What a Ride!

Those of you that have followed my dream may not realize that my first blog post happened in March of 2017 nearly 2 1/2 years ago. It all began because because Traci and I heard a hot rod boat on the lake at our house in north Texas. The sound of that boat spawned a desire to build something fast with a good ole American made V8 engine in it.

I won't repeat the whole story because I have already posted that story elsewhere on my site but lets just say I had a false start or two.  Even with the false starts, I am very comfortable that God has led me in the right direction to achieve my dreams. Luke 1:37 says, "For nothing will be impossible with God". "The Black Hole" is proof of that.

The project has evolved so much from the beginning. First the drag boat, then the trade for the Corvette (which was going to be a Top Sportsman car using the drag boat engine, and much slower), then the commitment to build an all out sub 6 second ProMod car. 

I am so excited to reveal the car to all of you who have been following the dream. It is pretty much done now with only a few small cleanup things to do. The tubs are glassed in, hood is painted,  decals are installed, black borders on the windows painted, and the windows are permanently installed. These pictures are the first of the car actually seeing the sunshine for the first time a couple of days ago. It is a beautiful piece of equipment.

As all of you have figured out by now, I give God all of the glory for this awesome dream becoming a reality. I am so blessed to be to this point. You will notice on the hood, Luke 1:37 is being displayed to tell the world that anything is possible! I want everyone that sees this car to know why it exists and to be motivated by it. One of the reasons I chose to display this verse is for my cousin's daughter Kayla who is battling cancer. Kayla, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE! Keep fighting and we will keep praying. We also have a friend of the company who's wife is battling cancer so it is for her too.

The challenges that we have faced building this car can in no way be compared to the battles Kayla has and will face. She has such a great attitude  and a lot of people are inspired by her tenacity. Traci and I face some big hurdles as we move into the testing and racing phase of the dream. Like Kayla, I don't know, what I don't know, about the struggles ahead.  But, like Kayla, I do know that God will be with us. 

To represent God's awesome power, we added decals on the sides of the front fenders that say "Powered By Jesus". The car is truly powered by Jesus' grace.

We have built this car to eventually compete in NHRA ProMod racing. That is not an easy class to compete in. Typically, 25 to 30 cars show up to qualify to race at an NHRA race. In order to qualify for a 16 car field you must be able to run 5.8 second elapse times. The quickest I have ever gone in my dragster is a 7.50. That is a huge difference in ET but the bigger difference is the dragster did the 7.50 with a long wheelbase (225 inches long) while the Corvette is only 112 inches. Almost 3 times the horsepower with half of the wheelbase makes for a very exciting ride with very little room for error. In the last two NHRA races, 5 cars were either destroyed or damaged significantly. The last one was our friend Marc Caruso (yes, the guy that we purchased our engine from). Poor Marc had both parachutes fail to open and he had problems with his brakes as well. Marc ran through the sand traps and safety nets at a high rate of speed. Marc walk away but destroyed the car and injured his back.

This will definitely be unknown territory for an old man with no experience. Most people think I am crazy. I am not crazy, I just like to prove that Nothing Is Impossible With God! As motivation for myself and hopefully Kayla, I am setting a personal goal to run in the 5.80 s at some point with the car. A tough goal for sure but not impossible! Again, not even in the ballpark of Kayla's challenge but a big one for me. I am calling this goal "5.80 for Kayla" Like Kayla, I don't the details of how I am going to achieve my goal, I just know God will guide us!

The car is striking (in my opinion) now that it is completed and all of the details can be seen.

Next up, some work on the truck and trailer, ordering spares for 2 days of testing, and scheduling the actual testing dates. I talked with Mike Janis Jr. last week and it looks like August will be the best month for them to come to Texas to help us tune the car and tune the driver, ha! We have so much to learn. I cannot wait to work with Mike Sr. and Jr. and learn from them. 

Once we decide on the date, I will post the actual dates on the blog. We are going to rent the track (Houston Raceway Park) at Baytown for 2 days and get as many runs as we can. It is going to be very hot in August so we are probably going to rent the track for evening/night testing sessions to make it a little easier on everyone. I have talked to Austin Hayward (the track manager) and our friends and family are welcome to watch the testing.

More details to come. I hope you enjoy the pictures below of Traci and myself with "The Black Hole"  I love the pictures of my two beautiful girls together, ha! 

Next goal, a "5.80 for Kayla"

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Church From My Point of View

As Traci and I sat at a Houston restaurant at a business dinner with “customers” last night, I realized that these aren’t customers at all. This was a group of friends put together by our Lord and Savior. They just happen to be our customers too. This was a group of people that were put together through a series of events that was undeniably supernatural.

When I watched this group talking and laughing and thought about the connection it was like going to  a church revival for me. I have never been as loyal of a church attendee as some people and I may have to answer for that some day but instead I attend my own form of church every day. You see, church to me can come in the form of that meeting. Or it might be....

1. Walking into our little business as see my sister, my friend/former boss, a life long friend’s sons, my daughter and her husband, my daughter’s best friend, our wonderful business partner, his sister, and other friends, family, and acquaintances that work for us.

2. Getting an email telling me that one of our customers (who also happens to be a pastor) was selected as Father of the Year in his home city. Pretty awesome customer to say the least.

3. Shooting guns with some good friends who just happen to be Christians and customers.

4. Looking up in a tree in our front yard and see this mama raccoon hanging out of a hole in our tree with her babies playing all around her. (She looks exhausted by the way)

5. Sitting at a drag race at dusk watching a Top Fuel dragster make a 3 second run at 320+ mph  and turning around to see this sky behind us.

6. Taking a chunk of raw aluminum and turning it into a beautiful shiny finished part in a lathe or mill

7. Watching a stack of parts turn into this beautiful piece of machinery.

8. Looking at a list of people and family that I know on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other places and realize what great people they are.

9. Seeing my cousin’s daughter Kayla’s positive outlook when most people would just give up.

10. Watching my grandkids develop their personalities, mechanical skills, artistic abilities, laughing, or just falling asleep on the couch.

11. Sitting down next to my sleeping wife and writing about race cars, friends, family, and God in this silly blog.

12. Getting a text from my sunshine when I am on a date in the garage with the other woman ("The Black Hole") saying "You OK? Love You".

12. Having a discussion about Jesus on our drive to work, our lake house, or to going pick up a hot rod part on the other side of the USA.

You see, to me, church doesn’t have to be held in a cute building with a steeple and a flock of people. I am not saying that church is not something we should attend. I am saying that you don’t have to be in a building to have church. I have church every day, several times a day as I see the miracles I am surrounded by.

I see them everywhere and pray for them every day. I pray for Kayla, I pray for Cameron’s wife (a friend of one of our employees), and I pray for the safe and successful testing of “The Black Hole”.

I can guarantee that when that big Hemi engine starts up for my first run down the drag strip, I will be in church!!!

Installing Tubs

I finished one of the last remaining dreaded jobs on The Black Hole today. I have been dreading installing the rear fender wells (called tubs) for quite some time because It is a slow, tedious, dirty, and itchy process cutting the carbon fiber and fitting it. You must trim one little piece at a time until you get them where they fit without being in a bind and cause stress cracks on the body.

I still have some filler pieces to cut to fill the openings behind the tubs. All of the holes have to be filled to prevent smoke from entering the cockpit during a burnout.

I had to build cardboard templates  from underneath the car to get the general shape of the tubs. After marking the tubs with the templates, you cut them slightly larger than they need to be and test fit them. You have to take them in and out until you get them to fit how you want them to fit. In, Out, In, Out, In, Out.......... Get the picture?

I still have to bond them to the body once I get  the smaller filler plates cut and fit. They are in the car but not bonded. The insides of the car look awesome and very professional with he tubs in. The last picture is of the inside of the car with the shiny carbon fiber looking great. I am very pleased with how they turned out.

One step closer!

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Progress continues

Still working on The Black Hole this weekend. I got the hood trimmed around the engine and mounted on the front end. The car looks really aerodynamic and clean with the front end complete. I still have to paint the hood black to match the body.

I have had a bunch of people ask how I see out of the windows! That is a protective film on the polycarbonate windows to prevent scratching while I work on the car. The blue tape on the hood is also to protect and mark my holes while I was mounting it. I also have to paint the hood to match the car once I get it finished.

I also spent a whole day getting all of the 4-link rear suspension set up. I have it pretty close now (I thought). I want to have it pretty close before the Janis family helps me test the car this summer. Below is a screen shot of the actual setup in the car now. The screen shot is of the software I use to do 4-link calculations. I tried to achieve a setup that Mike Janis gave as a starting setup. The numbers circled in Red are the goal I was trying to achieve by adjusting all of the settings in the white boxes. 

The number on the left represents an imaginary intersection point if you project a line from the top and bottom 4-link bars. This point is called the intersection point or vanishing point.  This setup is a fairly long intersection point which slows down the reaction of the suspension during acceleration. Shorter would equal quicker reaction.

The number on the right is the height above the ground for the intersection point. Lower intersection points cause the car to squat on acceleration and transfer weight to the back of the car. Higher intersection points prevent the car from squatting and prevent excessive weight transfer.

There are a million different ways to achieve the settings that Mike wanted me to achieve and I chose one of those methods. Yes, I am a rookie and I chose the wrong one. From the image below, you can see the setting called "Rear Spread" is at 13.5 inches. After reading more last night about different setups, I found out that wide rear spreads should only be used on less powerful cars. That is because a car with less horsepower needs the extra leverage to make the rear end react correctly. A car as powerful as mine should have less spread.

Sure enough, after I sent this screen shot to Mike last night he gently told me that the spread needed to be less than 12 inches. That is why he is the expert.

This process causes me to think and read a lot and try to keep myself from looking stupid (which I am on a car at this level of competition). This process is also how a rookie learns. I would never be content not knowing why something does and does not work.

Now I will move the links inward to reduce the rear spread while adjusting the angles to maintain the length and height of the intersection point. Simple geometry right?

The good news is that I have a baseline setting in the software now and I can simply platy with the numbers in the white boxes until I find a setting that will achieve the results Mike suggested. Once I work it out in the software, I simply move the links where they belong.

Have I said that the Janis family is a blessing lately! I do not know of anyone else that would spend as much time answering my questions without wanting to kill me! Thanks Mikes X2!

I am learning so much throughout this process! Some day I may actually be a race car builder, maintainer, and driver, just maybe!

This is the new setup after Mike told me I needed to make the "Rear Spread" smaller. I think I am close now!!!

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