Random events from May 2013.
John Teaby takes his crew chief for a ride in his “street legal” race car 
Amazing site in the Half Moon Bay Safeway parking lot.
The Wagon got a nose job.
and the wagon gets some penalty weight for rear disc brakes (75# of cold, blue, steel).
Rando
This weekend was the annual VARA British Extravaganza at Buttonwillow Raceway. The weather was sunny and hot, and the racing was great. The medium-bore group I raced with had 33 cars, with several BMW 2002s, Triumph TR4s, Alfa GTVs, Porsche 914s, and Datsun 510s. The Wagon was in fine form, running second all weekend, and turning its best times ever for the CW13 track configuration (2:04s). All the recent prep work and a fresh set of Hoosiers really paid off.
I truly enjoyed watching the Historic group race, you gotta give credit to a racer who has to hand-crank his motor to get his car running! And as great as the racing was, the post-race TABS 2.5 mixer and the VARA barbeque reminds us that our racing buddies are just as important as our cars…
Racers and their families seem to love their dogs. Here’s a few happy hounds hanging out in the pits.
I’ve been chasing a high speed vibration in the Race Wagon ever since I finished the build 2 1/2 years ago. It kicks in at about 100 to 1110 mph and makes the rear view mirror pretty much useless. At first I thought it was a bad trans OD shaft, then a wind buffet, then the driveshaft, then the wheels, then the axles, ad nauseum. So after rebalancing everything to no avail, I just got used to it. But it was time to get serious about this issue as all the other items on my punch list were just about done. After some research and speaking to fellow racers and fabricators, I revisited the driveshaft and the u-joint angles. With the aid of a digital level, I took the measurements of the trans output shaft angle, the differential flange angle, and the driveshaft angle, and found the u-joints were working too hard. Optimal angles have the diff and trans at the same angle but on different planes, with about 2-3 degrees of working angle between the driveshaft (I was way off). I needed to shim the nose of the difff up, as well as shimming up the tail of the trans. I also discovered that with a 7500 rpm motor, the driveshaft is turning 8500 rpm in overdrive 5th, which is enough to start an oscillation in a one piece, 2.5″ mild steel driveshaft. This issue is known as “driveshaft critical speed”, and you can find a lot of info on it with a quick google search. So along with improving my driveshaft geometry, I had a fresh 3″ driveshaft built to help prevent driveshaft whip. I’ve got a race next weekend at Buttonwillow Raceway, hopefully I’ll be singing along with “Good Vibrations” after this fix.
Thanks to the boyz at The Moore Speed Co, I’ve got a fresh door on the wagon. The old one had been hit twice and was lookin’ a bit shabby…
Well, today put another great Spring HMSA event at Laguna Seca Raceway into the books. I attended as a spectator, not as a driver or crew, so I had lots of time to visit with friends, take pictures, and watch some great racing. This year’s featured race group was the 2.5 Trans Am class, resurrecting the epic small bore battles at Laguna Seca during the early 70′s. There were dozens of Datsun 510s, Alfa GTVs, and BMW 2002s on hand to give the fans a real thrill, and a big Congratulations goes to Mark Boen for driving his Moore Speed prepped Datsun 510 to the group win.
Lots of beautiful machinery was on display making the pits “the place to be” on this sunny Sunday afternoon.
