I was hoping not to have to do this but every in street prepared was moving towards Ethanol for more power so the gauntlet was thrown and I had to respond. Haltech makes a flex fuel sensor (really a rebranded GM part I believe) that works with their ECU so we put that in along with Injector Dynamics 1000cc injectors and Walbro 255lph fuel pump. I also needed a CAN bus and expansion module to support more sensors. She made about +10hp/tq through the entire power band on C85.
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| Haltech Flex fuel sensor - 4/3/2013 |
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| ID1000 injectors - 4/3/2013 |
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| Haltech flex fuel sensor, CAN bus hub and expansion module - 4/3/2013 |
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| Back on the dyno - 4/3/2013 |
A couple of days later it was off to Hershey, PA to do some more testing with the Susquehanna SCCA for a 2-day event.
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| Susquehanna SCCA Autox - Hershey, PA - 4/6/2013 |
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| Susquehanna SCCA Autox - Hershey, PA - 4/6/2013 |
Things didn't go too well right from the start. As I was putting on the race wheels, I noticed something shiny on one of the tires and sure enough, there was a puncture. We were able to plug the tire and I ran the entire event without incident.
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| Puncture...surely a sign to finally ditch these tires - 4/6/2013 |
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| Tire plug FTW - 4/6/2013 |
Susquehanna SCCA Autox - Hershey, PA
4/7/2013
At this point I had already made up my mind that I couldn't continue on the BFGs and all the early testing was wasted. Hoosiers A6es were ordered...285s for the front and 295s for the rear. Karcepts hooked me up with getting the tires double time and Rich Wayne helped get my tires mounted at Camber Toe since I was running out of time and I'd only have one day to reset the car to work on Hoosiers before the NJ ProSolo.
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| Switching to Hoosiers - 4/11/2013 |
NNJR SCCA TnT - Meadowlands, NJ
4/13/2013
I got 3 runs in the car and the car felt great and the car was immediately fast...a good 2-3 seconds faster with just minor changes to the suspension settings and then the big failure happened. On my 4th run, the OSGiken diff blew during a practice launch. It was a first gen OSGiken diff which was known to have this issue and OSGiken promptly warranty replaced it but with only a week left before the ProSolo, things just couldn't have looked worse.
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| Sad day. Bumblestook getting towed to the shop due to diff failure - 4/13/2013 |
This is exactly why Street Prepared cars are all trailered to events and despite my stubborn intent to just tow a tire trailer, it was made clear by this failure that if I wanted to compete seriously, I'd have to get a trailer too and the order was placed with EconoTrailer in PA for a 15' open trailer shortly after even though I hadn't even yet identified where I'd stow it or what I'd tow it with! Thanks to JDV, we had the car back up and running with my spare OEM diff the day after and I was going to have to run the ProSolo like that.
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| OEM diff temporarily in - 4/14/2013 |
This journey with Bumblestook was teaching me a lot about failure, patience and the perseverance required to push through. Nothing was going to dampen my spirits. Despite this failure, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel if only we could work through the issues.
