nah... no garages at NJMP, it's basically just a mix of grassy areas and blacktop. Being so close to Atlantic City I'm sure there are places nearby who'll have equipment for entertaining.

Yea we got real tired of adjusting the drums every morning and having a soft pedal again by afternoon. But man does this car stop with 275 rubber and the C6 brakes up front!

Couple more pics...

 

275 rubber rules!

 

What has Phil said about those springs and shocks...LOL

 

Dash looks cool!

 

Thanks. The shocks were stock replacement junk from autozone (still WAY too soft), and the eibach sportlines were an $80 bill from a local kid - they are actually in pretty rough shape.

We have run 5 races now, so when we get a residual, we are sure to use it. We have have good success staying within the rules of the game.


So to continue the cooling discussion, I'm starting to wonder if we haven't under-driven our water pump too far. We have a ~%75 underdrive on the crank, and a pretty big WP pulley - the thought was to keep the parts alive at sustained RPM but maybe we went too far.

 

We still have the stock springs in the back and another guy on this fourm says they are best. We still have the million mile shocks on the back. I ban't understand why the car handles so well. I'm not touching it...LOL

 

2.5 days of eating iron dust...




Block ready to assemble. I'll do that tomorrow.

 

On the cooling issue I've never had a problem with stock pulleys running the engine at 6000 & under, just remove the back plate & make sure the impeller is within .020 of the scroll face. I've seen some pumps at over .100 clearance which kills efficiency, just support the shaft & press on the impeller to get the proper clearance.

Most stock Chevy pumps use a cheap sheet metal stamping for the impeller, you can cut a disc & pop rivet it to the back of the impeller to fill in the gaps, or preferably buy a good pump with a cast impeller which flows much better but still check your clearance.

Also make sure you have a good air dam under the rad, remember allot of the cooling comes from under the nose of the car.

In our last race (Dec 08 Thunderhill) we made a whopping 218 Chassis HP & ran at 182 deg. with a 180 thermostat until we threw our belts & went over 300-game over!

 

Good to know. Thanks for the input.

 

Nice! those look suspiciously like camel humps... You spent some serious time on those to get 'em to polish up that nicely. Hopefully you've got enough cam and compression to take care of all that port work? Though I seem to remember you guys are running TPI - which will want to make torque with those long runners. Or did you have something else in mind going forward?

I just cleaned up a junkyard set of Vortec heads for our build. Can't beat the low-lift flow, high compression, and efficient chambers (or the price!). I spend over 3 nights on those and although they came out nicely, they didn't look nearly as clean as what you've got there.

 

Appreciate the input dude. I'm kicking myself 'cause I just had the pump off and didn't think to pull the back plate off and check it *DOH*. I think we'll pull the reduction WP pulley off and go back to stock.

I see you were running a 180 stat... why not a 160? or none at all?

I also noticed that Bosch and Cardone make a "heavy duty" replacement pump - I'm assuming it's just got a better impeller, but I'd love to understand whether it's more flow or better efficiency or both? Anyone ever seen a rebuild kit for a chevy WP? (would probably be easier on the lemons BS factor to rebuild...)

 

Yeah they are 2.02 Double Humps. I got a friggin boat cam for these puppies. Here is how we ended up with them.

Read here. http://blog.caranddriver.com/lemons-...maiden-camaro/

 

scratch that... kit costs more than a complete new pump...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Chevrolet-19...#ht_940wt_1247

 

Yea I read the car and driver a week or 2 ago - ran into it because of the Maiden reference. Pleasantly surprised to see ya on here.

Nice find with the heads!

 

Our last engine I built back around 89 for my dads 76 Chevy van, had TRW dished pistons (that was a mistake-no quench) World SR 64?cc heads with a 262 duration cam, 421-444 lift, remember it still had to pass smog. When he passed it had 75,000 miles on it, I had no use for the van so out came the engine & trans.

Now when it comes to thermostats heat makes horsepower as long as you don't hurt parts, with a 160 stat you loose some chamber temp (horsepower) If I had built the same engine to race with, it would get more piston, ring & guide clearance. Also be sure to block off the heat crossover, you don't want heat in the intake. Sense we were running pump fuel a 180 stat worked fine.


My new engine uses cheap Mahle hyper pistons at .003+ clearance with .016 shim head gsks. I would like to have used the Vortec heads but wound up with the 083 (305) heads with 1.94-1.60 21-4N valves with ALLOT of port work, once we cut approx .060 off the heads we should be back to about a 58cc chamber & 11-1 (almost) compression. Were going to run a mix of pump & race fuel so well probably use a 194 stat.

The one place I really blew it was not checking the comp. hight of the pistons (oops) on a trial assembly they were .040 down the hole, that wont work so I had the crank offset ground to a 3.520 stroke which now has the pistons .020 down which is pretty common for a small block, now with the shim head gsks I've got a .036 quench-perfect enough for me. If I had paid more attention the extra $120.00 the offset grind cost me I could have got a better set of pistons, I think were right at the max these pistons can handle, well see!

As far as the water pumps you mentioned I know nothing, that just takes research, every manufacture will tell you theirs is the best, generally you want a cast impeller & I think most performance pumps come with a 3/4 shaft. Don't worry about the BS judges, spray the engine with semi flat black while its still wet through some crud on it & spray again-looks like crap, a little cable lube & dust & it really looks bad.

Please remember these are my opinions, I'm no professional engine builder, just an old equipment mech. thats been playing with small blocks sense the mid 70s.

One last thought, we are going to install the largest aluminum rad that we can fit, thats going to be hard to hide but were gona try!

 

Got the shortblock done. I had to get a new pan because the only two pc rear main pan I had.... had a rod go through it...LOL

 

looks pretty though, this thread and you guys posts, both of you, are making me and my friends really anxious to do lemons even more, i dont think we'll manage to wait the 3-4 years to do it like we said haha

 

It's a total blast!

I'm in contact with another team in OC that will be entering another 3rd gen (Milk Maidens) They are building a pretty nice car.....For their women.

 

For a second there I was like "That is the weirdest intake I have ever seen." Then I realized it was upside down haha.

 

yeah the only problem were having is limiting the things we want to do to our car (that we dont have yet) and going way over lemons budget

 

The key to Lemons is just getting the cage in... You don't need 90% of the crap we have. Just get there and get on the track. Once you get the cage in everything else will fall into place... Including friends willing to donate and help.

 

The intake is undergoing a massive portfest right now. I'll have some pics Friday.

 

As an old circle track racer, this is one of the more interesting threads I've read. Can't wait to read about the next stop on the tour.

 

Should be quite a ride... Only 11 more races to go.

 

goodluck, love to see iroc maiden get a win

 

That would be epic! Camaros nor SBCs ever win.

 

We took first in A class (third overall) in the failbird at Stafford CT 2011!

blew up the motor last year at Jersey but have learned a lot in the 3 races since then. It's a relatively smooth and fast course so the third Gens should do well if they hold together

Would love to see a couple of f-bodies in the top 10!

 

Great thread and car! Working on getting a couple of buddies to build a car with me for when it comes here to the east coast. Looks like a blast!

 

Yeah I heard NJ is a great track.

 

camaro lemons FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I have to check out the schedule again, don't recall where in Jersey it will be but it will be in WV about an hour from me in May or June...we're going to take some beer down and check it out this year. I forwarded this thread to them as inspiration.

 

Awesome!

 

Just out of curiosity, (I know nothing of road racing) why not run an electric water pump?

Is there any racing like this in Florida? Say in, Sebring by chance?

 

Here is the 2012 event listing.

http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/events.aspx

 

Well I had that well know steering box mount/chassis crack issue so I fixed it today with some .120 thick flat plate I cut and formed and then welded.



Cracks can be seen all around the bolt holes above.

 

I've heard of people having trouble with electric pumps in road racing just due to flow limitations. Sure you could get a bigger/better pump but that would blow the whole budget for the car! Would sure be nice to have that to cool the engine down in the pits...

I've also got 2 belts driving my pump (one for alt and one for PS) so if either goes ive still got cooling.

 

One thing I keep hearing about keeping the SBC alive in this endurance racing is oil temps. Lots of guys run an oil cooler and I just didn't see why that would be needed. I come from an Offroad racing background and oil temp has never been an issue for us.

When I was striping the car down to the bare bones I ditched that cooling ring that uses the radiator fluid to help cool the oil. In my opinion it seemed retarded and so whimpy I couldn't see the effective abilty of it, the uneeded points of failure and the extra weight were also a reason to ditch it. So I ditched it.

I have played with Chevys for 25+ years now and didn't find it common from all the other Chevy's I have built either. So once again I ditched it.

But I was thinking that GM put it there for a reason. What was the reason they had it there.... What's different from all the other chevy's I have built. The one thing that came to mind finally was the path of the cross-over exhaust pipe. It's right next to the pan. I bet they had to cool the oil as an afterthought post package design.

So this is how I am going to counter act the temp from the x-over pipe. Light weight, no place to fail and should do the trick. Plus, it will protect the starter from heat.

 

All I can say is we were blowing motors and torching oil (jet black!) without a cooler. Now the oil comes out looking great even after 10 hours of racing.

 

Yes... Electric pumps are really no good for endurance. I also have the belt system that uses two belts. I also configured mine to run the exact same belts for back up part inventory.

 

Do you have that cross over pipe in the stock location like us?

 

No Sebring race. That's sacrilege.

 

I am SOOO doing this. Thank you.

 

Long block done. Going in the car tomorrow.

 

It is SOOOOO fun!

 

wooooo we should all meet up for a lemons race someday and blitz the field by running like 4-5 wide in thirdgens and have tgo as a sponsor lol, me and my crazy ideas

 

Yeah it would be cool to have some TGO steeekers.

 

there was a mod giving them away, idk if he ever sent them but i dont have mine lol

 

The Black Widow... Haha Soooooo LeMONS

 

i dig it lol

 

Put the old school VCs on.... Slightly tattered on purpose.

I don't think it matters tho.... That exhaust pipe is gonna be kill'n it.

I also had to make all new PS and ALT brackets... No acc holes in the old heads. But everything got moved down several inches so that was a plus.