AlkyIROC

I had to have missed Matts pass while skipping through the video but it looks like he made at least one pass.

Day 2 results
http://st.hotrod.com/uploads/sites/2...PM-results.pdf

Matt ran 10.089 at 137.29 mph. His 2 day average is now 10.132 at 137.56

Now sitting 5th out of 9 in the class.

Fastest car in his class is running 9.3 at 143 mph

3 of 9 cars in the unlimited class are now out.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

thanks guys! wish i could have made some passes like i did in testing sunday. the car went a 9.96 and a 9.91 at 138. we'll keep pushing. have had a lot of opposition.

3rdgenmaro

iTrader: (9)

Thanks Alky for posting.

Good luck Matt

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Good luck with the rest of the trip, glad I got to say hi while you were busy playing with your clutch at gateway.
Get some sleep, its a rough week.

AlkyIROC

Day 3 video

skinny z

Looking for Mat and I came across ANOTHER white Sport Coupe (at around 5:33).
No front fender exit headers but it did have a deck spoiler. Go figure. Went mid 9's at 145.
Couldn't find Mr. Walter though.

izcain

Was he running in the same class as matt?

what are the chances of another sport coupe. Good to see the third gens representing

AlkyIROC

Well I can look through day 2 results and find all the third gens that are in the event.

Modified PA - 86 Camaro Grey
Modified NA - 82 Firebird Red
SS Sml Blk PA - 86 Camaro White
SS Sml Blk NA - 90 Camaro White (Matt's car)
St Race Big Blk NA - 85 Camaro White
St Race Sm Blk PA - 86 Camaro Black
St Race Sm Blk NA - 88 Camaro Orange/Black
St Race Sm Blk NA - 86 Camaro Red
St Race Sm Blk NA - 86 Firebird Black
Str Machine Eliminator - 88 Camaro Black
Str Machine Eliminator - 88 Camaro Grey
Str Machine Eliminator - 91 Firebird Red
Str Machine Eliminator - 89 Camaro Burnt Orange

skinny z

SS Sml Blk PA - 86 Camaro White went 8.2570 168.11
St Race Big Blk NA - 85 Camaro White went 12.4750 104.07
Modified PA - 86 Camaro Grey went 9.2450 145.48
I'm guessing it was the Modified PA that went mid 9.33 @ 144. Looked white but I guess it's grey.

J. Chris Davis

iTrader: (1)

Day 3 Byron, IL was a good time. I was there Today. I saw Matt there. Didn't get a chance to say anything since he was surrounded by a few people and in the staging lane. Never got the chance to meet up later with him either. I will have to watch Day 3 replay to see how he did.

AlkyIROC

skinny z

He wears his M*llet Militia loud and proud doesn't he? I heard Brian Lohnes say he received a Militia hat from Matt. Well done Walters.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Jeremy Heizer is on tour again this yr in his green 91 GTA LS 6speed.

I think I have pix of all of these but the red 82, it was pulling in as I was leaving. Will try and post them when my phone gains some memory..

AlkyIROC

Day 3 results

http://st.hotrod.com/uploads/sites/2...PM-results.pdf

Matt ran a 10.243 at 109 mph so it was really off the pace.
3 day average is now 10.169 at 128.04 mph.
He is still in 5th place in his class. 1 car in his class has dropped out.

skinny z

Wonder if he's broken something? Hang in there Matt.

AlkyIROC

Day 4 video

AlkyIROC

I found what I think is Matt's first pass at around 2:02 into the video.

Very nice pass running 9.945 at 138.73

Technically, that's probably good enough to hand in the timeslip and move on to the next track for tomorrow unless he is going to try for a better run.

AlkyIROC

Day 4 results have been posted.

http://st.hotrod.com/uploads/sites/2...PM-results.pdf

Looks like Matt made at least 1 more pass. He turned in a timeslip with 9.893 at 139.44 mph. Whatever problems he was having yesterday seem to be fixed today.

That puts his 4 day average at 10.10 at 130.890 and he still sits at 5th place in his class. No chance of winning his class but a good chance he's going to finish the event.

skinny z

Good looking pass too. Best I think I've seen his car run.
Lohnes was excited about it too. I heard Freiburger say that they'll be showing an interior shot of Matt banging gears later in the video. Looking forward to that.

AlkyIROC

Finally found Matts other run that he used for today's timeslip. It's around 3:41 into the video.

skinny z

Nice.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Saw last night Matt was on a trailer and has some guesses what could be wrong. Smart move in taking it out rather than cause more damage than needed.

skinny z

In car camera.

AlkyIROC

Watching that video, I can see how the car can be faster. He's shifting into high gear at what looks like around the 1000 foot mark. He's crossing the finish line as it's still building into the power band of high gear.

Needs a deeper diff gear which will be quicker off the line. Shifts will be sooner and high gear will top out at the finish line.

skinny z

I was thinking along the same lines. But in more of 4 speed way than 5 gears.
I also understand the engine accelerates very quickly and he possibly needs 5.
That said, in 1970 the Pro Stock record was 9.7x at 144....with 4 gears. Engine red-line unknown but probably 9000.

zz17iroc

iTrader: (4)

Looking really good Matt. By the way don't forget to enjoy yourself and get as much rest as you can. Have FUN MAN!!!!

AlkyIROC

AlkyIROC

Drag week final results

http://st.hotrod.com/uploads/sites/2...riday-PM-5.pdf

According to the results, Matt did not make a pass on Friday as was eliminated.

Day 5 video

izcain

Bummer, there's always next year though!

Good job Matt, be proud of what you have accomplished.

That's a tough looking class. Looks like you gotta be a bottom nine to be a contender in that one.

Andy-Z28

Great work Alky, keeping track of the J class for us.

Good showing Matt, on your 1st go at Drag Week. Lots of fans watching the Hot Rod video stream. Clutch problems at the end of week maybe? Could explain the early shifting.

Did you trailer the car to IL or did you drive it out there? Hope you can work out getting back home to MD.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Saw on FB that on prelim teardown, it looks like some valve springs are broken and a valve or 2 are bent.

AlkyIROC

Actually since he's using a T56, he really has a 4 speed with 2 overdrive gears. He's crossing the finish line just after shifting into 5th gear.

I never really recommend OD gears for racing. The OD gear is small and weaker than the other gears. So technically, he has a little too much gear. Should be crossing the finish line at or just over the shift point in 1:1 gear.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

i have a GF5R. NO Overdrive. 5th gear is 1:1. it needs almost a full point more gear.

AlkyIROC

I stand corrected then and will go back to my original comment about not enough gear which you now say needs a full point more.

You could go with a deeper gear then use a gear vendor and maybe an even taller tire to improve the highway mileage.

I can't imagine some of the changes the racers were doing to change a sub 10 second race car into a more mild mannered highway driver. I was watching some of the road trip videos at some of the check points. A few of the cars still sounded like full race cars going in and out of the parking lots.

$$$ It never ends.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

Drag Week 2017 recap: It's Monday evening after the most grueling week of racecar stuff I've ever attempted, and I'm still exhausted. I got home about 1pm yesterday afternoon so I'm still suffering from a good bit of driver fatigue. It was 900 miles from our house to the start point and about 100 miles in the muffler on the truck came apart, lol. That sort of set the tone for the trip. Somewhere in eastern Ohio, a construction worker jammed on their brakes without signaling to go into a construction area, causing the 5 of us behind him to lock up and scatter to avoid collision. Everything was OK, but when I looked back in my mirror, the floor jack had fallen off the little trailer that Chucky was towing and was rolling into active traffic. We were able to get the jack back without causing an accident thankfully, but it was definitely nerve racking!


Somewhere around Indy, I took a wrong turn and we ended up going through Chicago. That wasn't an overall big deal, but with the way I was trying to take us, it added like 2 hours onto the trip since there was some pretty heavy road construction. At about 2am or so Sunday morning, we roll into the parking lot for the Hampton in Clinton, IA.


The next morning was tech and TNT. We figured it could be a restful/relaxing day since I knew it normally took a little while anyway. We ate breakfast and went outside to the trucks to find we were literally the last of 60 or so DW competitors to leave the hotel. We get to the track and it's pandemonium. Seriously. We quickly unload and get in line, that has now wrapped completely around the pits. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. We took the time to check valve lash, swap out the tires, and I gapped a fresh set of plugs. After about 8 hours, we were finally tech'd in for the Super Street Small Block N/A class. Some seriously tough competition in the class as I looked around and saw some cars with more carbon than anything else, but I knew what I was getting myself into, especially with an engine an easy 50 cubic inches shy of everyone else. We were able to make some test hits and was surprised by a 9.96 followed by a 9.91, both at 138 mph.




Day 1 was HECTIC. I spent the majority of the morning running around trying to get the IHRA license paper work so I could turn in a time slip faster than 10.00. By the time I was able to do that, first run session was over and we had to wait till after SME was done with their session, and hop into open session. First run was about 2pm. Well even though Sunday testing was excellent, the Monday session was not. The car bogged hard on our first attempt and it took forever to recover and was met with a disappointing 10.50. I had spent a lot of time with the clutch in with the engine running so my theory was the clutch was hot and sticky. We hopped back in the lines hoping we could get the clutch to cool down enough and while I did not get a 9 second time on Monday, we were able to turn in a 10.17 @ 137. That was good enough and I went back to the pits to start our 2 hour turn around to get the car street ready. Other than some tire rub, we had a pretty uneventful trip. It was late going of course, so we weren't to St. Louis till almost 1 am. Jim Gray of Venom Racing Engines let us crash at his place that night.



Day 2, we got up early. We did not want a repeat of day 1 in terms of the late night. I was headed down the road and noticed the engine was really having a hard time getting any heat in it, and I began cycling the water pump and fan to try to get some more heat in the engine. That was my mistake. The pressure on the cooling system soared and pushed the seal right out of the back of the pump motor and emptied the cooling system quickly. We were about 1 mile from the track when that happened. Of course we didn't realize the gravity of the situation yet and just limped it up to the track. We were there a little after 6 am. We decided to run across the street to the pilot to get some water and when we started filling it up, it was pouring out of the pump as fast as I could put it in the radiator. We tossed around a few ideas, but decided that there was no way we were going to let this stop our efforts and we limped it back across the street to the racetrack, turning the engine off every 100 ft to coast. Once in line, we pushed the car into the track. We shoved the weep hole full of RTV, wrapped the motor in duct tape, put a plastic bag over that, then wrapped in duct tape again. It held, and would be good enough for a pass. Luckily, the Meziere water pumps use a modular pump motor assembly, and I was able to get another motor from a good friend Roger from C&S Specialties so we could make it back on the road. Of course things wouldn't go quite that easily, as we were repairing the water pump and adjusting the clutch to make a pass, I see a puddle of E85 on the ground under the car. Apparently the wheelie bars had dented the gas tank to the point it actually cracked the tank. We scrambled, found some epoxy, drained the tank, repaired the tank, and was actually able to get everything together to go up to the lanes before second session was over. I made a one and done pass since the time was getting so late and I was able to click off a 10.08 @ 138. When I got back to the pits, we got the car back into street mode, put a pump motor on from Roger, and got back on the road. Other than a trip to the post office and parts store that took us deep into East St. Louis, and the tire rub issues, the trip on Tuesday was pretty uneventful. It was the longest trip of the week at just over 300 miles. We got to our hotel in Byron around 1am.



Day 3, We got to the track a little after 6 with no issues. Got the car turned around and in the lanes before 8. I turned up the shift point to 8500 and let it eat. BAM, 9.85 @ 139! We realized it wants more rpm than that too, but decided not to push it. Since day 3 was an NHRA track, and I don't have my NHRA license, I went back up and pushed the clutch in at 1000', netting a 10.24, and we handed that in. The drive on day 3 was by far the shortest. It was fantastic. gorgeous countryside scenery and cool weather. We made it to the hotel by 6:30 pm and got some solid rest.



Day 4, FOGGY!!! Holy moly, we woke up to fog thick enough you could cut it with a knife. It was crazy. I had spent a good bit of time figuring out how to deal with all sorts of different scenarios, but honestly, fog had never been on my mind. We Ace Ventura'd it for the first 10 miles or so from the hotel, but as the temperature differential settled in the car, the windows cleared. Once to the track, we got the car turned around into race-ready mode pretty quickly, about 1.25 hours thankfully. The fog was still so thick though, and delayed the start time for about 1.5 hours or so. We were able to clean the car up some while we waited. Once on track I was just too amped up and short shifted the first 3 gears. We were met with a 9.94, which wasn't awful at all, but not what I was hoping for. I hopped right into the lanes again. Thankfully the wait time was long enough for a decent cool-down. 2nd pass came and I let her fly, and got a 9.89 @ 139! We got the car turned around, loaded up and headed out to our final destination.

But...

We never made it to the last hotel About 100 miles out the engine coughed, then popped out of the pipes, then had a dead miss. We pulled over thinking we got a rocker or something along those lines. But it didn't. And honestly, I couldn't see anything else wrong with the valve train. When spinning the engine over, we got a definitive "clank" on every 4th bump or so. We decided to call it. I had no way to repair what we thought it might be, which was combustion chamber related. A very good friend Mike Tritle came and picked us up from the side of HWY 64 just west of Kings, IL, and delivered us to our hotel in Clinton, IA. We swung by the last check point for the heck of it.



Friday, we spent pulling the engine at the racetrack, and got it ready to deliver to the engine guys, and Saturday we dropped it off at Venom Racing Engines on our way home. Today I got word that they found some broken valve springs (funny since I thought I gave it a solid look over, but you can only see so much in the twilight on the side of the road, lol) and the cause was an interference of the inner locator and the inner valve spring. A new set of springs, fresh head gaskets, 1 valve guide, and all will be repaired. They are going to put the engine on the dyno as well, which we were hoping to do before drag week but ran out of time/money.



So that's our trip in a nutshell. Sorry this is long, but there was just so much amazing about it. I can't wait to do it again, and we are already strategizing how we'd do it next year. A huge thanks to the sponsors for helping get us there and covering the cost of the feed.

skinny z

Great stuff Matt.
I'm sure a lot of us here at thirdgen followed you around during the week.
A solid effort regardless of the outcome.
Better luck next year.

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

Sounds like some teething pains with a new setup. Should go better next year after a racing season behind you.

Wolfster14

That was great Matt.
I know it was not the outcome that you wanted, but you still did something most will never do or even try.


It was a hell of an accomplishment.

fbodyfreakls1

Great job Matt. Ready to see you find that monsters rpm and find out what that set up is made of et wise!

J. Chris Davis

iTrader: (1)

What an adventure and sounded very grueling. It is certainly a test of man and machine. Too bad you weren't able to make it to day 5, but 4 out of 5 is pretty good. A lot of others dropped out well before then. I tried to follow as much as I could. Watched all of the live streams. I was at Byron for that day and saw you make a nice pass. Interested in seeing the dyno numbers.

skinny z

How did Chucky and the Dirty Bird do? I thought I saw a little something about his outing.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

chucky road shotgun with me. he did not take his car.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

Thanks all for the kind words and encouragement! here's my first real update since we got home from drag week.

The engine was repaired and reassembled 3 weeks ago. we scheduled the dyno session for this coming Saturday. I'm excited to see what it puts down. Once things are good to go, i'll schedule a time to go get the engine from IL. in the mean time, i know i have a few things to address with the car so i ordered and installed a set of 5.14 gears, hoping this really wakes things up as the in-car video from Byron shows i'm going into high gear about 1000', and the engine labors from there to the end of the track, struggling to accelerate much further. I believe this is going to help not only ET, but we'll see a MPH increase because it'll get to spend the last 1/8 mile in high gear, really getting into the meaty part of the power band.



in other news, the geometry on the clutch slave cylinder was pulling the fork at a funky angle, and ultimately had the throwout bearing slightly cocked, which wore the input shaft bearing support pretty badly. i ordered a fresh one of those and am contemplating how to deal with the fork angle. i'll likely end up moving the fork from the 9 o'clock position to the 7:30 position, which will require some pretty heavy bell modifications. this will, of course, void my SFI rating, which sort of bums me out, but not enough to not do it. I am more than confident I can patch this back together so that it's better than what it was before. I may send the bell to quicktime to have them consider making one with the new clocking for other thirdgen guys that may not have the ability to do this same thing as I do.

i also sent the clutch back to Black Magic for inspection. Cale is very happy with how it fared the trip, and is going to resurface it, cut the clutch disc, and send me a new disc too so i have a spare. Working with him and Tinzy is so easy it's scary.

i started a 3rd new job this year, lol. things at ATI just weren't working out like we thought it may. I learned a lot and hope i may have taught them some things too. We left on great terms and I highly recommend their products for those that may require anything they sell. JC is good people. I have taken a position at a chassis shop just west of Philly and will move my family up here soon. It's a small shop, the 2 owning partners, Jeff Moyer, and myself for a grand total of 4 employees. It's an amazing work environment and i'm working on racecar stuff all day now. this is literally my dream job.

That's all for now. I am hoping I get to go out one more time with the new gears and working racepak to grab some good end-of-the-year data before I put the car away for some time. I'll keep ya posted!

AlkyIROC

5.14 gears. Wow. I only use 4.86 with a 32" tall tire and have considered going to 5.00 but I also only have 2 gears in the transmission.

At least you know what's going to be involved for next year and have already gotten started.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

calcs show i'm good for 150 mph at 9k

Wolfster14

Congrats on the new Job Matt, good for you.

AlkyIROC

It's going south for 2018

Sept 10-14
Atlanta
Darlington
Concord
Bristol
Atlanta

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

pretty sure the speedmu11et will be sitting out for the 2018 season. with all the upgrades over the last 3 years, the wife is asking for a financial break, lol!

fbodyfreakls1

how did that dyno go Matt? also i hope you just mean drag week and not racing all together

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

the dyno results were lackluster. i could go into all the details as to why the numbers look low, but the fact is, it doesn't really matter. the good thing is, the guys were able to pick up 60 hp under the curve using a different carburetor (which i bought from the guy they borrowed it from) and moved peak power up 800 rpm over what we had at drag week. the other good thing is, we are not sitting out the racing season, just drag week. i will have more to share soon, but we are trying to get our house ready to sell, and that has been taking precedence over racecar stuff. more too come