of the other data that I am collecting will make it much easier to tune the car.

I am anxious to try it out. There is another race at Royal Purple Raceway this weekend and I am going to try to go and get some more seat time. Wish me luck!!!

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Video of Second Run in Comp Dragster

Here is a video of the second run at my first race weekend. This was a fun run with a 7.75 ET at 178 mph.

Pretty big thrill to go this fast on my second run.

I have a lot to learn but I am making progress.

The movie is uploaded in high resolution. It looks pretty cool if you watch is in high resolution.

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The dream comes true

Folks,

It is official. I am a drag racer! A really bad one, but one none the less. I ran my first time in the Comp Dragster on Friday night. It was amazing. The car performed well, but the driver was really bad.

I ran a best ET of 7.75 at nearly 180 mph!

Pretty quick for my first outing!

I have never experienced sensory overload like this before but I am getting more comfortable every run. My reaction times are horrendous but I am getting the burnout and staging sequence now.

I will be buying a practice tree so that I can practice at home in my car. It is a must to have a practice tree!

Overall, I am very happy with how the weekend is going. I was put out first round today but tomorrow is a new day!

Hopefully, I will have better reaction times tomorrow.

I will post video and pictures when we get home.

Thanks for all of your support.

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