In spite of the odds against us, my co-driver and I managed to
get Tracy the TR7 on the road and racing for this past weekends autox.
Passed tech without a problem, except for excess runout in the front right
wheel bearing (easily fixed). The inspector liked our brakes; he obviously
just pumped them once, rather than held them, as the fluid leaks past the
seals in the master ;).
It ran very well, considering. Noticeably smoother at high rpm than
the previous (original) engine (happy as a clam at 6000 :). Had trouble
getting into first; it doesn't want to go in sometimes, but if you push it
it will _without_ grinding. Rarely will it go into third (not a problem
for our autox's, as they are small). Suggestions, Greg?
Overall results were good for its first outing. Co-driver James took
6th (indexed) overall, one second behind 2nd place. Yours truly took 9th, 1
second behind James.
The outlook for next week is good; if we get the master rebuilt
and get some decent tyres, we should be able to drop 5 seconds :) Whether
we will in time is another question :(
The only other problem we ran into was overheating (suprise, suprise ;)
because we were close together in the running order, so Tracy didn't get a
chance to cool down between runs. This only became a problem in the third
heat out of five. We did manage to get all our runs in without trouble,
though, due to a little fiddling with the running order. As it was, the
temperature still did not get over the middle of the gauge. It boiled over
only because there was no antifreeze in the rad. Get that and some water
wetter from Redline, and should be all set :).
On another topic: Bob Bownes has become attached to yet another GT6. This
one he bought just within the last week, and is an early MkIII, with a lot
of Plus parts (like the rear).
Vaughan Scott Rensselaer Polytechnic Insitute
scottv@rpi.edu Troy, NY
...Time to catch up on the homeworks :(
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