[Fot] Beaten by equipment

Mon Sep 15 23:28:05 MDT 2008

Oddly, turn 1 is the same as before [so I've ben told - never been  
there before] as is 2- 7 I think. Logical place to call turn one is  
currently called turn 12. It was more than a bit confusing as they  
gave the green at 1 and the checkered before 12 of 13. And on  
different sides of the track, apparently depending on if the person  
with the flag was right or left handed I guess. Still flat-out thru  
1-3 if I ignored the vibration. Turn 7 [I think] is a 300 degree  
right that looks great on paper but is actually a bit of a bore.  
Still a very fast track but not particularly challenging in my  
opinion - 2 sessions and I knew it as well as the first 2 years on my  
home track of Sandia.

Greg "Lunker" Hilyer
TR4 #314
Albuquerque NM
On Sep 15, 2008, at 7:27 PM, BillDentin at aol.com wrote:

> Greg...
>
> Had you ever raced BRAINERD before?  They just re-configured that  
> track, and (in my opinion) lost their signature corner (old Turn  
> ONE, advertised as wide open in ANY car).  I've not raced the new  
> track yet, and I am interested in comments concerning the new foot  
> print.
>
> Bill Dentinger
>
>
> In a message dated 9/15/2008 7:57:35 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
> lunkercars at earthlink.net writes:
> Hello all,
> Beaten by equipment...
> My previous posting from Brainard quoted the common wisdom "you
> gotta' finish to win". Well, I was reminded that you gotta' start to
> finish. Sunday at Brainard shaped up to be what I would call "ideal
> conditions"... cold, wet and basically miserable enough that only
> fools/idiots/& the die-hards like me [3 in 1] would dare go out -
> perfect. Not sure if excessive oil pressure from the 40ish temp on my
> 20W50 caused it [doubtful] or if it was just it's time, but upon
> startup for the sunday race the oil cooler chose to rupture in the
> pits and that was the end of that. Could have by-passed it for the
> next race but it was canceled due to conditions too perfect for me to
> even imagine. Oh well - finding out that the top 4 finishers behind
> me on saturday are all ice racers boosted my ego enough and knowing
> that they were all gunning for me might not have made sunday quite as
> enjoyable as saturday.
> Interesting to note that that although I do buy better that 50% of my
> perts from Moss, 100% of my failures have been from parts they have
> supplied. Once again, my cheepo nature has proven to be false
> economy  and bitten me in the butt.
> Now on to good vibrations and bad vibrations. The Beach Boys told us
> about the good ones but some aren't and never will be. First time I
> ever felt the bad one was at Watkins Glen. It may well have existed
> before but my car has never been on a track that fast. So far as my
> butt and brain can tell, it doesn't come on until somewhere beyond
> 100mph. After getting the driveshaft straightened last week I thought
> I had surely got to the problem. First couple sessions at Brainard
> felt good but that proved to be a combination of wishful thinking and
> not going fast enough. It's still there. For a time at The Glen and
> again at Brainard I almost convinced myself that it was 4th gear only
> but I am now pretty sure that it is only dependent on road speed -
> i.e., it's felt near redline in 3rd and only gets worse as 4th
> progresses. Scared the speed right out of me the first time I felt it
> come on, but after many teeth grinding laps with nothing coming thru
> the block [convinced it's not engine related], the trans. case, or
> thru the floor, I've lived with it thru the last two races. Doesn't
> mean I like it and that combined with a bum oil cooler, moody starter
> [thanks again Moss Motors] and exorbitant entry fees, will likely
> keep me from going to Road America.
> Any Ideas? The drive-shaft straightening didn't seem to do anything.
> I've run it on 3 different sets of tires and wheels, so that's not
> it. U-joints are fine [by all appearances], can't find any slop in
> the trans. output shaft or the diff, input [pinion] shaft nor any run-
> out  on the input shaft flange or axles. Defiantly not coming from
> the front as it is not transmitted thru the steering wheel. Rear axle
> bearings seem to be in fine shape.
> The engine is fresh and in good balance. The trans. is new to me
> [close ratio in a TR6 case] but no recognized problems from the
> previous FoT owner. I have given the original, stock, open. 3.70
> differential a hard life since it's early retirement but I still
> can't see how that would figure in. The only unknown is my frozen
> axle shafts... As part of my recent "freshening", I sent the crank
> shaft [more on that later], stub axles, front hubs, rear hubs and
> half shafts  to Controlled Thermal Processing [http://metal-wear.com]
> to be cryogenically frozen [-300f/+300f in a 68 hour process].  Being
> unknown voodoo, I'm creating a scenario where the axle[s] have a bow
> in it [them] causing a imbalance, causing the vibration but not
> detectable from the flange end - not very likely but I'm grasping at
> straws here [oh yea, I'm still in the mid-west so it must be corn].
> Please believe me, at this point I am willing to consider any ideas
> regardless how far fetched. And maybe one [some] of you know what I'm
> feeling and have the spot-on answer.
>
> Greg "Lunker" Hilyer
> TR4 #314
> Albuquerque NM
>
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